The Hebrew letter Yud
Yud is the tenth of the 22 letters of the alef beis. It is written י in print, in ksiva it is written as a single unbroken stroke, and its gematria value is 10. It sounds like y. My Ksiva Workbook teaches it on page 26.
Yud is the smallest letter in both scripts — a short mark hanging from the top of the line that never comes down to the base. It is also where the counting changes: alef to tess are one to nine, and from yud the alef beis goes up in tens.
- Position 10 of 22
- Gematria 10
- Sound y
- Ksiva strokes One
- Taught on page 26 of 82
How is Yud written?
The workbook teaches every letter the same four ways, so a child always knows what is being asked of them.
See both forms. The workbook opens the letter with Yud in print and in ksiva side by side, and marks the ksiva form with a numbered arrow showing where the stroke begins.
Trace it. A row of dotted outlines gives the whole shape. The child writes over the top of it, so the hand learns the movement before it has to remember the shape.
Finish it. Each box after that gives a little less of the letter than the one before, until the last box is empty and the child writes it unaided.
Use it in a word. The letter then appears in whole words to copy in script, built only from letters already taught, so the child is never asked to write a letter they have not met.
What is it confused with?
Yud and vov are told apart by length alone. Yud stops well short of the base; vov runs the full height of the line.
How is it spelled in English?
This site uses the Ashkenazi transliteration the workbook prints, Yud. You will also see it written yod, yodh. They are all the same letter.
Where it is taught
Yud is taught on page 26 of My Ksiva Workbook, an 82-page Hebrew handwriting workbook covering all 22 letters in both scripts. Every letterform on this page is taken from the book itself.