... see message 56606
<http://www.mail-archive.com/ntg-context%40ntg.nl/msg56606.html> 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).

 

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. 

Thank you very much again.  This was helpful, and here is my minimal working example:

\definefontfeature[hebrew][default][script=hebr,ccmp=yes]

\definefont [myhebrew] [SILEOTSR.ttf*hebrew] 

\setupdirections[bidi=on,method=two]

\starttext

Here is the first line of the Bible.

{\myhebrew  בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃  }

\stoptext

I still have some questions.  It took me a long time to understand that

\definefont [myhebrew] [SILEOTSR.ttf*hebrew] 

would use the fontfeature "hebrew" that I had defined together with the font file SILEOTSR.ttf and assign this pairing to the nickname "myhebrew".  Rik's example also has "sa 1" which I do not understand. 

\definefontfeature [aramaic] [default][ccmp=yes,script=hebr]

\definefont [aramaic] [KeterYG-Medium.ttf*aramaic sa 1]

Is the syntax for definefont using "*" documented somewhere?  Is it similar to definefontsynonym at http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Fonts_in_LuaTeX  (and below)?