October 2026 edition

How The baba Ulpan Index works

Which human-taught Hebrew programs AI assistants name when learners and new immigrants ask where to study Hebrew. This page publishes everything needed to check the board: the questions, the engines, how names are matched, how scores are computed, and what the numbers cannot tell you.

What the Index Measures

Each month the same frozen set of 100 questions goes to 3 AI engines with web search turned on. Every answer is stored unmodified. The answers are then searched for the names of 115 tracked Hebrew programs, and each program is scored on how often the engines name it.

The index measures visibility in AI answers. It does not measure teaching quality, price, results, or whether an answer recommended a program or only mentioned it. A program can be excellent and rarely named, or named often for reasons that have nothing to do with how well it teaches.

Which Programs Are in Scope

The board covers Hebrew courses and ulpanim taught by people. In scope:

Ulpanim in Israel: private, municipal and state-funded
Online Hebrew courses taught live by a human teacher
University Hebrew and ulpan programs, in Israel and abroad
The government ulpan for new immigrants (Ministry of Aliyah and Integration)
Kibbutz ulpan programs
Hebrew programs run by aliyah organizations, and the organizations that run them
Tutor marketplaces where a human teacher teaches live, such as italki and Preply
Community and religious institutions that run Hebrew classes

Out of scope, and never counted:

Self-study apps and software, including Duolingo, Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, Babbel, Drops, Memrise and HebrewPod101
Self-paced online courses, podcasts, YouTube channels, textbooks, dictionaries and media sites, including Talk In Hebrew, Easy Learn Hebrew, Hebrewbyte and My Jewish Learning
Full-time Jewish day schools, where Hebrew is one subject in a general K-12 curriculum
General AI chat assistants
Every baba product, including the baba translator, baba Learn and Speak Hebrew

The Question Set (V1.0)

100 questions, frozen on October 5, 2026 and weighted equally. They are written the way learners, olim, converts, parents and retirees actually ask, and grouped below by topic. No question names a program, so no answer is steered toward one. Changing any question requires a new version number, and editions with different versions are not compared directly.

Some indexes keep their prompts private. There is no reason to here: the questions are ordinary, and publishing them lets anyone rerun them.

Before and after aliyah

Where should I learn Hebrew before making aliyah?
What is the best ulpan in Israel for new immigrants?
What are the best ulpanim in Israel right now?
I'm moving to Israel next year. Should I start Hebrew classes online now or wait for an ulpan in Israel?
What is the best Hebrew course to take before moving to Israel?
How do I sign up for ulpan as a new oleh?
Which ulpan is best for olim who need to start working quickly?
What is the best ulpan for young olim in their twenties?
Is it worth paying for a private ulpan instead of the free government ulpan?
What are my options for learning Hebrew after aliyah if I work full time?

Ulpan by city in Israel

What is the best ulpan in Tel Aviv?
What is the best ulpan in Jerusalem for English speakers?
Where can I take ulpan in Haifa?
What are good ulpan options in Netanya?
Is there a good ulpan in Ra'anana?
Where can I learn Hebrew in Beer Sheva?
What are the best Hebrew classes in Modiin?
What ulpan options are there in Herzliya?
Where can I study Hebrew in Beit Shemesh?
What is the best evening ulpan in Tel Aviv for people with day jobs?
Which ulpan in Jerusalem has small classes?
Where can I find an ulpan in northern Israel, near Haifa or Karmiel?
Where can new immigrants study Hebrew in Ashdod?

Online, with a live teacher

What is the best online Hebrew course with a live teacher?
What is the best online ulpan I can join from the United States?
Where can I take live Hebrew classes on Zoom?
What is the best online Hebrew school for beginners?
Is an online ulpan as good as studying Hebrew in Israel?
What is the best online course for conversational Israeli Hebrew?
Where can I find a good private online Hebrew tutor?
Which online Hebrew classes work for European time zones?
What are the best live online Hebrew classes for advanced learners?
Which online ulpan offers small group classes?

Intensive and professional

What is the best intensive ulpan in Israel?
Is there an intensive Hebrew course for professionals in Israel?
Which ulpan is best for doctors and medical professionals moving to Israel?
Is there a Hebrew course for lawyers or accountants moving to Israel?
What is the best Hebrew course for people working in tech in Israel?
Where can I do a one-month intensive Hebrew course in Israel?
Which ulpan offers a summer intensive program?
What is the best academic ulpan for someone planning to study at an Israeli university?

Free and subsidized

Is there a free ulpan for new immigrants in Israel?
How does the government ulpan work for olim?
Can returning residents or minor returning citizens get a free ulpan in Israel?
Where can I find a subsidized ulpan in Israel?
Can I still get a free ulpan if I moved to Israel several years ago?
Are there free Hebrew classes for new immigrants from Ukraine or Russia?
Are there free online Hebrew classes for people planning aliyah?

University programs

Which Israeli universities offer an ulpan?
What is the best university Hebrew program for international students in Israel?
What is the best summer ulpan at an Israeli university?
Which US universities have strong Modern Hebrew programs?
Where can I study Hebrew for academic credit?
What is the best summer Hebrew immersion program in the United States?

Kibbutz ulpan

What is the best kibbutz ulpan?
How does a kibbutz ulpan program work, and which kibbutzim offer one?

Long-term programs in Israel

What long-term programs in Israel include an ulpan for people from abroad?
Are there programs for young adults to live in Israel for a few months and learn Hebrew?
What Hebrew immersion programs exist for Jewish young adults from abroad aged 18 to 30?

Conversion and religious study

Where can someone converting to Judaism learn Hebrew?
What is the best Hebrew course for converts in Israel?
Where can I take Hebrew classes while in a conversion program in the US?
Which ulpan is good for religious or Torah-observant students?
Is there a women-only ulpan in Jerusalem?

Children and teens

What are the best Hebrew classes for kids before moving to Israel?
Where can my children take online Hebrew classes with a live teacher?
How do immigrant children learn Hebrew in Israeli schools, and is there an ulpan for kids?
What is the best Hebrew tutoring for teenagers moving to Israel?
Where can kids in the US learn Hebrew if they don't go to a Jewish day school?

Retirees

What is the best ulpan for retirees moving to Israel?
Where can seniors take Hebrew classes in Israel?
Is there a slower-paced ulpan for older olim?
What are good online Hebrew classes for retirees?

By first language

Which ulpan is best for English speakers in Israel?
Where can French speakers learn Hebrew before moving to Israel?
Is there an ulpan in Israel with support for French speakers?
What is the best Hebrew course for Russian speakers?
Where can Russian-speaking immigrants study Hebrew in Israel?
What are the best Hebrew classes for Spanish speakers in Latin America?
Is there an online Hebrew course for Spanish speakers moving to Israel?
What is the best ulpan for Portuguese speakers from Brazil?
Where can Ukrainian speakers learn Hebrew?
Where can Arabic speakers take Hebrew classes in Israel?

Outside Israel

Where can I take Hebrew classes in New York City?
What is the best ulpan in Los Angeles?
Where can adults take Hebrew classes in London?
Where can I learn Hebrew in Toronto?
Where can I take Hebrew classes in Paris?
Is there a Hebrew ulpan in Buenos Aires?
Where can adults learn Hebrew in Melbourne or Sydney?
Where can I take Hebrew classes in South Florida?

By level

What is the best ulpan for absolute beginners who can't read the Hebrew alphabet yet?
Where can I find an advanced ulpan at the Gimel or Dalet level?

Format, price and special cases

What are the best weekend or evening Hebrew classes in Israel?
Where can I get good one-on-one Hebrew lessons in Israel?
What is the cheapest good ulpan in Israel?
Where can I learn Biblical Hebrew with a live teacher?
Where can the non-Jewish partner of an Israeli learn Hebrew?
Is there a Hebrew course for lone soldiers or people joining the IDF?
Which ulpan is best for learning everyday spoken Israeli Hebrew and slang?

Engines, Models and Collection Dates

Engine	Model	How it was called	Answers
Claude Anthropic	claude-sonnet-5-5	Anthropic Messages API with the server-side web search tool, no system prompt.	100
GPT-4o with web search OpenAI, via OpenRouter	openai/gpt-4o	OpenRouter chat completions with the :online web plugin, no system prompt.	100
Perplexity Sonar Perplexity, via OpenRouter	perplexity/sonar	OpenRouter chat completions against Perplexity's search-grounded Sonar model, no system prompt.	100

Answers for the October 2026 edition were collected October 5, 2026: 300 of 300 expected answers. Each question was asked once per engine, as a single user message with no system prompt, no conversation history and no location. Claude could run up to five web searches per answer. Default sampling settings were used throughout.

Claude (Anthropic, claude-sonnet-5-5) named at least one tracked program in 99 of 100 answers.
GPT-4o with web search (OpenAI, via OpenRouter, openai/gpt-4o) named at least one tracked program in 92 of 100 answers.
Perplexity Sonar (Perplexity, via OpenRouter, perplexity/sonar) named at least one tracked program in 89 of 100 answers.

This queries APIs with web search enabled. It is NOT the ChatGPT product. The retrieval stack differs, there is no personalization, and no session history. Treat it as a directional, reproducible proxy, good for detecting change over time, not for claiming what a ChatGPT user sees today.

How Names Are Matched (Entity Resolution)

Every tracked program has an entity record: a display name, the aliases and common misspellings that count as naming it, its website domains, its city (or "online") and its type. The table (v1.1) has 115 records and is published on the corrections page, so any program can check its own.

Letter boundaries. An alias only matches as a whole name, never inside a longer word.
Folding. Accents, curly apostrophes and dashes are normalized, and spaces, hyphens and apostrophes inside a name are optional, so "Citizen Cafe", "Ulpan La Inyan" and "Nefesh BNefesh" all match.
Case-sensitive aliases (32 of them) handle names that collide with ordinary words or other uses: "Ulpan Or" counts, "an ulpan or a tutor" does not. Acronyms such as NBN and WZO match only in capitals.
Longest match wins. When two aliases overlap, the longer one is kept, so one stretch of text never counts twice or for two programs.
Generic phrases never count. "government ulpan", "municipal ulpan", "kibbutz ulpan", "private ulpan", "online ulpan", "private tutor", "Ulpan Aleph and Ulpan Bet (level names, not programs)", "Chabad, synagogues and JCCs named as a category", and similar category words describe a kind of program, not a specific one. Questions use them, so counting them would let the questions write the answers.
Cited domains are recorded separately. When an answer cites a page on a program's website, that is stored (and published in the CSV), but it does not change share of voice. Only names in the answer text do. Some engines write their citations inline as links whose text is just a domain; those links and bare URLs are removed before matching, so one engine's citation style cannot earn extra mentions.
How the table was built. The first version came from public listings of ulpanim and Hebrew courses. After collection, names and cited domains that the answers used but the table missed were reviewed, and every in-scope program named in at least two answers that could be tied to its own website was added. The stored answers were then scored once against the final table. Because every raw answer is kept, any later correction to an entity record can be rescored against the same answers.

How Scores Are Computed

Measure	Definition
Mention	One answer that names the program at least once. An answer that repeats a name five times is one mention; the raw count of occurrences is kept in the CSV for audit.
Share of voice	A program's mentions divided by all tracked program mentions in the edition (1070 in October 2026). Shares add up to the whole board.
Appearance rate	The share of the 100 questions where at least one engine named the program.
Engine coverage	How many of the 3 engines named the program at least once.
Rank	By share of voice. Ties are broken by appearance rate, then engine coverage, then alphabetically by name, so every rank is unique. A program with zero mentions is listed as unranked, not ranked last.

Questions are weighted equally and engines are weighted equally: every answer carries the same weight. If an engine failed to answer a question, that answer is simply missing; nothing is imputed.

Limitations

A proxy, not the consumer products. These are API calls with web search, not the ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity apps people use, which add their own retrieval, memory and personalization.
One sample per question per engine. AI answers vary from run to run. Programs with only a few mentions can move a long way between editions on noise alone; the top of the board is more stable than the tail.
A mention is not a recommendation. An aliyah organization named in a sentence about paperwork counts the same as an ulpan named as the best choice. Organizations that appear in many aliyah answers score well for that reason. The government ulpan is counted by the ministry's name (Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, Misrad HaKlita), which answers also use when explaining benefits and paperwork, so its row is labeled with the ministry's name.
English questions only. French, Russian and Spanish speakers are represented by questions about them, asked in English. Answers in other languages, or names written in Hebrew or Cyrillic, are not covered.
Broad aliases. University names such as "Hebrew University" count even when an answer mentions the university for something other than its ulpan, such as a textbook series.
Model choice. The OpenAI engine is GPT-4o through OpenRouter's web plugin, chosen for continuity with baba's other answer-engine tracking. It is older than the model ChatGPT users get by default.
The entity table can miss programs. A program the table does not know cannot be counted. Programs that find themselves missing can ask to be added.

Conflicts of Interest

baba publishes this index. baba is a Hebrew translation company, not an ulpan, and does not run any program on the board.
baba makes a Hebrew learning app, baba Learn (Speak Hebrew). That is why apps are excluded from the board: baba would otherwise be ranking its own competitors. No baba product is tracked or ranked.
baba has an organization pilot with the Jewish Federation of Detroit (jewishdetroit). The Federation is not tracked as a program on the board, and the pilot has no bearing on any ranking.
No program paid to be included, and placement cannot be bought. The engines' answers decide the order.

Rankings are not for sale. No program can pay to be added, moved or removed. Corrections to an entity record are made for anyone who asks, on the evidence, and logged publicly.

Checking and Reproducing It

Every question is listed above, and the board for each edition is downloadable as a CSV. Raw answers, stored with the engine, model, timestamp, question id and every cited URL, are available on request from shalom@itsbaba.com. Anyone can put the same questions to the same models and compare.