What if everything you were told about learning Hebrew was backwards?

For generations, the rule has been the same. Memorize the alphabet, drill the vowels, practice your handwriting, and then, far down the road, you might be ready to say your first sentence out loud.

No wonder so many people quit. They spent months staring at letters and never once got to do the thing they came for. To speak.

Here is what I know after years of teaching. Speaking can start on day one. My students hold real conversations in Hebrew long before they can write a word of it, because I teach the sounds first, through a system built for the way English speakers think.

Letters have their place, and I teach them. But they were never the gate you unlock before you are allowed to speak.

If you have been waiting for permission to start, here it is.

hebrewbyinbal.com/speak 💙

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

You meet a version of yourself that only exists in this language. The you that reads the prayer in its first voice. The you that jokes with an Israeli cab driver. The you that finally understands what your grandmother meant. That person was always in there, waiting for the words to arrive.

That is what I get to witness with my students. Not just new vocabulary. A whole new self, stepping into the light.

Come find yours. 💙

hebrewbyinbal.com/speak

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

The whole country is watching the polls today. Michigan. Missouri. Kansas. Virginia. Washington. Huge stakes, and history being written in real time. 🇺🇸

So I went to my chalkboard and filmed a quick Hebrew lesson on the language of politics, elections, and democracy. Because these are words worth knowing in any language, especially now.

Whatever you believe, wherever you stand, come learn a little Hebrew with me today. 🇮🇱

Watch, and drop one word you would want to know in Hebrew below. 👇

#Election2026 #Politics #Vote #LearnHebrew #Hebrew

People ask me all the time, “How fluent will I be after your program?” “How do I test my fluency?”

My honest answer surprises them because I do not want them to think about fluency at all.

Fluency is a moving target nobody can really measure. Chase it and you end up counting words, testing yourself and feeling behind. But that was never the point of a language. A language is not a score to hit. It is a room full of people waiting to hear from you.

What I care about is different. Can you understand what someone is actually saying to you? Can you say the thing in your heart and be understood? Can you sit at a table, read a prayer, talk to family, and feel like you belong there? That is not fluency. That is connection. And connection starts from your very first word not some distant finish line.

That is exactly what I built “Practically Speaking Hebrew” around. Not memorizing. Not testing.

hebrewbyinbal.com/speak 💙

#LearnHebrew #Connections #LanguageLearning #Hebrew #LanguageFluency

“We Will Dance Again”

So many of you have asked what are the words @BoyGeorge sings out at the end of his beautiful song. Here it is and I want to thank him for uplifting my heart. For being a champion of support for the Jewish People and Humanity. For standing so proudly in his belief that we all will dance again, and we shall. Shalom 💙

#WeWillDanceAgain #BoyGeorge #StandWithTheJews #Hebrew #Jewish

Only love shall win. 🤍

I come from a place that has every reason to believe otherwise. A land that has known too much loss, too much fear, too many people insisting that hatred is stronger. And yet, again and again, my people choose love. We dance after grief. We plant after destruction. We raise children who believe in tomorrow.

That is not naivety. It is the oldest form of strength there is. To keep choosing love when the world hands you every excuse not to, that is the bravest thing a person can do.

So today, choose it too. Not because it is easy. Because it is the only thing that has ever truly won.

Only love shall win. 🤍

#OnlyLoveShallWin #Israel #Hebrew #Love #AmYisraelChai

"Modern #textual #scholarship has shown that #ToledotYeshu never existed as a single, fixed #composition. Unlike the #Mishna or the #Talmud, whose textual traditions gradually stabilized through widespread printing, Toledot Yeshu remained fluid for centuries. #Scribes copied from whatever exemplars were available, frequently introducing additions, omissions, stylistic revisions, and entirely new #narrative episodes. Rather than preserving a single "original" version, the #manuscript tradition reflects a living #text continually reshaped by its transmitters.

The #Łomżamanuscript is especially noteworthy because it preserves a substantially expanded #recension. Its elaborate title-page introduction immediately distinguishes it from many simpler copies. Throughout the text, the #Hebrew is unusually polished, employing a consciously #biblical style that lends the narrative an air of #antiquity and #literary refinement."

https://jewishpress.com/a-medieval-jewish-counter-narrative-about-the-life-of-the-founder-of-christianity/

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Almost everyone knows this line. Fewer know it comes from Leviticus 19:18, written in Hebrew long before it was ever spoken in English. Jesus called it the second greatest commandment. He was quoting the Hebrew Bible when he said it.

Which means every time those words are spoken, in any church, any synagogue, any language, they are an echo of the same ancient Hebrew sentence. One verse, holding two faiths and countless hearts.

That is what this community means to me. Jews and Christians, people from more than 30 countries, all gathered around a language that keeps insisting we belong to each other.

Today I teach you how to say it in Hebrew, the way it was first written. Learn it, then go live it. 💙

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #BibleStudy #JewishLife #Christianity

The final video in the July Summer Event Series deal with the cost of Admissions 🤗

#Hebrew #Language #Events #JewishLife

This is one of my students reading Scripture. In Hebrew. In the original language it was written in thousands of years ago.

Not long ago, these were just letters they could not read. Today, they are reading the Word of God the way it first flowed from the page, hearing the meaning that lives underneath every translation.

This is why so many of you come to me. Not to order coffee in Tel Aviv, beautiful as that is, but to draw closer to the Book that shaped your faith, to meet it face to face, in its first voice.

And here is what makes me proudest. My student is reading, not decoding one word at a time after years of study. The right method gets you to the text.

If your heart has been whispering that you want to read the Bible as it was truly written, listen to it. This is possible for you too. 💙

hebrewbyinbal.com/speak

#LearnHebrew #BiblicalHebrew #Hebrew #BibleStudy #Christianity

"This week, #Jews around the world will mark #TishaBAv, the ninth day of the #Hebrew month of #Av and the saddest day on the #Jewish calendar. It is a fast day that mourns the destruction of both Temples in #Jerusalem, the first by #Babylon over 2,500 years ago and the second by #Rome in the year 70.

When we mourn on Tisha B'Av, we tend to travel backward in time. We place ourselves at the moment the Temple stood ablaze. We picture Jews sold as slaves and thrown to the lions in #Roman amphitheaters. We focus on what was lost then.

The full weight of a catastrophe is not measured at the moment of impact. It is measured in everything that follows."

https://aish.com/why-tisha-bav-should-hurt-more-every-year/

It is LIVE. 🍕🇮🇱

The wait is over, and so is your excuse for not knowing any Hebrew. My brand new article is out right now, and it hands you over 100 food and drink words you already know how to say, from avocado all the way to zucchini.

This one is for everyone who loves food AND for everyone who loves Hebrew, because it turns out those two loves speak the same language more than you ever imagined.

Go read it, find your favorite foods on the list, and start ordering like a true Israeli. Then come back and tell me which word surprised you most.

https://open.substack.com/pub/hebrewbyinbal/p/learn-hebrew-for-foodies-over-100?r=2at7n8&utm_medium=ios

Learn Hebrew. Love Hebrew. Eat well. That is the whole recipe. 😄💙

#Foodie #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #FoodLovers #IsraeliFood

This is what a brilliant student looks like. 🤩

Esmeralda’s study setup: Practically Speaking Hebrew on the laptop, my phonetic table standing by, and my Hebrew Words and Jewish Traditions coloring book open to a beautiful Am Yisrael Chai page, decoded all by herself using the phonetic system she learned inside the program.

This is exactly what I dreamed my resources would do. Work together, meet you where you are, and make learning Hebrew genuinely fun.

If you wish to learn more about my coloring book or speaking course, comment below!

Esmeralda, you are amazing. Keep going. 💙🇮🇱

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #AmYisraelChai #JewishLife #HebrewForBeginners

Foodies, I have news. You already speak Hebrew. 🍕🇮🇱

Over 100 food and drink words are the same or nearly the same in Hebrew, which means every food lover walks around with a head start on the language and has no idea.

Tomorrow at 8:30am Eastern, I am publishing the full delicious list on Substack, from A to Z, with exactly how Israelis pronounce each one so you can order like a local.

Not subscribed yet? Fix that here: https://substack.com/@hebrewbyinbal

Already subscribed? Be on the lookout tomorrow morning. Come hungry. 😄

#Foodie #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #FoodLovers #IsraeliFood

Getting back to Events in Tel Aviv, is it outdoors?

Here’s how to ask in Hebrew

#Hebrew #Language #Events #Outdoor #HebrewByInbal

July in Israel is not a month. It is an oven setting. 🥵🇮🇱

We are talking 13 hours of blazing sun a day, zero rain, humid Tel Aviv afternoons, and the Dead Sea area pushing past 40 degrees. Israelis do not just endure this. We have an entire survival system, and it comes with its own vocabulary.

In an Israeli summer, certain words stop being words and become lifelines. The signs you scan for on every street. The things you ask for the moment you walk in somewhere.

In today’s video I teach you the exact Hebrew words to look for when you are out and about and the heat is winning. Learn them, and you will navigate an Israeli summer like a local.

How hot does it get where you live? 🌡️👇

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #Israel #IsraelTravel #SummerVibes

@guardian

#HPsCommentary
#WarInGaza #Palestine #GeoPol

(1/n)

As I was saying a year ago:

"👉This abominable deed will haunt them for generations to come👈 (probably less than the instigated murder of #Christ by the #Roman invasion force at the behest of the #Jerusalem elite, but still.)"

https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/114999539193193621

In other words:

"There is a popular #Hebrew phrase which states, "maaseh avot siman lebanim", meaning 👉"the deeds of the fathers are portents for the children." 👈

It is used...

I say this with love because I see it every day. People spend years memorizing vocabulary, collecting thousands of flashcards, and still cannot hold a real Hebrew conversation.

Because words alone will never get you there.

The real skill is building your own sentences. Saying exactly what you want to say with the right words, in the right form, naturally and confidently.

That is what you master inside “Practically Speaking Hebrew.”

Here’s the part that surprises people: I give away vocabulary for free every week. The sentence building system that transforms those words into real conversation? That is what we build together inside the program.

If your goal is to truly speak Hebrew, stop investing in more words. Invest in the skill that makes every word count.

https://hebrewbyinbal.com/immersion

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #ChristianLife

Today we enter the month of Av.

In the Hebrew calendar, Av carries the heaviest memories of our people. Loss. Destruction. Things that fell apart.

And yet, look at the name. Av. “Father.”

That’s not an accident. That’s the whole lesson of this month.

Because Av doesn’t end in grief. Just days after its lowest point comes Tu B’Av, the holiday of love. The same month that holds our deepest sorrow also holds our greatest celebration of the heart.

Av teaches something we all know from our own lives: breaking is not the end of the story. It’s the middle. What falls can be rebuilt. What was lost makes room for what’s coming. And comfort doesn’t arrive instead of pain. It arrives through it.

So this month, if something feels broken or unfinished, remember what Av whispers: hold on. Love is already on the calendar.

May this month turn your heaviness into strength. 🤍

#JewishLife #HebrewCalendar #TuBAv #Hebrew #Jewish

English words that mean something COMPLETELY different in Hebrew. 🇮🇱

They are called “FALSE FRIENDS”

Some will make you laugh. One will make you gasp. 🤣

Check out the full list on my Substack. 👇
https://open.substack.com/pub/hebrewbyinbal/p/learn-hebrew-words-that-mean-something?r=2at7n8&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

July in Israel is a whole different world. 🇮🇱☀️

Film festivals under the stars, dancing in the streets, music everywhere, and the Mediterranean summer in full swing. In today’s video I take you through the top events that light up Israel every July, what they are, and exactly how to pronounce them like a local.

Consider this your insider’s calendar. Watch, learn, and tell me which one you would love to experience in person. 👇

COMMENT “166” for the link or CLICK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-DLIJPwOsA

#Israel #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #SummerTime #JewishLife

There are English words that mean something COMPLETELY different in Hebrew. 🇮🇱

Some of them will make you laugh. At least one will make you gasp. And a few are so surprising that you will never hear these words the same way again.

They are called false friends, words that sound identical in both languages but mean entirely different things. This Tuesday I am handing you a long, useful, occasionally hilarious list of them.

It publishes Tuesday at 8:30am Eastern. Subscribe now so it lands in your inbox the moment it drops. 👇
https://substack.com/@hebrewbyinbal

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

July in Israel is a whole different world. 🇮🇱☀️

Film festivals under the stars, dancing in the streets, music everywhere, and the Mediterranean summer in full swing. In today’s video I take you through the top events that light up Israel every July, what they are, and exactly how to pronounce them like a local.

Consider this your insider’s calendar. Watch, learn, and tell me which one you would love to experience in person. 👇

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-DLIJPwOsA

#Israel #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #IsraelTravel #JewishLife

2,400,000 views. 🤯

https://www.youtube.com/hebrewbyinbal

My YouTube channel just crossed 2.4 million lifetime views, and I have been sitting here trying to actually picture that number. I cannot.

What I can picture is one person. Someone at their kitchen table pressing play, wanting to understand their grandmother, or read a prayer in the original, or finally feel at home in Israel. Behind this number, that person showed up 2.4 million times.

When I filmed my first Hebrew lesson, I dreamed of reaching a few people who needed it. I never imagined millions of clicks from every corner of the world.

To every one of you who ever watched, learned, commented, or shared, this milestone belongs to you. Thank you for learning Hebrew with me.

Here is to the next million, together. 💙🇮🇱

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #YouTube #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

On the Israeli ‘Married at First Sight’, a husband told the therapist he was waiting for certainty before letting his guard down.

Her answer belongs on billboards. It won’t happen in that order. You let your guard down first. That’s the only way it can come in.

Every big thing that changed my life happened in the “wrong” order. I jumped before I felt ready.

Ready doesn’t come first. It comes after.

Shabbat Shalom 💙

#ShabbatShalom #Shabbat #MarriedAtFirstSight #Hebrew

Hebrew Isn’t Faster!

Click to Join the Conversation or Comment “FAST” for the link 🏃🏻‍♀️

https://youtu.be/MAyUfFuik4Y?is=pPLv0--Uc98VHJYQ

#Jewish #Language #Hebrew #LanguageVideo #LearnHebrew

Confession time. For years, growing up in Israel, I was completely certain John Travolta was named Jontra Volta. First name Jontra. Last name Volta. 😂

Nobody hands you a little marker in the middle of a sentence that says this word ends here and the next one starts there. It is all just sound, and your brain fills in the gaps however it can.

And here is the thing. If Hebrew ever feels like one long wall of sound flying past you, you are experiencing the exact same thing I did with English. It is not a hearing problem. It is not a you problem. And it is completely fixable.

I made a full video breaking down why this happens and exactly how to overcome it. Watch it, and Hebrew will never sound quite so impossible again. 👇
https://youtu.be/MAyUfFuik4Y?is=HwBOuaFVKe8KdIUh

#JohnTravolta #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #LanguageLearning #HebrewForBeginners

"When #AlanaSatsukiChandler was growing up their mother made #kosher #gyoza with tofu instead of pork and hybrid #okonomi-#latkes, a #Jewish riff on savoury #Japanese cabbage pancakes.

Their #Ashkenazi-Jewish father and Japanese mother created a home in #Chicago that fused cultures, with #food always a big part of that lifestyle.

But #Chandler rarely met other #Jews of colour and rarely saw their experience represented in Jewish environments.

Their desire to find and amplify the voices of Jews with diverse identities and underrepresented experiences was a key reason they created a new #cookbook dedicated to expanding the definition of #Jewishfood.

#Tlaim (#Hebrew for patchwork) is a collection of more than 80 #recipes and #stories from Jewish communities around the world, designed to celebrate the #ethnic and #racial #diversity of Jewish people, and to spotlight historically underrepresented Jewish identities."

https://thejewishindependent.com.au/jewish-food-diversity-tlaim/

What if one simple pattern could unlock hundreds of the most useful everyday sentences in Hebrew?

👇
https://open.substack.com/pub/hebrewbyinbal/p/speak-hebrew-faster-with-infinitive?r=2at7n8&utm_medium=ios

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

The dear Professor and I agree, motivation is unreliable. Everyone who has tried to learn a language alone already knows this. You are inspired on day one, and by week three the app sits unopened on your phone, quietly reminding you of a promise you made to yourself.

Here is the truth nobody tells you. It was never a discipline problem. Motivation was simply never designed to carry you the whole way. What actually gets people to the other side is structure and accountability, a clear path to follow and someone who notices when you have gone quiet.

That is exactly what I built into Practically Speaking Hebrew. A real path, at your own pace, so you always know what comes next instead of guessing. And me, personally, in your corner, so this never becomes something you do entirely alone.

hebrewbyinbal.com/speak

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

What if one simple pattern could unlock hundreds of the most useful everyday sentences in Hebrew?

Not a grammar mountain. Not endless memorization. One easy pattern that lets you say what you want, what you need, and what you wish for, from your very first week.

That is exactly what tomorrow’s new article teaches, and it is the trick beginners always tell me they wish they had learned first.

It drops tomorrow, Tuesday at 8am. Subscribe today and it lands right in your inbox the moment it publishes. 👇
https://substack.com/@hebrewbyinbal

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

“Israelis speak so fast. It’s hard for me to keep up.”

If you have ever said that, or thought it while nodding along to a conversation you lost three sentences ago, today’s lesson was made for you.

This is one of the top struggles I hear from Hebrew learners, and here is the good news. That blur is not a hearing problem, and it is not a you problem. It is a trainable skill, and in the video I show you exactly how to start slowing the blur down until real words come through.

👇
https://youtu.be/MAyUfFuik4Y?is=zI1LprjqkwMUXa5V

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

“Hebrew is too fast. It all sounds like a blur.” 🇮🇱

This is one of the top struggles I hear from Hebrew learners, and here is the good news. That blur is not a hearing problem, and it is not a you problem. It is a trainable skill, and in today’s video I show you exactly how to start slowing the blur down until real words come through.

It airs today, Sunday July 5th, at 12 noon Eastern. Subscribe now and be there when it drops. 👇
https://www.youtube.com/hebrewbyinbal

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

Nobody quits Hebrew because they ran out of words to memorize. They quit because the words never added up to anything.

Hebrew is not a pile of vocabulary. It is a system, a way of thinking, where every word connects to a root and every root opens a door. Your family. Your history. Your prayers. Your everyday life. Learn how the language thinks and one word starts opening entire worlds.

That is the whole foundation of Practically Speaking Hebrew. I do not hand you lists. I hand you the patterns, the meaning, the way it all connects, so speaking and understanding finally happen.

https://hebrewbyinbal.com/speak

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #HebrewForBeginners #LanguageLearning #JewishLife

My gift was never really Hebrew. It was sharing Hebrew. The language was always mine, but it only became a gift the day I started giving it away, to you.

So today I celebrate you. My students and followers. The ones who show up, practice, and remind me every day why I do this. You receiving this gift is what makes it one.

What is your gift, and who are you giving it to? 💙

#Inspiration #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #Gratitude #Community

"Every so often, a discovery comes along that reminds us how much of #Jewish #history still lies hidden on library shelves, in forgotten archives, and within private collections. For collectors, scholars, and anyone fascinated by the world of rare #Hebrew #books and #manuscripts, such moments are exceedingly rare. This is one of them.

An entirely unknown, previously unpublished eighteenth-century #Kabbalistic #manuscript has surfaced from a private collection and has now been officially consigned for sale through #Mizrahi #Bookstore. More than simply another #handwritten volume, this remarkable #codex opens an extraordinary window into the formative years of #Lurianic #Kabbalah in Eastern #Europe, decades before these teachings became widely available in print.

The manuscript is a unique recension of the Lurianic #Kavvanot, the intricate mystical intentions associated with prayer, for #Shabbat and the Jewish festivals. Dated to 1717[...]"

https://jewishpress.com/the-aris-influence-in-18th-cent-eastern-europe/

Did you know there is more than one way to say “4th of July” in Hebrew? In today’s lesson I teach you four of them.

Watch, learn all four, and impress someone at the barbecue this weekend. Which one will you use? Tell me below. 🎆

#FourthOfJuly #America250 #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #LanguageLearning

For a moment I felt transported back to the days of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Then I remembered I was in America, cheering for a knight while holding half a roasted chicken. 😄

By the way, medieval times in Hebrew is *(ye-'mey ha-bey-'na-yeem)* יְמֵי הַבֵּינַיִם

Even a Hebrew teacher needs a night off in another century. Have you ever been? 🏰💙

#MedievalTimes #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #Lifestyle #IsraeliInAmerica

And as an Israeli who has made her home here I wanted to celebrate in the way I know best. Through Hebrew.

Liberty. Freedom. Independence. Three words at the very heart of this nation’s story, and each one has a rich, ancient counterpart in Hebrew, the language of the Bible that helped shape America’s founding ideals.

So ahead of this historic Fourth of July, let’s learn these three beautiful words in Hebrew together. Two nations, two languages, one deep love of freedom.

Happy early 250th, America. 💙🤍🇺🇸🇮🇱

#FourthOfJuly #America250 #LearnHebrew #Hebrew #BibleStudy

“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” That is Leviticus 25:10, and the Hebrew word for liberty in that verse is dror. It comes from the biblical Year of Jubilee, a sacred time when debts were forgiven, the enslaved were set free, and everyone returned home.

The man who chose it for the bell in 1752 loved Hebrew so much he taught his own children to read it. He reached all the way back to the Hebrew Bible to find the word that would ring over a new nation.

For those of faith, Jubilee has always pointed to something deeper still, the freedom of the soul.

This Fourth of July, hear the verse in the language it was first written in. 💙

#LearnHebrew #Hebrew #FourthOfJuly #BibleStudy #America250