Case Study: Declaration of Independence – Part 3

In this article, we still explain the grammatical structures commonly used in formal written Hebrew, taking the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel as an example.

Please see the first two parts here and here.

In this page, we translate the third paragraph:

The beginning of the sentence reads:

מִתּוֹךְ‏ mi-toch "out of" (see here comment for more information about תוך and related expressions) in this context can be translated as "Driven by [the connection]".

מָסָרְתִּי‏ masorti "traditional" stems from מָסרֶׁת‏ masoret "tradition". The second kamatz in מָסָרְתִּי, being in a closed syllable, is kamatz katan, pronounced as o, and in vowelless writing is reflected with a ו‏ vav.

מוֹלַדְתָּם‏ molad(e)tam "their homeland" is a form of מוֹלֶדֶת‏ moledet "homeland", which has a root יל״ד and is related to the words such as יֶלֶד‏ yeled "boy", נוֹלַד nolad "was born" and יוֹם הֻלֶּדֶת‏ ~ יום הולדת yom huledet "birthday".

בְּהֲמוֹנָם‏ be-hamonam, from הָמוֹן‏ hamon "a lot", with 3-rd personal plural pronominal suffix, means literally "in their multitude".

מַעְפִּילִים‏ ma'apilim is the plural masculine participle form of לְהַעְפִּיל leha'apil "to climb, to ascend", and in this case is used as a noun, literally "climbers". This refers to those who immigrated, largely fleeing from the Nazi persecution, to the Land of Israel, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine, in violation of the British colonial restrictions.

The whole clandestine immigration movement of that time was correspondingly called הַעְפָּלָה‏ ha'apala, literally "ascension", or עֲלִיָּה בֵּי״ת‏ ~ עלייה ב׳ aliya bet "Aliyah B" (see the Wikipedia page to read more about it).

This is straightforward.

גָּדֵל וְהוֹלֵךְ‏ gadel ve-holech, literally "growing and going", or, alternatively, הוֹלֵךְ וְגָדֵל‏ holech ve-gadel, is an idiom that means "thriving", "growing".

מְגִנִּים‏ meginim (singular: מֵגֵן‏ megen) is the participle of the verb לְהָגֵן lehagen "to defend", again used as a noun: "defenders". An identically spelled and closely related word is מָגֵן‏ magen "shield", as in מָגֵן דָּוִד‏ magen David "shield of David, star of David".

Note also that the word נְשַׁמּוֹת‏ neshamot "deserts", with the root שמ״ם "to devastate, to destroy", is unrelated to the identically spelled and, in modern Hebrew, identically pronounced word נְשָׁמוֹת‏ neshamot "souls", with the root נש״ם "to breathe".

The word קִדְמָה‏ kidma "progress" is spelled with a yud in the original text – קידמה – to distinguish it from קַדְמָה‏ kadma "front" or הַקְדָּמָה‏ hakdama "introduction, preface".

נָשָֹא נַפְשוֹ‏ nasa nafsho literally "brought its soul" (used with the preposition ל־) means "aspired, strove (for something)".

If anything is missing, unclear or seems wrong, please do not hesitate to ask!