To be(come) or not to be(come Israeli).

Joshua Pitkoff

November 2011

Behind Cultural Lines

Two weeks ago, my camper from last summer asked over Facebook chat, “So are you a part of Israeli culture yet?” This is my response.

    Eighty percent of my high school graduating class is in Israel right now participating in various and diverse programs throughout the country as a gap year before college. Most are in Jerusalem. Most are in American programs. Most have little, if not zero, contact with Israelis on a daily basis. Thank God, many Jewish students are electing to spend a year here, clearly necessitating attractive and comfortable options for us. But, is it possible to imagine such a place where Hebrew is spoken among Americans in the State of Israel? Can a place be envisioned where Americans participate in an Israeli program--living, learning, and experiencing the year truly different from their American life? Say, for example, signing up for an actual Israeli program instead of an American program in Israel.

    Since I am one of The Few, The Proud (trademark, US Marines; l’havdil) nine affectionately named chutznikim (hailing from chutz ha’aretz, outside of the land of Israel) at my Israeli yeshiva, I fall under this category. Let’s start at Ben Yehuda Street, the epicenter, the heart of American gap year social-life. Make a few short turns, continue on Sultan Sulieman, a right onto Yitzchak Hanadiv, through Derech Har Hatzofim tunnel which turns into Route 1, left onto Route 90 N, cruise for 80km and turn left onto Route 667 up the 11km winding mountain road. Your tremp will leave you at the gate of Yeshivat Ma’ale Gilboa, a two hour trip from the center of Jerusalem and the social center of American Jewish gap year students.

    So I choose to isolate myself from the American experience for the overwhelming majority of my time. This year, I enjoy a little timeout from tests and stress and homework and pressure of high school to recharge, as some would put it, before I drain my battery in college overdrive. A year to drink warm tea over Heschel between ceaseless years of caffeine abuse in the science library. Quite different, I must say, than the yeshiva experience of the Israelis. In the very near future, approaching steadily and surely, is their military draft. Meaning this year is one of preparation, testing, being profiled, pulling whatever strings possible to merit a spot in a more respected combat unit or a special intelligence program. They are nervous. They are scared. They will be bringing home their guns for weekends at home. We will be bringing laundry on weekends we go home. Yes, I chose the road less traveled by, but I dare not say it is the same as the Israeli way.

    Unsurprisingly, making the choice we did leads to certain assumptions. “Are you fluent yet? Have you dreamt in Hebrew yet?” “No, we’ve been here three weeks. You don’t get fluent in three weeks.” Some students feel pressure to impress their visiting friends and relatives with their newly improved Hebrew skills, as if to say, “Yeah, I made this hard decision and it’s paying off. Be jealous.” On the other side of the coin, I personally have found that students in American yeshivot, where the Hebrew they have to speak is to direct (psycho) cab drivers and order falafal, have entirely different standards of fluent. I have heard them award themselves the title of “fluent Hebrew speaker,” but I doubt they have tried to discuss Rav Kook’s philosophy or Rav Shagar’s post-modernism in Hebrew, an entirely different experience than “One pita with falafel, hummus, and salad.”

    My Israeli suite-mate, while bemoaning such tragedies of annoying Americans thinking they can just pop in for the year and blah blah blah, made sure to qualify, “But you guys are different.” In what way? “You are making an effort to learn hard Hebrew words, learn about the army, isolate yourselves with us.” In his eyes, we are different from those Americans. Yet, we enter a room and something about us--our clothes, our mannerisms, our less Mediterranean skin-tones--something gives us away and we are thrown right back into the melting pot of all Anglos.

Much like the American college application process (without any of the stress), the gap year yeshiva and seminary application process includes interviews, often as valuable for the students as for the institution. Yeshivat Ma’ale Gilboa, as the rabbi in charge of interviewing always clarifies, is not about coming to Israel for a year, it’s about being Israeli for a year. That is the pitch, but is it accurate? Certainly, we separate ourselves from the rest of our friends for a year, but does that mean that we have become Israeli? Where is the line one has to cross from being non-American to actual Israeli?

    Maybe we should start by examining the qualities, the dead giveaways, of our American roots. “How do I know you’re Americans? By the way you dress, obviously,” one of our rabbis told us. Clothing, check. We tend to wait on lines. Patience, check. We panic at least slightly as the passengers of an Israeli driver. A shiver also runs down my spine when army planes fly very low. General sense of nervousness, check.

    Certainly, there are smaller-scale tensions between our cultural tectonic plates. Milk is 3% and comes in bags. (From this was born the “shoko b’sakit,” chocolate [milk] in a bag, the greatest invention of Israel’s food industry.)  Americans tend to enjoy small breakfasts, moderate lunches, and heaping plates of dinner. Israelis favor large breakfasts, larger lunches, and, at least in yeshiva, practically no dinner whatsoever. Hitchhiking is part of everyday life for some, extremely common in the more remote, public-transportation-lacking, regions of the country. And naturally, who could forget the complete elimination of late wake-ups and delicious brunches on Sunday morning?

    I find the big kahuna of the American/Israeli divide, to be the language barrier. Not only fluency in Hebrew, but idiom-use as well as, probably the biggest hurdle to overcome, the Israeli accent. Even among the Americans in the yeshiva, there are several ways of attempting to bridge that gap. Some will make a careful effort to speak the language as they hear it. Meaning, Israelis, to our American ears, pronounce the lamed (L-sound) and the reish (R-sound) essentially the same, which Americans attempt to emulate, some more successful than others. Some saturate their sentences with Israeli idioms and slang, frequently using words such as k’eilu (like), achi (my brother), b’keif (with pleasure), gever (loosely, “a man,” usually endearing), and walla/why (wow). Perhaps they mumble a little, deepen their voices, anything to attempt to drown the voice screaming out, “Look at me, I’m American.”

    Others, including myself up until now at least, have kept their American accent purposefully. Probably a subconscious response to the failed attempts of others to “fake” the accent, I find no shame in others knowing my American roots. Unfortunately, my whole life there have always been classmates of mine who faked the accent in Ivrit (Hebrew) classes with a definite stigma attached. Maybe while amongst Israelis in a situation such as ours it is generally more accepted, but upon returning to America, it would likely be considered strange for me to have an Israeli Hebrew accent. People would certainly judge me, justifiably or not, for “faking” it because that is not really who I am.

    Several weekends ago, I spent Shabbat with my friend from home who has been buzz-cutting his own hair as well as several of my friends’, for a few months now. I needed a haircut and figured, “Why not? My hair is usually short anyway, it’s easier and cheaper than a barber.” His American, electric razor--plugged in though a converter that could have blown up on my head at any minute--trimmed down my thick hair to half an inch on top and the sides a mere ⅜ inch. “Oh, look at Josh all Israeli now.” And I reacted defensively because, well, I don’t want to be judged negatively for false reasons. I’m truly not trying to fake who I am and be someone I’m not.

    I am very unsure whether or not I envision my future as one of an Israeli citizen. Sometimes I visit communities and feel like I can definitely see myself raising a family with such a warm neighborhood and thriving B'nei Akiva (Israeli youth program); but sometimes I wander the area and feel a clear and unbridgeable divide between its residents and myself. I read Time magazine's descriptions of America's failing economy, education system, and government, considering Israel more and more as solid option; but then I attempt to switch Israeli phone companies and use customer service and realize nothing in this country works how it should and I have no desire to voluntarily deal with that. Or will it be an ideological decision based on my desire to build the Jewish State versus developing the American Jewish community? For me personally, this discussion of culture all depends heavily on how I view my future. If I plan on returning to America and spending the rest of my life striving to achieve the American Dream, then keeping an American accent poses no problems and I will certainly not be judged. However, if in time, I envision myself making aliyah, maybe this year is the time to incorporate those more Israeli aspects into my personality, including “developing” my accent. One free Shabbat which I spent in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot, we met a woman who made aliyah many years ago, but still had her American Hebrew accent. Do I want to still seem, like that woman, obviously American even after living here for many years? (And of course get ripped off accordingly at the shuk and in taxis.) On the other hand, I would be faking it, essentially trying to be Israeli. Would it be considered legitimate to get buzz-cuts and change my accent if I planned to eventually include myself as part of this culture?

    The question is where exactly is the line between faking and changing--being something you aren’t and this being who you now are? At a certain point, you are incorporating this aspect into a part of you. Not putting on a mask to disguise, but rather changing the face itself. In a more current example (by the Israeli entertainment media standards lagging roughly a decade behind American), Michael Jackson getting plastic surgery to make himself actually white instead of just pretending to be white. Maybe that’s a little extreme, but the general idea. To a large extent the issue is at its core, a discussion of intent. Do you trust another person is changing for himself and not to affect how others view him?

    Once we assume this individual’s change to be well-intentioned and to develop him or herself, congratulations we have just passed go, collected 200 NIS, and are right back at the beginning: at what point does that individual actually become Israeli, or is it even possible? Even if I make aliyah, can I ever truly be Israeli with such strong American roots?

I don’t have answers to these questions and I certainly won’t pretend to. I wanted to provide a small insight into tension most people take for granted when thinking about the yeshiva/seminary year and even making aliyah. For me at least, it is a remarkably complicated issue and is relevant day in and day out, whether we consciously recognize it or not.

Only at the end of the year will we know how we have been transformed by the experiences of our time in yeshiva. There is, however, one person I met who already knows. Our guide for a tour with a mission from my shul heard I am a student at Maale Gilboa and made sure to tell my dad, “That’s an amazing place. I hope you know you’re going to lose your son.”

Maybe when all is said and done, who cares about the differences?