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Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4902690,00.html
Conference in Jordan on Teaching Hebrew in the Arab World
(Ynet News) Roi Kais - Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, and Iraqi students gathered for a workshop in Amman last week, organized by the Center for Israel Studies in Amman and the Israel Institute, to discuss the future of the Hebrew language in the Arab world. Hebrew studies courses began at Egyptian universities in the 1960s and there are 13 universities with over 2,500 students who learn about Hebrew in Egypt every year. A similar program began in Iraq in 1969, in Saudi Arabia in 1994, and in Jordan in 2000 at Yarmouk University. One barrier for Hebrew language studies in the Arab world is the social aspect - how a student's friends and family may view them for studying Hebrew, and may take it as an act of "normalization." Moreover, people are afraid that they will be seen as pushing Israeli and Jewish points of view in the Arab world.