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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

June 23, 2016

Learn the languages of Israel with these 5 new and exciting apps

Leave a Comment / Hollywood /

When I set out to learn the languages of my ancestors, I didn’t realize how close and connected I would feel to them. Instead of just reading a book, I now had a new understanding of the culture and their lives. With such a rich history, Jewish people have an amazing opportunity to learn the languages of Israel and increase their cultural understanding, even if you aren’t traveling to Israel anytime soon.

Learning a new language, especially Hebrew or Arabic, can seem overwhelming. Luckily, you’ve got technology on your side—the best way to learn a new language is on a mobile app. Here are the five best apps for learning a new language and connecting to your culture: 

HelloTalk (free)

Learning a new language is about people and culture, not just flashcards and workbooks, and HelloTalk gets that. Instead of using the traditional methods of language learning, the app connects users with native Hebrew and Arabic speakers around Israel. After short lessons, you can converse with a native speaker in Israel to get real-time feedback and experience the culture in an entirely new way. 

HelloTalk is based on a worldwide network of more than 70 data centers set up by communications company Agora.io, which means that no matter where in the world, or what kind of network connection you or your native speaker are, you can always have crystal-clear communication. 

Download on iOS

Download on Android

Brainscape (free)

For flashcard learning, there’s no better app than Brainscape. Each language it offers comes with a deck of thousands of vocabulary words, which the app then personalizes to match your learning speed. It learns what words you struggle with and rotates them through the app more frequently, while words you master only show up occasionally. The app isn’t flashy, but it sure is effective in teaching a variety of words and phrases.

Download on iOS

Memrise (free)

Learn up to 44 words per hour with this app, which taps into proven memorization techniques to teach skills that stick. Choose from a wide variety of learning activities at different levels—this app has lessons for beginnings on up to semi-fluent speakers. Memrise offers more than 100 languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, and some favorite fictional languages as well.

Download on iOS

Download on Android

busuu (free)

This app is completely customizable, so you can set your own learning goals and decide how quickly you want to progress. There are a variety of learning activities offered, each developed with the help of native speakers around the world for accuracy and usefulness. After each activity, you can test your learning with a review activity. If you’re short on time, busuu also offers a mode that highlights the must-know 3,000 words and 150 topics for each language. As a bonus, you don’t even need an Internet connection to take advantage of the app.

Download on iOS

Download on Android

Duolingo (free)

Duolingo was one of the first language learning apps and is definitely still one of the best. This app turns learning into a game without skimping on any of the content or learning. After each mini-lesson, users can answer review questions that earn them points for each correct answer. Those points can be redeemed at the app’s virtual store and used to compete against family and friends as you move up levels. Duolingo is a great app for adding a social and competitive aspect to language learning. 

Download on iOS

Download on Android

Learning a language through a mobile app likely isn’t the way your ancestors did it, but it can connect you to your history and culture unlike any other kind of study. As a bonus, when you do visit Israel, you’ll be able to converse with locals like a natural. 

Learn the languages of Israel with these 5 new and exciting apps Read More »

Ban champ Tyson Fury from boxing over anti-Semitic comments, ex-titlist Wladimir Klitschko says

Leave a Comment / Culture, Sports /

Former world heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko called for his successor to the crown, Tyson Fury, to be banned from boxing over anti-Semitic, homophobic and sexist comments.

On Thursday, Klitschko described the remarks in May by Fury, who took the Ukrainian’s title in November, as “Hitler-like.”

Fury, 27, of Britain, was filmed warning viewers not to be “brainwashed” by Zionist Jews, who he said own all the banks and media. He later apologized for the remarks.

“I was in shock at his statements about women, the gay community, and when he got to the Jewish people he sounded like Hitler. The man is an imbecile. Seriously,” Klitschko told the British media. “You cannot put it all together as a representation of the sport of boxing. He’s an imbecile champion.”

Fury and Klitschko will meet in a rematch for the world championship next month in the British city of Manchester.

Ban champ Tyson Fury from boxing over anti-Semitic comments, ex-titlist Wladimir Klitschko says Read More »

Airport planned for Israel-Jordan border clouds neighborly ties

Leave a Comment / Israel /

A new airport planned by Israel near its border with Jordan is clouding the usually businesslike relationship the two neighbors have built since making peace in 1994.

Due to open next April, Ilan & Asaf Ramon Airport at Timna, in Israel's desert south, will be 10 km (6 miles) from Jordan's King Hussein International Airport. They will serve Eilat and Aqaba, the adjacent Israeli and Jordanian resort cities on the Red Sea.

Citing worry the proximity could spell dangerous disruptions to its air corridors, Amman last year complained to the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Israel said Ramon would abide by ICAO regulations and pose no safety risk. The ICAO later said Israel and Jordan were addressing the matter directly “as one would expect from two countries with a peace treaty and a wide scope of cooperation in many fields”.

Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz played down the dispute with Jordan, one of two Arab states with full ties with Israel.

“There is no confrontation,” he told Reuters in an interview. “There have been discussions (and) it was agreed that we will hold a professional-level meeting. The (Ramon) airport will open, and there will be coordination of air traffic.”

Jordan sounds less upbeat, however.

“We do not want to stand in the way of Israeli projects, but we have our concerns regarding our own airport, and there is also the matter of keeping the spirit of our peace agreement,” said a Jordanian official who declined to be identified.

The official was referring to a proposal, discussed in conjunction with the treaty, of building a jointIsraeli-Jordanian airport.

Katz said such a facility was an “option” that had gone unexercised. Opened in 1972, King Hussein underwent expansions after the 1994 peace accord to meet what the airport's website said was the rising demand of air traffic. Katz said Israel was therefore free to open Ramon on its side of the border.

 

TOURISM

Jordan's concern, he suggested, was over the prospective loss of tourists to Israel. Ramon will have a 3.6-km (2.2-mile) runway able to accommodate the largest airliners while King Hussein's runway length is a more limiting 3.1 km (1.9 miles).

King Hussein currently handles around four to six takeoffs and landings a day. Israel is planning for 10 times that capacity at Ramon.

“The thing is, this (Ramon) is a big international airport, representing a mass of tourists, which is seen as possibly competing with them in tourism and such things,” Katz said.

“We will propose to them that large planes that can't land there (King Hussein) will land here. I have no problem with people going to Aqaba from there (Ramon). They can cross at Arava crossing,” he said, referring to an overland border terminal north of Eilat, a 15-km (9-mile) drive from Ramon.

Peace with Israel was never popular among ordinary Jordanians, many of whom are Palestinian, and Amman officials sometimes lament what they see as the sluggish dividends from economic cooperation with their richer neighbor.

One Jordanian official based in the Aqaba area accused Israel of building Ramon airport to “market Petra” – the nearby archaeological wonder in Jordan – for excursions by tourists who would spend the bulk of their vacation in Eilat.

“We are protecting our national tourism industry from any invasion and from selling it illegally,” said the official, who also requested anonymity.

“Now we have imposed on those coming from the (Arava) crossing to either pay sixty dinars ($85) for a one-day (visa) or spend two nights in the kingdom,” with the fee refunded, the official said.

Eilat is currently served by a small municipal airport whose planned demolition will free up real estate within view of the beach.

Named after an Israeli astronaut lost in the 2003 space shuttle disaster and his eldest son, who died in a 2009 air force accident, Ramon is envisaged as an emergency alternative to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel's main international gateway. Ben Gurion was briefed shunned by most foreign carriers due to incoming Palestinian rockets during the 2014 Gaza war.

Airport planned for Israel-Jordan border clouds neighborly ties Read More »

Steven Sotloff’s parents implore Obama to bring home a missing American journalist

Leave a Comment / Culture, United States /

The parents of Steven Sotloff, the Jewish freelance journalist beheaded by the Islamic State nearly two years ago, have joined the families of three other killed U.S. hostages in urging President Barack Obama to bring home a missing American hostage.

Shirley and Arthur Sotloff, in an essay published Wednesday in the McClatchy newspapers, called on Obama not to leave behind any Americans when he leaves office in January, referring to freelance journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared in Syria in August 2012. Tice is the only American reporter known to be held hostage anywhere in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The other authors of the essay are Diane and John Foley, the parents of journalist James Foley; Ed and Paula Kassig, the parents of humanitarian aid worker Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig, and Carl, Marsha and Eric Mueller, the parents and brother of humanitarian aid worker Kayla Mueller.

 

The families pointed out that one year ago this week, Obama “made a commitment to improve our government’s dismal record on the return of American hostages.”

“We are four families bonded together by tragedy and terror,” they wrote. “We will never fully recover from the horrific outcome of our own hostage crises. But there is something that still can be done: Bring Austin Tice safely home.”

Each family also wrote a personal message.

The Sotloffs read: “We, the family of the late journalist Steven Sotloff, remind President Obama of the following: You told us in person that if it were your daughters, you would do anything in your power to bring them home. We implore you: Bring Austin Tice home.”

Tice, now 34, was working as a freelance journalist for McClatchy and The Washington Post when he was taken captive. Besides a brief video clip posted about six weeks later showing him with unknown gunmen, there have been no other signs of life.

Steven Sotloff’s parents implore Obama to bring home a missing American journalist Read More »