Reviving American Jews’ Hebrew Literacy

Since talmudic times, familiarity with the Hebrew alphabet was considered the most basic building block of Jewish education. For many centuries, Jews across the globe wrote letters and kept records using a variety of languages written in the Hebrew alphabet, since they knew no other. Even in America, where there has never been an assumption that Jews could comprehend Hebrew, there has long been an expectation that Jewish children who attend synagogue and have a bar or bat mitzvah would acquire the ability to read the alphabet. Saul Rosenberg, based on his own experience as a bar mitzvah tutor along with numerous interviews, shares his observations on the disappointing realities: