Hebrew Lesson
The name for kindergarten is "Gan Chova" meaning Required Kindergarten. The year before that is called "Trom Chova." I always thought it came from the word "LTrom" which means To donate because parents are required to pay for it, while you don’t need to pay for Gan Chova.
Thanks to the fact that I do have a few Israeli (ie Native Hebrew Speaking) friends, I found out it comes from the word "Terem" which means Pre (as in Pre-Kindergarten).
You learn something new everyday.
And, while I was checking to see if Terem and Trom are spelled the same way (they aren’t–one has a Tet and the other a Taf), I discovered that on the Jerusalem municipality web page they use Chova (required) and Kedem Chova (pre-required) instead of Chova and Trom Chova.
The best part of this whole discovery, was finding out that my husband had the exact same understanding of it as I did.
did you know that they say that Jerusalem has it’s own language…they use different words for a few things…
or perahps it used to be that way…in the past…
Comment by Orli — April 25, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
Oy, what a great misunderstanding.. thanks for a good laugh, it’s such a great interpretation of what trom hova means!
I was trying to think of words that I misinterpreted in English and came up with pay-per-view.. I was very surprised when I learned it had something to do with TV, because I was sure it was about books. Paper view, no?
Comment by Ayelet — April 25, 2007 @ 4:08 pm
I also thought that was funny! Are you still planning to do the meme?
Comment by mominisrael — April 25, 2007 @ 10:30 pm
Hi
Please consider writing news pieces or an op-ed for Jewrusalem: Israeli Uncensored News. We strive to present different views and opinions while rejecting political correctness. Ideally, we try to make the news “smart and funny.” Thus, your input is very welcome.
Best,
Alex
www.jewrusalem.net/en
Comment by Alex — April 26, 2007 @ 12:54 pm