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Re: Hebrew on linux-il



Just a few short notes on Hebrew e-mail:

1. Contrary to common belief (and expressions on this forum),
   there are *no* multiple standards of Hebrew e-mail. There
   is exactly one standard for encoding Hebrew in e-mail
   (RFC1555/6, and SI1904 - which are identical). This standard
   specifies visual bidirectional encoding as the "mainstream"
   method. The problem is that this standard is old and does
   not meet current demands anymore. The SII (Standards Institute
   of Israel) is now completing an update to this standard.
   This new standard will specify implicit bidirectional encoding
   (called "Logical" by Microsoft, a misnomer IMHO) as the
   recommended and superior method of encoding Hebrew (while
   maintaining a certain level of backward compatibility).

2. The original poster sent out a completely nonstandard Hebrew
   message, by specifying charset as ISO8859-8 (the standard
   calls for ISO-8859-8 - an extra dash... Yes, this breaks
   standard implementations). Just goes to emphasize the problem.

3. It is recommended that new implementations of Hebrew e-mail
   (including mailing lists...), will support the new standard.
   One package that is already supporting it is (flame-resistent
   underwear on...) MS Outlook Express 5 (not 4!).

Having said that, my personal feeling, for what it's worth,
is that a Hebrew-based Linux mailing list will be of little
value.

Hag Sameach!
Doron Shikmoni