Hebrew is a highly gendered language. Hebrew grammar is not only more gendered than that of English and Chinese which barely have any gender elements in their grammar, but it is also arguably more gendered than the grammar of Latin languages such as Spanish, Italian, and French.
In recent years we are witnessing a post-modern global effort to eliminate gender markers and indicators in various languages and in English in particular. The pronoun ‘they’ was selected as 2019 word of the year by Miriam Webster Dictionary (which now officially includes the “non-binary” way of using it); the word ‘actress’ is all but taboo in Hollywood (though sometimes even activists masquerading as reporters slip and say it unintentionally), and American Liberals are now “colonizing” Spanish grammar with the term Latinx (which by the way is totally accepted by MS Office 365 I am using to draft this article – but that’s hardly a surprise).
Naturally, the disciples of post-modern thinking in the Israeli Left are more than happy to do their part when it comes to Hebrew. And in the great Jewish-Israeli traditions of ingenuity, innovation, and diligence they are coming up with ways which are proving to be more and more effective.
Introduction – Gender in Hebrew Grammar
Gender in Hebrew grammar is a fairly complicated subject, and even a rudimentary introduction will take really long to cover everything. So instead of bombarding you with boring explanations and scary conjugation tables, I will just tell you what you need to know in order to understand the next part of the article, which discusses the changes being pushed onto it.
Here are the ten most essential facts you absolutely need to know about gender in Hebrew grammar before we start discussing how the Israeli Left tries to transform it and make the language more trans and queer friendly.
- Basic Genders: Hebrew has two grammatical genders – male and female, or masculine and feminine if you prefer. There is no neutral gender.
- Gender plurality: Nouns and adjectives (that refer to people) have four forms: singular masculine, singular feminine, plural masculine and plural feminine.
- Gender formation: Singular masculine is the basic from, and all the other forms are created using suffixes – the letters ה (Heh) or ת (Tav) for the feminine form, the suffix ים (Yod-Mem) for plural masculine, and the suffix ות (Vav-Tav) for plural feminine.
- Gender in pronouns: With the exception of the first person singular and plural, all pronouns have masculine and feminine forms. Possessive pronouns and prepositions are inflected in correspondence to pronouns.
- Gender in verbs: The Hebrew Verb System has four tenses – past, middle (also referred to as present), future and imperative. In the past and future tenses, almost every pronoun has its own conjugated form of the verb, while in the middle tense verbs are only conjugated according to number and gender, so there are four forms in total. The imperative has only three different forms – two for the singular masculine and feminine second person, and one plural.
- General cases and undetermined gender: The masculine singular and plural forms also serve as the general and non-gender specific forms. When addressing mixed groups or referring to unspecified gender, the default grammatical case in the masculine – preferably plural, but sometimes the singular is also being used.
- Word slashing: A common practice in written Hebrew is to insert a slash (/) before the feminine suffix to indicate the word may refer to both sexes.
- Words ending with Heh: Many nouns, adjectives and middle tense verbs that end with the letters ה (Heh), are written the same in the masculine and feminine singular forms (without Niqud), though they will be pronounced differently when they are read aloud.
- Second person singular: There are two instances in written language, when it is impossible to differentiate between masculine and feminine second person singular forms, since they are added the same suffix. This happens in verbs conjugation in the past tense, and in the inflections of prepositions and possessive pronouns. In both cases, it is impossible to differentiate between the two forms without Niqud or proper context.
- Organic changes: Verbs in the past and future tenses, the third person plural is conjugated the same for the masculine and feminine forms. However, this was not always the case, and there used to be a separate form for the feminine. Over time the feminine form gradually fell out of use, and the masculine form started being used for both pronouns.
If you still feel the need to dive deeper into to the subject or want to see actual examples based on words which also appear later in this article, I published a more comprehensive guide titled Introduction to Gender in Hebrew Grammar a couple of months ago. In fact, it started as the first part of this article, but it grew so long as I was writing it, I figured it was better to publish it separately.
Gender Activism in Modern Hebrew Grammar
There are several means and methods through which gender activists advance the degenderizing of Hebrew grammar. Some are quite subtle and based merely on phrasing and choice of (existing) words, but many of them aim to fundamentally change not only Hebrew grammar, but also Hebrew letters and other aspects of the Hebrew writing system itself.
In this section of the article, we will delve into each method activists are using to degenderize the Hebrew grammar. We will start with the most controversial one which is becoming more and more common, then we’ll move to the most innovative and intrusive one, and finally finish with relatively benign technics which take advantage of innate lingual characteristics of Hebrew.
Much of what I am about to write here is based on my own experience and things I encounter both online and in the real world. Another major source of information for this section is the independent guide for gender-neutral writing called לכתוב לכולם (likhtov le’kulam) – Writing to Everyone. It is publicly available for download as a PDF here, but it’s all written in Hebrew.
The “Gen(d)eric” Dot
Believe it or not, but the thing which is most associated with the gender battles raging in the Hebrew grammar arena is a teeny-weeny little dot. In Hebrew it is known as הַנְקוּדָה הַמִגְדָּרִית (ha’nequda ha’migdarit) – the word נְקוּדָה (nequda) means point, dot, or period (as a punctuation mark), and מִגְדָרִית (migdarit) is the feminine singular form adjective which stems from the noun מִגְדָר (migdar) which means gender.
Essentially, the Gender Dot is used exactly like the slash mentioned in the previous section of this article. It is inserted before the feminine suffix in singular nouns and between the masculine and feminine plural suffixes in plural nouns. So, if we take the Hebrew word for student תַלְמִיד (talmid) as an example, we get תלמיד.ה for a single student of unspecified gender and תלמידים.ות or תלמידות.ים for a group of students of unspecified gender. Here is a real-world example from the website of Egged – the largest public transport service provider in Israel (formerly state-owned):

The second item on the menu is Information for Passengers. Information in Hebrew is מֵידָע (meida) and the basic form of the noun passenger is נוֹסֵעַ (nose’a). The second to last menu item is for people looking for a job with Egged and it is based on the word דָרוּש (darush) which means wanted or required. By the way, if you visit Egged’s website now there’s no trace of the gender dot. Apparently, for some reason they decided to remove it.
When it comes to plural pronouns, possession, prepositions, and verbs, we usually find the dot between the final letter ם (Mem) and the final letter ן (Nun). Here is another real-world example, this time an ad from Israel Consumers Council about possible compensations for people who purchased an iPad or iPod in Israel:

The first word in the ad is the verb רָכַשׁ (rakhash) which means to purchase, and here it is combines both the masculine רְכַשְׁתֶּם (rakhashtem) and the feminine רְכַשְׁתֶּן (rakhashen) of the second person plural forms. Slightly under it we see אתם.ן which is a combination of אַתֶּם (attem) and אַתֶּן (atten) – the masculine and feminine second person plural pronouns. Also, note how after that there is another use of the gender dot between the ים and ות suffixes as we have seen in the previous example from Egged.
You might be asking yourself why not simply keep using the slash. Afterall, for intents and purposes they are used in the same way. The answer, as specified in the ‘Writing to Everyone’ guide, is that the slash is binary and represents dichotomy (either a man or a woman), while the dot is more inclusive as it represents a spectrum and choice between one, neither or both. In one online discussion over the matter, one of the participants even compared this dot to the decimal dot and said that just like people got used to the dot between digits to represent fractions, they will also get used to this dot that appears between letters to represent a spectrum.
While this dot is by far the most common neo-gender-neutrality marker, some people prefer to use the hyphen and write תלמיד-ה or תלמידים-ות, and I have even seen the tilde sign ~ used here and there.
Critics of the gender dot claim that it is extremely confusing and disrupts the reading process, particularly for people with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. It also very confusing for people who learn Hebrew as a second language, as well as for text to voice convertors because the gender dot is the same sign as the period which is universally recognized as a marker for the end of a sentence.
Another very common criticism of the gender dot is that it only addresses the writing aspect of the language and that in speech there is still no way around explicitly stating both forms separately. In pronouns, prepositions and past tense verbs the letters ם (mem) and ן (nun) sound very similar and virtually assimilate in one another, while in nouns and adjective you can’t pronounce the combined singular forms since it would just sound like the feminine form, and no one is even sure how to pronounce the combined plural form.
The Finals’ Solution
You might be surprised to hear that there are gender activists who are not in favor of using the gender dot. For some, it is because they actually accept the criticism and acknowledge its inherited flaws. But for many others it is because they believe the dot doesn’t go far enough in eliminating gender. In fact, they perceive it as perpetuating the two-gender paradigm within the language.
The solution they push is to drop the dot all together and instead mush the suffixes into the word. This method though is mostly applied in the plural form because removing the dot before the feminine suffix ה (Heh) or ת (Tav) in neo words like תלמיד.ה for student or מנהל.ת for manager will simply result in the regular singular feminine forms תלמידה (talmida) and מנהלת (menahelet).
In the plural forms, however, lies a different problem which is the fact that sometimes one or both of the suffixes end with a final letter. And thus, we inevitably end up with words like אתםן combining the plural second person pronouns אתם (masculine) and אתן (feminine) into one, with the final letter ם (Mem) appearing in the middle of the word. The same thing happens in regular nouns because the masculine plural suffix also ends with the final letter ם (Mem). For example, the word ‘students’ becomes תלמידיםות and ‘teachers’ becomes מוריםות in this post-modern Hebrew grammar.
Two solutions have been offered in order to deal with the appearance of final letters in the middle of these so-called words. The first one is to simply write the letters in their regular form, so instead of תלמידיםות and מוריםות we get תלמידימות (talmidimot) for students, and מורימות (morimot) for teachers. The other solution is to switch to order and write in the female suffix first to get תלמידותים (talmidotim) for students, מורותים (morotim) for teachers and so on.
In the following image you’ll see two examples of that right in the first line of the text. It is an ad calling for instructors to come and work for an LGBT (להט”ב in Hebrew) hostel in the center of Israel. The words to look for are the verb middle tense ‘searching’ (מחפש) and the noun ‘instructor’ (מדריך).

These forms of queer grammar are used mostly with nouns, adjectives, and middle-tense verbs, as it is quite hard to apply them on the plural forms that end with ם (final Mem) for the masculine and ן (final Nun) for the feminine. It results in weird-looking words like אתמן or שלכנם that are not only very jarring for the eyes and ears, but apparently are too great of a leap and most native speakers cannot understand them instinctively.
The Multi-Gender Font
The Multi-gender Font is by far the most ambitious and grandiose solution that has been proposed thus far. It is a set of 12 characters which combine pairs of Hebrew letters commonly found in the masculine and feminine forms of different words. Here is a simple and relatively successful example of a common Hebrew greeting written in this font, do you recognize it?

The photo above was taken at the entrance of an Israeli high school. It is a combination of ברוכים הבאים (brukhim ha’baim) and ברוכות הבאות (brukhot ha’baot) – the two plural forms of the welcome greeting in Hebrew. The second to last character in each word is a combo of ו (Vav) and י (Yod), and the last character is a combo of ם (final Mem) and ת (Tav). Here is another example, this time in a recruitment ad:

The above image is a recruitment ad for product managers, and it reveals one of the major flaws of the Multi-gender Font – noun compounds, which in Hebrew are known as Smikhut. The Hebrew term for product manager is מְנַהֵל מוּצָר for a man and מְנַהֶלֶת מוּצָר for a woman, with the first words מנהל (menahel) and מנהלת (menahelet) meaning manager and the second word מוצר (mutsar) meaning product.
The plural word ‘managers’ in Hebrew is מְנַהֲלִים (menahalim) for men and mixed groups and מְנַהֲלוֹת (menahalot) for specifically for women managers, but here is where it gets tricky. Because in noun compounds the plural masculine form drops the final mem (ם) of the plural suffix and we are left with מְנַהֲלֵי מוצר (menahalei mutsar) for product managers. In fact, by not dropping the ם (Mem Sofit) and writing מנהלים מוצר, they have kept the word מנהלים a verb, and the entire phrase actually means ‘managing a product’.
The Multi-Gender Hebrew Font was developed and published by Michal Shomer in 2019 as her final project in the Visual Communication Design undergrad program she studied in Hulon Institute of Technology. It did make some waves when it was first published, but they were mostly in gender activism circles and the adjacent crowds. The responses in the general population were lukewarm at best. Most people find it confusing, unpronounceable, and a bad compromised that looks like neither of the forms it is supposed to merge.
On top of that, there were many who immediately saw the Multi-gender Hebrew Font for what it is – a blatant attempt of ideologically motivated language engineering.
Default Swap
As we said in the first part of this article, the masculine form is also used in cases when the gender is unknown or when the subject is not specified at all. The default way to express generalizations and address or to refer to mixed groups in Hebrew is to use the masculine form, and preferably the plural whenever possible to be more inclusive. However, it is becoming increasingly more common among feminists and gender activists to use the female form in those cases instead.
For example, the way to ask “What to do when encountering a bear” in Hebrew is מה עושים כאשר נתקלים בדוב (ma osim ka’asher nitqalim be’dov) with the verbs עושים (do) and נתקלים (encounter / bump into) both is the masculine plural. However, many feminists and gender activists nowadays would probably phrase it מה עושות כאשר נתקלות בדוב (ma osot ka’asher nitqalot be’dov) with the verb עושות (do) and נתקלות (encounter / bump into) in the feminine plural, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the hardcore ones among them also changed the bear from male to female and write דובה (duba) instead of דוב (dov).

The proponents of this swap claim that in many cases the use of the masculine form leads to logical fallacies. For example, without explicitly stating the subject of the sentence, the way to say “when giving birth” in Hebrew is כאשר יולדים (ka’asher yoldim) with the verb יולדים (give birth) in the masculine plural. However, since it’s only females who give birth, it should be כאשר יולדות (ka’asher yoldot) with the verb יולדות (to give birth) in the plural feminine.
There are four things that can be said to the gender activists in response to this claim. The first: are you now saying that men cannot give birth? The second: that is still no justification to change the entire system and use the feminine form as default in other cases. The third: there are ways around that which do not sound weird – for instance you can add the Hebrew word for women נָשִׁים (nashim) as a clear subject and say כאשר נשים יולדות (ka’asher nashim yoldot) – when women give birth. Another way is to change the verb itself into a noun and say בעת הלידה (be’et ha’leida) which means during birth.
The fourth and most interesting one, is that in this particular case Hebrew actually makes things slightly less ambiguous by using the masculine form to express non-specific gender. That is because the word יולדות (yoldot), just like many other verbs in the middle tense, can serve both as the verb to give birth and as the noun referring to people doing the action i.e., the women in labor.
Therefore, when people see כאשר יולדים in the masculine form they immediately know it means ‘when giving birth’ since יולדים can only refer to the action. And when they see כאשר יולדות with the verb in the feminine form they immediately understand it as ‘when women in labor’ and naturally expect to see a verb someplace down the line, for example כאשר יולדות מגיעות לבית החולים – when women in labor arrive at the hospital. If you read that line the feminist way, you wouldn’t be able to tell whether it means that, or ‘when giving birth arrive at the hospital’ as some kind of weird instruction.
Another common yet less annoying default swap usually occurs in ads, guidelines, questionnaires, and forms in general. Instead of writing them using the generic masculine (either singular or plural) and adding the usual clarification that it is only phrased in the masculine for the purpose of convenience and that the ad is intended for men and women alike, many on the progressive side of the isle now prefer to write them in the feminine (usually singular) and then add at the bottom that it is intended for all sexes and genders.
And finally, we have the most frustrating and confusing default swap – people who have decided to randomly use the feminine plural instead of the masculine plural as the non-gender specific plural. And the funny part is they expect the rest to somehow not get thrown off and just know exactly what they mean without any misunderstanding, as if language is not a system based on preset and mutually agreed rules and signals.
The Head of the Mayor Vs the Hand of the King
Another point of contention in the recent battles of grammatical genders in Hebrew, is the term for mayor. The way you say mayor in Hebrew is רֹאשׁ עִיר (rosh eer) and it’s a smikhut compound consisting of ראש (rosh) which means head, and עיר (eer) which means city or big town. A mayor in Hebrew is literally the head of the city and so far all Hebrew speakers are on the same page.
However, the grammatical gender of the word ‘head’ (ראש) in Hebrew is masculine and apparently, that is a problem for some people, because “it does not apply to women” and “helps asserting male dominance in positions of power”. Therefore, they have decided that the noun ‘head’, which inherently refers to a sexless object, nonetheless should have a feminine inflection. Subsequently they added the suffix ה (Heh) to ראש (rosh) and artificially constructed the noun ראשה (rosha). Thus, according to them a woman mayor from now on should be referred to as ראשת עיר (roshat eer).
In 2012, the Academy of Hebrew Language officially accepted the term ראשת עיר for women mayors, claiming it is the Hebrew way to inflect titles and positions to female, and in this case the word ראש (rosh) is no longer a body part but a position of leadership. The same goes for other positions based on this word like prime minister (ראש ממשלה), section chief (ראש אגף), and if there will be a women appointed as Head of Mossad or Shabak – they may be titled ראשות (rashot) as well.
This resolution turned out to be quite controversial and has received an unusual amount of criticism from the public – men and women alike. Avashlom Kor, a well-known Israeli linguist and one of the most prominent figures in Hebrew circles, has openly objected this decision and called on people not to adopt it. He was even joined by Miriam Feirberg – a woman who has been serving as the mayor of the coastal city of Netanya for over 25 years, and together they explain why they oppose said resolution.
If you can get past the horrible sound of the video and the awkward ending, they actually make a couple of good arguments. The first is that the only time we encounter the word ראשה (rosha) in the Bible as a female form of head, is in the Book of Zechariah, where it’s an adjective in the phrase האבן הראשה (ha’even ha’rosha) which means keystone. The second argument is that we don’t inflect the Hebrew word for hand יד (yad) to the masculine form when we describe males as someone’s right hand, and it always stays female. Her last argument is more of a joke saying it is too similar to the word ראשן (roshan), meaning tadpole.
It is worth noting here that in the past Hebrew speakers had no problem forming feminine words from grammatically masculine objects and apply them to females. For instance, we have the word כּוֹכֶבֶת (kokhevet) deriving from the word כּוֹכָב (kokhav) which means star or planet and refers to female stars in various fields. We also have the word תּוֹתָחִית (totachit) which comes form תּוֹתָח (totach). This word literally means canon, but when referring to people it means something along the lines of ‘ace’ or ‘hotshot’. And finally, we also have the word כֵּלָה (kela) stemming from כְּלִי (kli) or tool, but unlike English, in Hebrew it’s a compliment and a way to describe someone as very competent and capable.

All the words mentioned in the paragraph above are very commonly used in Hebrew today, and the fact that there’s pushback specifically against the word ‘head’ should tell us something. I suspect that many native speakers reject this word because it is pushed on them rather than being organic and spontaneous, and they sense there’s an agenda behind it. To me personally it also feels like a power play, because rather than eliminating gender in language (which is the stated goal of most of the people pushing these sorts of changes) it actually perpetuates it, so it gives off a vibe of “we’re doing this simply because we can”.
Working within the System
There are several ways to address people in a more inclusive manner which are well within the confines of proper Hebrew grammar, and therefore feel much less forced – especially in written language.
One way is to use the gerund and infinitive forms instead of conjugated verbs whenever it is possible. Another way is to take advantage of the fact that possessive pronouns, most prepositions and many verbs are spelled the same (though pronounced differently) in the second person singular. A clever choice of words can make the same sentence address both genders in a very seamless manner. Take the following sentence for example:
אנו שמחים שהצטרפת אלינו
It says we (anu – אנו) are glad (smechim – שמחים) you joined (הצטרפת) us (eleinu – אלינו). Notice I didn’t write the pronunciation for the verb ‘you joined’? That’s because it is pronounced ‘hitstarafta’ in the masculine and ‘hitstaraft’ in the feminine, each person may read this according to his or her gender as if it was written specifically for them, and no one would be the wiser.
These two ways are mostly used when addressing a single person. When addressing groups, it is getting increasingly more common to mention both the masculine and feminine forms instead of the just the masculine form which also serves as the general form. For example, instead of saying בוגרים יקרים for ‘dear alumni’, one might say בוגרות ובוגרים יקרים or even בוגרים יקרים ובוגרות יקרות – doubling each word. Or instead of writing שלום לכולם for hello everyone, some now insist on שלום לכולם ולכולן claiming ‘everyone’ in the general/male form is not inclusive enough.
While this method may seem harmless and maybe cumbersome at most, it does gradually chip away the existence of the general none-gender-specific case, insisting all plural words are either only male or only female. You would think that if one truly seeks to abolish the gender binary in language, they wouldn’t perpetuate it by constantly using both forms. The fact they still choose to do so leads us to the next part – why this form of language activism is so effective.
Why it’s Working
The Israeli Progressive Left’s campaign to degenderize Hebrew is certainly gaining traction among the general population of Israel. This can be attributed to two main reasons. The first one is clever packaging or the way it is presented to the public, and the second one is the relentless expansion of activism into other fields and domains. Let’s first unpack the packaging issue.
Brilliant Packaging
The main reason the post-modern gender activists of the Israeli Left are so successful in their attempts to transform Hebrew grammar is brilliant packaging. To the naked eye and ear of the unsuspecting Hebrew speaker it seems like a genuine and legitimate attempt to bring equality between man and women into the domain of language. And in all honesty – a big part of it actually is genuine and legitimate because otherwise it wouldn’t have worked so well.
The Activist’s Trifecta
All the methods mentioned in the previous part of the article have a couple of things in common. First, they employ existing elements in the language and don’t try to introduce new ones, like neo pronouns, or new words like Latinx in English. The only exception to that is the multi-Gender Font but even in that case one could argue that the new letters a merely a combination of two existing ones.
Furthermore, they don’t take any words away from the speakers. In English for example, it is frowned upon to use feminine words such as actress, hostess, or stewardess, and people are expected to simply use actor, host or flight attendant instead. People now are also expected to refrain from saying traditionally masculine word like fireman, chairman or even mankind and instead say firefighter, chairperson and humankind. The changes being pushed in Hebrew however, are more like if English speakers were asked to write “actor.ess”, “host/ess”, “chair(wo)man” or “wo.mankind”.
And finally, we get to the brilliant packaging which combines these two factors into the case Hebrew gender activists are so fond of making. It usually goes along the line of “look, all we are doing is using well established tools in the language to increase the visibility level of women in the language and give them their fair share of representation as they are 50% of the population”. And in all fairness, it is what they are doing – at least on paper.
People with Period – Literally!
The Jewish people have already been seriously screwed by the English word ‘people’ one time in recent history, and now it looks like its Hebrew counter part אֲנָשִׁים (anashim) is about to do it again. That’s because there’s no other word that captures the brilliant packaging and compelling ingenuity of the campaign for gender equality in Hebrew grammar. Luckily, it is also the very word that reveals the fraudulent nature of this campaign and the petty motivation of the people behind it.
The Hebrew word for people אנשים (anashim) is quite unique and very complex semantically. The gender activists will tell you it refers to men because it is the plural of the word איש (ish) which means man. However, what they will be reluctant to tell you, is that Hebrew has another word for man which is גֶבֶר (gever), and that its plural גְבָרִים (gvarim) is the word you’ll find on men’s bathroom doors, men’s sections in department stores, men’s sporting events and so on.
What they will also not tell you, is that when you take the Hebrew word for man איש (ish) and turn it into the adjective אישי (ishi), it doesn’t mean ‘masculine’ or ‘manly’, but instead it means ‘personal’ and refers to both sexes. In fact, the way to say ‘manly’ or ‘masculine’ in Hebrew is to turn the word גבר (gever) and turn it into the adjective גַּבְרִי (gavri). The way to say feminine or womanly in Hebrew is נשי (nashi). This corresponds to the Hebrew word for woman אִישָׁה (isha), though it is easier to see the resemblance with its plural נָשִׁים (nashim) – the key piece in the brilliant marketing move made by the Israeli gender activists.
Remember the gender dot from the previous section of the article? The dot we said is placed before the feminine and plural suffixes? Well, what the gender activists of the Israeli Left so cleverly did was to stick in the beginning of the word people אנשים (anashim) right after the letter א (alef), thus creating the writing variant א.נשים which is pronounced the same, presumably.
When the average Israeli sees א.נשים he or she may think to themselves: “oh, what a cute harmless way to highlight female presence in the discourse”. They have no idea that this dot was specifically invented to promote radical gender theories, along with trans and queer identities which have proven themselves to be extremely toxic and disastrous towards women and womanhood, and lead to the obliteration of the female identity in Western Society. That is why the gender dot has caught so well – many people adopt it without giving it a second thought, believing they are actually helping to promote gender equality and maybe even get to do a little virtue signaling while at it.
And when people criticize this way of writing, either because they find it confusing and cumbersome or because they are aware of the true motives behind it, its proponents simply respond with the usual line of attacks – misogyny, bigotry, and every kind of phobia and ism they feel like throwing in there. And if it’s a guy doing the criticism they’ll usually add the usual “Hebrew (like all languages) was engineered by men to maintain the patriarchal power structure and you don’t like it because you’re afraid of losing power” argument. And many people actually buy that.
Putting aside the fact that Hebrew was not designed or engineered by anyone, and that they are using the old trick of ‘blame other people for what you are actually trying to do’, they are also completely wrong about the very word they are trying to modify. Because even though grammatically speaking the word אנשים (anashim) is the plural masculine of the word ‘man’, every honest Hebrew speaker will tell you it inherently includes women as well. How? I will tell you in the next part.
The Children of Israel
The human brain is an amazing instrument, particularly when it comes to language. Want a quick example? Look no further from the title of this section. Because even though the word ‘children’ means ‘kids’, when you read it, you know it probably doesn’t refer to children living in the State of Israel today, and that it is more likely refers to grownups Israelites who lived in ancient times.
Much like the Hebrew word for people אנשים (anashim) has a complex sematic relationship with the words for men (gvarim – גברים) and women (nashim – נשים), the Hebrew word for children or kids יְלָדִים (yeladim) has an even more complex sematic relationship with the words for boys (banim – בָּנִים) and girls (banot – בָּנוֹת). Let’s take a look.
There are two ways to say ‘boy’ in Hebrew. There’s the word בֵּן (ben) which also means son, and there’s the word יֶלֶד (yeled) which basically means a male-child. From the same root י-ל-ד (Yod-Lamed-Dalet) we also get the words יַלְדוּת (yaldut) which means childhood and the word יַלְדוּתִי (yalduti) which means childish – both can be used by man and women alike of course.
By the same token, there are also two ways to say ‘girl’ in Hebrew. The first one is בַּת (bat) which also means daughter, and the second one is יַלְדָּהּ (yalda) which is created by adding the female suffix ה (Heh) to the word ילד (yeled) – essentially saying female-child.
The alleged confusion, according to the gender activists, starts with the plural version יְלָדִים (yeladim) which technically means both ‘boys’ and ‘children’ in the general case. However, any honest Hebrew native speaker will tell that by default ילדים (yeladim) means children of both sexes, and it will only mean boys if there’s a clear contextual indication, like maybe adding feminine plural יְלָדוֹת (yeladot) which refers specifically and only to girls. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the following sign found at an Israeli public swimming pool, right next to the entrance to the women’s shower room.

The red sign on top says it is forbidden to leave clothes or other belongings in the changing room. The white one on the bottom says:
כניסת ילדים בנים למלתחות נשים בליווי האם מעל גיל 4 אסורה בהחלט
What it means is that the entry (כניסת) for boys (ילדים בנים) to the women’s changing room (למלתחות נשים) accompanied (בליווי) the mother (האם) is strictly (בהחלט) forbidden (אסורה) over (מעל) the age (גיל) of four.
See how the author of the sign felt the need to add the word for boys בנים (banim) after the word ילדים (yeladim)? That’s because he or she knew that people will (correctly) understand it as children and apply it to girls as well.
Israeli gender activists claim that the fact that the general plural uses the male plural from was carefully and intentionally crafted to exclude women by default, or to make them constantly question themselves whether or not any statement was intended for them as well. However, as the sign above clearly demonstrates, most Hebrew speakers know and agree that the general plural inherently includes females by default, otherwise there would have been no need to add the word boys (בנים) after children (ילדים).
The fact of the matter is that Hebrew grammar actually makes it much easier to exclude males rather than females. For example, when people see a “workers needed” ad titled דרושים עובדים (drushim ovdim) in the general plural, there’s no reason for anyone to assume women are not wanted. However, if the ad is titled דרושות עובדות (dreushot ovdot) in the feminine plural, then it is very clear the ad is meant for women only and that men are excluded. If we wanted to exclude women, we would need to add a clarifying word to specify it only addresses men, just like they did in the sign above.
Expansionism of Activism
Brilliant packaging can only get you so far. You also need people to do the necessary legwork and deliver whatever product you’re selling to the doorstep of your consumers. In the arena of Hebrew gender activism, just like in the case of any other cause the Left has deemed worthy of pursuit, it’s actually super easy, barely an inconvenience. Because say what you will about the Left, they certainly have hacked activism. In fact, I would go as far as to say they have developed a brand-new form of activism, which is paradoxically relatively passive. Or perhaps I should say it is based on the momentum and inertia large bodies generate after the initial push.
By large bodies I mean three institutions. The first two are academia and media which up until a several decades ago were relatively neutral but have now been completely captured by the Left. The third one is not a single institution, but rather a vast network of NGOs, nonprofits, unions, associations which have turned activism into a thriving industry and a chain of lucrative businesses – Companies and businesses which provide individuals in a variety of professions with a mean to make a living, and in many cases – also a vessel for meaning and identity.
On a practical level, I like to divide this ecosystem of activism into three tiers – podium activism, desk activism, and field activism. Let’s see real-world examples of how each tier plays a role in the efforts of the Israeli Left to degenderize Hebrew grammar.
Podium Activism
Not everyone with a podium and a microphone, or a platform with a large audience, falls under the category of podium activist. The term ‘podium activism’ refers specifically to people who are considered to be experts in their field, so we’re basically talking about professors and lecturers rather than politicians or journalists. The activity itself doesn’t have to take place in classrooms or auditoriums, as many of them also hold public events, write books, give interviews, or have a significant online presence.

A good example of podium activism in arena of Hebrew grammar is the Hebrew Day 2023 event held by the Academy of Hebrew Language on January 8th of that year in Jerusalem. Two of the talks the organizers of that event so fit to include were:
- Forget about Slashes – a practical workshop for equitable writing in the digital media with Kinneret Yifrah
- Is Hebrew a language of equality? A symposium about language and gender hosted by Inbal Gazit.
The total number of talks and panels was nine, so to dedicate one talk to the question of equality in language seems reasonable, especially in the current political zeitgeist. However, to add to that an entire practical workshop (out of three workshops in total) seems a bit excessive – especially when that workshop was held by a political activist, or at the very least a politically guided individual.
The reason I say Kinneret Ifrah is a political activist is because I watched a video on her YouTube channel, in which she explains the topic of her aforementioned workshop. Even if we ignore her very telling phrasing choices (such as אנשים ונשים – people and women) and progressive statements like men have the right to demand to be referred to as women and vise versa, there is still one very clear indication in that video that she put politics before truth or relevant facts.
Take a look at the following frame from her clip. This is the part where she says Hebrew is not alone in this struggle to make grammar more equal towards the sexes, and then she lists a bunch of other gendered languages. Among the languages she mentions by name are German (גרמנית), French (צרפתית), Spanish (ספרדית) and Japanese (יפנית), and written besides her we also find Russian (רוסית), Chinese (סינית) and Czech (צ’כית).

Notice anything weird about that list? Maybe a language which is strangely missing? That’s right – Arabic! A language which is (1) commonly spoken and taught in Israel; (2) is very similar to Hebrew; (3) much more gendered than pretty much any other language mentioned there; and (4) belongs to a culture which is in far more of a dire need of gender equality reforms – lingual or otherwise.
Also, I have a master’s in teaching Chinese as a second language and the fact she considers Chinese a gendered language while ignoring Arabic tells me that not only is she politically motivated, but also that she has no idea what she’s talking about.
Desk Activism
A desk activist is an individual whose nine to five desk-job is specifically dedicated to the promotion and realization of a certain political goal. The simplest form of desk activism is a person working in any position for a nonprofit or an NGO, even accounting. However, a newer and far more dangerous version of desk activism is all the DEI departments now found in regular companies, or the Trust and Safety teams of traditionally apolitical organizations – both full of positions specifically tailored for left-wing political activism.
Speaking of jobs specifically tailored for left-wing political activism, allow me to introduce you to a brand-new position in the publishing industry in Israel titled ‘gender editor’, or in Hebrew – עורך מגדר (orekh migdar). I came across this term in an official document titled ‘Policy for Gender Representation in Teaching Materials in the Israel Education System’. It was commissioned in 2019 by the Committee for Children’s Rights in the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) and written by the Research and Information Center – the official research body of the Knesset.
It is a 25 pages document which summarize the current approach to the issue of gender in general education and how it is implemented in the teaching materials of each sector within Israeli society. On pages 11-12 the document mentions a circular by the Director General of the Ministry of Education in regard to the approval of teaching materials, requiring each publishing house to have a gender editor. The main role of said gender editor is to evaluate textbooks in development and make sure they meet all the criteria for gender representation and gender equality, in order for them to be approved by the Ministry of Education.

If you are interested in the in the story of the Hebrew word for gender מִגְדָּר (migdar) this article explains how the term came to be. Anyway, here are the requirements for the position of gender editor according to the Ministry of Education:
- Bachelor’s degree and above
- Graduated a gender studies course of over 112 hours
- Practical work in the subject of “gender equality in education”
- Have proven prior experience in checking for gender stereotypes in textbooks
- Formal employment in education
Note the requirement for completing a 112-hour long gender studies course. The absolute majority of gender studies graduates are in favor of implementing most (if not all) of the changes to Hebrew grammar we mentioned in the previous part of this article. In fact, many of them already use those methods in their everyday lives – particularly the gender dot. This makes it is a clear case of training ideologs and then placing them in key administrative positions in which they will have the authority and capability to redefine standards and set new rules in order to impact the culture through language. That is a brilliant example of manufactured position desk activism if there ever was one.
Field Activism
Broadly speaking, field activism is any instance where political activism is manifested in the real world, completely outside of the political domain, by (traditionally) nonpartisan actors. The most primitive form of field activism is of course a march or a demonstration, in which ordinary people take the time out of their day and instead of pursuing their usual activities they engage in political activism. However, in the age of “everything is political” there are far more subtle and advanced forms of field activism.
Changing your profile photo is probably the easiest form of field activism today. A pride flag in a classroom is also a form of field activism, and so is drag queen story hour. Field activism is what festers at the heart of Hollywood and is also the main reason for Wikipedia’s well-established left-leaning bias. But the most lethal and sinister form of field activism we see lately occurs in Big Tech and social media, where a bunch of software engineers with a very particular ideological bent now have the power to curb the freedom of speech and manipulate the collective discourse all over the world.
When it comes to gender activism in Hebrew, the best example for field activism involves a sweet pudding-like dairy product for kids called גַּמָּדִים (gamadim), which is the Hebrew word for dwarves or midgets.

However, since according to the tenets of gender activism, the Hebrew general plural form גמדים excludes females, the owner of this popular treat for children – Strauss Group Ltd – saw fit to change its logo and use the multi-Gender Font instead.

This logo change was only a small part of a larger campaign titled Both Boys and Girls can do Everything, which included a T.V commercial, gender mindfulness education for parents, tips for activities, toys, clothes, books, and much more. By the way, the title for this campaign in Hebrew is גם בנים וגם בנות יכולים ויכולות לעשות הכול which is so unnecessarily long. It employs both plural forms which makes it quite cumbersome and awkward – especially when repeating the verb.
This of course did not go unnoticed, and much like the Dilan Mulvaney Bud Light incident in the US (which is another great example of field activism with a brand overstepping its boundaries), there was a significant backlash, though people didn’t shoot the product – at least as far as I know.
Conclusion
As you can see, the effort to degenderize Hebrew grammar is well underway. And thanks to innovative design, clever packaging and expansive activism, the movement certainly gained significant momentum in a relatively short time period.
Gender activism in Hebrew language is now a part of reality which most Israelis cannot ignore or deny, but only time will tell whether the modifications pushed onto the grammar and writing system of Hebrew will be permanently incorporated into the language, or gradually disappear as the trend subsides.
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Hi, thanks for this no-nonsense, well researched and superbly argued post.
I have a comment and a question.
I do agree that the changes you describe are often artificial, and sometimes verging on ridiculous, especially when they are based on complete disregard of what language is. Though I must also say that as a woman having been raised in a strongly gendered language (French) I have often felt a bit left out by the use of masculine forms as a default.
I must also say that in the discussions of non gendered forms I’ve witnessed in French academic circles, what stood out most was the aggressive contempt of people who refused to consider the issue at all.
It’s fascinating to me that in English we now tend to refrain from using feminine words like actress , when in french the tendency has been to invent feminine forms for words that didn’t have them (professeure for female teacher, for example) or invent new forms to replace the traditional ones that were (truly) vaguely derogatory or at least paternalistic (eg docteure rather than doctoresse).
My question is, what do you mean by prepositions? Because in the grammar terminology I was taught, prepositions are never inflected – but then grammar terminologies change with time and place too!
Anyway, thanks, again, for making me think!
Hey Marianne,
I am so glad you liked the article. I worked on it for over a year.
I will start with the question because it’s much easier – by prepositions I mean words like על (on) and אל (towards), or letters like ל (to) and ב (at) which can be inflected in Hebrew. For example עליי (on me), אליך (towards you), לו (to him) and בנו (at us).
As for your comment about feeling left out by the use of masculine forms as a default, I think it’s totally understandable and reasonable. And even if I didn’t, I don’t think I am the position to negate that claim and tell people how they should feel.
My issue is when people take it a step further and use this premise to justify radical activism, lingual anarchy, and a desire to bring the whole system down because it’s “oppressive and abusive towards women and intentionally designed by men to keep them and other minorities down”.
I don’t buy that claim for one second and I think it’s just an excuse to promote a radical agenda of equality of outcome. The reason I don’t accept that is because I also speak Chinese which is a language with no grammatical genders, and yet somehow its culture was far more oppressive and abusive towards women – all throughout history.
The bottom line is that there is no correlation between gender in grammar, and the state of the women within the culture that speaks it. Farsi is not a particularly gendered language and look at the state of women in Iran. Another good example is Spanish where the word ‘people’ is female, yet it didn’t benefit much the women there too.
That’s why I see no actual reason for all the nonsense I wrote about here. I am not saying that how language treats women is not an issue, and I certainly don’t mean to belittle or express contempt. I just think the people promoting these changes are dishonest about their motives and wrong about their basic premise. That’s all.