Different styles of the Hebrew Alphabet

I have put together a little printout (PDF) of the Hebrew alphabet in its various styles. I have included two cursive fonts so that you can see what is the essential shape of the letters as they should be written by hand. The other two fonts show the regular printed shape and that of Rashi, which is used in many religious books.

Enjoy!

Jai

The regular square script is the way that we generally see the letters in books. It is the standard shape of the letters.

The Rashi script gets its name from the great Scripture commentator, Rabbi Shlomo Yitschaki, also known as "Rashi." This is the way that the letters appear in his commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud. It is also used by other commentators and appears in MANY religious books. It is not essential to know how to WRITE this way, but it is definitely useful to know how to read the letters in this shape.

I gave two examples of the cursive shape so that you could see what the essential shape of the letters should be when you write them by hand. The cursive alphabet is how we write in Israel any time that we write by hand. Even in America, Jewish schools teach the children to write the letters in the cursive style. It is not considered "correct" to write the square characters by hand.

Hope this helps.

Jai

Domi_Adsum_05 said:

Jai, on your chart, are Cursive 1 and Cursive 2 two separate, accepted styles of cursive, or are they just two different people's ways of writing the same cursive alphabet? Thanks.

Click to expand...

It's two different ways to write it. My own handwriting is different from what is printed there. Perhaps I'll make up a PDF of my own handwriting at some point soon. I don't think it would be a bad idea. In fact, I may type up a blank chart and carry it around with me, asking for people's handwriting samples here in Israel. That might be even more interesting. Maybe throwing in some sample words would be worthwhile, too. I'll see what I can do.

Jason