JERUSALEM I

When coming to Israel, I already expected to face difficulties with the Hebrew language, but I was still hopeful. Most of the people speak Hebrew in Israel and there were many situations where I met people that couldn’t really understand English. When you walk around the city of Jerusalem most of the signs are written in either Hebrew or Arabic – both languages I can’t understand.

Even in the university, many students barely spoke English therefore, in most classes mostly Hebrew is being spoken and not English. I tried attending a language course in the beginning of the semester but very fast I realized that it would take much more than that to even manage the very basics of this difficult language. The main issue I had, when first coming into contact with Hebrew was that I was startled by the use of a completely different alphabet. It basically looked like an alien language to me and honestly still does even after 3 months living here. Of course, the fact that you read and write from the right to the left added to the confusion. It is very common here at the university that the professors communicate with their students over WhatsApp groups, which caused us exchange students a lot of work. Each message had to be dragged into Google Translate to then mostly get messages that were filled with complete nonsense. I was lucky that I was able to find people in each class that offered their help with translating the class for me and the other exchange students during our studies. They also helped translating the various Hebrew messages and emails I got so that I had all the information I needed. It was obviously very stressful in the beginning to not understand a word of what’s being spoken around you and even simple tasks like buying milk in a supermarket suddenly became a challenge. It definitely took time to get used to the feeling of being fully dependent or the other students in the different classes. Eventually you just got to give in and accept and adapt to the situation you find yourself in.

Another issue related to the foreign language came up while buying groceries at the main market in Jerusalem. Not knowing the language is a direct indicator for the vendors at the market that you’re a foreigner. Therefore, not speaking Hebrew is making you vulnerable to being ripped off. Even the Israelis living here admit to the fact that, if you’re foreign and can’t speak the language the chances of them trying to get a higher price from you is very high. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do other than trying to bargain the price and even then, you’ll probably end up with a much higher price than a local would pay for the same vegetables for example. With time we found a way to trick vendors into giving us better prices. Instead of using a very basic Hebrew or English we decided that not saying anything will surely trick them into thinking we’re not foreign. To this day we’re all still very unsure if this tactic was actually successful but it shows that you have to be creative and adapt in situations that seem impossible to overcome. It’s nearly impossible to learn Hebrew well enough to manage in a semester and it takes a lot of commitment to even try to. Therefore, sometimes it’s ok not to understand everything and having to ask for help from the locals. Not understanding can also be a luxury because it also means that you don’t always need to listen and you need to learn to rely on other skills and senses.

Lara Schmid, January 2022