Official Hebrew is not difficult Hebrew. It is frozen Hebrew: a small set of formulas reused letter after letter, around a message usually two sentences long. Once you can see the frame, a letter from a ministry becomes something you skim in ten seconds — which is what Israelis do with it. The letter below was written for this page; the department, the town and the applicant are invented, for a reason the tip at the foot of this page sets out.
The letter
לכבוד מר איתן לוי, רמת אלון
likhvód mar eitán leví, ramát alón
To Mr Eitan Levi, Ramat Alon (the addressee block)
הנדון: בקשתך לרישיון עסק — מסעדה ברחוב הזיתים
hanidón: bakashatkhá lerishayón ések, mis'adá birkhóv hazeitím
Subject: your application for a business licence — a restaurant on Rehov HaZeitim
הריני להודיעך כי פנייתך מיום 3 ביולי 2026 התקבלה במשרדנו ונבחנה על ידי הגורמים המקצועיים.
haréini lehodi'akhá ki pniyatkhá miyóm shloshá beyúli alpáyim esrím veshésh hitkablá bemisradénu venivkhaná al yedéi hagormím hamiktso'iyím
I hereby inform you that your enquiry of 3 July 2026 was received at our office and has been examined by the professional staff.
לאחר בדיקת המסמכים שצורפו לבקשתך, נמצא כי חסרים אישור כיבוי אש ותצהיר בדבר שטח העסק.
le'akhár bdikát hamismakhím shetsorfú levakashatkhá, nimtsá ki khaserím ishúr kibúy esh vetatshír bidvár shétakh ha'ések
Following examination of the documents attached to your application, it was found that a fire-safety approval and a declaration as to the area of the premises are missing.
לפיכך הוחלט שלא לדון בבקשה בשלב זה.
lefikhákh hukhlát sheló ladún babakashá beshaláv ze
It was accordingly decided not to consider the application at this stage.
עליך להמציא את המסמכים החסרים תוך 30 יום ממועד קבלת מכתב זה.
alékha lehamtsí et hamismakhím hakhaserím tokh shloshím yom mimo'éd kabalát mikhtáv ze
You are required to furnish the missing documents within 30 days of the date of receipt of this letter.
ככל שהמסמכים לא יומצאו במועד, תיסגר הפנייה.
kekhól shehamismakhím lo yumtse'ú bamo'éd, tisagér hapniyá
Should the documents not be furnished in time, the file will be closed.
את המסמכים אשר פורטו לעיל יש להגיש במשרדי המחלקה בשעות קבלת קהל.
et hamismakhím ashér portú le'éil yesh lehagísh bemisredéi hamakhlaká bish'ót kabalát kahál
The documents specified above are to be submitted at the department's offices during public opening hours.
אין באמור לעיל כדי לגרוע מזכויותיך על פי כל דין.
ein ba'amúr le'éil kdei ligróa mizkhuyotékha al pi kol din
Nothing in the above shall derogate from your rights under any law.
לידיעתך, ניתן לברר את מצב הטיפול בבקשה בטלפון המופיע בראש המכתב.
lidi'atkhá, nitán levarér et matsáv hatipúl babakashá batélefon hamofía berósh hamikhtáv
For your information, the status of the application may be checked on the telephone number appearing at the head of this letter.
בכבוד רב, רונית שגב, מנהלת המחלקה לרישוי עסקים
bekhavód rav, ronít ségev, menahélet hamakhlaká lerishúy asakím
Yours faithfully, Ronit Segev, Head of the Business Licensing Department
The frame, which never changes
Three fixed lines hold every official letter in Israel, and none is a sentence.
| Line | Reads | Does | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| לכבוד | likhvód | opens the addressee block, "to the honour of" | formal |
| הנדון: | hanidón | subject line, "the matter under discussion" | bureaucratic; never said aloud |
| בכבוד רב | bekhavód rav | signs off, "with great respect" | formal; the officialese default |
הנדון is a nif'al passive participle of נדון "to be discussed", frozen into a noun. It takes a colon and a noun phrase, never a clause.
Bound suffixes: the single clearest marker
Look at what the letter does with your: פנייתך, בקשתך, לידיעתך, מזכויותיך, and the verb להודיעך. Not one of them uses של. Everyday Hebrew says הפנייה שלך, הבקשה שלך — the free possessive — and is right to. The bound suffix is not more correct; it belongs to a different register, and in speech it makes you sound like a summons.
Two things make it hard beyond the memorisation. The noun changes shape first: the suffix goes on the construct stem, so בקשה gives בקשת־ and פנייה gives פניית־. And Hebrew can suffix a verb too — להודיעך is the infinitive להודיע with the object you welded on, a device that survives in modern Hebrew only inside this register.
הריני להודיעך כי הבקשה אושרה.
haréini lehodi'akhá ki habakashá ushrá
I hereby inform you that the application has been approved. (formal written — bound object on the infinitive, agentless passive)
רציתי להגיד לך שאישרו לך את הבקשה.
ratsíti lehagíd lekhá she'ishrú lekhá et habakashá
I wanted to tell you they've approved your application. (everyday spoken — free pronoun לך, and an unnamed 'they' instead of a passive)
Both are correct, current Hebrew. What separates them is where they belong: the first would be bizarre on the phone, the second unpublishable in a letter. See possessive suffixes and suffixes and register.
אשר, and the one place you still meet it
The letter says המסמכים אשר פורטו לעיל; speech would say המסמכים שפורטו. אשר is the older relative pronoun, and ש־ has replaced it almost everywhere — what survives is a written-formal residue plus a few frozen compounds (כאשר, באשר ל־, אשר על כן). As a relative pronoun it is never required — wherever אשר introduces a relative clause, ש־ would do the same job. The frozen compounds are the exception that proves it: באשר ל־ and אשר על כן have no ש־ twin at all.
התיק אשר הועבר לטיפולנו נסגר בשבוע שעבר.
hatík ashér hu'avár letipulénu nisgár bashavúa she'avár
The file which was transferred to us for handling was closed last week. (formal written)
התיק שהעבירו אלינו נסגר בשבוע שעבר.
hatík shehe'evíru eléinu nisgár bashavúa she'avár
The file they sent us was closed last week. (everyday — ש־ plus an unnamed 'they')
The register moves as a package: the formal line takes אשר and a passive, the everyday line takes ש־ and an active verb with a vague plural subject. Mixing them is what makes a learner's letter read as pastiche. See אשר.
Nobody did anything
An agent appears exactly once in the body of the letter, in its very first word: הריני להודיעך, "I hereby inform you" — and even that one is a suffix, not a name. After it the agent vanishes, and the only person named anywhere is the signatory at the foot. התקבלה (was received), נבחנה (was examined), נמצא כי (it was found that), הוחלט (it was decided), פורטו (were specified), יומצאו (will be furnished), תיסגר (will be closed), יש להגיש (are to be submitted) — every one deletes whoever acted, and even על ידי הגורמים המקצועיים names a category rather than a person.
That is a house style with a legal function: the letter is the act of an office, not of Ronit Segev. Three devices do it — passive binyanim (nif'al נבחנה, pu'al פורטו, huf'al הוחלט), the impersonal יש ל + infinitive, and third-person forms with no subject at all (נמצא כי) — and the letter uses all three. See choosing a passive.
הוחלט לדחות את הבקשה מחוסר מסמכים.
hukhlát lidkhót et habakashá mekhóser mismakhím
It was decided to reject the application for lack of documents. (formal — no decider named)
החליטו לדחות את הבקשה כי חסרו מסמכים.
hekhlítu lidkhót et habakashá ki khasrú mismakhím
They decided to reject the application because documents were missing. (everyday — the same agentlessness done with a vague 'they')
The everyday sentence is just as agentless. Speech reaches for an unnamed third-person plural where the letter reaches for a passive — which is why החליטו so often has no antecedent anywhere in the conversation. See impersonal sentences.
Whole clauses squeezed into noun phrases
ממועד קבלת מכתב זה is four words holding a whole clause: from the date on which this letter is received. בדיקת המסמכים, שעות קבלת קהל and מצב הטיפול run the same device — a verbal noun heads a smichut chain and the clause disappears. Officialese loves it because a noun phrase has no tense, no person and no subject to commit to: קבלת מכתב זה does not say who receives it, or when. See nominalisation and long smichut chains.
One word needs its own warning. להמציא is to invent in ordinary Hebrew (הוא המציא תירוץ, "he made up an excuse") and to furnish a document in officialese; a letter saying עליך להמציא מסמכים is not inviting you to make them up.
תוך 30 יום, and the singular that looks wrong
The deadline formula is תוך 30 יום ממועד קבלת מכתב זה, and every learner stops at יום: after thirty, surely ימים?
Both exist, and the singular is not a slip. Biblical Hebrew regularly leaves a small set of much-counted nouns — יום, שנה, איש, שקל — singular after a numeral: שְׁלֹשִׁים יוֹם at Deuteronomy 34:8, אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְאַרְבָּעִים לַיְלָה at Genesis 7:12. Legal Hebrew inherited that. But it is not a rule, and one statute shows why. חוק לתיקון סדרי המינהל (החלטות והנמקות), תשי״ט–1958 (retrieved from nevo.co.il, 15 August 2026) has both: section 2(a) requires a reply לא יאוחר מארבעים וחמישה ימים מיום קבלת הבקשה, and section 4 gives a right of appeal תוך שלושים יום מיום קבלת הודעה כאמור.
One statute, drafted at one time, writes forty-five ימים and thirty יום two sections apart. Nothing generalises. What you have is a set of frozen phrases — 30 יום, 60 יום, 90 יום — reproduced as units, beside ordinary plural counting everywhere else. Outside this register, use ימים.
ניתן להגיש ערר תוך 30 יום מיום קבלת ההודעה.
nitán lehagísh arár tokh shloshím yom miyóm kabalát hahoda'á
An appeal may be lodged within 30 days of the date the notice is received. (legal-administrative register)
הם נתנו לי שלושים ימים לשלם, אז יש עוד זמן.
hem natnú li shloshím yamím leshalém, az yesh od zman
They gave me thirty days to pay, so there's still time. (everyday — ordinary plural counting)
The reservation clause
אין באמור לעיל כדי לגרוע מזכויותיך על פי כל דין stands at the foot of a great many Israeli official letters, built entirely from pieces this page has met: אין the negative existential, באמור לעיל a passive participle used as a noun phrase, כדי ל־ "so as to", לגרוע מ־ "to detract from", a bound suffix on מזכויותיך. Together: nothing above takes anything away from the rights you already have. See אין.
Common Mistakes
1. Putting a conjugated verb after עליך. English says you must submit, so the calque follows. עליך is a suffixed preposition, not a modal, and what follows it is always an infinitive.
❌ עליך תמציא את המסמכים עד סוף החודש
Incorrect — עליך takes an infinitive, never a conjugated verb: עליך להמציא את המסמכים עד סוף החודש.
עליך להמציא אישור על תשלום האגרה.
alékha lehamtsí ishúr al tashlúm ha'agrá
You are required to furnish confirmation of payment of the fee. (formal)
אתה צריך להביא אישור שהעברת את התשלום.
atá tsaríkh lehaví ishúr shehe'evárta et hatashlúm
You need to bring proof that you transferred the payment. (the everyday equivalent — same content, no officialese)
2. Hanging the suffix on the free form of the noun. The suffix attaches to the construct stem, and for a ־ה noun that means the ה becomes ת.
❌ בקשהך התקבלה במשרדנו
Incorrect — the possessive suffix goes on the construct stem בקשת־, not on the free form בקשה: בקשתך התקבלה במשרדנו.
בקשתך הועברה לבדיקת מחלקת ההנדסה.
bakashatkhá hu'avrá livdikát makhléket hahandasá
Your application has been passed to the engineering department for examination.
3. Marking an indefinite object with את. A smichut chain is definite only if its last noun is. אישור כיבוי אש has no ה anywhere, so it is indefinite — and an indefinite object takes no את, however official it looks.
❌ יש להמציא את אישור כיבוי אש
Incorrect — the chain is indefinite (no ה on אש), so it takes no object marker: יש להמציא אישור כיבוי אש. With the article it becomes definite and את returns: יש להמציא את אישור הכיבוי.
יש להמציא אישור כיבוי אש בתוך שבועיים.
yesh lehamtsí ishúr kibúy esh betókh shvu'áyim
A fire-safety approval is to be furnished within two weeks.
4. Reading the date with a feminine numeral. Numerals are learned in their feminine citation form, and dates are where that habit first misfires: a date counts יום, which is masculine.
❌ מיום 3 ביולי
miyóm shalósh beyúli
Incorrect as a reading — an Israeli date takes the masculine cardinal, because it counts יום: miyóm shloshá beyúli.
הפגישה נקבעה ל־14 בספטמבר בשעה תשע בבוקר.
hapgishá nikbe'á learba'á asár beseptémber besha'á tésha babóker
The meeting has been set for 14 September at nine in the morning. (masculine for the date, feminine for the hour — שעה is feminine)
Key Takeaways
- Three fixed lines hold the letter: לכבוד opens, הנדון: takes a noun phrase and never a clause, בכבוד רב closes. The sign-off ladder is בכבוד רב, בברכה, כל טוב.
- Bound suffixes are the register's sharpest marker — פנייתך, לידיעתך, and on a verb להודיעך. Speech uses של; neither is more correct. The suffix goes on the construct stem: בקשה gives בקשתך.
- אשר is the written twin of ש־, never obligatory, and it travels with the rest of the package — a passive verb, a nominalised phrase.
- After its first word the body of the letter names no agent: התקבלה, נבחנה, נמצא כי, הוחלט, יש להגיש. Speech gets there with an unnamed החליטו.
- Verbal noun plus smichut swallows whole clauses — ממועד קבלת מכתב זה — because a noun phrase commits to no tense, person or subject. And להמציא is to invent in ordinary Hebrew, to furnish a document in officialese.
- תוך 30 יום keeps a singular יום as a frozen chunk, not a rule: one 1958 statute writes ארבעים וחמישה ימים in section 2(a) and שלושים יום in section 4.
- Israeli statutes carry no copyright (Copyright Act 5768–2007, s. 6); everything else the State writes is protected for fifty years (s. 42).
Now practice Hebrew
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