BY CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MONTGOMERY - Examples of "modern Hebrew" hang on a classroom wall at Sycamore High School: Burger King and McDonald's ads and a George Clooney movie poster, with words written in Hebrew script.
It demonstrates why school officials added Hebrew this fall to Sycamore's foreign language program - to teach students how to order in an Israeli restaurant or to ask directions in a language many associate only with the Bible and ancient religious writings.
"Hello, how are you? . . . Where do you live? What are you doing in Cincinnati?"
Two students asked each other the simple phrases in Hebrew recently during a conversation drill in front of a blackboard covered with flowing Hebrew letters. Teacher Shirley Mills listened for correct usage of the feminine and masculine forms of the Hebrew words.
Sycamore's Hebrew classes - two sessions with 39 students - are an unusual find in a public school. Sycamore may be only the second public school in Ohio to offer Hebrew, following a public school in Beachwood, a Cleveland suburb, which began offering modern Hebrew classes about 20 years ago.
Mrs. Mills, a native Hebrew speaker who grew up in Israel, has been a Spanish and Hebrew teacher about 20 years. She knows of two other public schools offering Hebrew - in Indianapolis and St. Louis.
Mrs. Mills' Sycamore students are a mix. Some have no background in the language, while others are of the Jewish faith and have attended Hebrew school in synagogues or private schools for years to prepare for bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies.
"What they learn in Hebrew school has nothing to do with modern Hebrew," she said. "There they are learning religious history, customs and ceremonies, and preparing for Torah readings. Some are teaching more conversational Hebrew but not what we're doing."
For Jeff Wenter, 16, of Blue Ash, "the first five weeks were a breeze," in Mrs. Mills' class, as he relied on what he knew from Hebrew school classes attended since kindergarten.
"Then it got harder," he said. "This is more conversation, more dialogue. And I never learned (to write Hebrew in) cursive. Here, that's all we do."
Hebrew was a new language to Mark Chernausek, 15, of Blue Ash, when he joined Mrs. Mills' class this fall. Now he answers to the Hebrew name of Mordechai and rattles off sentences in Hebrew.
The first days of class, he was a bit intimidated, he said, by students already familiar with Hebrew. "Reading is the hardest, but as I catch up, it's a nice feeling," he said.
A former student at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, Mark was inspired to take Hebrew at Sycamore when he remembered an academy teacher who could translate religious writings from Hebrew. "I thought that was neat," he said.
To keep religion out of these public-school Hebrew lessons, Mrs. Mills searched for about six months for a secular textbook. Hebrew joins American Sign Language, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Latin in Sycamore's Global Language Department.
"It wasn't even a dream to have Hebrew here (when she came to Sycamore eight years ago from Yavneh Day School in Kenwood)," she said.
Hebrew is catching on at Sycamore. About 40 students recently attended a meeting of the newly formed Hebrew Club, and in February, 20 students from Mrs. Mills' classes will travel to Israel.
