Bilingually Mourning, Shiva in Two Languages

Since the 7 Day Shiva Candle was only lit halfway through shiva for my brother, it's still burning strong.

Or you can also call this post:

The Advantage/Adventure of Being Bilingual!

After close to forty-six, our 46th Aliyah Anniversary is in less than two months, years in Israel I've reached the point where I can rather easily switch between Hebrew and English pretty much mid-sentence. And many of our anglo friends are the same.

Even among friends more veteran here, and there aren't too many, English is still the language we prefer for conversing among ourselves. So while I was sitting shiva for my brother this week, a very good portion of the time you'd here only English. But then, if suddenly a Hebrew speaking neighbor would enter, they'd follow my lead and even mid-sentence switch into Hebrew. At no point did I have over anyone in the anglo crowd totally incapable of following the switch.

Shiloh isn't known as one of those "English speaking" places like Gush Etzion or Ramat Beit Shemesh, but there are quite a few anglos and bilinguals from birth, like my kids can be called. They are the Israelis who grew up hearing, and usually speaking, English at home but functioned in Hebrew outside. So, they appear to be regular Hebrew-speaking Israelis, but not only do they know English well, frequently as if they had been a foreign country, their culture and sense of humor are very binational.

That's it for now. Today is Friday, and I have so much to do... Back to ordinary life, thank Gd.

Sign is down, and Shiva is over

I can't tell you what I've cooked for Shabbat...

... and yes, I have been cooking.

The reason is that we're having guests, jblogger guests. That's right! tnspr569 will, G-d willing, be here for Shabbat, with a friend. How he gave himself a name like that.... maybe I should ask him. We only know each other from jblogging. He saw my post about the stuffed freezer and volunteered to help empty it. So I did cook with a few things that have to go before Pesach. Let's see if he can guess which tasty dishes!

There are all sorts of special "activities" here this Shabbat. I hope his Hebrew is up to par for participating. It's outrageous that graduates of Jewish Education aren't totally fluent in Hebrew. After three years of high school Spanish, I could converse fairly fluently, and I'm not good at languages. Israeli students, who get much less English than the American kids' Hebrew studies, are able to converse more easily in English. I teach the lowest level in my high school, and I've tested the higher level in others.

I'm totally convinced that it is intentional. American Jewish parents, even the religious ones, do not want their children to be fluent and comfortable in Hebrew! The more fluent and comfortable one is, the more one feels at home in Israel. That is something that American Jewish parents don't want. They want their kids to feel like tourists, condescending tourists.

For the past few decades, more and more American Jewish high school graduates have been coming for a year in Israel, but they don't spend it with Israelis. They don't have to function in Hebrew. They live in English-speaking ghettos. The programs used to be in Har Nof, Jerusalem, and now many are in the Ramat Beit Shemesh area. Conversational Hebrew and Religious Textual Studies in Hebrew are not required elements in their curriculum.

Reports from the states say that even Orthodox Rabbinic students are studying from translated texts. It's predigested, second-hand knowledge.

I didn't plan on ranting about the state of American Jewry and their Hebrew knowledge, but just like chulent, you throw in the ingredients, and it comes out how it wants to come out.

I hope that I'm pleasantly surprised by tnspr569 .