In Hebrew, “haver” is the masculine singular of the word “friend.” A female friend is “haverah,” the feminine plural is “haverot” and the generic plural is “haverim.”

 

In colloquial use, “Haverim” refers to the community.

Haver is sometimes transliterated as “chaver” because the initial Hebrew letter is “Heth,” or “Cheth.” Heth is the eighth letter of both the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets. Hebrew also has the letter “Heh” that is pronounced like the English “H.”

 

To vocalize the Heth one scrapes the back of the throat—what linguists call a “voiceless uvular fricative.” To understand how this should sound, imagine a Jew pronouncing the first letter of the Festival of Lights, Hanukah or Chanukah.

 

The more familiar “Heh” is the fifth letter of the Hebrew (and Arabic) Alphabets. Lamed is the twelfth letter in both Semitic languages. Hebrew uses letters for numbers; so the tenth letter, stands for the numeral “10,” the eleventh letter can mean “20” and the twelfth letter, “Lamed” is “30.” “Ha” as a prefix in Hebrew means “the.” Thus, HaLamed Heh is “the 35.”

 

The Kibbutzniks of Kfar Etzion were known as the Haverim.