When Bad Hebrew Happens to Good People
Getting inked isn’t abhorrent behavior for Jews these days. There’s HebrewTattoo.net, a translation service that generates thousands of hits each month, and celebrity tattooists like Ami James, the Israeli-born former star of TLC’s “Miami Ink.”
But Jews looking to inscribe their bodies with the language of prayer might be wise to ignore the cautionary (and disproved) pleas of their rabbis and mothers and check out a site called Bad Hebrew Tattoos. Managed by a 28-year-old Israeli web developer who goes by Typo Tat, the site criticizes and corrects faulty — and often hilarious — Hebrew tattoo translations.
The site’s purpose is to “raise awareness of the dangers of the Hebrew tattoo trend, to prevent people from making an uninformed decision,” said Typo Tat, who declined to divulge his identity. Most of the images come from online photo-sharing sites, but he does take submissions. Started just over a year ago, the site draws about 500 unique hits a day.
Although Typo Tat has no translation background, the examples he receives are often so egregious they’d make any Hebrew speaker snicker. While the site’s meant to have educational value, it’s difficult to suppress schadenfreude. Take the woman who tattooed the cringe-worthy “I’m For Free” down her spine, or the one who foolishly spelled out her chosen Hebrew phrase, “Child of God,” with English typeset. The resulting translation: dog fo dlich.
Tattoos are a matter of taste, but bad ones — Hebrew or not — deserve to be exposed. “I started my blog to warn and deter,” Typo Tat said.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
