501 Hebrew Verbs (review)

Book Reviews 133 In a reversal ofroles, municipalities, with neighborhood residents' input, initiated planning for policy functions which were then dictated to the national governmental agencies. In addition, overseas funds were raised from the Jewish Diaspora directly earmarked for Project Renewal, rather than what had occurred in the past, where Diaspora monies went to a general fund for Israel. The original goal of Project Renewal was the elimination of poverty conditions through the eradication ofslum housing in the Jewish sector ofthe State. In this it was only partially successful. But, as an unplanned consequence, Project Renewal did affect . political relationships in the Israeli political system. Traditionally, public policy implementation in the Israeli political system had been unidirectional, from the national government down to the municipalities and citizenry. Project Renewal allowed participation , for the fIrst time, on the part ofthe Israeli citizenry in implementing policy and on the part of the mayors, who exercised signifIcant power in planning and directing public policy in their cities. Maurice M. Eisenstein Department of History and Political Science Purdue University Calumet 501 Hebrew Verbs, by Shmuel Bolozky. New York: Barron's Education Series, Inc., 1996. 910 pp; $14.95. Shmuel Bolozky has selected 501 verbs in Modem Hebrew (henceforth: MH) whose conjugations he presents in the different patterns, i.e, binyanim. His main goal is to provide the student of MH with a tool for acquiring the appropriate knowledge for reading Hebrew texts and communicating with people. This basic goal determined the selection ofthe verbs as well as their representation. It is customary in traditional books ofHebrew grammar to exhaust all the conjugations ofa particular root, including those which are not used in the language, where the fIrst binyan to be represented is always pa 'al. Departing from the traditional way, Bolozky chose the verbs and represented them by relative frequency ofuse (based on a corpus provided by the Hebrew Language Instruction Unit ofTerAviv University). For example, the rootgy.s. is frequent in MH but found in three binyanim only: hitpa 'el, pi'el, and pu 'aI-most frequent, relatively frequent, and the least frequent respectively. Thus Bolozky represents the conjugations of this root, but only in these patterns and in this order. But although his main concern is the use of the verbs in the spoken language, Bolozky does not ignore conjugations which happen to appear infrequently, or are 134 SHOFAR Summer 1997 Vol. 15, No. 4 found in the literature only. For instance, when listing the conjugations ofa particular verb he also mentions the biblical forms of the third and the second person plural feminine in the imperative and future tense (e.g., daberna, tedaberna), accompanied by the comment "less commonly." This policy he takes also in representing conjugations which are found in the literature only. For instance, since the frequent uses of d.b.q. in MH are in hif'iI, huf'al, and nif'al, its conjugations in each of these patterns are represented in full paradigms, i.e., in all tenses and persons. However, this verb is also found in a less frequent use in binyan qal, and in Mishnaic Hebrew it is found also in pi 'el, pu 'al and in abinyandeveloped there, namely nitpa 'el. Bolozky represents the latter uses too, however, under a special title "infrequent verbs sharing the same root," and only in past tense, third person singular. I find this additional information valuable for the advanced student, who should be exposed to the different registers in Hebrew and may be interested in its different periods. Being aware ofthe ~tudent's needs, Bolozky illustrates each particular conjugation by sample sentences, and sometimes even short paragraphs, all accompanied by English translation. As he rightly claims, "Illustration in context is absolutely essential for the understand~g of the verb forms and the relationships among them ..." (p. vi). To enrich the student with related cultural information, Bolozky also accompanies each entry with a list ofidioms and special expressions containing the verb in question. The author, furthermore, does not let the subject of the book tie his hands and restrict him to providing the conjugations only. He adds to the particular conjugations their respective gerunds and participial forms that function...