Bad Purity, Good Furniture

Like so many others in touch with their inner spirituality, this girl decided to get a Hebrew tattoo. The tattoo was supposed to say "Purity" in Hebrew...


And just like everyone else's, her Hebrew tattoo was rendered backwards.

However, this victim's spiritual mistake turned slightly unusual results. This particular reversed tattoo actually has a meaning of its own! Several meanings, even.

The intended word "Purity" is pronounced "Tohar" in Hebrew. Reversed, it can be read as "Rihut", which means "Furniture" or "Rahut" - the male form of "Fluent".

Unlucky? Sure. But at least it can be salvaged. If the girl adds the letter "He" to the left of her tattoo, she'll have the female form of "Fluent", which is a perfectly acceptable Hebrew tattoo, boasting her great linguistic skills. A tiny bit ironic maybe, but it beats adding the Hebrew word for "Garden", thus turning the tattoo into "Garden Furniture" and opening a new business.

I'm sure this girl feels lucky for this opportunity to expand her horizons or launch a brand new career. Really, it could be a lot worse.


And this is how "Purity" is correctly written in Hebrew, from right to left, the way it should be:

Shabbat Special: Hope, Dad, Double Mom

For today's Shabbat Special, I bring you more good Hebrew tattoos!

Look at the Hebrew tattoo below, sent in by Reut. A very pretty and cheery design, integrating the Hebrew word "Tikva" - Which in English means Hope.

Picture belongs to the hebrew-tattoo facebook group

And look at this, a Hamsa tattoo sent in by Dafna. The hand looks quite realistic, and very impressive! The Hebrew word on the three middle fingers says "Aba", which means Dad.



And we'll wrap it up with something a little different. A guy who REALLY loves his mother, and is not shy about it.


This ended up in Shabbat Special, because well, the Hebrew is completely correct. It says "I love my mother" once on each leg!

Two questions arise: You love your Mom, but does Mom love this tattoo? Also, doesn't Dad deserve a leg too?

Greater Things Go Greatly Wrong

Today I bring you something fresh from the oven, this disaster of a Hebrew tattoo was just inked last week!

Oh, but whatever does it say?


The guy meant his Hebrew tattoo to say "Greater Things", but he probably got his translation from either an online translator or his worst enemy. This actually says "Her Rabi Had Given" or maybe "She-Rabi Nathan".

You can kind of see how it got there. The first word has to do with magnitude, even if not in the way the victim meant, while the second word means "given", and you can give things... But really, this Hebrew tattoo is a big, silly mess.

Yes, and this is how you properly write "Greater Things" in Hebrew, even if it doesn't quite have the same flair that the expression implies in its English form:


Do I really need to repeat the warning again? I guess I do.

Never use an online translator when translating an expression from English to Hebrew. You might correctly translate a single word, but never an expression. It's nearly impossible to get right!

Believe in Dictionaries (But Only to a Degree)

Does looking up the word for your Hebrew tattoo, in a dictionary, sounds like a good idea? Today's victim apparently thought so...


The girl wanted a Hebrew tattoo saying a very spiritual "believe". The resulting tattoo actually does say "believe", but it also has several extras, attached for free.

Look at the right part of the tattoo, the letter Pe in parentheses. This is the dictionary's shorthand, indicating a verb. Now look at the leftmost character of the tattoo... What do we have there, could it be an unmatched random parenthesis? Oh yeah. However did it get there?

Without all the special extras, the Hebrew tattoo saying "Believe" (as in "to believe") should look like this:


If you want your "Believe" as an order (believe!), that would be a little bit different.


The lesson of this little story should be clear - Dictionaries are alright for getting your tattoo material, but some good judgment should be applied as well. Also, if something looks like a punctuation mark - it most likely isn't an unknown ancient symbol.

Shabbat Special: Welcome the Good Hebrew Tattoos

Welcome to the first Shabbat Special, the one corner of Bad Hebrew Tattoos that is not about Hebrew tattoos gone wrong!

In this new weekly corner, published every Saturday, I'll showcase Hebrew tattoos which are lovely and special, and also some bad Hebrew that isn't necessarily tattoo related.


Today's feature is a nicely rendered tattoo of the name Yosef (the Hebrew form of Joseph). See how the name is seamlessly embedded into the design? That's a good Hebrew tattoo!

Yosef tattoo is a work of Theresa Gordon Wade.


Also, behold this truly beautiful Hamsa. Hamsa, in the Jewish tradition (and several others, too) is a symbol of good luck and protection from the evil eye. I'd have to say the charm worked, as the tattoo looks really good.

Tattoo by Tyson Ward.


You should know - the good Hebrew tattoos are extremely rare. I don't mean correct Hebrew tattoos, there is plenty of that going around. I mean the genuinely good looking, thought out, beautiful tattoos. Those are a rarity.

Do you know of any Hebrew tattoo that fits the bill? Mail it to typotat@gmail.com, for a chance to be featured on BHT's Shabbat Special!

Bi-Directional Fail

Today's Hebrew tattoo is just a little bit strange.

This girl either wanted to make double-sure that her tattoo is readable or just to confuse the heck out of whoever tries to read it. Whatever the explanation might be, the words are rotated in different directions: To read the first word, you need to tilt your head to the left, but to read the other two, tilt your head right.


She went to all this trouble, and still, every single word in this tattoo is written backwards!

The words by themselves are simple enough, this victim of the Hebrew language went for "Life Love Trust".

Of course, she might have meant something else entirely. Something along the lines of "Live, Love, Believe" for example, but that's just my unconfirmed guesswork.

Yes. This is how "Life Love Trust" is meant to be written in correct, right to left, Hebrew:


I'll repeat once again for the sake of the uninitiated: Hebrew language is written right-to-left. Forgetting this simple fact might bring you a skinfull of grief.

Beware of Spiritual Gematria Gibberish

Today's victim has an especially spiritual Hebrew tattoo. So spiritual, in fact, that its impossible to know what he meant by it at all...


See, according to the victim, this Hebrew tattoo is supposed to have some Gematria meaning.

Gematria is the Jewish practice of converting Hebrew letters into numbers and then looking for some special meanings based on that value. This practice is of course completely bogus - you can pick and choose your results to suit your agenda, but it looks impressive enough to con the ignorant. For example, it might lead you to believe that Sarah Palin is the devil's disciple.

Back on topic, today's Hebrew tattoo is simply composed of random letters, and does not mean anything. Sure, it might convert to some number in Gematria, but who cares? In the Hebrew language this tattoo is just a pile of gibberish.