The first time I went to Israel, I was sixteen.
And from Los Angeles.
And blond.
We’re talking triple threat, people.
I was on one of those summer programs – you know, those Jewish hookup fests thinly disguised as “educational and spiritual trips” where hormonal teenagers hike, swim and share mono together in Israel.
(I think most of our parents imagined that we’d all be earnestly singing Hava Nagilla or Hinei MaTov around a camp fire, but no.)
It was a great time to be in Israel: The dollar-to-shekel exchange rate was in our favor, and Ben Yehudah Street was our Post-Sabbath smorgasbord, teeming with other Jewish American teenagers helping the economy.
We’d sidle in and out of shops, duped into thinking our amateur hour haggling actually made a difference in the prices, and inevitably, we’d buy too many t shirts at Mr. T’s. But hey, you can’t leave Israel without an olive-green IDF t-shirt (in English) or a fire engine-red Coca-Cola T shirt
(in Hebrew.)
During that summer, I spoke Bat Mitzvah Hebrew. And I was fluent in my mistakes.
Not that it mattered.
Whenever we would have exchanges with “the natives” – and by “the natives” I mean rich kids from North Tel Aviv who spoke English as well as we did – I’d inevitably end up playing around in their language: An ingenue tripping adorably over words with “Chet," “Ayin” and “Resh.” But in a cute way.
And every time I’d stumble through the language, the Israelis around me would hold my hand and help me through.
Well, that summer was a long time ago, and things have changed.
While it’s true my Hebrew has improved a little, the language is still new to me.
In Hebrew, I misplace words, leaving them somewhere buried deep in memory.
In Hebrew, I’m a time traveler, turning past tense into present, future tense into past. My passive verbs go running. My active verbs are stoned on a beach in the Sinai. I confuse my masculine and feminine verbs and nouns so often that it’s as if they’re cross dressing.
In Hebrew, I’m sixteen again: breathless and giddy as I stumble over new words, wrapping my lips and twisting my tongue over unfamiliar sounds. Speaking Hebrew gives me butterflies in my stomach.
And like that summer, as I trip over the language, I’ve found that others are still willing to pick me up and walk me through the nuances of something that is both a little familiar and still utterly foreign.
(After all, I may no longer be sixteen, but I’m still from Los Angeles, and I’m still blonde.)
But this time, I am not going home in eight weeks. This is my home. I’ve got two children who need a mother and not a sixteen year old friend. They need brave, not breathless.
They need a grownup.
And so, I will practice and learn.
Instead of grunting and pointing at something on a menu, I will speak up and order. In Hebrew.
Instead of wandering around lost for an hour and a half, I will ask for directions from a shopkeeper. In Hebrew.
Instead of letting their father do the talking for me when we speak with our daughter’s preschool teachers, I will find out how her day was. In Hebrew.
And even though I know that I will inevitably fall hard on my ass, I will take these first few steps.
And somehow, someday, I will toddle toward linguistic adulthood. In Hebrew.
So check it: I'm putting together a series of blog posts for the new "My Life in Translation" series for Babylon.com. If you've tested the boundaries of your linguistic and cultural comfort zone(s) I want to hear from you. After all, in this (too much) information age, why should I be the only one sharing? So, hit me up at sarah@pravdam.com if you're down.
