[HANASHIR:14426] Re: Singing in Hebrew

[ilana axel <iaxel...>]

Educationally speaking, singing in Hebrew is a great
way to learn Hebrew pronounciation, even if one
doesn't know what all the words mean. The brain is
still able to absorb all those new sounds and
expressions. I sang in transliterated Hebrew my entire
childhood. By the time I went to Hebrew Ulpan in
Israel the teachers there thought I knew much more
than I really did, because I could simply get my mouth
around all the unusual sounds. I had to plead with
them to let me stay in a basic Bet level class so I
could learn the grammar - I already had the sounds and
the basic vocabulary, just from singing.
I always tell the parents of my children's choir that
their children will learn their Bar/Bat Mitzvah
portions more easily from participating in the choir,
where they sing in Hebrew about 60-70% of the time.
And I truly believe this.
As to understanding what we are singing - this is a
question I have been grappling with ever since I
returned from Israel and started working in the Jewish
community. It is one of the challenges I enjoy the
most. There are many ways to present songs, translate
them, explain them, tell stories about them, combine
Hebrew with English, without giving up so much of the
actual singing in Hebrew. One needs to understand the
text oneself, then be a bit creative. And we are all
here to help! For instance, I love it when Ellen
Allard poses her myriad Hebrew language questions on
this site, it shows a great love for our culture,
language, and history, and a marvelous willingness to
learn.
A few years ago a man came to tune my piano. It turned
out he was a Messainic Jew who composes music for his
own congregation. He sat with me for about an hour,
playing all his music and asking me to check all the
pronunciations, all the accents, etc, to make sure
they were correctly expressed in the music itself.
Now, I'm certainly not advocating for the Messainic
Jews, but I was amazed that he cared so much about
Hebrew. We can learn something from everyone I guess.
Anyway, that's my 2 shekels, I am really looking
froward to seeing y'all next week at HN, and regards
to all who can't make it, I'll miss you!
Ilana

--- rahel <rahel (at) empire(dot)net> wrote:
> At 10:47 AM 5/23/2003 +0200, you wrote:
> >I think that the basic attitude should be that it
> is
> >fun to sing songs in a foreign language!
> 
> 
> 
> Why is it so hard for Jews to be Jewish?
> 
> Rahel
> 
> ------------------------ hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> -----------------------+
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