Hebrew Lessons for Beginners

On the way back to the hotel on my second night here I stopped in at the Yellow, a gas station with a convenience store, to buy beer for my room. I put my two bottles of Goldstar on the counter.

The young woman said “Shalom” without looking up.

I said “Shalom”

She said something which I took to be the price without looking up.

I handed her a hundred Shekels.

She said something without looking up.

I said: “I’m sorry I don’t speak Hebrew”.

She looked up, paused, then smiled a big smile. Would you like me to open the bottle? she asked.

I smiled and said no.

As she handed me my change she asked where I was from. I told her. Visiting, she asked. Yes. She smiled again, looked me in the eyes and said “Welcome to Jerusalem”.

At Chakra, a terrific restaurant on Shlomzion, when the waitresses realized I didn’t speak Hebrew they seemed to pay special attention. They often came by my table to ask if everything was fine. They brought me an extra little dish of eggplant when I told them how good it was. They recommended wine. They chatted. And they all said goodnight when I left.

Elsewhere it’s mostly been the same. At Adom, at the hotel, at the falafel shop on Ben Yehuda, they smile, they ask questions, they joke. Not necessarily in the street, or in all the shops, but young people especially seem eager to be warm when I say those words: I’m sorry I don’t speak Hebrew.

On Sunday I asked Noam how to say thank-you in Hebrew. Toda. I can handle that. I asked how to say “you’re welcome”. “Start with thank-you,” Noam suggested.

I’ve been using my newly acquired Hebrew frequently since then, and although there are none of the difficult guttural sounds there are in other words which I either roll around like an ‘r’ or overemphasize as though I’m coming down with bronchitis, I still think I mispronounce ‘toda’. As though I’m French, maybe.

In Jordan last summer I learned to say ‘Shukran’: Thank you. But even though hardly anyone spoke English it didn’t seem to make any impression at all. And the only time I remember any young women looking at me at all was in the streets of Madaba when two school girls glanced at me sideways, like they do in Korea and Japan. When I caught them, they held their school binders in front of their faces so I wouldn’t see them. But I could hear them giggle.

And when you say "As-Salaam Aleikum" in the shops in the Arab quarter, the younger men respond enthusiastically: “wa Alaykum As-Salam” But they still ask a hundred shekels for a handful of beads and claim they never negotiate.

After a long tough productive day today with Helen Bond, a divinity professor from the University of Edinburgh I felt worn down. I went back to the Yellow and bought snacks.

The young woman said: “Shalom” without looking up.

I said: “Shalom”

She said something I took to be the price without looking up.

I handed her a hundred Shekels.

She made change and handed it to me without looking up.

I said: “Toda”

She said something I took to be “you’re welcome”.

Without looking up.

At all.

I’m giving up my Hebrew lessons.