About Yanshuf

Yanshuf

Yanshuf is an easy-Hebrew educational newspaper-magazine for Hebrew learners and new immigrants, published every two weeks in Jerusalem by Hebrew Today Ltd. Its name is the Hebrew word for the owl, the bird of wisdom. Yanshuf presents Israeli news and culture in simplified Hebrew, with a Hebrew-English dictionary included with each issue, exercises and audio narration, so that readers who already have a decent grasp of Hebrew can improve their language while following current events. It is the more advanced of Hebrew Today's two teaching newspapers, the "big brother" of the beginners' paper Bereshit, and it is read by subscribers in Israel and, by airmail, in countries around the world.

The publisher: Hebrew Today

Yanshuf is published by Hebrew Today Ltd, whose headquarters are at 52 Hechalutz Street in Jerusalem. The company publishes teaching newspapers in easy Hebrew for learners of the language, a field in which its flagship products are Bereshit, for beginners, and Yanshuf, for more advanced readers. The FAQ of its site explains the house method: as opposed to conventional Hebrew study books, the newspapers' content is fresh and relevant to current affairs and holidays, learning with them is presented as fun, interesting and highly effective, and the reader learns Hebrew while staying connected to Israel. The company's newspapers are written by experienced journalists, skilled Hebrew teachers and linguists.

Big brother of Bereshit

Hebrew Today's own description defines Yanshuf by its place in a two-step ladder. Bereshit is geared toward beginners who want to learn Hebrew from the most basic level; it teaches the Hebrew alphabet and punctuation and includes English translations alongside the Hebrew text. Yanshuf is also a teaching newspaper, but it uses a much richer vocabulary, and is intended for those who want to improve their Hebrew skills but already have a decent grasp of the language. In Yanshuf the English translations are provided on a separate dictionary sheet rather than beside the text. Subscribers whose level improves can transfer their subscription from one newspaper to the other free of charge, and the company offers an online level test for readers unsure where to start.

Language and learning apparatus

Yanshuf is written in a simpler Hebrew level, but it is structured specifically for someone who is trying to improve their Hebrew and wants to read a not too difficult newspaper. Each issue includes easy-Hebrew articles and exercises. A Hebrew-English dictionary for new and difficult words accompanies each issue; the publisher's promise is that after readers have mastered the lexicon of Yanshuf and can read the paper without needing the dictionary, they will be able to read standard Israeli newspapers with relative ease. Audio is available for each article, so that readers can practise listening comprehension and proper pronunciation; the audio supplement offers article-by-article narration of the entire newspaper, read at a reasonable pace by Israeli narrators who emphasise correct pronunciation, and the online edition also includes the audio files.

Contents of an issue

An issue of Yanshuf contains articles about current events, social interests, culture, science, traditions and much more. The publisher summarises the range of its two newspapers together: current news as well as feature articles about life in Israel and around the world, and columns focusing on science, sports, both Biblical and contemporary Hebrew, the history of popular sites, holidays, puzzles and Hebrew language exercises. Reading Yanshuf, the company says, the reader not only learns a great deal of Hebrew but also enriches their knowledge of Israel and the world. Both newspapers are described as apolitical and without a religious agenda, a deliberate stance for a paper read by new immigrants and learners of many backgrounds.

Frequency and the subscription year

Yanshuf is published every two weeks. A subscription year brings eighteen issues: only one issue is printed during the month of the Sukkot holidays, in September or October, and one during the month of Passover, in April or May, and no newspapers are published during July and August. A subscription is for one calendar year, and subscriptions taken out through the Hebrew Today site renew automatically, with a reminder sent before the period ends; a reader who cancels is refunded the unused portion. Local Israeli subscriptions cost less because there is no delivery charge, and a discount is offered for orders of more than five copies, making the paper available to schools and classes as well as to individuals.

Readers in Israel and abroad

Hebrew Today sends its newspapers to any country in the world that has a reciprocal postal arrangement with Israel; copies travel by international airmail and generally take ten days to two weeks to arrive. The papers serve both adults and children as independent readers and are used as teaching aids by Hebrew teachers. The Jerusalem office handles registrations and customer care for individuals, schools and companies, with a toll-free number from the United States. The audience named in the paper's profile in this directory, Hebrew learners and new immigrants, is exactly the audience the publisher describes: people improving their Hebrew in Israel, and people learning Hebrew abroad who use the paper to stay connected to Israel.

Place among easy-Hebrew publications

Easy-Hebrew publishing answers a permanent Israeli need: a country built by immigration continuously receives new citizens who must learn Hebrew as adults, and maintains a worldwide community of Hebrew learners. A newspaper, rather than a textbook, gives such readers the vocabulary of real life as it changes, news, holidays, science and sport, in a register they can manage, with the supports of a dictionary, exercises and narration that a regular newspaper does not offer. Within Hebrew Today's own system, Bereshit carries the beginner from the alphabet itself, and Yanshuf carries the improver to the threshold of the ordinary Israeli press, which is the stated goal of the method: to read Yanshuf without the dictionary, and then to read standard Israeli newspapers with relative ease.

The name and the idea

The paper's name, Yanshuf, the owl, suits a publication about watching and learning: the owl is the traditional emblem of wisdom and of the student who reads at night. Under that name, from its Jerusalem office on Hechalutz Street, the paper has made a periodical of the intermediate stage of language learning, the stage at which a learner knows enough Hebrew to want real content and not yet enough to take it unassisted. Its eighteen issues a year, its dictionaries and its narrated audio turn current Israeli life into a curriculum that renews itself every two weeks.

Standing

Yanshuf is recorded in this directory as an educational newspaper-magazine of Jerusalem, in the Jerusalem District, published every two weeks by Hebrew Today Ltd at 52 Hechalutz Street. Its standing rests on the clarity of its formula, verified in the publisher's own descriptions: richer but still simple Hebrew, real news and culture, a dictionary with every issue, exercises and audio, and a defined destination, the ordinary Hebrew press. For new immigrants in Israel and Hebrew learners around the world, it remains one of the few periodicals written for the space between the textbook and the newspaper.

The learning method in practice

Hebrew Today's site spells out how a reader is meant to use the papers, and the routine defines Yanshuf's use as much as Bereshit's. The suggested method is to begin with the short and easy articles, following the text-level indicators inside the paper, to work with the dictionaries to learn new and more challenging words, then to read the newspaper again with the accompanying narration, repeating the process a few times while looking at the text, and afterward to try listening without the newspaper, until the reader begins to recognise words and understand spoken Hebrew; at the reader's own pace, the company promises, they will learn to read, understand and pronounce Hebrew properly. For the beginners' paper the site quantifies the aim, about 1,200 new words pronounced and understood in a year; Yanshuf takes the same method into a richer vocabulary, with the dictionary moved to a separate sheet and the goal raised from learning the language to reading its real newspapers.