Ivrit in America

Author with her ulpan Hebrew instructor in Jerusalem

               

I recently attended a parent- educator meeting, as a Hebrew school teacher, at our local synagogue.  The topic at hand was trying to place a particular value on the specific aspects of the Hebrew education of our children, re-evaluating where we are, where we want to go, and how we might get there.  It was a lively discourse with lots of opinions and lots of positive input.  Because we require children to be present for Shabbat-friendly (less school-like) learning on certain Shabbatot (plural of Shabbat/Sabbaths) of the month, we have more limited formal instruction time for Hebrew learning every week.  Our goals are considerable given this: remedial comprehension of modern Hebrew, prayers and Biblical text, reasonable fluidity decoding texts, and the ability to write in block letter notation and to converse in very simple (present tense) Hebrew!!  WOW!!  Achieving these goals has been challenging and we continue to work to enhance our students’ progress.

Within this conversation, I am reminded of the fact that we need to find that kernel in our instruction, in our Hebrew usage, in our Jewish lives that says to our children

·         How amazing that you are learning a real living language that connects us to our ancient heritage

·         How amazing that there are people out there like you and me using Hebrew - to write high school essays, analyses of the arts, plays and poetry and music, science dissertations – to argue about where tax dollars should be spent, how to implement specific safety regulations, the best approach to support learning-disabled children – to dream about being an astronaut when they grow up, how to lighten human’s footprints on the environment, making a real and lasting peace with their Palestinian cousins and neighbors…

·         How amazing that familiarity with Hebrew becomes a gift of continuity and peoplehood shared amongst Jews (and connected non-Jews) for generations to come.

 

I love that we use our children’s Hebrew names in school; their own unique and special place-tag in the Jewish continuum.

Here are some interesting (certainly more extreme) articles (by Leon Weiseltier and David Hazony) that have strong sentiments about why American Jews need to learn Hebrew.  Though I do not necessarily agree with everything therein, I think they are provocative and add to the conversation!