I recently happened to overhear a conversation while travelling by train from central Haifa - in the north of Israel - to Herzliya, which is located in the central area of Israel, about 15 km north to Tel Aviv. A woman sitting in front of me had a conversation with a relative or friend of hers, obviously a woman too. The conversation was held in local Arabic. My knowledge of Arabic was not enough to understand every bit of that casual conversation, but enough though to notice several interesting characteristics - with the schooled ear of a linguist. The woman in the train was around 35-40 years old, she was wearing a western style dress, like an average Israeli woman at the end of a day's work - she seemed to work as a school teacher - a bit tired, making several phone calls one after the other, to take advantage of the available time while travelling in the train - typical of many Israelis.
What caught my attention was the fact that, while talking in Arabic, the woman used various Hebrew terms, such as "Bituach Leumi" (national social care), "tachanat rakevet" (train station), "kupat cholim" (health care), all perfectly inserted into the flow of her speech. Obviously her partner did not seem to find this odd, rather this seemed the normal thing to do and probably the other woman would do the same. They didn't seem to notice even.
This reminded me of other conversations in Arabic I had overheard over the years in Israel, such as two waitors in a hotel in Israel, two young men from the same "village", who would use Hebrew terms for objects such as the table cloth ("mapa") - which then seemed so odd to me (I had been living in Israel only 2 or 3 years then) that I interfered in their conversation and asked them about this - they laughed sheepeshly and said "We don't even notice that, it's a habit, we use the Hebrew terms for things at work".
The woman in the train had to stop the flow of her conversation after she had mentioned that she just had to switch trains at the Binyamina train station: obviously her partner had never heard about this city in Israel. For a Hebrew speaking Israeli, this would seem rather odd - almost like an American citizen asking "What is New York? Where is it?".
Binyamina is a Jewish town in Israel, which was founded in 1922 by Jewish settlers. By 1947 it had a population of 2000, in 2009, it had a population of 6000. Among Jewish Israelis, Binyamina was the hometown of famous songwriter Ehud Manor, who mentioned this town in numerous songs, where is appears to have been heaven on earth. It now has several famous wineries and is one of the major highplaces of wine tourism in the country.
I was surprised to realize that there was an Israeli Arab woman out there who seemingly had never heard before of the town of Binyamina. The woman in the train had to repeat the name at least 3 times and made at least 2 attempts to explain its geographical location: obviously the other woman was unable to even grasp that name or to imagine its location: it was a black hole in her mind, it did not exist.
This brought me to the thought about myself, that even after more than 30 years in this country, there are numerous Arab villages that I don't know anything about - and even if I do, they are not part of my world. I feel like a perfect stranger there - so I actually could understand now that woman's reaction.
What caught my attention was the fact that, while talking in Arabic, the woman used various Hebrew terms, such as "Bituach Leumi" (national social care), "tachanat rakevet" (train station), "kupat cholim" (health care), all perfectly inserted into the flow of her speech. Obviously her partner did not seem to find this odd, rather this seemed the normal thing to do and probably the other woman would do the same. They didn't seem to notice even.
This reminded me of other conversations in Arabic I had overheard over the years in Israel, such as two waitors in a hotel in Israel, two young men from the same "village", who would use Hebrew terms for objects such as the table cloth ("mapa") - which then seemed so odd to me (I had been living in Israel only 2 or 3 years then) that I interfered in their conversation and asked them about this - they laughed sheepeshly and said "We don't even notice that, it's a habit, we use the Hebrew terms for things at work".
The woman in the train had to stop the flow of her conversation after she had mentioned that she just had to switch trains at the Binyamina train station: obviously her partner had never heard about this city in Israel. For a Hebrew speaking Israeli, this would seem rather odd - almost like an American citizen asking "What is New York? Where is it?".
Binyamina founders street
I was surprised to realize that there was an Israeli Arab woman out there who seemingly had never heard before of the town of Binyamina. The woman in the train had to repeat the name at least 3 times and made at least 2 attempts to explain its geographical location: obviously the other woman was unable to even grasp that name or to imagine its location: it was a black hole in her mind, it did not exist.
This brought me to the thought about myself, that even after more than 30 years in this country, there are numerous Arab villages that I don't know anything about - and even if I do, they are not part of my world. I feel like a perfect stranger there - so I actually could understand now that woman's reaction.
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