ABSTRACT
Literacy is defined in traditional terms as the ability to read and write. My experience as a native speaker of Hebrew, like that of most children born in Israel and raised in this language, is that I could read pointed (voweled) Hebrew several months into my first year at school and unpointed (unvoweled) Hebrew very shortly after that. So at first I could see no reason why literacy in Hebrew might constitute a problem. Yet the very viability of reading Hebrew has been questioned, for example, by the philosopher Havelock (1976, 1991), as discussed later. In the following, I examine the contentions against the viability of normal literacy in Hebrew. I discuss the views of Havelock (see below) because it allows me to confront several misunderstandings about reading and writing in general and about reading and writing Hebrew in particular.
