מכיוון ש־, היות ו־, בגלל ש־ | Hebrew Grammar

Everyday Hebrew says because with כי, and that word has its own page, כי: because. Above it sits an inventory of clause-taking causals that courses hand you as an undifferentiated list labelled "more formal". They are not undifferentiated. This page sorts them by two real properties — what each one may take after it, and where in the sentence its clause is allowed to sit.

The clause-taking connectives

Every one of these needs a ש in front of a clause, except the two that take a ו instead. Frequencies are Hebrew Wikipedia article counts measured with a single probe shape down the whole column — insource:/ X שה/, or / X וה/ for the ו-forms — on 17 August 2026; the figures above about a thousand are floors rather than exact counts, so read the column as an order of magnitude.

Connective	Reading	Articles	Register
מכיוון ש־	mikeiván she-	10,366	neutral; the workhorse of written Hebrew
משום ש־	mishúm she-	8,739	neutral to formal
מאחר ש־	me'akhár she-	6,174	formal writing
כיוון ש־	keiván she-	4,169	neutral; also ordinary in speech
מפני ש־	mipnéi she-	2,853	neutral; the one taught first at school
בגלל ש־	biglál she-	1,132	everyday speech
היות ש־	heyót she-	870	formal writing
הואיל ו־	ho'íl ve-	283	legal and administrative
מתוך ש־	mitókh she-	31	Mishnaic; rare in modern prose
היות ו־	heyót ve-	7	common in speech, edited out of writing

מכיוון שהמעלית מקולקלת, כל הדיירים עולים ברגל.

mikeiván shehama'alít mekulkélet, kol hadayarím olím barégel

Since the lift is broken, all the residents are walking up.

לא לקחנו את הדירה מפני שהיא הייתה קרובה מדי לכביש.

lo lakákhnu et hadirá mipnéi shehí haytá krová midái lakvísh

We didn't take the flat because it was too close to the road.

הבקשה נדחתה משום שלא צורפו כל המסמכים.

habakashá nidkhatá mishúm sheló tsorfú kol hamismakhím

The application was refused because not all the documents were attached. (formal)

הואיל והצדדים הגיעו להסכמה, אין צורך בדיון נוסף.

ho'íl vehatsdadím higí'u lehaskamá, ein tsórekh bediyún nosáf

Whereas the parties have reached agreement, no further hearing is required. (legal — הואיל ו־ is the one causal connector with a ו that nobody objects to)

מתוך שהם התאמנו יחד שנים, הם יודעים בדיוק מה השני יעשה.

mitókh shehém hit'amnú yákhad shaním, hem yod'ím bediyúk ma hashení ya'asé

Because they have trained together for years, each knows exactly what the other will do. (the Academy lists מתוך ש־ among the Mishnaic causals; modern writing barely uses it)

Where the clause goes — the split nobody teaches

This is the part that gives you a reason to prefer one word over another, and it comes straight from the Academy's own discussion. Listing the alternatives to a calqued causal, it writes:

כגון כי, מפני ש־, משום ש־ (כשפסוקית הסיבה באה אחרי המשפט העיקרי), כיוון ש־, מאחר ש־ (כשפסוקית הזיקה באה לפני המשפט העיקרי וגם אחריו).
such as כי, מפני ש־, משום ש־ (when the causal clause comes *after the main clause), כיוון ש־, מאחר ש־ (when the clause comes before the main clause and after it too).*
— האקדמיה ללשון העברית, היה ו־, היות ש־, היות ו־ וביטויים קרובים, by Keren Dubnov, published 12 May 2019 (raw Wayback capture 5 July 2025)

That is a positional claim, and it can be checked. Counting how often each connective opens a sentence — insource:/[.] X שה/ against the same insource:/ X שה/ total, one shape down both columns — the connectives fall into two clean groups:

Connective	Sentence-initial	Total	Share
היות ש־	254	870	about 1 in 3
מאחר ש־	1,493	6,174	about 1 in 4
כיוון ש־	890	4,169	about 1 in 5
מכיוון ש־	2,109	10,366	about 1 in 5
בגלל ש־	80	1,132	about 1 in 14
מפני ש־	106	2,853	about 1 in 27
משום ש־	259	8,739	about 1 in 34

The gap between the two groups is not a matter of a few percent; it runs between five- and tenfold, and it lands exactly where the Academy said it would. מפני ש־ and משום ש־ are answer-words — they come after the thing they explain. מאחר ש־, מכיוון ש־, כיוון ש־ and היות ש־ can lead, and leading is a distinctly written move.

מאחר שהטיסה בוטלה, נאלצנו לישון בשדה התעופה.

me'akhár shehatisá butlá, ne'elátsnu lishón bisdé hate'ufá

Since the flight was cancelled, we had to sleep at the airport. (the reason first — a written shape)

💡

If you are writing and want to open with the reason, reach for מכיוון ש־ or מאחר ש־. If the reason answers a question or comes second, מפני ש־ and משום ש־ sit there far more naturally. This is a distributional fact about Hebrew, not a rule anyone will correct you on — but writing with it is a large part of why some learners' Hebrew reads as translated.

Noun or clause: the split that produces real errors

בגלל takes a noun and בגלל ש־ takes a clause — and because English because covers both jobs with one word, the commonest slip is putting a clause straight after a bare בגלל, with no ש to introduce it. What catches learners next is the shelf above. בשל, עקב and בעקבות are prepositions and only prepositions, so a clause after one of them has to be turned into a noun phrase first — which is a large part of why formal prose is so full of verbal nouns. The bare prepositions have their own page, בגלל and מפני.

ביטלתי את השיעור בגלל שהילדה קמה עם חום.

bitálti et hashi'úr biglál shehayaldá káma im khom

I cancelled the lesson because my daughter woke up with a temperature. (everyday speech)

💡

In conversation the answer to למה is still כי, and second to it בגלל ש. Everything else on this page is a step up the register ladder, and producing מכיוון ש or מאחר ש in a spoken reply is one of the reliable ways an advanced learner comes out sounding like a press release. Bank them for when you start writing.

What the Academy actually said about בגלל ש

The received story is that the Academy banned בגלל ש. It did not. Its answer opens by calling the question disputed — שאלה זו שנויה במחלוקת — and then gives both sides. Language correctors advise against it because the combination is absent from the classical sources; the opposing view points out that this would hardly be the first Hebrew preposition to acquire a ש over time, and names בתוך and אַחַר as precedents. The answer then adds a fact that undercuts the "absent from the sources" argument: בגלל ש opening a causal clause, in exactly the modern way, turns up in the Dead Sea scroll known as מקצת מעשי התורה, dated to the end of the first century BCE, as a Hebrew echo of Aramaic בגלל ד. Modern usage is judged an independent development, known mainly from the nineteenth century on. And the answer closes:

נעיר כי האקדמיה לא פסקה בעניין זה, כפי שלא פסקה בעניינים רבים אחרים השייכים לתחום הסגנון והניסוח.
We note that the Academy has not ruled on this matter, just as it has not ruled on many other matters belonging to style and phrasing.
— האקדמיה ללשון העברית, בגלל שֶׁ, published 14 October 2010 (raw Wayback capture 25 June 2025)

What it recommends instead is variety, listing the Mishnaic stock — מפני ש, כיוון ש, מכיוון ש, משום ש, מאחר ש, מתוך ש, הואיל ו — as a range worth using. That is advice about style, not a verdict about correctness.

היות ו־ is the one to watch

היות ש־ is itself a medieval calque. The Academy traces it to literal Hebrew renderings of Judeo-Arabic לִכַּוְן, because — Ibn Tibbon renders Maimonides's לכון as להיות — and notes that today it belongs mainly to formal writing. Its twin היות ו־ substitutes the conjunctive ו for the subordinating ש under the influence of הואיל ו־, which really is Mishnaic: the same article explains that one as a shortening of a pair of verbs joined by a conjunctive ו, of the type הואיל (ניאות) והודה. Of היות ו־ it says flatly, גם שימוש זה נחשב לא תקני — this use too is considered non-standard.

You can watch that verdict operating. insource:/ היות וה/ returns 7 articles on Hebrew Wikipedia, and reading all seven is the whole story: six sit inside quoted material — a rabbinic responsum quoted on three separate pages, and three interviews — and one is the encyclopedia's own voice. Nobody has removed היות ו־ from Hebrew; editors have removed it from edited prose.

היות ואף אחד לא ענה, השארתי הודעה במזכירות.

heyót ve'áf ekhád lo aná, hish'árti hoda'á bamazkirút

Since nobody answered, I left a message with the office. (what Israelis say and write in email — and what an editor changes)

היות שהתקציב אושר רק בינואר, העבודות יתחילו באיחור.

heyót shehataktsív ushár rak beyánu'ar, ha'avodót yatkhílu be'ikhúr

Given that the budget was only approved in January, the work will start late. (formal writing)

Three of them in habitat

Written Hebrew mixes causals within a single item rather than repeating one, and this is what that sounds like.

משרד התחבורה הודיע כי הקו יבוטל מאחר שמספר הנוסעים ירד בחצי.

misrád hatakhburá hodía ki hakáv yevutál me'akhár shemispár hanos'ím yarád bakhatsí

The transport ministry announced that the route will be scrapped, since passenger numbers have halved. (news)

התושבים מתנגדים משום שלא נערכה שום התייעצות מוקדמת.

hatoshavím mitnagdím mishúm sheló ne'erkhá shum hitya'atsút mukdémet

Residents object, because no prior consultation was held. (news)

Common Mistakes

1. Fronting the reason with משום ש or מפני ש. Neither of these is wrong, and both are ✅. But English speakers front because freely, and these two are answer-words: putting them first is the one thing on this page that will read as slightly off to a native writer without their being able to say why.

✅ מכיוון שהמסמכים לא הגיעו בזמן, הדיון נדחה בשבועיים.

mikeiván shehamismakhím lo higí'u bazmán, hadiyún nidkhá bishvu'áyim

Since the documents didn't arrive in time, the hearing was put off by a fortnight. (leading — where מכיוון ש is at home)

✅ הדיון נדחה בשבועיים משום שהמסמכים לא הגיעו בזמן.

hadiyún nidkhá bishvu'áyim mishúm shehamismakhím lo higí'u bazmán

The same content the other way round — and this is where משום ש belongs: about 33 times in 34, it follows the main clause.

2. A bare noun after בגלל ש. The mirror image, and it comes from filing בגלל ש away as a single vocabulary item meaning because.

❌ הוא התפטר בגלל שהשכר הנמוך

Incorrect — with no verb after it the ש has nothing to introduce: הוא התפטר בגלל השכר הנמוך.

✅ הוא התפטר בגלל השכר הנמוך, לא בגלל האווירה.

hu hitpatér biglál hasakhár hanamúkh, lo biglál ha'avirá

He resigned over the low pay, not over the atmosphere.

3. Giving עקב, בשל or בעקבות a ש. Having learned that בגלל has a ש form, learners generalise to the whole shelf. These four do not pattern alike, and the fix is to nominalise.

❌ הישיבה נדחתה עקב שהמנהל היה בחוץ לארץ

Incorrect — עקב, בשל and בעקבות take a noun phrase only. Turn the clause into one: הישיבה נדחתה עקב היעדרותו של המנהל. With a clause, use מאחר ש or מכיוון ש.

✅ הישיבה נדחתה עקב היעדרותו של המנהל.

hayeshivá nidkhatá ékev he'adrutó shel hamenahél

The meeting was postponed owing to the manager's absence. (formal)

4. היות ו־ in something you are handing in. Neither of these is wrong Hebrew, and both are what Israelis produce. Only one survives an editor.

✅ היות ולא היה תקציב, הפרויקט נדחה לשנה הבאה.

heyót veló hayá taktsív, haproyékt nidkhá lashaná haba'á

Since there was no budget, the project was put off to next year. (ordinary in speech and email; considered non-standard in writing)

✅ היות שלא היה תקציב, הפרויקט נדחה לשנה הבאה.

heyót sheló hayá taktsív, haproyékt nidkhá lashaná haba'á

The same sentence with ש — the form for a report, an application or an exam.

Key Takeaways

All of these need ש before a clause. The only standard ו form is הואיל ו־, which is Mishnaic and legal-register.
Position is a real distinction, and it is sourced. The Academy pairs מפני ש־ and משום ש־ with a reason that follows the main clause, and כיוון ש־ and מאחר ש־ with one that can also lead — and the measurement matches: about 1 in 4 for מאחר ש־ against about 1 in 34 for משום ש־.
בגלל takes a noun, בגלל ש takes a clause, and בשל, עקב, בעקבות take a noun only — so a clause after them has to become a noun phrase: עקב היעדרותו.
The Academy did not rule against בגלל ש. It called the question disputed, recorded the Dead Sea Scrolls attestation, and closed with האקדמיה לא פסקה בעניין זה.
היות ש־ is a medieval calque from Judeo-Arabic and belongs to formal writing; היות ו־ copies הואיל ו־ and is considered non-standard — 7 Wikipedia articles, six of them inside quotations.
מתוך ש־ is real but rare: 31 articles, and the Academy lists it among the classical causals worth reviving.

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