Hebraism is a lexical item, usage or trait characteristic of theHebrew language. Bysuccessive extension it is often applied to theJewish people, theirfaith,national ideology orculture.
Hebrew has manyidiomatic terms that are not easily translatable to other languages, for example בארבע עינייםbe'arba enayim, literally 'with four eyes,' means face to face without the presence of a third person, as in, 'The two men met with four eyes.' The expression לא דובים ולא יערlo dubim ve lo ya'ar is literally "neither bears nor forest" but means that something is completely false. The saying טמן את ידו בצלחתtaman et yado batsalakhat "buried his hand in the dish" means that someone idles away his time."[1]
"Hebraism" may also refer to a lexical item with Hebrewetymology, i.e. that (ultimately) derives from Hebrew.[2] For example, the English wordstiff-necked, meaning "stubborn", is acalque of Greek σκληροτράχηλος, which is a calque of Hebrew קשה עורףqeshēh ʿōref "hard of neck; stubborn". Similar calques arethe way of women (דרך נשים) "menstruation" andflowing with milk and honey (זבת חלב ודבש) "abundance".
Sometimes Hebraisms can be coined using non-Hebrew structure. For example, theYiddish lexical item ישיבה בחורyeshive bokher, meaning "Yeshivah student", uses a Germanic structure but two Hebrew lexical items.[3]: 117
Beyond simple etymology, both spoken and written Hebrew is marked by peculiarlinguistic elements that distinguish its semitic roots. This hebraism includes word order,chiasmus, compoundprepositions, and numerous other distinctive features.
Finally, the word "hebraism" describes a quality, character, nature, ormethod of thought, orsystem of religion attributed to theHebrew people. It is in this sense thatMatthew Arnold (1869) contrasted Hebraism withHellenism,[4] identifyingThomas Carlyle as his age's embodiment of the former.[5] Feldman's response to Arnold expands on this usage.[6]Leo Strauss is also well-known for his metaphorical juxtaposition of Jerusalem and Athens in a similar light.[7][8][9] Furthermore,Friedrich Nietzsche andOtto Weiniger thought in terms of similar dualities as well.
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