Wanted: A legion of proofreaders
Starting in 1915, Zionist leaders Zeev Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor lobbied for a military unit of Jews to fight alongside the British in the war against the Ottoman Turks. By the end of the war, 5,000 Jews — from Palestine, the United States, England, and elsewhere — had enrolled in dedicated battalions collectively known in English as the Jewish Legion.
The Hebrew title for the units is Hag’dud Ha’ivri, literally the Hebrew legion. Which makes it more than a little ironic that one of the signs marking the Jerusalem street named for the legion is, as recently pointed out by a sharp resident, deficient in its Hebrew.
Actually, it’s a true multilingual fail; the English is also flawed and so too — and here we’re trusting more expert eyes than ours — is the Arabic. Which leaves us with a question for those of our readers more familiar with the life of Jabotinsky, who was a writer and editor in his years before and after serving with the Legion. How did he react when faced with egregious typos?
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