Ivrit

 

The Mehane Yehuda market (souk) is the most popular souk in the Jerusalem area outside of the Old City itself. I’ve not yet walked through it when shops are open for business, but on one occasion shortly after our arrival here, I remember walking across its entrance, the sounds that floated in my direction sounding like the bazaars in Disney’s Aladdin. At the time, I was still insecure about navigating Jaffa Street, and my oldest child, in punctuated whispers, scolded me for how American I looked as I studied Google Maps every few steps. Apparently, I was sticking out like a sore thumb. I no longer find my way around town with my eyes glued to my phone, and now people often assume I am Jewish, or at least Israeli, but one doesn’t have to scratch very deep to see I’m not quite the real thing. What is the real thing? 

I would venture to say that most people in Jerusalem are first or second generation Israelis. Every language can be heard on the train; after Hebrew and Arabic, English and Russian are the most common languages that you hear, with French and Spanish close behind. Israelis of every color and language.

 

But what does a Jewish person look like? Jewish expression in Israel is so wildly varied. Some women wear wigs because they believe they are not supposed to show their hair. Some opt for fancy tall headdress scarves instead. But not all Jewish women cover their hair. Some men wear little disc-like kippas to cover their heads. Some wear hats with brims, like fedoras. Sometimes if you get really lucky you might see the ones my kids call “the big kahunas,” orthodox men wearing large, boxy, fur covered toppers. (Known as shtreimel, these special holiday hats are primarily worn by some Hasidic Jews of the Ashkenazi variety.) A head covering and tassels (tzitzit) are pretty standard wear for Jewish men and boys. The prayer tassels are for males only- on the bus, at the store, at the park, poking out under tailored suits, from under school uniforms and dirty preschooler play clothes… A man not wearing them here might still be Jewish… but is likely not a practicing Jew. 

 

 

Oftentimes we will see ladies on the trains or at bus stops saying their prayers which they read from books (siddurim) with moving lips. Prayer without ceasing! But just because someone is not reading from a prayer book doesn’t mean they’re not Jewish.

 

 

 

Cell phone yes or no? Well, no smartphones anyway for Orthodox Jews, these people are single-handedly keeping the brick phone market alive! Maybe this is why they seem to be fascinated by the phone screens of others. They will openly read over the shoulders of strangers if they can understand the text. One day while riding the light rail train, Noemie got so annoyed by her curious neighbor that she texted, “Hello woman sitting next to me reading my messages...” The woman looked away shame-faced and didn’t read anymore. 

 

 

 

Does a family have five "stairstep" children? Six? Seven? Likely Jewish. With my four kids, such a small family, people can't really tell if I'm Jewish or not. Can the men shake hands with women or touch them at all? Can they look directly at a woman? Tovi’s Hebrew teacher definitely avoids looking at and talking to me so I think he’s this kind. He’s much friendlier by text messages. Most Jewish families keep kosher. Not eating pork is pretty universal, but what about having separate refrigerators for meat and dairy? Some do, some don’t.

Someone looking at me might stare at me a little longer than usual trying to figure me out…

She doesn’t cover her hair... She doesn’t limit herself to skirts... She’s not carrying a prayer book... She does carry a smart phone…

If I check off all the “no's", people tend to think I’m just a secular Jewish woman- I must be Jewish, no doubt, by ethnic heritage. My family must have made aliyah (migrated to the motherland) and I just came along for the ride. The fact that I say “Ani lo mevinah Ivrit” (I don’t understand Hebrew) throws them off.

 

 

I am trying! I’m trying to teach myself and I think I’m doing pretty well! But sometimes I embarrass my kids. Like the time I picked a seat next to an orthodox boy on the bus. He must have been about eight years old--  stiff as can be in what I later understood to be a silent panic. He moved (politely) to a different spot on the bus at the next stop. And my kids turned to me, "Mami, how could you?! Didn’t you see he was Orthodox?" I saw it but I didn’t think about it. So I don’t quite fit in. Yet. But you know what? One time a waiter held his hand out to retrieve Noemie's menu and she, not quite understanding his intention, gave him a hearty handshake. So I'm not the only one lost around here.

Thankfully, I embarrass myself more often than I embarrass my kids. Teaching yourself a new language is hard! I have tried most tools in my toolbox- my working vocabulary has reached about 200 words but only about 10 of those are verbs so I can’t do a whole lot with what I know. I started off with a few mostly useless words from Duolingo. (We have been here almost two years and, contrary to what Duolingo would have had me believe, I have not yet come to a moment where I have needed to say, “The dove loves 

wine.”) I picked up a lot more words from analyzing the lyrics of our worship songs at church, only to find that worship music (and poetry and Biblical text) uses different grammar than regular spoken Hebrew. So I picked up some children’s books but they were still too advanced for me. I was looking up almost every word and I didn’t understand the way the sentences were constructed. I decided to write my own “children’s book.” I decided I would start with a simple, three-word sentence: Carrots are orange. What a mess! I started with Google Translate, then double checked with friends, and got five different responses to how to translate that one simple sentence! Gever hu… gever hem … gever ze gvreem… And so I learned that not all of my Hebrew-speaking expat friends had quite mastered the tongue.

 

 

The arduous climb continues. One day at the homeschool community, I called across the meeting room to one of the girls, telling her to come to where I was. “Bo!” I called out with determination, excited to know this simple command. “BOI,” all the girls around me corrected me in giggles. Sigh. Imperatives have genders too?!

Another day I was on a field trip with our teens. I overheard a new girl say “Gamba Beit.” I had just learned the word for red pepper was gamba and of course everyone know that beit is house. “Pepper house!” I interrupted excitedly. And then with some confusion I asked, “Why did you said Pepper House?” The student looked at me like I was bonkers until we figured out that what she had actually said was “Gam ba’beit” which means “also in my house.” Where’s my "stupid" sign? Then one day at church I was really excited to explain to a couple of Danny’s friends (a Brit and a Canadian) that I had been able to discern from the preaching that day, what the Hebrew word for chapter was: “Pecker!” I exclaimed with pride. I realized as soon as it left my mouth that that could not have been it. As both men stood agape, I corrected myself as nonchalantly as possible, “I mean Pereck…” and shuffled away quickly pretending I didn’t know what I said. The men never did quite recover. You’d think I’d give up… but lo (no)!

Last week, one of the girls in music class pointed at an eighth note and asked, “ma ze?” which means “What is that?”…: And I understood her! And better yet, I could bark back "hadash!" which means "new!" I could have said "ze hadash" (this is new) but usually I get so flustered when I’m caught off guard that I can’t master more than one word at a time. Like a caveman-woman. Meanwhile, the Russian deli lady finally had enough of Danny with his Google Translate laziness and she decided to teach him the Hebrew words for 250 and 300 (the number of grams of Swiss cheese and cheddar cheese, respectively, that we buy every. week.) Matayim be’Hamishim. Shloshmot. She waited for him to repeat after her. Shlosh…mot…. You can do this.

Why bother learning? Well, besides the benefits of being able to function better in this society (like understanding what the train conductor is yelling or being able to answer someone who needs help with directions), it opens up the Bible to new understanding. For instance, recognizing that the name for God, Elohim, has the plural ending (im) is to recognize that the name of God implies a plurality of persons, affirming the idea that the Trinity is a reality, built into God's name from the beginning. Or understanding place names might gives us a clue about the reputations or significant features of ancient Biblical cities. Lechem means bread, so Beit Lechem (Bethlehem) means "house of bread." Beit Shemesh means "house (or temple) of the sun." Beit Geulah, the name of our kehila (worship community or church) is not an ancient city, of course, but it was exciting to me to piece together its meaning as I learned more words. It means "House of Redemption." Geulah is the noun "redemption", its participle being go'el... We sing a song at church that says that there is no one like God who is...Go'el Israel, and Moshia ha'olam. The Redeemer of Israel, and Messiah (Savior) of the world. How about the relationship between space and time as depicted by the single word olam (meaning world, universe, space, and eternity) or how the Psalmist gives a pre-Einsteinian nod to the theory of special relativity by describing God's robe as the fabric (yeriah) of the heavens? And isn't this the object of all learning? To make us have a better understanding of the One who is the source of all knowledge? Ken! (Yes) !