Hebrewpunctuation is similar to that ofEnglish and otherWestern languages,Modern Hebrew having imported additional punctuation marks from these languages in order to avoid the ambiguities sometimes occasioned by the relative lack of such symbols inBiblical Hebrew.

With most printed Hebrew texts from the early 1970s and before, opening quotation marks are low (as inGerman), and closing ones are high, often going above the letters themselves (as opposed to thegershayim, which is level with the top of letters). An example of this system is„שָׁלוֹם”‎.

However, this distinction in Hebrew between opening and closing quotation marks has mostly disappeared, and today, quotations are most often punctuated as they are in English (such as”שָׁלוֹם”‎), with both quotation marks high. This is due to the advent of theHebrew keyboard layout, which lacks the opening quotation mark 〈„⟩, as well as to the lack in Hebrew of “smart quotes” in certain word processing programs.

In addition, the quotation mark is often used for the similar looking but differentgershayim mark ⟨״‎〉, as that too is absent from theHebrew keyboard.

Periods (full stops),question marks,exclamation marks, andcommas are used as in English.

A Hebrew period in a traditionalserif face usually has defined corners (similar to adiamond). This is also true for otherdots in punctuation, such as in thequestion mark andexclamation mark.

InArabic, which is also written from right to left, the question mark 〈؟‎〉 is mirrored right-to-left from the Latin question mark. (Some browsers may display the character in the previous sentence as a forward question mark due to font or text directionality issues.)Hebrew is also written right-to-left, but uses a question mark that appears on the page in the same orientation as Latin 〈?〉.^[1] Note that Hebrew commas arenot mirrored – although that was proposed in the 19th century (together with mirrored semi-colons,capital letters, etc.) by a British minister, William Withers Ewbank.^[2][3]

Stemming from Biblical Hebrew, asof pasuq 〈׃‎ 〉 is the equivalent of a period, and is used in some writings such as prayer books. Since asof pasuq is absent from theHebrew keyboard layout, and looks very similar to thecolon 〈:〉, a colon is often substituted for it.

Thepaseq (Hebrew:פָּסֵק) 〈׀‎〉 originates from Biblical Hebrew. As it is not on a standardHebrew keyboard, avertical bar 〈|〉 is often used instead. However, it is seldom if ever used in modern Israeli Hebrew, and is not mentioned on theAcademy of the Hebrew Language's guide to modern Hebrew punctuation.^[4] The height of thepaseq depends on the font, but it is generally the same as the letterא‎.^[5]

Like much Biblical Hebrew punctuation, the meaning of thepaseq is not known, although a number of hypotheses exist. The word itself means "separator", but this name was a medieval innovation by later Jews; the rootפּ־ס־ק‎ does not exist in the Biblical Hebrew canon.^[5] James Kennedy, an Englishhebraist, wrote a book about thepaseq in which he hypothesized that it was an ancient mark serving the same purpose as the modern wordsic (in non-Latin texts).^[5] The WestminsterLeningrad Codex contains over 500paseqs; William Wickes, an influential scholar in this area, divide them into nine classes;^[6]Wilhelm Gesenius, drawing on Wickes, divided them into five:^[7]

• as a divider between two words which end and begin with the same letters, e.g.שָׁלוֹם׀ מַ‎ (Shalom,ma)
• between identical or very similar words, e.g.רַקדָן׀ רָקַד (the dancer danced)
• between words which are to a high degree contradictory, e.g.אֱלֹהִים׀ רֶשַׁע (God, evil)
• between words otherwise liable to be wrongly connected, e.g.כַּף׀ תּוֹר, which prevents the somewhat bizarre phraseכַּף (kaf,spoon)תּוֹר (tor,queue) from being wrongly read asכַּפְתּוֹר (kaftor), meaningbutton.
• "and lastly, between heterogeneous terms, as Eleazar the High Priest, and Joshua" (אֶלְעָזָ֣ר הַכֹּהֵ֣ן׀ וִיהוֹשֻׁ֪עַ—see context inJoshua 19:51)

An example may be found inGenesis 1:5 in the Westminster Leningrad Codex and many other manuscripts:

וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים׀ לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד׃ פ‎

Themaqaf (מַקָּף‎) 〈־‎〉 is the Hebrewhyphen 〈-〉, and has virtually the same purpose for connecting two words as in English. It is different from the hyphen in its positioning (a hyphen is in the middle in terms of height, themaqaf is at the top) and it has a biblical origin,^[8] unlike many otherModern Hebrew punctuation symbols, which have simply been imported from European languages.

The original purpose of themaqaf was to show that two words should be considered one for the purpose ofdagesh placement, vowels, stress (ṭaʿam,טַעַם‎), andcantillation. This use continues into the present beyond reprintings of Biblical texts;^[4] for example, thesheet music for modern Hebrew songs is normally printed with them.^[9] Themaqaf is well-used in Hebrew typography; most books and newspapers use it and have the hyphens higher than one would find in English.^{[citation needed]} In typed documents, however, it is frequently not used because before the 2010s it was absent from most keyboards or cumbersome to type. As a consequence, the common hyphen 〈-〉 is most often used in online writings. This situation can be compared to that of users writing in Latin alphabets using the easily availablehyphen-minus 〈-〉 overhyphen 〈‐〉,minus 〈−〉,en dash 〈–〉, andem dash 〈—〉. As of the 2010s, it is possible to insert themaqaf ⟨־⟩ using most common computer and mobile phone operating systems.

Brackets or parentheses, 〈(〉 and 〈)〉 are the same in Hebrew as in English. Since Hebrew is written from right to left, 〈)〉 becomes an opening bracket, and 〈(〉 a closing bracket, the opposite from English, which is written left to right.

Theshekel sign (₪‎) is the currency sign for the Israeli currency (theIsraeli new shekel), in the way$,£, and€ exist for other currencies. The shekel sign, like the dollar sign 〈$〉, is usually placed to the left of the number (so₪12,000‎, rather than12,000₪‎), but since Hebrew is written from right to left, the symbol is actually written after the number. It is either notseparated from the preceding number, or is separated only by athin space.

Unlike the dollar sign, the new shekel sign is not used that often when handwriting monetary amounts, and is generally replaced by the abbreviationש״ח‎ (standing forsheqel ẖadash, lit. "new shekel"). The new shekel sign can be typed on desktop Linux and Windows 8 and higher systems using the combination AltGr-4 according to the SI 1452 standard.

The short-livedIsraeli old shekel, on the other hand, which had the symbol,^{[note 1]} is rarely referred to in Israeli texts; both due to its lifespan of only five years and the fact that due to hyperinflation it lost value daily, so that referring to a value in Israeli old shekels, even in retrospective writing, is essentially meaningless without knowing the exact time the figure was quoted.^[10] As prices changed so rapidly, advertising of the time predominately used dollars;^[11] when the shekel was referred to at all, it was with the letter S or its full Hebrew name—שֶׁקֶל‎; although certain banks, such asBank Leumi, used the letterש‎ to refer to it on checks, as well as the Latin letters "I.S."^[12]

TheIsraeli pound was the Israeli currency until 1980. Its sign is I£, and its abbreviation isל״י‎.^[12]

Thegeresh 〈׳‎〉, is the Hebrew equivalent of a period in abbreviations (e.g. abbrev.), in addition to being attached to Hebrew letters to indicate sounds likesoftg[dʒ] andch[tʃ] in foreign names such as Charles (צ׳ארלס‎) and Jake (ג׳ייק‎). Thegershayim 〈״‎〉, is a Hebrew symbol indicating that a sequence of characters is an acronym, and is placedbefore the last character of the word. Owing to aHebrew keyboard's having neither ageresh norgershayim, they are usually replaced online with, respectively, the visually similar apostrophe 〈'〉 and quotation mark 〈"⟩. The quotation mark and apostrophe are higher than thegeresh andgershayim: where the latter are placed level with the top of Hebrew letters, the apostrophe and quotation marks are above them.

Some Hebrew-specificfonts (fonts designed primarily for Hebrew letters), such asDavid,Narkisim andFrankRuehl, do not feature the apostrophe and quotation marks as such but use thegeresh andgershayim to substitute for them.

Mathematical expressions are written in Hebrew using the same symbols as in English, includingWestern numerals, which are written left to right. The only variant that exists is analternative plus sign, which is a plus sign which looks like an invertedcapital T.Unicode has this symbol at positionU+FB29 ﬩HEBREW LETTER ALTERNATIVE PLUS SIGN.^[13] The reason for this practice is that it avoids the writing of a symbol "+" that looks like aChristian cross.^[14][15]

Examples
Ordinary letternun	Reversed nun – vertical flip
Reversed nun – horizontal flip	Reversed nun – Z-shape

Reversednun (also called invertednun,nun hafukha, ornun menuzzeret) is a rare character found in two Biblical Hebrew texts.^[16] Although in Judaic literature it is known asnun hafukha ("reversednun"), it does not function as any sort of letter in the text.^[16] It is not part of a word, and it is not read aloud in any way. It is simply a mark that is written, and is therefore a punctuation mark, not a letter. Also, it is surrounded by space.^[16]

While it depends on the particular manuscript or printed edition, it is found in nine places: twice in theBook of Numbers (prior to and after Numbers 10:34-36), and seven times inPsalm 107.^[16] It is uncertain today what it was intended to signify.^[16]

In many manuscripts, it does not even resemble a transformednun at all, and when it does, it sometimes appears reversed (as mentioned above), sometimes inverted, and sometimes turned through 180°.^[16] Other times it appears to look like the letter Z.^[16]

These signs (points,neqqudot) indicate voweling or some other aspects of the pronunciation of a letter or word. While in Modern Hebrew they are not generally used outside poetry and children's books, a vowel point or other diacritic is occasionally added to resolve ambiguity.

One of theseneqqudot, therafe, is no longer used in Hebrew, even though it is routinely used in Yiddish spelling (as defined byYIVO).

The cantillation marks (Hebrew:טעמיםteʿamim) have a very specialized use. They are only found in printed Hebrew texts ofTanakh to be used as a guide for chanting the text, either from the printed text or, in the case of the public reading of theTorah, to be memorized along with vowel marks as theSefer Torah includes only the letters of the text without cantillation or vowel marks. Outside theTanakh, the cantillation marks are not used in modern spoken or written Hebrew at all. The cantillation marks provide a structure to sentences of Tanakh similar to that provided by punctuation marks.

• Hebrew keyboard
• Hebrew spelling

• Hebrew alphabet
• Modern Hebrew
• Punctuation of specific languages

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