My lifelong Journey with Yiddish: An Invitation to discover a World מײַן לעבנס רייזע מיט ייִדיש: אַן אײַנלאַדונג צו אַנטדעקן א וועלט

Find out more about Shmuel

• Do you speak this language fluently because of your origins or because a teacher inspired you to learn?

  I speak Hebrew fluently because I was born into a Hebrew-speaking home at a time when Hebrew was beginning to become widespread in Israel. My father participated in the linguistic discussions about the vocabulary that was necessary in order to modernize the language. In this way I saw the "creation" of words in a language which had not existed for centuries in daily life. This process goes on to this very day. It is very difficult to convey the feelings that living inside that process triggered and still triggers inside me.

• Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  Hebrew is the language in which one of the richest libraries in Western history is written. It allows us to know in detail historical facts and daily life in times we don't know much about. Given that this history is so long, and that the biblical "library" is so rich, it is very difficult to choose a single emblematic character in the history of the language. The characters that have symbolic value are perhaps dozens. In any case, I personally lean towards Ezra the Scribe, who apparently was a great institutional writer of biblical texts at the time of the return from Babylon (the time of the opera Nabucco and of "On the Rivers of Babylon"). Perhaps one of the first ones in that endeavor. I also favor the sages of the third century, and those who revived the language from the nineteenth century onward, notably Eliezer Ben Yehuda.

• Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or behaviour in the language that you particularly like?

  In a language as elaborate as Hebrew is we can find very many expressions that convey feelings with depth and fidelity. Quite many of these expressions frequently originate in biblically based beliefs. It is very common to hear almost everybody, even non-believers, use such expressions as "Baruch Hashem" (blessed be God) when they mean to say "everything's fine". Other expressions that I like very much are those which their literal content express a more complex meaning, such as Bet-Sefer, school, which literally would mean "house of the book" or Bet-Holim, hospital, which also literally means "the house of the sick". It is a wonderfully expressive language, yet it is almost mathematically systematic … and easy to learn.

• Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  Regarding the reasons why Hebrew is important to me, it allows me to express my thoughts, but above all my feelings with great precision. In Hebrew I can say what I feel deep inside using an extremely short expression with great precision. I can't help but acknowledge here that I believe that for every person in the world, his or her mother tongue fulfills that function. That language is for each of us in a natural way the most beautiful one, because it's our own. In my case, Hebrew is the one that I feel expresses me best.

• What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  Regarding an important difficulty in learning the language, I have to admit that I'd rather find elements that make Hebrew easy to learn than elements that make it difficult to learn. Though I would say that the only "difficulty" I find is actually not inherent in Hebrew but in what is usually assumed about Hebrew. People regularly assume that the use of an alphabet other than their own is an important hurdle. This is not only not the case in Hebrew. Things work the other way round. The use of an alphabet other than one's own makes it much easier to learn the language. After a few lessons during which you started to master the new alphabet, learning becomes easy, pleasant, since the mind concentrates on the Hebrew texts and there remains no room for the mind to drift back to your own language or to any other one you know. The use of that different alphabet - the Hebrew one in this case - and the way the language works provides additionally an important stimulus to the mental, intellectual and even neurologic development! of the person learning Hebrew … and turns learning into a rewarding experience.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  As for interesting moments in the process of learning Hebrew, I can point out that I've had many students who at some point discover, they find themselves thinking! in Hebrew out of its particular systematic structure. I have had students who in less than a year acquired the language and immersed themselves in their professional world in Israel with enormous responsibilities as doctors or engineers. I have also shared with enjoyment the pleasure of students who approached the Bible out of faith and found that the language provided an enormously rich path for what they have been intending for very long.

• How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  Naturally, staying in Israel even for a while only greatly sets free our ability to understand and express ourselves in Hebrew, but it also allows us to take advantage of understanding what we hear and see in a way incomparably different from what it would be like if we did not understand the language. And this provides an encouraging feedback while learning.

• What makes you a Superprof in language?

  I feel somewhat embarrassed while answering this question. Believe it or not, professional and human satisfaction far outstrip economic interest. Let me say that I had many students who reached incredible perfection learning the language I love. Again, to be honest about this, the teacher aims at the greatest success of the student. Many students who took one class a week for a long time, the same as those who took three, learned a lot and had a lot of satisfaction. All those who put their will into it were successful! They did contribute their effort, and if I deserve any credit in this play, it is for having tried hard to stimulate their own inner need of learning … and having enjoyed with them their success.