Gabriel Birenbaum is a senior researcher at the Academy of the Hebrew Language. (Photo: Daniel Estrin)

Now, it’s become a household expression after Orthodox Jewish soldiers refused to attend events that involved women.

Daniel Estrin reports that the phrase has also been used to segregate the men from the women.

Hebrew Language Academy Charter School (Graphic: HLA)

New York boasts a huge diversity of ethnicities. At the city’s public schools, that’s reflected in the rapidly increasing number of English language learners.

There are also several new dual immersion schools, some of them charter schools. Dual immersion schools offer instruction in two languages: English and one other.

The other language might be Spanish, or Chinese. Or it might be a much less widely spoken language.

And it’s when a school takes on one of these smaller languages that critics fear the school may be catering to a single ethnic group and reinforcing cultural isolation.

Take the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, in Brooklyn, NY.

During first grade music hour, students fidget at their desks. The music teacher, a young man with a guitar and a furrowed brow, calls the class to attention and begins a song— not just any song.

It’s the Hatikva, the Israeli national anthem.

The Hebrew Academy Charter School is the first publicly funded Hebrew immersion school in New York City. When the school opened two years ago the city already had charter schools specializing in Spanish, Greek and French.

But the idea of teaching Hebrew, a language linked to Judaism, initially raised eyebrows.

“There is absolutely no religion taught at the school,” says Sara Berman, the founder and board chair of the Hebrew Language Academy. For Berman, linking Hebrew to Judaism is an old-fashioned response. “When you walk into a Greek dual language school you don’t think, I wonder if these children are really Greek Orthodox?”

Berman is also the daughter of the Jewish philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, who sponsors programs connecting young American Jews with the state of Israel. But according to Berman, her school isn’t specifically about Israel or Jewish identity. It’s about learning a language with a long and rich cultural history.

“Hebrew is an interesting language because over the past century and a half there has been a revitalization of Hebrew,” says Berman. “It is both a classical language and today, certainly a completely modern spoken language.”

Hebrew may be a modern spoken language, but modern Hebrew is only spoken by about five million people worldwide. Creating a school dedicated to such a niche language worries Richard Kahlenberg, an education scholar at the Century Foundation. “There is a danger with charter schools that they will balkanize our country,” says Kahlenberg. He believes that charter schools aimed at one particular ethnic or religious group risk deepening divides between Americans of different backgrounds.

Kahlenberg cites examples of ethnic charter schools in Minnesota, where there are Somali and Hmong charter schools. Those types of schools “contradict the purpose of public education in America to educate children of all different backgrounds about what it means to be an American in a democratic society,” says Kahlenberg.

However, James Merriman, the CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, which advocates for charters in New York City, does not think this is an issue in New York. For Merriman it’s all about offering a quality education. The school, he says, must be willing to accept any child who applies. After that, it’s not the language that matters but the instruction.

“There is such a need for high quality seats that if this school is getting kids literate not just in one language but in two and getting them ready to move on in life that’s a pretty good thing,” says Merriman.

A good education is what motivated Willie Moody when he sent his two children to the Hebrew Language Academy. “I’m happy that they have this chance to be exposed to another language especially the Hebrew language, because it’s deeply rooted in black people’s history,” says Moody.

Moody says he has been amazed at his children’s progress. So, too, he says, are strangers who overhear them speaking Hebrew on the subway.

The neighborhood surrounding the school is a racially diverse mix of Americans as well as immigrants from the Caribbean, Russia and Israel. The students are as diverse as their neighborhood according to first grade English teacher Joelle Vilani. “We have children who come from Jamaica, Mexico, Colombia. You name it we have it here.”

There has been little opposition to the Hebrew Language Academy. In fact, the school has been immensely popular. This year there were four applicants for each vacant spot.

Sarah Berman’s inbox has been flooded with requests from parents across the country for more information about the Hebrew dual language program. So many requests came in that this past year Berman helped establish a Hebrew Charter School Center. The Center advises parent groups about how to start their own Hebrew language charter.

Already, a school has opened in New Jersey. Charter applications are in the works in San Diego, Minneapolis, and a second school is being developed in New York. Berman aims to start 20 Hebrew immersion schools within the next five years.

5. An Israeli-British study shows bilinguals may respond differently depending on the language of the questions. According to the study, Arab Israelis are more likely to respond warmly to certain Jewish names if they are asked about them in Hewbrew, as compared to Arabic. Does this mean we think differently in different languages? No, but it might help explain why someone who is bilingual (or trilingual in Rhitu’s case) is “more polite” in one language.

4. New research points to a possible breakthrough in deciphering ancient scripts.

3. Sarah Palin compares her coinage of new English words to Shakespeare’s. Her most recent coinage, of course, was refudiate, which she said on Fox News and then tweeted a few days later. (She somewhat refudiated her own invention by zapping the tweet, before acknowledging it and making the Shakespeare comparison in a subsequent post.) For his part, Shakespeare came up with gnarled, premediated, fitful, and hundreds more, none of them via Twitter. Maybe in time we’ll prize refudiate as highly. My guess though, is that like wee-wee’d up, an Obamaism, refudiate ain’t gonna make it. Let’s face it: most of Shakespeare’s coinages appear to have been based not on ignorance but inventiveness.

2. A science writer argues in a Discover magazine blog post that language diversity condemns a society to poverty. I don’t fully understand the argument, but it made for a lively conversation.

1. Clark’s adventures in linguistically confused Belgium. Yes, The World’s tech man about town has just moved to the land of beer, waffles and linguistic discontent. So which of the country’s two main languages should Clark learn, Dutch or French? And in choosing one, has he upset speakers of the other? Mr Boyd reveals all, including the surprising nationality of the podcaster/language teacher he’s following.

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SCRIPT
Hebrew Language Academy
Daniel Estrin

If you’ve got a suggestion for a new Hebrew word, Keren Dubnov wants to hear about it.

DUBNOV: If I look here at my sent items…

Keren’s in charge of the email hotline at the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem.

DUBNOV: Ah, very recently we had a good suggestion for “baby leaves,” for salad. Seems to be really well formatted, and we really need a word for ‘baby leaves’. If you go to supermarket, go to vegetables and look for that, there is no word but Baby.
ESTRIN: Israelis just call it “baby?”
DUBNOV: Yeah, in all the stores, which is very unclear to a Hebrew speaker, I think.
ESTRIN: Yeah, are you buying leaves, or buying a baby?
DUBNOV: yeah…

Keren liked the shopper’s suggestion for “baby lettuce,” so she passed it along to the Committee for Words in Daily Use. The Academy eventually decided to call it “alalim.” Yes, it took a while to come up with a Hebrew term for baby lettuce. But that’s not so bad, considering that just 100 years ago, most people didn’t speak Hebrew at all – except to God. Today, Hebrew’s come a long way.

(sound montage of Hebrew radio news, rap song, conversation)

BIRNBAUM: It is really unprecedented. There is no example in the history of languages, that a language that was really not spoken for 1700 years, being revived and being a language of all spheres of life. There’s no example of this anywhere in the world.

Gabriel Birnbaum is a senior researcher at the Academy of the Hebrew Language. He says there are a few examples of revitalized languages around the world – Maori in New Zealand, Welsh in Wales. But their success pales in comparison to Hebrew.

BIRNBAUM: So now of course the question is why, and why it happened.

Birnbaum attributes the success of the Hebrew revival to a few factors. Initially, it seems, it was simply a matter of necessity.

BIRNBAUM: The people who were here already, and the people who came newly, they came from so many places! There were at least 4-5 totally different communities of Jews. One community speaking Arabic, the other speaking Ladino, the third speaking Yiddish, the other maybe speaking Persian. And they didn’t even mix with each other. The only thing, they said, sometimes in the marketplace, they met each other. Because they had to buy things. And there they had to speak to each other. So they started to speak a little Hebrew.

But marketplace talk wasn’t enough to revive a whole language. The real push came from a 23 year old immigrant from Lithuania who thought that Jews returning to their ancestral homeland should speak their ancestral language. His name?.

(Hebrew song – “Eliezer Ben Yehuda…”)

This Israeli hit of the 1970s celebrating Eliezer Ben Yehuda calls him “an amusing Jew.” That’s an understatement. His contemporaries thought he was completely crazy. The last time anyone spoke Hebrew in day to day conversation was probably back in the 2nd century, a few decades after the Romans destroyed the second temple, and the exiled Israelites abandoned Hebrew for other languages. By the turn of the 20th century, Zionists were publishing periodicals in Hebrew, but nobody was really speaking it for day to day conversation. That is, until Ben Yehuda arrived in Jerusalem in 1881. His efforts began at home – he and his wife took an oath to speak Hebrew and only Hebrew in the house. And then, along came their son, Itamar. Being the first Hebrew speaking baby didn’t make for such a happy childhood.

BIRNBAUM: He says here in his memoirs, that one of the things — he just wanted to go out, to play with the children, to see the birds, to see the flowers…

But his father kept him on a tight leash. After all, the neighborhood kids spoke French, Russian, Yiddish, Arabic. So they were just a bad influence. So were the adults.

BIRNBAUM: He tried to avoid that his child, his son, would never hear any other language beside Hebrew. But many important people came to him who couldn’t speak Hebrew. So what he did, they put him to sleep very early every evening, yes, so he wouldn’t hear anything that was spoken in Yiddish or in other languages.

Ben Yehuda managed to convince a few other families to take the Hebrew oath. He started a Hebrew newspaper. Except there was no Hebrew word for newspaper. So he made one up – Iton. He went on to coin hundreds of new words, from ice cream and omelet, to soldier and bicycle. He’d slip the words into his newspaper articles, and readers would adopt them. And he formed a Hebrew Language Committee – which published lists of new words for the Jewish community. That committee was the predecessor to today’s Academy of the Hebrew Language. Researcher Gabriel Birnbaum says coining and voting on new words is the easy part. Getting Israelis to actually adopt them is a whole other story.

BIRNBAUM: There’s lot of blunders, if you can call it that…I mean, we have at least 100,000 words, and many, many of them are – they are just not used, because it’s very difficult to change people’s linguistic habits. I mean, we had a beautiful word for ringtone – it’s a very new thing – “neimon” — but it doesn’t seem to catch.

The Academy has language counselors that work with radio and TV newsrooms. Whenever there’s a new word, they encourage editors to include it in the broadcast. Sometimes the editors agree, and the word slowly trickles down from the anchor to the masses. But more often than not, the new word ends up on the cutting room floor.

Talking to people on the street, you start to see what the Academy is up against.

WOMAN1: From what I have heard, I don’t think there is a point. I think they are just wasting their time and resources. If there is an academy for making up new words, that’s kind of pathetic.
WOMAN2: They’re not very important for our lives…and they make stupid words.

Some ultra-Orthodox Jews are particularly outraged by the whole project. In fact, they objected to the use of Hebrew from the very beginning. To them, modernizing the Holy Tongue was blasphemous. So they stoned Ben Yehuda’s house and excommunicated his family in protest; today much of the community sticks to Yiddish. But the Academy still keeps busy. Israelis are constantly making up new words themselves, and the language hotline receives suggestions almost daily.

ESTRIN: How many emails did you get today?
DUBNOV: 30 and the day’s not over.
ESTRIN: Wow.
DUBNOV: It’s regular.
People write in wanting help naming their babies, composing their wedding invitations, and proofreading tombstone inscriptions. Book publishers want to know official spellings, lawyers want to know official grammar. And Keren spends hours writing back to each and every one of them.

DUBNOV: Here, people are completely in love with their language. They ask all the time. Many of them trust the Academy as if it was Hashem – God.

(more noise of Keren typing emails)

The revival of Hebrew may be one of the most successful linguistic experiments of modern times. That said, if Moses rose from his grave and visited Israel today, he’d need a translator. There are 8000 different words written in the Bible…but there are about 80,000 words in a modern Hebrew dictionary. It seems that Israelis have more to talk about than just covenants, cherubs and concubines.

For The World, I’m Daniel Estrin, in Jerusalem.

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• Vox Tablet
• The Academy of the Hebrew Language
• The World in Words podcast

This is the new face of St Patrick’s Church in Lawrence, MA. Until recently, St Pat’s was a bastion of Irish-American culture. But Lawrence is a changed city — it’s now overwhelmingly Hispanic. In 2001, Father Paul O’Brien was dispatched there with orders to extend outreach to Lawrence’s Dominicans and Puerto Ricans — its native Spanish speakers. He increased the number of Spanish language masses, started Spanish Bible study groups and raised money for a community center that offered free meals to the city’s poor. What happened next wasn’t pretty. Some old-time parishioners left the church; others contented themselves with leaving messages of hate on Father Paul’s voicemail. But nine years later, things have improved. Far more Spanish speakers worship at St Pat’s. And among the old-timers who remained, there’s acceptance, if sometimes grudging, that two languages, two cultures and two styles can co-exist in one church. All this — and much more — is documented in Scenes From a Parish, a film by James Rutenbeck that’s currently showing on PBS’s Independent Lens. (Check your local listings for repeats etc.) We play some excerpts, and talk to Rutenbeck and Father Paul.

Also, how do you say Neptune and Uranus in Hebrew? The answer used to be: Neptune and Uranus (yes, it’s Uranus in the picture). Now the two planets have Hebrew names, thanks to the votes of interested Israelis, The Academy of the Hebrew Language and a panel of experts. We English speakers are still stuck with Uranus but Hebrew speakers can now call that planet Oron. Neptune will now be known as Rahab.

Finally, a New Year’s Day hangover courtesy of the good people of Denmark.

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• Jerusalem Post: The gift of gab

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP: For Israeli radio listeners, the daily weather forecasts just aren’t as entertaining as they used to be.  That’s because one of Israel’s most popular weathermen retired last month.  He delivered forecasts on Hebrew-language radio for 39 years.  And, as Daniel Estrin reports from Petah Tikvah, Israelis listened as much for that funny American accent as for the weather.

DANIEL ESTRIN: Israelis always knew who it was when Robert Olinsky came on the air.

[Olinsky speaking Hebrew]

ROBERT OLINSKY: My accent in Hebrew is pretty strong, and it’s pretty hard to forget. I tried to, but I haven’t succeeded.

[Olinsky speaking Hebrew]

ESTRIN: When Olinsky was growing up in Trenton, New Jersey, he never expected that one day he’d deliver weather reports in a foreign language to millions of listeners.

OLINSKY: I have a terrible accent. My Hebrew is technically correct, if you can understand it. But that’s life, what can I tell ya?

ESTRIN: Olinsky didn’t plan on moving to Israel.  In 1970, he completed his service as a meteorologist on a US Air Force base in England.  And he decided to travel eastward on his way back home.  But when he stopped in Israel, he landed a job, and he’s been here ever since.  Olinsky began working at Israel’s Weather Central. And whenever radio announcers would need a weather report, they’d call and put him on the air, in Hebrew.

OLINSKY: When I picked up the phone, with my accent, it just left a– it stuck in people’s mind. It just became part of my– what I was known as, sort of thing.

[Hebrew radio dialog]

ESTRIN: You don’t hear much variety in Israeli radio voices.  That’s because Israel’s national radio has strict criteria for Hebrew diction.  Avi Etgar hosts a Saturday afternoon show on Israel Radio.  He says the airwaves are used as a tool to teach immigrants Hebrew, and to set standards for proper speech.

AVI ETGAR: Our first prime minister in 1948, David Ben Gurion, decided that the radio must speak in the most proper Hebrew.  Biblical accents, perfect Hebrew, and here comes this American guy, this Robert Olinsky, with his heavy American accent. It was so funny speaking to him. And we used to make– I used to make a joke with him about that.

ESTRIN: Actually, in the beginning, Olinsky’s American accent almost cost him his job. In the ’70s, an Israel Radio representative tried to get him booted off the air.  But Olinsky held on…and soon discovered that his accent became an asset.

OLINSKY: Because at that time, anything American in this country was good. An American car was the best. You know, so an American accent, it might be hard to understand him, but at least he knows what he’s talking about. So it actually gave me a benefit at that time.

ESTRIN: Throughout the years, Olinsky became a trusted source for weather.  When his wife would hang out the laundry to dry, the neighbors would follow suit.  And many Israelis would often call the office and ask him for personalized forecasts, especially  during wedding season.

OLINSKY: “We got a wedding tonight.” “Oh that’s a great–”  How many weddings are there are in Israel in a night? And all of the sudden the bride calls up, and the groom, and then the parents, and then the grandmother, and then the grandfather, who also has a grandson traveling in Argentina today.  And what’s the weather gonna be in Peru tomorrow, we have to show a lot of patience sometimes, a lot of patience.

ESTRIN: But Olinsky always kept his audience in mind.  Unlike many other Israeli meteorologists, he stuck to practical advice.  Avi Etgar from Israel Radio says listeners loved his sense of humor, and his fatherly warmth.

ETGAR: And you know, sometimes we say, “Oh what a dry summer.  What about the rain?” and it starts to be an issue. And Robert was always promising, you know, even by that sense of optimism, of “there’s gonna be rain,” because our lives depend on that, you know.

[Olinsky speaking Hebrew]

ESTRIN: Olinsky, who’s 67 years old, delivered his final forecast on the air last month. With his signature flat “‘R” he warned beachgoers to watch out for strong currents.  But before he signed off, there was a surprise for him.

[Israeli meterologist speaking Hebrew]

ESTRIN: An Israeli TV meteorologist came on the air to impersonate his classic accent.

[Radio conversation in Hebrew]

ESTRIN: Olinsky’s response, in Hebrew: “I didn’t understand a single word he said.”

ESTRIN: For The World, I’m Daniel Estrin, Petah Tikvah, Israel.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Also in this week’s podcast, I speak with author Katherine Russell Rich on learning Hindi at a language school in Rajasthan. Her book “Dreaming in Hindi“ is also an investigation into what happens to our brains when we learn a learn a language. Rich quizzed several neurolinguists, so she could get a handle on the challenges and all-round weird linguistic moments she encountered in her pursuit of Hindi mastery. So there are answers (not THE answers perhaps) to the following: what’s the difference between learning a language “intuitively” as a child and in a classroom setting later on? Why is it so difficult to have a perfect accent in your second or third language? Why do so many people verbally shut down for weeks or months when learning a language? How does language effect personality and vice versa? And is there blowback from your learned language that changes how you speak your native tongue?

On the subject of the last question, check out this fascinating conversation on The World’s science podcast on the latest research into what happens to your native tongue when you learn a second one. According to this study, you’ll never read your first language in the same way. Also, that cognates can trip you up.

Finally, we cast a somewhat shameful eye over a tough-to-translate expression in Spanish.

Photo credit: Daniel Estrin
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