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Prospects of Hebrew Language Teaching in West Asian Countries By: Abdur Rahman - The author is Ph.D Scholar at School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies JNU, New Delhi.

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he article deals with aspects of introducing Hebrew language in the syllabus in West Asian countries, and also the status of Arabic in Israel which is the second official language of the country after Hebrew and further highlights how promotion of Hebrew can bridge up the gap between the Arabs and Jews and promote tolerance and transmit a message of acceptance to them.

Allah says in Holy Qur’an: “And among His Signs are the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. Verily, in that are indeed signs for those who know” In another verse Allah says: “O Mankind, We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other. Verily the most honoured of you before God is, he who is the most righteous of you” Explanation: There are several principles, which this verse presents.

This message is not just for Muslims only because God is addressing all humanity. He is the One who made human beings into different groups and people. All human beings are created through the same process, not in a manner in which some are created

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with a better mechanism than others.

This is not meant to be a source of harming each other down with an attitude of ‘my group is better than yours’ or false pride as is the case with tribalism, nationalism, colonialism, and racism.

Individual piety is the only thing that makes a person better and greater than the other one. No matter what nation, country or caste he is part of.

These are the deeply embedded ideals of Islam which still bring people to this way of life. This is the theory which convinced noted historian Professor A.J. Toynbee in 1948, and he says: “The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue.”

Prophet’s response to racist comments A man once visited the Prophet’s (PBUH) mosque in Madinah. There he saw a group of people sitting and discussing their faith together.

Among them were Salman, who came from Persia, Suhayb who grew up in the Eastern Roman empire and was regarded as a Greek, and Bilal who was an African. The man then said: “If the Madinan tribes of Aws and Khazraj support Muhammad, they are

DIALOGUE Arabs like him. But what are these people doing here?”

The Prophet became very angry when this was reported to him.

Straightaway, he went to the mosque and summoned people to a Salat (prayer). He then addressed them saying: “O people know that the Lord and Sustainer is One. Your ancestor is one, your faith is one. The Arabism of anyone of you is not from your mother or father. It is no more than a language. Whoever speaks Arabic is an Arab.”

Talking about universal brotherhood in the last Sermon, Prophet Mohammad (saws) said.

“O people, Remember that your Lord is One. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a black has no superiority over white, nor does a white have any superiority over black, except by piety and good action (taqwa). Indeed the best among you is the one with the best character”.

God further says: And we sent not a Messenger except with the language of his people, in order that he might make (the Message) clear for them. (After the proof and evidence have been established for the people) God misguides whom He wills from the path of guidance and guides whom He wills to the truth, and He is the Almighty, the All-Wise.) God is Kind and Compassionate with His creation, sending Messengers to them from among them, and speaking their language, so that they are able to understand the message that the Messengers were sent with.

Language to most of us is a means of communicating our thoughts and

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ideas. We depend on our language skills for our living, relationships, and other activities. The extent of language’s influence on our lives may reach far beyond than what we can imagine. As the German philosopher Goethe stated.

“The person who knows only one language does not truly know that language.” In other words, being bilingual or multilingual helps enhance linguistic skills and improves flexibility in thinking. A different language could best be defined as a vehicle for cultural transmission”.

Revival of Hebrew Language Death of a language means the passing of many things: a way of life, a cultural identity and a repository of indigenous knowledge. Language is not merely a mechanical means of communication but a medium that shapes the very way we think. The limits of one’s language are the limits of one’s world.

Hebrew is one of the oldest languages of the world; it is a West Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors.

Looking at Hebrew in Israel today, it is hard to believe that in a century Hebrew has gone from being a dead language to an active living language with over 5.3 million speakers worldwide. It was this surprising and unique growth that interested the scholars to look at this success and what aspects of this revival could be applied to other countries especially in West Asia.

What is spoken in Israel is “Modern Hebrew” distinct from that of the “Torah” and all the versions of Hebrew that went before, since the

language people end up speaking has very little chance of being the same as the one to be revived.

Ben Yehuda is often called the father of “Modern Hebrew”, but it was not something he organized. He just provided a force to start things moving and was active in many central and important projects, but the revival effort itself was much decentralized.

It was not the work of one person.

He just acted as a catalyst and kept things moving. However, ultimately it was the individual speakers who revived the language and did it mostly without the control or guidance of any leader.

Many young people in Egypt study and speak Hebrew. Every year around two thousand Egyptian students enrol in Hebrew courses. Some 500 Hebrew students graduate annually.

All the universities in Cairo, including the Al-Azhar University, and many in other parts of the country, totalling eight universities, teach Hebrew language.

Hebrew-speakers in Egypt can serve in military intelligence. They can also find jobs in one of several civilian institutions such as the broadcasting authority which has Hebrewlanguage television broadcasts and a radio station, newspapers, strategic research institutes and translation centres.

In the past Egyptians would study Hebrew to “know their enemy.”

Hebrew is one of the oldest languages of the world.

DIALOGUE Munir Mahmood, a Hebrew teacher, says

well-known

“Long back after President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Israel the attitude of Egyptians toward studying Hebrew changed. High school graduates began thinking of a career associated with Hebrew, not only of military or security service” .

Xceed, a Microsoft company located in a high-tech area near Cairo operates a registration centre for Microsoft products. Israelis phoning to register Microsoft programs they bought, are directed here, where Hebrew-speaking Egyptian telephone operators pick up their calls. Mahmood further says.

“We were afraid, university graduates wouldn’t be up to the challenge, because they are not familiar with everyday Hebrew. None of them has Jewish parents or visited Israel. But they gained experience quickly”.

The political situation and atmosphere in Egypt, as well as the desire for solidarity with the Palestinians, prohibit Egyptians from satisfying their curiosity and visiting Israel or maintaining ties with Israelis.

These Hebrew experts could gain much from Israeli tourism, many believe, and as long as there is no peace between Israel and Palestine there is not much chance to strengthen Israeli Arabian ties. Lack of opportunity and unavailability of sufficient materials are still major impediments for these youngsters in Egypt to excel and gain proficiency in Hebrew language.

When an Israeli visits Egypt, the Hebrew-speaking Egyptians ask for certain books. Although the Israeli Academic Centre in Cairo or the Israeli embassy would surely be glad to help, but they prefer that a private Israeli citizen brings the books rather than an official. It shows how far they

are keenly interested to have people to people contacts in their language.

Though Israel has very rich Hebrew library in Egypt, but still Egyptian Hebrew students rarely visit the Israeli Academic Centre, founded in the 1980s as part of the efforts to forge academic and cultural ties between the two countries. Egypt had undertaken to open a similar centre in Israel, but did not fructify. However, Egyptian students use this facility only during exam period.

Palestinian attitude towards Hebrew Teaching of Hebrew in Palestine dates back to the arrival of Ben Yehuda a Lithuanian Jew, born in 1857, the father of modern Hebrew. He arrived in Palestine in 1881. Jews were then divided into two main ethnic and cultural groups, the Ashkenazim

Palestinian students study Hebrew at the Islamic University in Gaza City.

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DIALOGUE and Sephardim. The two groups have different languages, different pronunciations of Hebrew, culture and status. They generally spoke Yiddish and had a Yiddish nuanced pronunciation of Hebrew. They were also not a united community.

The Sephardim in Palestine, by contrast, generally had been there for generations. They spoke Ladino and Arabic and were generally in better positions in society.

While dealing with this point Mr. Jef Kaufman states: “In order to get Hebrew to be spoken by the people in their daily life, some people had to start. Ben Yehuda and his wife agreed to make their house a centre for Hebrew, only as an example and a test. In attempting to use Hebrew for daily tasks, they continually had to deal with the problem of things that did not exist at the time of the ‘Torah’. They would coin new words from old roots as they went along and slowly built up a vocabulary for daily uses” .

Two years after arriving in Palestine, Ben Yehuda was approached by Nissim Bechar, principal of a school that had previously only taken Sephardim students. Bechar wanted to allow Ashkenazim as well, but was concerned about the language problem. He wanted Ben Yehuda to teach Hebrew as a way to solve this problem. He began teaching, fully in Hebrew, using the Berlitz method.

However, after a short time teaching he fell ill and had to stop teaching.

Present Status The Islamic University in the Hamas stronghold of Gaza City is currently offering a new course of study, a oneyear diploma in Hebrew.

Students taking Hebrew classes have pacifistic motivation; they want to be able to read Israeli newspapers, watch TV shows, listen to the radio bulletins,

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and read Israeli history books.

Others are driven by a desire to learn about a different culture. However, they feel Israeli restrictions on talking to native Hebrew speakers made learning Hebrew very complicated, but they took it as a challenge.

Some say it is an absolute necessity to master the language of the “enemy” in order to better understand them.

Hebrew is currently offered as a language option in several Gaza Strip high schools, starting in ninth grade.

The classes are taught three times a week by teachers who have worked in Israel and are proficient. Palestinians are in the process of expanding the initiative into 180 other high schools in the Gaza strip, which stopped teaching Hebrew in mid-1990s.

On the other side of the border, in Israel, Arabic classes are obligatory between ages 11 and 13, though some schools offer the classes all the way through the last year of study. Arabic is the second official language of Israel.

The former head of Arabic studies at the Israeli Education Ministry, Dr. Shlomo Alon, told Israeli news site Walla! two years ago.

“Studying Arabic will promote tolerance and transmit a message of acceptance.”

Despite Hamas’s stated intentions, certain Israelis choose to see the Palestinian initiative as a gesture of peace and teaching Hebrew could open doors to understanding each other.

each other’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence, to recognise and respect each other’s right to leave in peace within secure and recognised boundaries to develop good neighbourly relations of cooperations between them, to ensure lasting security and to restrain from the threat or use of force against each other and settle all disputes by peaceful means.

However, before this treaty the learning of Hebrew was taboo in Jordan. Nonetheless, Jordan has two learning centres for Hebrew at the university level, one at Jordan University and another one is Yarmouk University. Both offer elective courses in Hebrew for undergraduates.

Expressing the changing Jordanian’s attitude towards Hebrew Mr, Fawwaz Al-Abed Al-Haq describes in his research: “A Socio-Linguistic Study of Hebrew in Jordan: Implications for Language Planning”. as under: “It is interesting that, in the wake of the peace treaty, private centres for the intensive teaching of Hebrew have also sprung up in Jordan, and it is quite normal to see advertisements in news papers, and flyers posted in city squares, encouraging Jordanians to learn Hebrew at these centres. The strong advocacy of Hebrew teaching and learning is heard at all levels of the hierarchy of the educational establishments as well as in various agencies” This is a very recent trend and it

Hebrew in Jordan After the “Peace Treaty” between Jordan and Israel in October, 26, 1994, the two parties at government level decided to recognise and respect

Arabic is an official language in Israel.

DIALOGUE indicates the radical change in the attitude towards Hebrew at both official and public level. Despite the conflict between the Arab countries and Israel that developed under the pressure of Zionist incursion into Jordan, Palestine, and Syria. The Peace Treaty has made especially young Jordanians recognise the cultural and economic value of understanding the language and culture of the Israelis.

However, they have been educated to think of the history of Arab Israeli relations as an endless succession of wars, so therefore these quick changes now taking place there are remarkable.

If we look at the cause of the changes in language attitude in this region, then various possibilities can be considered: like Stimulus effects, Subject effects and Situational effects.

However, the Situational effects relate to the two different categories of social determinants: immediate situation and the long socio-cultural background. Thus the peace treaty, political socio-cultural conflicts between Arabs and Israelis might have led to this change in attitude in both sides.

Arabic in Israel Hebrew is dominant both in terms of use as well as in public spheres in Israel. However, Arabic is also one of Israel’s two official languages. It is the language used by the Israeli Arabs in their daily communication as well as in their separate school system.

Israel is one of the few non-Muslim states to grant Arabic, official status.

Nonetheless, while both have equal standing under law, the situation in practice is different. As early as 1980, Prof. Amnon Rubinstein (Minister of Education in the 1990s) described the status of Arabic in Israel as ‘problematic’, despite repeated State declarations on the status of Arabic

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as the country’s second official language. In everyday life, Arabic does not enjoy this status, and its use is limited. Even in 2008 there were attempts to revoke the official status of Arabic.

In 1997, Arabic language studies were introduced in the 7th–10th grade curricula as pupils’ second foreign language, after English, in a program offering three weekly hours of instruction. In 2003, however, less than 50% of all pupils in grades 7 through 10 (who should have taken the Arab language under the new program) actually studied Arabic. Various studies have shown that pupils are poorly motivated and harboured a negative attitude toward Arabic, which they perceived as the ‘language of the conflict,’ a language with limited usefulness, and a language whose status in the global cultural arena is at an ebb. In effect, the use of Arabic is limited to contact between the authorities and the Arab citizens, road signs, and the state name on stamps and currency.

In short a researcher from Ari’el University Centre, under the Title: “Arabic –What for?’ Jewish Students’ Attitudes towards the Arabic Language and Their Willingness to Learn It in Israel” states.

“Although Arabic is an official language in Israel, and the law dictates the comprehensive Hebrew-Arabic bilingual conduct of state authorities, in practice, Arabic’s public position in Israel is marginal”

Conclusion It is good to see a mature, thoughtful and tolerant attitude is thriving in some West Asian countries towards Hebrew language which would surely act as a tool for cultural exchange between Arabs and Israel.

The reason for this unusual interest of the people in Hebrew is closely associated like in Egypt, with its highly developed army, constantly upgraded, equipped and trained with the latest technology, while Palestinians learn Hebrew as a means of resistance.

Ii would not pave the way for the students to visit Israel or Israeli institutions until there is a solution to the persistent Israel-Palestine crisis. Both sides shall evolve and rise above religious extremism and accept each others. Let us see who occupies the moral high ground first, Israel or Palestine?

Some Hebrew experts say, first learn Yiddish, and then Ladino and only then one can speak Hebrew language.

However, an Arab student from Lebanon has this experience.

“I am an Arabic speaking Lebanese; I know some Hebrew and would love to learn more. Languages break down barriers, and yes it’s very easy to learn Hebrew when you know Arabic.

Arabic and Hebrew are closely related languages. They have a great number of similarities, not only in basic vocabulary but also in grammar, the forms of words and sentence structure. They share these features because they belong to the same language family, that of the Semitic languages”.

Both Arabs and Israel must stand up against their wrong notion of considering Arabic and Hebrew as the language of resistance and conflict, and provide opportunities to the people of both sides to have free contact. Language is not to create barrier rather it should be taken as the means and vehicle for cultural transmission, so that it could play a vital role to bridge up the gap between these two communities of the region by evolving the sense of acceptance in their minds.