ב, the Hebrew cursive letter bet

History

ב is the 2nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 2. In traditional and modern Hebrew and Yiddish, it represents the voiced bilabial plosive /b/ or the voiced labiodental fricative /v/ depending on presence of a dagesh.

In cursive handwriting, bet is executed in a continuous curved motion starting from the top and rounding into a flat base stroke, distinct from the rigid right angle and base serif of the printed square letter.

Bet commonly appears at the head of traditional correspondence in abbreviations such as "Be-ezrat Hashem" (with the help of God) or in Yiddish texts to represent the b sound or paired with double vav for v.

With vowel points, the two sounds are told apart by a dot in the centre of the letter, the dagesh, for /b/, and no dot for /v/.^[1] Some non-Israeli Ashkenazi speakers call the letter beis.^[2] Bet is the first letter of the Torah,^[3] and because bet is two, this is said to symbolise the two parts of the Torah, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.^[4]