In the Spring of 2024, as a member of my college’s Jewish community, I was invited to two havdole events at the Popular University, which was the pro-Palestinian encampment at my college. The series of havdole events were organized by Jewish members and leadership of the college’s Students for Justice in Palestine to signal to the Jewish population of both the college and the area that the SJP stood against the war in Gaza and not the Jewish population. The SJP wanted to make it clear that the Popular University was a safe space for both Jewish and non-Jewish students and was a venue for dialogue. I left the first one early but returned for the second event.
Gathered in a crescent around the Popular University, beneath hand-painted banners and seated on chalk drawings, we raised small paper shot glasses of grape juice. We rocked as the leader of the group held out the burning havdole candle, illuminating their face in the fading light of Shabes as we started to sing. We first sang a nigen, then the blessings, and finally Lo Yisa Goy (No Nation Shall Lift Up). A crowd of Jews and non-Jews we stumbled through the words on the barely visible song sheets, sounding out the transliteration “Lo yisa goy el goy kherev” (No nation shall life up sword against another nation), “lo yilmedu od milkhama” (neither shall study war anymore).
We passed small silver tins of spice around the crescent, the more observant of us teaching the rest how to sniff, when to drink, and how to rock. It was that magical moment of Havdole, when the lines between you and the people around you become so thin that you all slide through the barrier between Shabes and the week, through the barriers between person and person, in such an easy way that you don’t even recognize the transfer until you’re through. Though, when we came out the other side, I realized we were singing and praying in Modern Hebrew—the Hebrew spoken in Israel and used in most American liturgical practices.
At one of the biggest diaspora focused Jewish events I had seen on campus, we did the whole thing in Modern Hebrew, unquestioningly.
I had learned the Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation from my grandparents growing up, lost it in Hebrew School, and regained it when I learned to read Yiddish (and later Hebrew) in College. Since then I made an effort to recite Hebrew prayers in Ashkenazi Hebrew because it is what felt most meaningful to me. Reciting prayers in the Hebrew of my grandparents and great-grandparents built a bridge into Jewish life that I had been looking for for years. I finally felt Jewish-enough.
As I walked away from Havdole at the Popular University, I felt conflicted. The night was beautiful, the songs were beautiful, and in a time of anxiety and fear it was so comforting to be joined by Jews and non-Jews to celebrate peace. Yet it kept bothering me that I did say anything about which dialect we were praying in. At the first event, I had asked—awkwardly—a question about which dialect of Hebrew we would be using to pray. A friend misunderstood my question and responded dismissively: “the real way.” I ended up having to leave early to help a friend with something, so I didn’t see the first Havdole event, but it went very well, which paved the way for the second event. Despite being needed somewhere else I felt like I was running away, because it felt easier to avoid both the discussion and my expected capitulation. In the lead up to the second event, I kept thinking about what I said, how my friend reacted, and what to do.
In a time when Jews on campus are questioning our assumptions about Jewish life and what we believe, it felt strange to not at least investigate which dialect of Hebrew we were using. Language is essential. It is how we conceptualize ourselves and the world around us. When you question how someone uses language, you question their conceptualization of the world. In a time like this, I wondered if it was right for me to push people to question more, especially when I didn’t have a definitive answer myself.
No one ever challenged me about my use of Hebrew. My questions came about as a symptom of studying Yiddish and being confused why Shabbat and Shabes are spelled the same, but pronounced differently. I also felt that by questioning the use of Hebrew, I would be imposing some kind of moral mandate that one must abandon Modern Hebrew. Due to my own ignorance of non-Ashkenazi diaspora dialects of Hebrew, I wasn’t sure what to offer as an alternative beyond Ashkenazi Hebrew which, in the end, defeats the whole purpose by replacing one imposed standard with another. In the end, I said nothing, and came away from Havdole happy, but hollow, feeling like on a night where I had found a way to marry almost all of my beliefs, I’d left one out in the cold.
For months afterward, I kept revisiting these events, grappling with how to encourage Jews to investigate their use of Hebrew without discrediting Modern Hebrew’s validity. Here is what I’ve come up with:
No dialect of Hebrew is better than any other dialect, no dialect is more authentic; however, some might find certain dialects more meaningful than others. We should encourage meaningful diversity in the way we pray and speak in Hebrew.
In this time of political change and cultural upheaval in the Jewish world we need to be intentional and deliberate in how we practice our Jewishness and how we negotiate our identity. I cannot accept that one dialect is more authentic or better than another because “this is how X group pronounces שבת.” Nor can I accept that one would leave the important decision of which dialect they speak up to blindly following someone else. Pick a dialect that is meaningful to you—one that makes Hebrew feel like it is your own. For some the most meaningful dialect will be Modern Hebrew. For some, like me, the most meaningful dialect will be the diasporic Hebrew their ancestors spoke. For some people the most meaningful dialect will be Biblical/Tiberian Hebrew. Your dialect of Hebrew, whatever dialect that is, is best because it’s meaningful to you.
Each of these dialects carries with it a rich tradition that deserves to be preserved, because each is an essential thread in the fabric of Jewish life and history. Every language and every dialect has rules, learn those rules and be consistent because that is how you respect the tradition that you’re preserving. For many of us, the chain connecting us to these traditions has been broken and the truest form of these dialects may be lost to time. But that does not mean we cannot make an approximation that is meaningful to us. Authenticity is an idol—smash it—but be informed and respectful in doing so.
Learn the language well and let it evolve in your mouth and carry the traditions of your people. There are so many ways to be meaningfully Jewish, the way you choose to speak your Hebrew should be one of them.
