Slanted Hebrew either appears as a semi-cursive style used for biblical comments or as a self-sufficient cursive display style for headlines or shop signs, like Ruq’ah in Arabic. But compared to tracking, underlining, scaling, colouring and changing the weight, slanting is barely used for emphasizing in Hebrew.

One reason could be that designers cannot agree on whether Hebrew should slant back or forth. There are pro’s and con’s on each side. Some argue that the slant should follow the writing direction. This native slant descends from stone cutting and therefore dictates the correct direction. Slanting Hebrew backwards would be the same thing like a person running backwards. It’s pure latinisation. In other designers point of view, slanted Hebrew should follow the direction of latin italics, because it flows better and it follows the same direction of Hebrew handwriting (except for Liron as a left-hander). Also it matches proper latin names within a hebrew text. Although the cases in which you can’t display a word or name in Hebrew are quite rare.

The Vicious Circle of Italics

Concerning font production, we’re facing even harder challenges:

Firstly, there are hardly any Hebrew italics. That’s why designers don’t use them. And that’s why type designers don’t design them. And that’s why there are none. And so on.

According to Liron, designers should ask themselves: “Do we must offer several secondary styles, just because it’s common in Latin?” or because the “i”, “b” and “u” buttons in text editors claim respective features?

 

Not least, slanted Hebrew faces judgement of the people on the street. According to Lirons research, the majority prefers the backslanted version. The backslanted shop signs in israeli streets stand for themselves.

Finally, the most significant conclusion is provided by the people. Real life often differs from the designers intentions. Whether back or forth, maybe the solution to these challenges could be to provide both slanted directions in one typeface? With a variable back-and-forth-axis. Shall the people decide.