ShalomNewYork.com

(Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times. The Isaiah Scroll was one of seven ancient Hebrew texts discovered in 1947, and is the best preserved and most complete.)
“Its revival is often hailed as one of the greatest feats of the Zionist enterprise; today Hebrew is the first language of millions of Israelis, a loquacious and literary nation that is said to publish an average of 5,500 books a year. But in a country where self-doubt and insecurity run deep, even a linguistic triumph can be a cause for concern. After such a meteoric comeback, some worry that the common language may already be in decline, popularized to the point where many Israelis can no longer cope with the rich complexities of traditional Hebrew prose. ” NYtimes