THE RACIAL POLITICS OF HEBREW
"I've lost my áyin," I sadly confided to my Iranian friend
on a recent trip to Israel. "Stay in Israel much longer, and
you'll lose your ´het, too!" he laughed. Indeed, most of my
Mizrahi friends speak the Ashkenaziized version of the Hebrew
alphabet, as a result of the incessant ridicule and contempt
their parents faced upon arriving in Israel. Scorn for the "Mizrahi"
pronunciation of Hebrew was just another manifestation of the
general disgust for anything Middle Eastern and North African.
Leaving that accent behind was embraced as a method for escaping
automatic classification as backwards, primitive, dirty, uneducated,
and violent – common stereotypes ascribed to Mizrahim.
Ironically enough, the "Mizrahi" pronunciation of Hebrew
is the grammatically correct, original pronunciation. Hebrew
originally had a different pronunciation for each letter of
the Hebrew alphabet: alef and áyin; hey,
´het, and chet; gimmel with a dagesh
(dot) in the middle and ´ghimmel without that dagesh...Originating
in the Middle East, the sounds of the Hebrew alphabet were compatible
with the sounds of other Semitic languages of the region. Accordingly,
Jews who remained in the region over the millennia were able
to preserve the original pronunciation of Hebrew through the
modern day. Speaking Arabic or Farsi on a daily basis only served
to reinforce the Semitic tongue.
Jews who migrated to Slavic and Germanic countries, however,
lost the ability to make many of these distinct pronunciations.
For example, there is no "w" sound in German, so the "waw" became
a "vav." In total, about eighteen distinct sounds were mushed
into nine, resulting in "duplicate" letters. Just as Ashkenazi
culture came to dominate Jewish life globally, so did the Ashkenazi
(mis)pronunciation of the Hebrew alphabet; and so these double
letters are the commonly taught pronunciation today.
When I was five years old, I was the only child in my orthodox
Hebrew school who got perfect scores on my Hebrew tests. "How
are we supposed to know if it's a kouf or a kaf?" classmates
would complain. I knew the distinctions because I learned them
at home. When I prayed and sang, it was always with these distinctions.
So at Hebrew school, I would go through a translation process
in my head when learning new words, thinking of them as my family
would pronounce them. Thus the secret to my success.
But as I grew up in the Jewish world, it seemed preferable
to overlook this obvious advantage, in favor of the more "enlightened"
Ashkenazi pronunciation. I was regularly taunted for my pronunciation,
to the point that I became afraid to open my mouth. In other
words, sounding like me – like my family, like my ethnicity
– was a shaming experience. And that was in America.
"It's amazing to me that I have to forfeit the correct pronunciation
of Hebrew in order be considered educated enough to get a good
job ," one Mizrahi wrote in a Letter to the Editor of an Israeli
newspaper about five years ago. In Israel, language politics
are intertwined not only with identity politics but also with
economics.
As I have taught Hebrew the past several years, I have been
pointedly admonished from teaching the "Mizrahi" pronunciation
to the children. "It will confuse them," I have been told by
my supervisors. Meanwhile, my students have struggled with the
elusiveness of figuring out how to spell with so many "double
letters." Inevitably, I have sneaked in a lesson on the original
pronunciations, praying the supervisor would not walk in during
that moment. "For a number of political reasons I won't get
into now," I said to one class last year, "modern Israeli Hebrew
follows the European pronunciation of the Hebrew alphabet."
"But wait," one red-haired, freckle-faced student asked me.
"Why would they want to choose less sounds over more sounds?
That's really dumb!" "Don't ask me," I said, hands surrendering
in the air. "I'm with you!"
Indeed, why does the Jewish mainstream prefer to have nine
Hebrew sounds for eighteen letters instead of eighteen sounds?
On that note, why does it prefer to teach one traditional Hanukkah
song instead of ten, one historical Jewish narrative instead
of twenty, one menu for Shabbat dinner instead of thirty? Jewish
(i.e., Ashkenazi) leaders seem to be operating on an either-or
model of perceived scarcity, threatened by the very mention
of non-Ashkenazi heritage – as if our invitation to the dinner
table would kick everyone else out of the room. In order to
get rid of this perceived threat, Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Ethiopian
Jewish heritage and communities have been devalued and degraded
publicly.
Faced with the choice of preserving our heritage or being
accepted and promoted in a Jewish society, the overwhelming
majority of non-Ashkenazi Jews have assimilated and given up
our traditions. Until Jewish leadership shifts to a model of
abundance, we and our traditions will continue to be shut out.
And the entire Jewish community will lose.
© 2001 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion
of this article may be copied without author's permission. This
article was first published in Generation J (http://www.generationj.com)
and has since been published in Best Jewish Writing 2002 (Jossey-Bass,
2002).
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THE RACIAL POLITICS OF HEBREW
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"I've lost my áyin," I sadly confided to my Iranian friend on a recent trip to Israel. "Stay in Israel much longer, and you'll lose your ´het, too!" he laughed. Indeed, most of my Mizrahi friends speak the Ashkenaziized version of the Hebrew alphabet, as a result of the incessant ridicule and contempt their parents faced upon arriving in Israel. Scorn for the "Mizrahi" pronunciation of Hebrew was just another manifestation of the general disgust for anything Middle Eastern and North African. Leaving that accent behind was embraced as a method for escaping automatic classification as backwards, primitive, dirty, uneducated, and violent – common stereotypes ascribed to Mizrahim. Ironically enough, the "Mizrahi" pronunciation of Hebrew is the grammatically correct, original pronunciation. Hebrew originally had a different pronunciation for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet: alef and áyin; hey, ´het, and chet; gimmel with a dagesh (dot) in the middle and ´ghimmel without that dagesh...Originating in the Middle East, the sounds of the Hebrew alphabet were compatible with the sounds of other Semitic languages of the region. Accordingly, Jews who remained in the region over the millennia were able to preserve the original pronunciation of Hebrew through the modern day. Speaking Arabic or Farsi on a daily basis only served to reinforce the Semitic tongue. Jews who migrated to Slavic and Germanic countries, however, lost the ability to make many of these distinct pronunciations. For example, there is no "w" sound in German, so the "waw" became a "vav." In total, about eighteen distinct sounds were mushed into nine, resulting in "duplicate" letters. Just as Ashkenazi culture came to dominate Jewish life globally, so did the Ashkenazi (mis)pronunciation of the Hebrew alphabet; and so these double letters are the commonly taught pronunciation today. When I was five years old, I was the only child in my orthodox Hebrew school who got perfect scores on my Hebrew tests. "How are we supposed to know if it's a kouf or a kaf?" classmates would complain. I knew the distinctions because I learned them at home. When I prayed and sang, it was always with these distinctions. So at Hebrew school, I would go through a translation process in my head when learning new words, thinking of them as my family would pronounce them. Thus the secret to my success. But as I grew up in the Jewish world, it seemed preferable to overlook this obvious advantage, in favor of the more "enlightened" Ashkenazi pronunciation. I was regularly taunted for my pronunciation, to the point that I became afraid to open my mouth. In other words, sounding like me – like my family, like my ethnicity – was a shaming experience. And that was in America. "It's amazing to me that I have to forfeit the correct pronunciation of Hebrew in order be considered educated enough to get a good job ," one Mizrahi wrote in a Letter to the Editor of an Israeli newspaper about five years ago. In Israel, language politics are intertwined not only with identity politics but also with economics. As I have taught Hebrew the past several years, I have been pointedly admonished from teaching the "Mizrahi" pronunciation to the children. "It will confuse them," I have been told by my supervisors. Meanwhile, my students have struggled with the elusiveness of figuring out how to spell with so many "double letters." Inevitably, I have sneaked in a lesson on the original pronunciations, praying the supervisor would not walk in during that moment. "For a number of political reasons I won't get into now," I said to one class last year, "modern Israeli Hebrew follows the European pronunciation of the Hebrew alphabet." "But wait," one red-haired, freckle-faced student asked me. "Why would they want to choose less sounds over more sounds? That's really dumb!" "Don't ask me," I said, hands surrendering in the air. "I'm with you!" Indeed, why does the Jewish mainstream prefer to have nine Hebrew sounds for eighteen letters instead of eighteen sounds? On that note, why does it prefer to teach one traditional Hanukkah song instead of ten, one historical Jewish narrative instead of twenty, one menu for Shabbat dinner instead of thirty? Jewish (i.e., Ashkenazi) leaders seem to be operating on an either-or model of perceived scarcity, threatened by the very mention of non-Ashkenazi heritage – as if our invitation to the dinner table would kick everyone else out of the room. In order to get rid of this perceived threat, Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Ethiopian Jewish heritage and communities have been devalued and degraded publicly. Faced with the choice of preserving our heritage or being accepted and promoted in a Jewish society, the overwhelming majority of non-Ashkenazi Jews have assimilated and given up our traditions. Until Jewish leadership shifts to a model of abundance, we and our traditions will continue to be shut out. And the entire Jewish community will lose. © 2001 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author's permission. This article was first published in Generation J (http://www.generationj.com) and has since been published in Best Jewish Writing 2002 (Jossey-Bass, 2002). |