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Hebrew Matters is the third in a trilogy of books—following HebrewSpeak and HebrewTalk— that examines Hebrew roots, their derivations and their contexts, as they appear in the Hebrew Bible, Rabbinic Literature, Medieval Hebrew Poetry, and on the vibrant streets of the modern State of Israel. Each of the book’s 110 chapters is devoted to one Hebrew root and takes the reader on a journey through Jewish history, Jewish literature, and Jewish thought. The book is designed so that the reader will begin to understand how these roots have developed into a reborn living language, Modern Hebrew. Although the book deals seriously with Hebrew, each root is presented with a light touch, is spiced with a good measure of humor, and tells an interesting story or two on the way.
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Hebrew Matters: 110 Hebrew Roots
Joseph Lowin has a Ph.D. in French literature from Yale University, was a Fulbright Scholar, and Jerusalem Fellow and has taught at Yale University, the University of Miami, and Touro College. He eventually left a career in academia for leadership positions in Jewish cultural organization and served as, among others, Executive Director of the National Center for the Hebrew Language. He has been the Hebrew columnist at Hadassah Magazine for more than thirty years and is the author of four books, among them HebrewSpeak and HebrewTalk, precursors to this book, Hebrew Matters. During a Sabbatical year in Jerusalem, he had a weekly spot on Kol Yisrael, presenting to a world-wide radio audience Hebrew “Roots and Sources with Dr. Joe.” Joseph Lowin is also the author of a literary biography of the American novelist, short story writer, and essayist Cynthia Ozick (Twayne, 1988). Most recently, Rowman & Littlefield published Lowin’s Art and the Artist in the Contemporary Israeli Novel (2017), a study of eight major Israeli novelists and their artistic contributions to a culture and civilization that have often been preoccupied by other matters.
