Maya and I are out walking the dog.
She just fought with her brother and I took her and Shiloh out for a stroll. That’s the main reason people have dogs: when two family members fight, one of them can always take the dog out.
I say something about how they have to learn to get along.
"But I don't even like him,” she replies. “We're not even friends."
"You have to be friends. You’re siblings."
What I mean to say is "When I'm old and demented you'll have to get along long enough so you can procrastinate on making any big decisions together." But maybe she doesn’t need this level of detail just yet.
She says, “No that's not true. We don't have to get along."
“Yes, it is true.”
“Ok, and what if one sibling is Israeli and the other one is Hamas-y? Then they can't be friends, can they?"
I have to stop and take a deep breath before I answer her. Then I say quietly, "In that case, they don’t have to be friends. But that's the only case."
something familiar
It turns out that the Swahili word for “friend” – rafiki – comes from Arabic (rafiq).
As do many other words I remember from Swahili. So, habari 'news' (as in Habari gani? “how are you/what are the news?”) is from the Arabic ahbar (Shu ahbarek? means “What are your news?”). Asubuhi ‘morning’ is from the Arabic sabah/subeh. And there are many more.
It's like meeting old friends.
It turns out that in Arabic, a child addresses his mom as "mama" and the mom can address him back lovingly as "mama." Like this:
Child: "Can I go play, mama?"
Mom: "Yes you can go play, mama."
It is similar to how in Hebrew adults address children (or sometimes other adults) as mami or mamale. And when I was little in Russia, long before anyone knew any Hebrew, my mom and my aunts addressed children in the family as mamochka, the Russian diminutive of "mom.” It is something that I always thought was exclusively Jewish but now I see that it’s something very common across the Middle East.
It’s mindboggling how people can wander the continent for centuries, sometimes almost completely assimilating into other cultures but still preserving that special way of speaking that ties them back to their origins.
“cultural schizophrenia”
It started very well. I found this website, Madrasa, that has a free online Palestinian Arabic course for Hebrew speakers. It teaches the dialect spoken in Jerusalem.
But I also like to get exposed to native content as soon as possible. I remembered that Easy Languages, the non-profit that interviews people on the streets in their native language and that I liked for Portuguese, also had videos of Palestinian Arabic.
But it soon became clear that I couldn’t watch those. Those videos were filmed in Gaza in 2022. I’m aware that Gaza is undergoing a human tragedy of cosmic proportions. But my visceral reaction to these videos is anger and helplessness because this is where more than 100 of our people are still being held and tortured. It hurts to type the name of this city.
But it’s not even that. What makes them impossible to watch is that when people in these videos are asked “What are the best places to visit in Palestine?” they answer "Haifa.”
Talk about enjoying the content. I have lowered the bar: I just have to find something that doesn't hurt my insides.
I tell my friend Danny that watching these videos hurts my insides.
"Why?" he asked.
I mean… isn’t it obvious? To me, it's that kind of thinking that fueled the attacks of October 7th, legitimized them in the eyes of many, and ultimately brought on the immense and unnecessary suffering of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
"It sends a violent message," I say.
"Not necessarily. It depends on what else they're saying."
My friend Danny is more open-minded than I am.
I recently heard a multilingual person on YouTube use the term 'cultural schizophrenia.' The idea is that when you know several languages, you start seeing the world from all these different points of view, and it can mess with your head. We all belong to our cultures, whether we’re aware of it or not. If you start seeing the world from too many cultural viewpoints at the same time, who are you then?
Maybe the fear of cultural schizophrenia is why 95% of Jews in Israel don’t speak Arabic. Why Turkish Cypriots don't learn Greek and vice versa. Why Canadians don't learn Indigenous languages. Why the English don't learn Gaelic. Not knowing the language makes it easier to pretend that “The Other” doesn’t exist and that whatever painful history you have between you didn’t happen.
Maybe we’re afraid that if we learn Arabic and start seeing their point of view, we'll lose hold of ours. But I don't think it's right. When we don't learn Arabic we miss the opportunity to connect with people who are a part of this country and consider it their home even if some of them have a complicated relationship with it. We lump our friends with our enemies.
But also, “to see” is not the same as “to accept.” I think there is value and strength to be gained from seeing the point of view that fundamentally contradicts yours, being able to hold it and still stand by what you believe in. And yes in seeing the person behind that point of view without disintegrating into a meltdown. Provided that particular person has not manifested murderous intentions towards you, there is still a chance you two might learn to get along.
We're a country of contradictions by definition. We are a Jewish homeland, but we’re also a democratic state (at least according to our Declaration of Independence if not according to the direction our shitty government wants to take) that strives to treat all its citizens, regardless of faith or ethnicity, equally.
Our previous government comprised a right-wing Jewish party and an Islamist party that had, to put it mildly, very contradictory views on what this country should be. Talk about contradictions.
too much sad stuff
After the Gaza interviews, YouTube decided I wanted to watch videos of current affairs. And because I have no self-control, I watched everything it showed me. I got updated on the war in the North and the South and the generally depressing state of affairs around here. I watched stories of survivors of the Nova festival and recent interviews with people who came back from captivity about what they went through and what other people are still going through. Real-life horror stories that the world must hear but that I shouldn’t watch because if I do I stop functioning.
My brain went: people are going through hell right this very second, and I'm here on my comfy couch, trying to understand the world better through languages? Learning Arabic of all things to get there??
Understand the world my ass.
But somehow, whatever part of my brain was thinking this didn’t send the signal to the rest of me to say, “Dude maybe it’s time you get off YouTube.” The only signal I got was “Life is pointless nothing makes sense why get out of bed why.”
It lasted until Tuesday when Maya reminded me that it was time to go to the corner store and buy her a packet of Cheetos. She was supposed to have her final acrobatics performance that week, and I'd promised her that after her performance, she could have an unhealthy snack of her choice.
Suddenly, it’s like a lightbulb went off in my head. I knew exactly what to do.
"NO. We're not going to the corner store.” I said very determined. “We're going to the big grocery store down the hill."
That store is much further away, and on the way back we would have to go up 250 stairs. It would have been easier to go to the corner store, but I didn’t care.
That big grocery store is owned and run by Arab Israelis, and after all the depressing content I'd been consuming I needed to hear regular Israelis speak Arabic outside of any political context. I needed to hear Ahmad yelling to his workers to bring more toilet paper from the storage or whatever it is he yells to them.
Yannai and Shiloh joined us so it turned into a family outing.
The kids got ice cream.
I didn’t understand anything of what Ahmad was saying but I left feeling a little more hopeful.
Also, at least for this outing, everybody got along.
If you’re a writer on Substack, consider recommending Friends with Words to your readers (go to Dashboard>Settings>Publication details>Recommend other publications on Substack). I’ve set out to learn 12 languages in 12 months, and along the way, I’m trying (and failing) to understand the world better through languages.
Tan’ka… this is written so brilliantly and with so much sensitivity, I have no words… only tears stuffed in my chest.
You are my hero 🙏🏻( I said that already:)
Hey dear Tanya. I’ve long held the view that learning to speak more languages helps in opening our minds. Why? Because it’s humbling! Suddenly you find yourself in the vulnerable state of knowing so little, making stupid mistakes, and keep on learning, keep on getting better. The first thing my Israeli friend in Petah Tikva said to me on October 8 when I called her worried out of my mind was: “That’s it. I don’t want to know about those people. I don’t want to get confused.” I didn’t say anything because she’s my dearest friend and she was deep in the trauma. But what I thought was, the only way to get out of this shit is yes, to be confused! Very confused. Yes, look at the other perspective, learn their ‘language’, try to understand it. And yes, it will be painful as hell, but it is the only way forward - if we dare to see, and share each other’s pain. Look where apathy and tribalism gotten us. There is not much left of the Gaza you watched in those videos of 2022. Only grey matter. Total destruction. It looks like a scene from the worst sci-fi movie. Over 35,000 people dead, many of them women and children, over hundred hostages in captivity still, hopefully alive. If this is not confusing, I don’t know what is. In a world gone mad, I know it may seem pointless to try and learn another language (I hear you!), but it is more than what most people are prepared to do to open their minds (and hearts!) so I salute you. 💕