That's a very interesting story, Brenda. Do most Hillel members speak Hebrew? And is it modern Hebrew or would they know ancient Hebrew if they're reading from scripture?

Incidentally, I once tried to teach myself some Hebrew but it didn't go very well — I struggled a lot with the alphabet as every letter looked similar to my eyes. The experience made me realise just how similar French and English really are, and also just how much I take the Latin alphabet for granted. French and English have so much in common in terms of vocabulary, grammar and worldview, but then when you go from an Indo-European language to a Semitic language, the shift is enormous.

I heard that the grammar of modern Hebrew is partly based on French, but I don't know if it's true or not.