galutim should learn hebrew

Not against programs that help establishing bonds between communities or countries, BUT, just because they know the language they are allowed to teach? Where is the methodological, pedagogical training to "teach"? There are excellent English teacher, both native and non-native speakers that see they jobs at stake due to the American olim. What they should do is to learn Hebrew and to study to be a teacher, not just by standing at the front you are one. Quality of education?? Just because it sounds native is good? Pity.

English is a very important language. It is always good to know languages. You should appreciate those Americans who are willing to go to Israel and contribute what they can.

A language that has been dead for millions of years, only spoken by about 8 million people, instead of the International language. Ha. Ha. Ha. Speaking Hebrew is about as useful anywhere outside of Israel as speaking in Swahili.

Spoken like a true Israeli, who has no recognition of the fact that Hebrew is one of the most useless languages of all time. Learn English.

It was not such a great help.

First, Hebrew is the basis for Aramaic and Arabic. Second, Hebrew is used throughout the world by the Jewish people; moreover, many Christians learn Hebrew as well. Third, many English words used today come from Hebrew.

Taking jobs away from citizens is never a good thing. How many teachers are unemployed because of this program? Even one is one too many.

Hebrew is definitely not the basis of Aramaic or Arabic. All three are Semitic languages with Aramaic and Hebrew being somewhat closely related and Arabic being somewhat distantly related. You can see Aramaic's influence in Hebrew, but I doubt you'll see much of Hebrew in Aramaic, excluding Judeo-Aramaic dialects where it is due to borrowing. I'm not quite sure how many English words come from Hebrew. Wiki has a list of a few dozen almost all related to Jewish ritual observance (In context: An educated English speaker has a vocabulary of about 20,000 words and the Oxford English Dictionary has 500,000 entries). The only good reason I can see to study Hebrew is for cultural and/or academic/research reasons. It has a large collection of existent ancient texts which are fascinating and we don't have them for most cultures of that time. Though people should probably be studying the nuance of Biblical Hebrew and comparative Near Eastern cultures for that. So we're left with culture as a reason for people outside of Israel to study modern Israeli Hebrew. I think it's a good enough reason and that there's no reason to make up trivial reasons like a couple dozen words borrowed into English or exaggerated chauvinistic claims that Hebrew is somehow the ancestor of other great languages.

It doesn't take ANY jobs away from Israeli teachers. American participants of this program serve as teaching aids, not as teachers. They assist employed Israeli teachers and provide native language knowledge.