The language of Moses has also absorbed “blind date,” “under control” and “hacker” (pronounced hah-cker), along with some 10,000 other words and expressions that have been compiled in a dictionary of Israeli slang, a best seller since it came out this fall.

The hefty hardcover tome reflects the onslaught of foreign words in the age of globalization and the struggle of modern Hebrew — revived as a spoken language just a century ago — to adapt an ancient vocabulary to modern times.

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