Medieval Hebrew has many features that distinguish it from older forms of Hebrew. These affect grammar, syntax, sentence structure, and also include a wide variety of new lexical items, which are usually based on older forms.

In the Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic. Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj and Jonah ibn Janah. A great deal of poetry was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Judah ha-Levi, David Hakohen and the two Ibn Ezras, in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative metres (see piyyut). This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets.

The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to a distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. Many have direct parallels in medieval Arabic. The Ibn Tibbon family, and especially Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon were personally responsible for the creation of much of this form of Hebrew, which they employed in their translations of scientific materials from the Arabic. At that time, original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic, but as time went on, this form of Hebrew was used for many original compositions as well.

George Szirtes ( /ˈsɪərtɛʃ/; born 29 November 1948) is a Hungarian-born British poet, writing in English, as well as a translator from the Hungarian language into English. He has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life.

Born in Budapest on 29 November 1948, Szirtes came to England as a refugee in 1956 aged 8. He was brought up in London and studied Fine Art in London and Leeds.

His poems began appearing in national magazines in 1973 and his first book, The Slant Door, was published in 1979. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize the following year.

He has won a variety of prizes for his work, most recently the 2004 T. S. Eliot Prize, for his collection Reel and the Bess Hokin Prize for poems in Poetry magazine, 2008. His translations from Hungarian poetry, fiction and drama have also won numerous awards.

Szirtes lives in Wymondham, Norfolk, and teaches at the University of East Anglia. He is married to the artist Clarissa Upchurch, with whom he ran The Starwheel Press and who has been responsible for most of his book jacket images. Her interest in the city of Budapest has led to over twenty years of exploration of the city, its streets, buildings and courtyards in paintings and drawings.

Stefan Reif is professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge. He was born in Edinburgh on January 21, 1944.

He has a PhD from University College London and a Doctor of Literature from Cambridge. He held the following positions at Cambridge:

He was president of the Jewish Historical Society of England in 1991-1992, of the British Association for Jewish Studies in 1992 and of the Cambridge Theological Society in 2002-2004.

He was previously lecturer in Hebrew and Semitics at the University of Glasgow, 1968-1972 then assistant professor of Hebrew at Dropsie College, 1972-1973.

He has written a pamphlet on prayer called "MiTsur Devash Asbi'eka"

Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim (Hebrew: אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים‎‎, pronounced [ˌaʃkəˈnazim], singular: [ˌaʃkəˈnazi]; also יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכֲּנָז, Y'hudey Ashkenaz, "the Jews of Ashkenaz"), are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north.^{[citation needed]}

The name Ashkenazi derives from the bibilical figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10). In the Rabbinic literature, Ashkenaz's kingdom was first associated with the Scythian region, then later on with the Slavic territories, and from the 11th century onwards with Northern Europe and Germany. The Jews living in the northern regions, associated with Ashkenaz's kingdom, thus came to call themselves the Ashkenazi Jews. Later, Jews from Western and Central Europe also came to be called "Ashkenazi" because the main centers of Jewish learning were located in Germany.

Many Ashkenazi Jews later migrated, largely eastward, forming communities in non German-speaking areas, including Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and elsewhere between the 11th and 19th centuries. With them, they took and diversified Yiddish, a High German language written using the Hebrew alphabet. It had developed in medieval times as the lingua franca among Ashkenazi Jews. The Jewish communities of three cities along the Rhine: Speyer, Worms and Mainz, created the SHUM league (SHUM after the first Hebrew letters of Shpira, Vermayza, and Magentza). The ShUM-cities are considered the cradle of the distinct Ashkenazi culture and liturgy.

Tsippi Fleischer (b. 1946) is an Israeli composer.

Tsippi Fleischer was born in Haifa, Israel, of Polish-born parents, and grew up in a mixed Jewish-Arab environment. She studied piano and theory at the Rubin Conservatory of Music and graduated from the Haifa Reali School, later pursuing degrees in music, Hebrew language, Middle Eastern history, and Arabic language and literature. In 1978 she married comparative linguist Aharon Dolgopolsky and had one son. She teaches at Bar-Ilan University and Levinsky Institute in Tel Aviv.

Fleischer's compositions unite Arabic and Jewish elements. Selected works include:

Her music has been recorded and issued on CD including: