Tag: Hebrew

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 – DAY NINE — PHOTO ALBUM DAY

Today was our last day of classes – thrilling both at Pardes and the Ulpan.  We got a funny little certificate from our Ulpan teachers – here we are with Shira – who taught us most of the time.
Graduation_photo_1
I was really sad to leave; it’s been so exciting for me to finally at least understand the alphabet and a flash card pile of new words.  I never thought it would happen and am enormously grateful – I never thought I’d do this — but also very fond of the crew who taught us.

After class we went down to the Old City.  Here’s some of what we saw:
SUNSET AT YEMEN MOSHE, OLD CITY ROOFTOP EFFORTS TO QUIET A FUSSY BABY, FINDING THEIR WAY – NEAR JAFFA GATE, FINDING THEIR WAY NEAR DAVID’S TOWER

Sunset_over_yemen_moshe_2

Fussy_baby_3_tall  Fussy_baby_2_tall_4

Lost_pilgrims_in_the_old_city_8

Tourists_lost_near_davids_tower_2

OK.  More tomorrow – onward to Tel Aviv – the Blue State to Jerusalem’s Red – at least 15 degrees warmer and the mirror opposite of this. 

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 DAY SIX: LEARNING HEBREW ON A SUNDAY IN JERUSALEM

Cafe_hillel_security_1_blurHere’s your security photo for today – a little blurry-artsy because I took it through a window at Cafe Hillel on Emek Rafaim late Saturday night.  Most of the men who do restaurant and store security prefer not to be photographed so I’ve been shooting through windows while at a table inside. A friend who reads this blog has, a couple of times, emailed me to remember that the guards are here to keep us safe.  I think she believes I’m complaining by posting these daily photographs.  On the contrary – I just want to show you what it is like to be an Israeli in 2007.  This is the least of it but it’s so universal and so visible that it seems a good example.  So.
Now on to today.
OrlyThis is Orly Ganor, the founder of Ulpan-Or, the extraordinary school where we’re learning Hebrew.  A charismatic visionary, she’s created a very exciting way to learn the language (that includes audio – and a very positive attitude) and we’re really benefiting from it.  We’ve worked with her and several other young women who are stunning as people and teachers. 

Today Shira Carmel, who will be the Ani deFranco of Israel very soon, taught both Rick and me. She demonstrated that in the right hands, even the alphabet can be fun. It’s difficult to learn a new alphabet at my age, but she showed me something quite valuable about learning to read and although it’s been partially debunked, most of it emerges from "urban legend" to probably true.  If you read a paragraph where only the first and last words are accurately spelled you still make sense of it intuitively because you know the words.  When you learn a new alphabet you can’t skim along like that or you make mistakes (which was what I was doing, big  time) because you can’t trust any of your assumptions of what the next word, or even letter, will be.  She convinced me to really sound out each one.  I discovered that after several tragic failures at trying to learn to read this ancient language I MAY actually do it!  I’m irrationally excited about it.

ONE MORE THING – Because – as usual on this trip – I’m really really (really) tired!  I’ve written quite a bit here about Mea Shearim and forgot to post this picture of a sign in the window of a tiny story there.  So here it is.  More tomorrow.
Mea_shearim_sign