Babel for hebrew

Question

I am not able to write in Hebrew with latex. Every time I try to compile the process ends with a question mark. The following is an example of the document I am using:

\documentclass[dvips, a4paper, hebrew,italian,10pt]{book}


\usepackage{ucs}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage[hebrew,italian]{babel}
\usepackage{fontenc}

\begin{document}

תשץצסןנ

\end{document}

Any help?

Answer 1

I was able to find a solution here by finferflu who used package cjhebrew.

The code is

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{pslatex}
\usepackage[hebrew,english]{babel}

\usepackage{cjhebrew}
\begin{document}
\begin{cjhebrew}
br+syt br' 'lhym 't h+smym w't h'r.s;
\end{cjhebrew}


\begin{flushright}
When God began to create heaven and earth, 
\end{flushright}
\end{document}

and the output is

Another possibility, for a more extended use of Hebrew(as a document language for instance) is to use XeLaTeX and polyglossia package as suggested by @egreg at Help getting started with Hebrew in babel

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage{hebrew}
\setmainfont{Times New Roman}
% \newfontfamily{\hebrewfont}{New Peninim MT}
\begin{document}
\title{שלום עולם}
\author{שלום עולם}
\maketitle

העיר מקודשת ליהדות, לנצרות ולאסלאם, והיוותה מרכז חיי העם היהודי בימי
קדם ומושא געגועיו בזמן שהייתו בגלות. משום מרכזיותה בעולמם של המאמינים,
הייתה העיר מוקד למלחמות וסכסוכים הנמשכים עד עצם היום הזה. מאז סוף המאה
ה-19 התפתחו סביב העיר העתיקה שכונות העיר החדשה, המהוות כיום את רובה
המוחלט של העיר. במרכזה של ירושלים השלמה עומד הר הבית, שמפריד בין מערב
ירושלים למזרח ירושלים.

בשנת 1981 הוכרזה העיר העתיקה של ירושלים כאתר מורשת עולמית על ידי ארגון
אונסק"ו של האומות המאוחדות, והיא נמצאת ברשימת האתרים בסיכון.


\end{document}

Answer 2

You will need to install culmus-latex in order to Hebrew font support. Afterwards, the following example should compile find and display Hebrew correctly:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ucs}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english,hebrew]{babel}
\begin{document} 
שלום \L{World}!
\end{document}

Answer 3

As of 2021, this question is badly in need of an update. It would probably be better to redirect the multiple questions from years ago to an up-to-date answer, but I’m not sure which one.

In the Modern Toolchain

In 2021, I would recommend switching to Babel in LuaLaTeX, although any combination of Babel or Polyglossia with LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX should work. Here is a template you can use in LuaLaTeX:

\documentclass[a4paper,italian,10pt]{book}
\tracinglostchars=3
\usepackage[bidi=basic, layout=sectioning.tabular]{babel}
\usepackage{unicode-math}
\usepackage{microtype}

\babelprovide[import=he, onchar=fonts ids]{hebrew}

\babelfont{rm}
          {NewComputerModern10-Book}
\babelfont{sf}
          {NewComputerModernSans10-Book}
\babelfont{tt}
          {NewComputerModernMono10-Book}
\setmathfont{NewCMMath-Book}

\begin{document}
Italiano e תשץצסןנ.
\end{document}

Although Javier Bezos is the maintainer of Babel and the authority on how it works, there are three or four little tweaks I would add to his answer, from personal experience.

In PDFLaTeX

Some publishers and professors still don’t want to upgrade from 8-bit fonts in the 2020s. In theory, there is a package called IvriTeX that should enable the [hebrew] option of babel to work. In practice, even its last maintainer said years ago that it’s better to switch to XeTeX. Since then, LuaLaTeX support for Hebrew has improved greatly.

The culmus-latex package at the same site works as well. Copy the files under texmf in the archive to your texmf-local directory (which you can normally find with kpsewhich --var-value=TEXMFLOCAL), then run

texhash
updmap-sys --enable Map=culmus.map

Use sudo or whatever permission you need on your system to update your texmf-local directory.

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt,hebrew,italian]{book}
\tracinglostchars=3
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[use-david]{culmus}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}

\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
\begin{otherlanguage}{hebrew}

קדם ומושא געגועיו בזמן שהייתו בגלות. משום מרכזיותה בעולמם של המאמינים,
הייתה העיר מוקד למלחמות וסכסוכים הנמשכים עד עצם היום הזה. מאז סוף המאה
ה-\L{19} התפתחו סביב העיר העתיקה שכונות העיר החדשה, המהוות כיום את רובה
המוחלט של העיר. במרכזה של ירושלים השלמה עומד הר הבית, שמפריד בין מערב
ירושלים למזרח ירושלים.

בשנת \L{1981}  הוכרזה העיר העתיקה של ירושלים כאתר מורשת עולמית על ידי ארגון
אונסק"ו של האומות המאוחדות, והיא נמצאת ברשימת האתרים בסיכון.

\end{otherlanguage}

Italiano e \R{תשץצסןנ}.
\end{document}

Note that, with this implementation, you must wrap Arabic numerals and other LTR text within Hebrew paragraphs in \L commands, and short blurbs of RTL text within LTR paragraphs in \R. RTL in math mode belongs inside a \hmbox. Attempting to switch between LTR and RTL languages with \foreignlanguage or \selectlanguage on the same line will not work, but changing the language for entire paragraphs with \begin{otherlanguage} will.

Given the lack of hyphenation patterns for Hebrew, you might want to also load \usepackage{microtype} and set \emergencystretch 3em to improve the spacing of long words LaTeX is unable to hyphenate. Neither of these will harm paragraphs that lay out nicely without them.

Answer 4

Try switching between the "hebrew" and "italian" position in the class and babel commands. This is your code with the changes marked:

\documentclass[dvips, a4paper, italian, hebrew ,10pt]{book} % <- here

\usepackage{ucs}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage[italian, hebrew]{babel} % <- and here
\usepackage{fontenc}

\begin{document}

תשץצסןנ

\end{document}

I get the same errors as you when I copy your code to Texmaker on windows with culmus-latex installed, and everything works fine when changing places. It seems like the problem is having "hebrew" as the first language.

Answer 5

It worked for me using the following code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Times New Roman}
\begin{document}
\title{שלום עולם}
\author{שלום עולם}
\maketitle

הצלחתי 

\end{document}