On 2014-05-03 17:16, Michael Ash wrote:

Thank you very much for the reply.  
I switched to ConTeXt standalone and now it is working. 

Best,
Michael


This works: 

\usemodule[simplefonts]
\definefontfeature[hebrew][default][script=hebr,ccmp=yes]
\setmainfont[Ezra SIL SR][features=hebrew]
\setupdirections[bidi=on]
\starttext
בְרֵאשִ֖ית בָרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ
\stoptext


BTW what is the \definefontfamily syntax that would work with \setupbodyfont in the new post-simplefonts era?

Best,
Michael

As to the by-the-way, see message 56606 in the list archive. This is not the post-simplefonts solution, but the pre-simplefonts solution. It does allow much better control over all of the fonts that make up the typeface (using ConTeXt terminology).

The example shows what to do to set a document that is primarily Hebrew (or other RtL script). If you want to mix directions, bidi may be a better choice than the setupalign of the example. If you use bidi, I suggest \setupdirections[bidi=on,method=two]. I find that without method two, there is a problem with punctuation. In particular, the comma in
some text {\heb  גדול}, some more text
gets set before, not after, the hebrew text.

If you set only some Hebrew/Aramaic/Arabic, and especially if you do not need font variants (bold, italic, ...) you might prefer to define a single font. I have used:
\definefontfeature [aramaic]
                   [default]
                   [ccmp=yes,
                    script=hebr]
\definefont        [aramaic]%% KeterYG from http://culmus.sourceforge.net/taamim/
                   [KeterYG-Medium.ttf*aramaic sa 1]
\setupdirections   [bidi=on=,method=two]
\starttext
English {\aramaic דעלך סני} English again.
\stoptext

I do note as well that there is a problem in the example in the linked message. It looks to me like the order of components is beth/shva/dagesh (for the first letter (and beth/qamatz/dagesh for the first of the second word), which ConTeXt sets incorrectly.  When the order is changed to beth/dagesh/qamatz-or-shva, they are set correctly. If you use vim, the command ga will show the decomposition of the character components.

Here are the two versions of that letter, first in the order that sets correctly:
בְּ
and then in the order that does not:
בְּ

--
rik