When Lily Yacobi thinks about the Hebrew letter Tet, which is open at the top, she imagines flying popcorn. The letter Gimel conjures up images of high-heeled shoes. And the letter Tav, the last of the 26-letter Hebrew alphabet, called the Aleph-Bet, reminds her of pink painted toenails.

If it all seems a little offbeat, Lily and her mother, Diana Yacobi, of Englewood, say there's a method behind their whimsical thinking.

The mother-and-daughter team is putting its fanciful ideas about teaching people to read Hebrew to the test with a series of snappy educational materials including "The Aleph Bet Story," a new book and audio CD series, designed to make learning to read Hebrew easier, more accessible and, they hope, fun. The company they founded is Sarah and David Publications, named after the two main characters featured in their material.

To spread the word about their product, the Hebrew-teaching duo has taken to the road, visiting Hebrew school classrooms, exhibiting at professional conferences and a book-reading event at the Barnes & Noble in Edgewater. They have been featured in articles in several local and national Jewish publications.

From right to left

Learning to read Hebrew and retaining what you've learned is difficult, says Diana, who earned a master's degree in Jewish education from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and who serves as the educational director of the religious school at Temple Emanu-el in Closter.

The letters are different, and Hebrew is read from right to left, says Lily, who says kids can often confuse the letters and become overwhelmed.

In a recent phone conversation with the Courier News, Lily and Diana described how their passion for helping students learn to read Hebrew has turned into a full-time business.

Over the years, Lily, who works as an event planner in New York and has a degree in finance and marketing, has tutored many of her mother's students who were preparing for their bar or bat mitzvah ceremony, including kids at all ability levels and some with special needs.

"I was coming up with cues for how they could remember the vowels and letters," she says.

About two years ago, during a lunchtime brainstorming session with the mother of one of her students, Lily conceived of the idea of creating a set of characters who tell a story about each of the Hebrew letters. She enlisted her mother's professional help, and the two have been working together ever since.

"We work amazingly well together," Lily says. "We brainstorm well. I'm the diva, the drama case. She is remarkably calm," Lily says of her mother.

"We bring distinctive and separate talents," Diana adds. "Creatively, we work together. But she's the business side and I'm the educator and bring problems to the table from the perspective of the teacher and the student."

Lily located Sari Bourne, a childhood friend who'd become an artist, to serve as the series' illustrator.

Less than one year later, in November 2004, Lily and Diana published "The Aleph Bet Story" with an audio CD, the first in a planned series of books and related accessory items such as Hebrew letter necklaces.

The glossy, colorful book features a cast of comic-book-style characters who sing, joke and dance their way through the Hebrew alphabet with a quick, one-page story for each letter. Letters are compared to real-world objects children enjoy, such as flying popcorn, space flight and baseball. Letters are described vividly as having corners or curves, sitting on a line or dropping below it. Some have dots, others have arms, legs, toes or tails. There's a song at the end, which is on the CD that accompanies the book.

While the idea of sound association isn't entirely new, Diana says, their approach is new.

"What we have done is taken it to a higher level." They combine the whimsical with the analytical. "We're making a person do a lot of work, but having fun," she says.

Ilisia Kissner, director of the religious school at Congregation B'nai Israel in the Basking Ridge section of Bernards, is considering using the Sarah and David books in the synagogue's school, which has 267 students enrolled in a four-hour per week program, from kindergarten through seventh grade.

"It's very creative and colorful, and there is a need for kids to enjoy what they're learning," she says. She says the materials might be very useful in the home because many parents do not read Hebrew and the material is designed so that parents can learn along with their kids.

But Kissner acknowledges it might be difficult for her school, which uses a prayerbased approach to teaching Hebrew, because some of the teachers for the younger grades are members of the congregation whose knowledge of Hebrew is limited.

"They can teach letters and prayers but may not be well versed in vocabulary," Kissner says.

It is an all-too-common problem that plays out in many religious schools across the country, according to Yardit Ringvald, director of masters in Hebrew education at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, the only program of its kind, Ringvald says, whose mission is to professionalize the teaching of Hebrew.

While she hasn't seen the Yacobis' Sarah and David materials, she says an innovative approach that helps students to learn to read Hebrew is a positive step, especially if it makes it easier for those with learning disabilities.

"God bless them, it's a mitzvah," she says.

But she cautions that learning to read Hebrew is only one step in the process of knowing the language. Prayer-based Hebrew instruction fosters participation insynagogue rituals, which Ringvald agrees is completely legitimate, but she routinely encounters many college students who are frustrated because they can read Hebrew but can't understand or speak the language.

Lily expresses high hopes that if the Sarah and David characters become popular, perhaps they will create a bond for young Jewish kids. Why not create some identifier for when they're in Hebrew school?" she wonders. "Maybe it will resonate as they get older and they see they learned something that stuck with them."

From the Courier News website www.c-n.com