Israel: A language of their own

[Harold Schiffman]

A language of their own

By Or Kashti

Tags: Israel

Russian-language teacher Dr. Ina Rosentaler hands out worksheets to
approximately 15 students who attended an afternoon class at
Jerusalem's Rene Cassin High School. Most of the students come from
families that immigrated to Israel from the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS). They gather here once or twice a week to
learn Russian as a second foreign language. Aside from Rene Cassin,
the Amit High School in Be'er Sheva, as well as many other educational
establishments, have also started programs teaching Russian as a
second foreign language.

The students at Rene Cassin read hesitantly from the worksheets,
search for the words, hoping to find the correct pronunciation. For
youths born in Israel, who study in the official educational framework
and are immersed in the local culture, this is no easy task. All
participants agree: The rules of grammar in Russian are complicated.

Last year some 1,900 students registered for the matriculation exam in
Russian at the highest level (five units, just slightly less than the
number of students who took the exam in Arabic in an expanded format).
According to Maria Winiar, the Education Ministry's supervisor of
Russian studies, some 20,000 students take Russian from grade seven
onward, in some 150 junior high schools, as part of the requirement to
study another foreign language in addition to English. The more the
large immigration waves of the 1990s recede into the past, the more
students born in Israel choose to study Russian.
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Perpetuating heritage

It turns out that for most students it was anything but obvious to
study Russian. Many of those attending the class at Rene Cassin, which
also accepts students from those schools that do not offer any Russian
language course, say that at first they were opposed to learning
Russian, because they wanted to fit in with the Israeli surroundings.
In the end, they gave in to pressure from their parents, who pushed
them to take Russian out of a desire to perpetuate their heritage and
identity.

"I didn't want to learn Russian," recalls Esther Akdishman, a
ninth-grader from Be'er Sheva. "During elementary school, I didn't
want to speak a word of Russian because the other students would
immediately shout 'smelly Russian.' I tried to avoid this label as
much as possible. I was embarrassed. I was even angry with my parents
for sending me to study Russian after school. When I asked them why
they were forcing me, they said it's important to keep up the
language."

Other students have similar stories. Dana Rivkin, a ninth-grader at
Jerusalem's Tali Beit Hinuch High School, says she concealed her
Russian roots for years, while Ana Berezin, an eleventh grader at the
city's Boyar High School, discloses that, "I always tried to prove
that I'm not Russian, for example, by purposely using fancy Hebrew."
The teacher, Dr. Rosentaler, comments that in the end, usually in
eleventh or twelfth grade, the students admit that it was good that
the parents pressured them.

In conversations with the students, it seems that once they reach high
school, the internal deliberations and the fear of being stereotyped
lose some of their potency. Perhaps it's because they are no longer in
elementary school (where "everyone is looking to make fun of someone
else," as one student describes it), or because of the greater
openness displayed, at least officially, by the education system;
maybe it's the mere act of learning together in a group with clear
traits. They are barely familiar with the concept of "the melting pot"
and at most vaguely remember their history classes on the immigrant
absorption policy of the 1950s.

Some students explain their choice to study Russian as stemming
primarily from functional considerations, because they find it
relatively easy to study a subject with which they are familiar from
home. Other functional considerations include the bonuses given by
universities for matriculation exams of five units or the desire to
communicate better with one's parents. But most students are also
aware of the more complex aspects that relate to questions of identity
and self-determination.

"We have to preserve the Russian language, pass it on to future
generations. I also want my kids to know Russian," says Amos Ginsberg,
a ninth-grader at Amit High School. "The classes help us understand
the Russian experience. We can't understand it on our own." Some of
the students have a strong desire to know "what went on there."
Several of them have also visited their native countries together with
their parents, in search of their roots. Studying Russian helps them
delve into the subject. One student said that after she asked her
mother for help with her homework, her mother told her new things
about the family's history in Russia.

Creating new words

Formally, the Russian classes focus on learning the Russian language
and acquiring the ability to speak the language fluently, but along
the way, the students also get "tastes of the culture," as Dr.
Rosentaler explains: short stories by Chekhov, poems by Pushkin and
even a little Tolstoy, if the students are patient. The Russian
language study book for higher grades, recently issued by the
Education Ministry, even explicitly states that one of the program's
objectives is "to become acquainted with prominent phenomena in
Russian history and culture."

"Along with the language comes Russian culture, film, television
shows, music that the students listen to at home. It's our way of
learning about this culture on its everyday level, the phrases that
appear later in conversations with parents," says Dalia Fishbach, an
eleventh grader from Be'er Sheva.

But most of the students alternate speaking Hebrew and Russian at
home. "Heb-Russ" is how Amos Ginsberg refers to the new language, and
other students nod in agreement. In "Heb-Russ" the language may change
in mid-sentence, for example when short, Hebrew words replace the
longer, Russian version. In other cases, structures from both
languages are used to create a new word: "datishnik" (used to refer to
a religious person), for example. One student adds that she especially
likes being able to change the way the letter "r" is pronounced,
depending on which language she is using. "Mom once said that I don't
have the 'r' of a Russian anymore," says another student.

"The more veteran immigrants, those who came in the 1970s, sometimes
get angry with us [the immigrants of the 1990s]," says Dalia Fishbach
of Be'er Sheva. "They didn't think it was necessary to speak Russian
on the street or learn the language in school. It was almost
incomprehensible. They claimed it was a ghetto and that we are
shutting ourselves off. But that's not true. My mother tongue is
Hebrew, and Russian is for enrichment only, to ensure that we will not
cut ourselves off from our past."

Daniella Shochman of Jerusalem agrees. "Once they thought it was
better not to pass on the Russian language, that it's better to forget
it, in order to integrate better into Israeli society," she says. "But
now they realize that it's impossible to forget. We don't want to or
can't change."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/955580.html

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