On Modern Hebrew

[Reading Leviticus 19 in Rambam’s Synagogue in Old Cairo]

It's probably good that modern Hebrew (as set by the ofifcial Israeli governing body) follows Sephardic pronunciation more than Ashkenazic because the Ashkenazi tradition is so prominent in so many other fields, but it's unfortunate that in doing so they chose to follow the simplest form of Sephardic Hebrew, that of the Egyptian Jewish community (due to the geographical proximity of Egypt) and thus lost any special pronunciation for letters such as ג, ד, and ת… as much of Egyptian Arabic ignores the special pronounciation of letters such as ذ (thal) and pronounces the ج (jeem) as a hard G.

The only Sephardic (or any) community that had a great deal of back and forth intercourse with the Old Yishuv was that of Egypt (witness the travels of Rabbi Ovadiah Yoseph for example) so the generic Sephardic pronounciation of Hebrew was that of (Alexandrian) Egypt despite the fact that the (northern) Yemenite Jewish community appears to have spoken Hebrew closest to the way that most people would have spoken it 2,000 years ago.

I had the privilege to heat the great Yemenite Rabbi Kapach (Qafih) give a lecture in Hebrew as he spoke it and even though I already knew the accent I could hardly follow a thing.

Having now lived in various Arab countries I wish I could have thay opportunity again. Alas, but Rabbi Kapach is no more but the Rambam (Abu Imran ibn Abdullah) that he researched and re-translated for us continues to accompany and comfort us.