Modern "Hebrew" is in fact closer to Punic than Aramaic is.
Aramaic is to Punic like German is to Norwegian.
Hebrew is to Punic like Norwegian is to Danish.

You might be interested to know that modern Hebrew is, in fact, very closely related to Phoenician-Punic. Modern Hebrew is based on so-called Rabbinic/Mishnaic Hebrew, a language that is historically not true Hebrew but a Phoenician dialect.

In Krahmalkov's Phoenician-Punic dictionary and grammar books, you will see that 95% of Punic is similar, in most cases IDENTICAL, to Hebrew words. You will be lucky if you find 3% of similarity between Aramaic or Akkadian to Punic.

We will not be using Hebrew per se. We will be using Punic as a base, but any missing bits and pieces, gaps of information, will be cemented and sealed shut with Hebrew. Not all words imaginable are in the dictionary.

Just to give you examples of similarities:
The letters will be in latinized ASCII form, but represent Punic and Hebrew letters. Though the dictionary use a latinized form, this is not exactly how the dictionary deals with it, because there are some macrons I don't have on my keyboard. I'll be using some random characters which I have in this latin ASCII format (which more people have anyway).

\ = Aleph (simple glottal stop)
B = Beth (bilabial plosive)
G = Gimel (velar stop)
D = Daleth (alveolar stop)
H = He (glottal fricative)
W = Waw (bilabial) represented in Latin-leter orthography by U (V)
Z = Zayin (affricate of the shape [ZD] or [DZ], represented in Roman orthography by sd and ss in the spelling of the demonstrative pronoun Z ("this")
¤ = Heth (pharyngeal fricative) ¤NB@L (¤anniba@al)
% = Teth (retroflex stop) emphatic dental stop, almost like T
Y = Yodh (palatal glide) Represented in Latin-letter orthography by i
K = Kaph (velar stop) Represented in Neo-Punic Latin-letter orthography by CH - aspirated plosive K, like Classical Greek letter "Chi" like Kick
L = Lamedh (alveolar lateral resonant) regular L
M = Mem (bilabial nasal resonant) regular M
N = Nun (alveolar nasal resonant) regular N
S = Samekh (alveolar groove fricative) regular S
@ = Ayin (glottal obstruent) Sounds like a short french R, or "iRaq" in the old 'Syric' dialect.
P = Pe (bilabial simple stop) regular P
£ = Sadhe (alveolar affricate) TS like TSunami
Q = Qoph (uvular stop) regular unaspirated K - Kitchen
R = Resh (alveolar median resonant) is sometimes Geminated, i.e., the consonant is pronounced twice as long as it would normally be, and is also treated as belonging to both the preceeding vowel and the following.
$ = Shin (reflex of PWS) In hebrew Shin is pronounced SH as in "SHine", but in Phoenician, the letter Shin lost its fricative nature some time in the 5th Century B.C. Therefore, in Punic it was pronounced like a regular S.
T = Taw (simple alveolar stop) aspirated plosive T

[ABC] = transliterated pronunciation in hebrew or punic


Happiness
Punic: \$R [\oser]
Hebrew: \$R [\osher]

Belly
Punic: BTN [beten]
Hebrew: BTN [beten]

Sanctuary
Punic: MQD$ [mikdas]
Hebrew: MQD$ [mikda$]

Army
Punic: M¤NT [ma¤net]
Hebrew: [ma¤ne]

Stone quarry
Punic: M¤£B [ma¤£eb]
Hebrew: [ma¤£eb]

Those are some few random examples.. there are Akkadian and Aramaic connections as well, but I really have to look hard to find them, because that's how rare they are compared to the Hebrew connections.

So now you understand why Hebrew and Hebrew speakers are such a natural choice.

The dictionary is 500 pages, the grammar is 300 pages.