Writing 101

If you ever happened to scroll down the streets of my hometown Haifa, or any other city in Israel for that manner of fact, you will easily notice people speaking in different languages besides Hebrew. You will most likely hear people speaking in different languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, English, Amharic and many more. We Israelis consider this part of the “Kibbutz Galoyot” phenomenon. The biblical meaning to “Kibbutz Galoyot” is bringing jews back from exile from all over the world back to their “home” land- Israel. In the Israeli society today, it basically means that besides being “Israeli” jews, they have different backgrounds, cultures and traditions, and often languages. Growing up in this environment was very enlightening. From a very young age I was exposed to different traditions, different food and languages. Even in my own family there are several different languages spoken, and different types of food. My mom and her sisters were born and raised in Iran

When I first came to America and met American jews, I was fascinated to learn that the Hebrew they are familiar with is very different than the Hebrew I'm used to speak and hear on a daily basis from back home, which is Israel. I noticed that when talking to a jewish guy living on my dorm room floor. Even though he is fluent in Hebrew, he couldn't understand many of the words I was saying when talking to my parents over the phone in a casual conversation. He was very confused because many words sound like other words as they come from the same root, but the meaning is completely different. The reason that American jews can’t fully understand the “Israeli” Hebrew is because there are two different variations of the same language. American jews know biblical Hebrew from the bible. And that was the only form of Hebrew until the 19th century. Until the 19th century Hebrew was considered a dead language for over 3000 years (it wasn’t the first spoken language to anyone), a