Arabic is the official second language of Israel and the 'sister' of Hebrew in the family of Semitic languages. The Israeli students are obliged to study the literary modern-standard Arabic (MSA), which is taught in Israeli schools within the context of the Islamic culture.

The lecture will describe and discuss the central role of languages in the cultural and political sphere of Israel and the entire Middle East.
Dr (PhD) Shlomo Alon is completing 41 years of teaching, educating and researching in the field of Arabic language. He is currently the Head of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Israeli Education Department and a member-elect of the Academy of Arabic Language in Israel. For the last 35 years he was senior-lecturer in the Teacher Training Department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His PhD dissertation explored the resources of the classical Arabic dictionaries (to the end of the 13th century).