At our first professional development of the year, we were asked which sound most characterized our summer, and I realized that mine was laughter, because the laughter in my online Hebrew class this summer was constant, even when we were on mute and could only see each other’s laughing faces. We became a tight knit group, with our young Israeli teacher, able to cover all of the emotional ground that came our way, without ever getting too depressed, because we knew we would be laughing again soon.
But actually, I spent even more time in Hebrew practice groups this summer than in the class itself, because I had the time and because I finally felt like I could handle the social anxiety that comes with meeting so many strangers and making mistakes in front of them. It was all under the safe canopy of the same online Hebrew language program as my class, but in the practice groups I was meeting dozens of people from different Hebrew levels, and time zones, and ages and cultures.
There are so many strange topics for discussion in the practice groups. Of course there are the standards: favorite food, favorite movie, what would you bring to a desert island. But then they start to get creative: what’s the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten (Ptcha – calf’s foot jelly); how would you solve global warming? (teach everyone how to fly: Laoof, like a bird, instead of Latoos, on a plane); how many languages can you speak (this one gets very competitive, and more than a few people have tried to count Spanish because they know how to say “Hola.”)
But we are always free to talk about something else in the breakout rooms, as long as we say it in Hebrew, so I’ve had long conversations about my dogs, or teaching, or growing up Jewish on Long Island. And if we’re pretty sure the teacher isn’t about to pop into the breakout room, we can discuss our favorite and least favorite teachers. You’d be amazed how diligently we can stick to Hebrew in the midst of a good gossip session. Because, you know, we’re studying here. We take it very seriously.
The way the teachers lurk in the breakout rooms is always a topic of conversation. First of all, because they just appear and disappear without warning, like spies. But also, they keep their cameras off, as if we’re supposed to pretend they’re not really there. So, if I make a point of saying hello to the other students in the breakout room and don’t specifically say hello to the teacher, a disembodied voice might say, “Whatever, I’m not here, just ignore me,” which means, Hey, how dare you ignore me!
Sometimes we’ll talk directly to the teacher – or to the box on the screen with the school logo on it – and ask for the Hebrew word for this or that, and the teacher will pop up on screen to answer “in person.” One time, a friend of mine asked her question, got her answer, and then said, “okay, you can go back into your little box now.”
We get to meet a lot of teachers in the practice groups and see what their styles are – how they do corrections, how rigidly (or not) they follow their lesson plans, whether or not they have a sense of humor – and I’ve been able to get a much better idea of what works for me and what doesn’t, so that when a teacher’s style starts to get on my nerves, or leaves me feeling stupid, I’m less likely to assume it’s my fault (but only a little less likely).
Our young Israeli teachers have also introduced us to something called pitzuchim – which literally translates to cracking nuts or seeds, but is used in Hebrew to refer to the way Israelis are always trying to figure out where they might know each other from (among American Jews this is called Jewish geography). It turns out that a lot of the teachers and students in the program have connections, through second cousins or long lost neighbors or who knows what else. So far, though, I have cracked no nuts or seeds on these zooms, which is kind of disappointing. Getting to Israel would be so much easier if I discovered a long lost wealthy relative with an empty apartment by the beach.
This time spent in breakout rooms used to be the most stressful part of practice groups for me, and the reason why I avoided them so assiduously for years, but now, after the first few twinges of anxiety, I’ve come to really enjoy hearing everyone’s stories, and I’m less self-conscious about my broken Hebrew (though I still feel grumpy each time I make a mistake, which happens often).
The most stressful part for me now is when we have to translate sentences from English to Hebrew, often using words I haven’t practiced recently (because I’m visiting practice groups at different levels from my own); but I’m getting used to laughing at my mistakes, and I’ve noticed that when I screw up, and laugh at myself, other people start to relax about their own mistakes. It’s almost like I’m doing a service.
In some of the practice groups, after we go over some grammar from previous levels, we’ll read short articles together, or even just headlines, from online Hebrew language newspapers – often about food or travel or popular culture, so we can learn words we wouldn’t come across in class, like how to say “laundering money” in Hebrew. The words that are hardest to read in these articles are often borrowed from other languages. So, more often than not, our Israeli teachers will start to giggle when we can’t figure out how to pronounce “Mexico,”when it’s written in Hebrew letters.
One of the lowest stress exercises that we do in practice group – though I can make anything feel stressful without really trying – is when the teacher puts an article on the screen and instead of asking us to read, and, God forbid, translate it, we just have to find one word at a time. It reminds me of being in first grade or so and realizing that there were English words I could just recognize on the page, without needing to sound them out, because they had become so familiar to me just by their shape.
As a result of all of this time in the practice groups, I sometimes hear myself speaking in Hebrew, without having planned what to say ahead of time; the words just come out of my mouth, and I kind of look around the room, wondering who said that.
And, really, during a summer where, aside from Mom, most of my in-person human interactions were at supermarkets or doctors’ offices, these practice groups gave me the chance to meet and chat with and learn from dozens of real people, who are fascinating and funny and weird and challenging. It’s still strange to me how real a community can feel, even when it only exists online; but in a way, the boundaries created by the computer (of time, and purpose, and mute buttons) creates a sense of safety that allows me to say what I really mean more often. Now, if only I could translate those safe boundaries into the real world…
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my novel, Yeshiva Girl, on Amazon. And if you feel called to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish teenager on Long Island, named Isabel, though her father calls her Jezebel. Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes it’s true. As a result of his problems, her father sends her to a co-ed Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, and Izzy and her mother can’t figure out how to prevent it. At Yeshiva, though, Izzy finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment. The question is, what will Izzy find?
rachelmankowitz 