Shalom to Shalom

I immigrated to Israel towards the end of the year 2000. I spent quite a bit of time, both in the two years preceding my Aliyah (Hebrew for "immigration to Israel"; literally, "ascent"), and in my first year as an Israeli citizen, brushing up on my Hebrew.

I had a reasonably good foundation in Hebrew: I had attended Jewish schools throughout my elementary and high school years, where Judaic subjects were overwhelmingly conducted in Hebrew, usually by native Israeli teachers; moreover, I had spent a couple of years studying in Israel following high school.

And yet, even with that considerable background, I was amazed at the huge number of Hebrew words and phrases that I did not know, including many which any nine-year-old native Israeli would know, such as: doorknob, supposed, realize, bathing suit, sewer, report, couch, and steering wheel.

As the first step in my effort to improve my Hebrew, I decided to read novels in Hebrew. In order to make that endeavor easier, I decided to read Hebrew translations of novels I had already read in English. The familiarity with the story ensured that I would never be completely lost, and I knew that I would not be bored, since these were all novels which I loved. I began with Chaim Potok's "The Chosen". Subsequent books I read in Hebrew included: The Godfather, The Bonfire of The Vanities, Presumed Innocent, and The Silence of The Lambs. I read about a dozen books in this manner.

As I plowed through these books, I recorded every single unfamiliar Hebrew word or phrase in a dictionary file which I compiled. I could see the progress I made, as the number of such words and phrases gradually decreased, from over 10 per page, to just 2 or 3 per page.

One droll side-effect of teaching myself from reading novels was that my vocabulary now contains a mixture of colloquial and literary Hebrew, both current and out-of-date. So in any conversation, I'm liable to throw out a word or figure of speech which you would never hear in daily conversation, eliciting an amused reaction from my Israeli audience.

Once I arrived in Israel, another step I took in expanding my Hebrew vocabulary was to read, in entirety, the label of every single product I bought, from laundry detergent to breakfast cereal to clothing. Thus, the Hebrew words for sodium, carbohydrates and recycle entered my vocabulary. Likewise, I studied all of the signs I encountered on the street. Finally, I read many articles in Israeli newspapers. In all of these undertakings, I continued to look up and record every unfamiliar word or phrase. My list grew into the thousands.

One of the things that struck me the most was the huge number of Hebrew words which Israelis have abandoned in favor of the transliteration of the English word. I was very stunned that nobody in Israel uses Shalom any more, preferring Hi and Bye. Are you kidding me?! Shalom is to Israel as the maple leaf is to Canada and apple pie is to the U.S.A. National pride, people! It was an especially odd feeling for me, given that I had started greeting people with Shalom for a year before moving to Israeli, in an attempt to get myself into an Israeli mindset. Little did I know.

So I had to "unlearn" dozens (hundreds?) of Hebrew words I had taken the time to memorize. I now know that a baby-sitter is a baby-sitter and not a shmar-taf, while a steak is a steak and not an umtsa. More recently, "Sorry" has replaced the erstwhile "selicha". I get a sense that Israelis feel that sprinkling their speech with English words and phrases elevates the level of their speech. Of course, as an immigrant trying to speak with Israelis exclusively in Hebrew, it is a bit jarring. Sometimes, I had to fight the urge to use the proper Hebrew words which I know that nobody uses any more, just so that all the time I spent learning them won't have been in vain.

In many cases, Israelis do not seem to realize that the words they use are lifted from English. One day, when I was still a greenhorn, I was in the supermarket, and wished to purchase crackers, whose Hebrew equivalent I did not know. So I told the manager that I wish to buy something, but I don't know the Hebrew word for it. I explained to him that it's like a cookie, but not exactly -- it's more salty than sweet.

The manager's eyes lit up. He told me, in Hebrew: "I know exactly what you want. Come with me." I followed him to the next aisle, and when we reached the product he was searching for, he stopped. He picked up a package and, with a flourish, presented it to me. He beamed at me, the delight of teaching me a new word plain on his face: "This is what you are looking for. The Hebrew word for it is "Crackerim", clearly enunciating each syllable of that mysterious new word to me.