Scientific English, Jewish Hebrew

I was sitting in class today and thinking about the fact that there is so much English in my science classes. One professor writes all her slides in English, but even the classes whose slides are in Hebrew nonetheless require a high level of English knowledge.

Indeed, it's safe to say that an Israeli who is either studying or working in the sciences can be assumed to have a decent understanding, though perhaps not a verbal mastery of, English.

I was struck by the similarity to the knowledge of and familiarity with Hebrew that comes with learning Judaic subjects. Technically, you can study Judaism (be it Torah, Jewish law, Jewish thought, or whatever) without a strict knowledge of Hebrew. An etrog could be a citron, an eiruv a communal partition, and mikva a reservoir. But for reasons, partially ideology and partially convenience, we use the terms and phrases already provided for us in Hebrew.

In the case of Hebrew and science, the reasons are mostly convenience and probably not ideological. After all, I doubt that speakers of French, German or Russian feel much ideological need to learn science in English (tuh!). But as someone who has a lot of experience observing the Hebrew of English speakers in a Torah setting, there is a certain reverse-familiarity when observing the English of Hebrew speakers in a science setting.