Learning Hebrew 

I learnt “synagogue Hebrew” for my Bar Mitzvah from Rabbi Falkow in Hermanus, in South Africa and continued learning with him in order to deliver the prayers, but my understanding of the language was very poor. A few years later, in high school, my father brought home some rudimentary books on translation and grammar of Modern Hebrew, and we would sit and learn together.

The learning stopped because I was too occupied with studying medicine, until I moved to Durban, where my interest was rekindled by Rabbi AbnerWeiss. He was a young rabbi with great personal enthusiasm . He had studied in Johannesburg and came to Jerusalem as the young Rabbi in Durban North. The local congregation soon appreciated his ability and sent him  abroad to improve his Rabbinical training.He spent two years at the prestigious Kerem B'Yavneh where he studied Gemara and Shulchan Aruch(Jewish Law. He then contued to Yesiva University where he studied Psychology and took a Ph D in Philosophy and then returned to beome the senior Rabbi in Durban. He returned to imbibe his enthusiasm in Durban and looked for young congregants to share his enthusism. whereunderstanding of JudaismIt became important to understand the content of the prayers and the Bible. When I started traveling to Israel, the language became a living medium of communication, and I joined the local Ulpan in Durban. When the appointment in Jerusalem started to materialize, it was important that I take the language seriously. Avi Bakst and I started extra lessons with the local Hebrew teacher at the university. I also used a tape recorder to record the news broadcast in simple Hebrew and would listen to the tapes in the car. The language learning was auditory rather than visual, and I supplemented it with the language laboratory at the university.

Hebrew is an interesting language. Children learn automaticall from their parents and simply copy the the inflections of the nouns and verbs. It is very similar to Latin with a very precise grammar that has changed over the years from the original Mishnaic Hebrew, to the poetic language of the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment in Poland in the 19^th-century and then the neo-Hebrew, where many new words were created to cover the new concepts, ideas and inventions of the 20^th century. It also has different letters and is read from right to left so that the transition from the European the Hebrew language was difficult.

When I arrived in Jerusalem in 1973, my first priority was to polish my rudimentary Hebrew, and it was decided that I should attend an Ulpan. I registered at the Etzion ulpan at the southern end of Derech Beit Lechem. It was housed in an old building but had an exciting group of enthusiastic new olim, who were filled with energy and tasting their first experiences of Israel.

I was placed in the third class with a non-religious teacher. The learning was a little tedious after the excellent Hebrew teachers in Durban, where I had learned the lilt and poetry of the language and the rhythm of the verbal conjugations. My previous teachers in Durban had created an exciting environment and taught us the music of the language, the way it was learnt by little children. The teacher in Jerusalem was good but was anti-religious. This disturbed me when she taught us about Joseph and his narcissism and began to scoff at the stories of the Bible.

I persisted for four weeks, but the pace of learning was too slow. I had a very busy timetable ahead and felt the urgency to move back into medicine. Despite my enthusiasm to learn good Hebrew, I was impatient and wanted to start work at the hospital, so I left the Ulpan.

After the experience at Etzion, I joined the summer school afternoon ulpan at the Hebrew University, which was more academic and successful. There were many young foreign students, who were learning the language professionally to use as part of their studies and not only as part of the daily vernacular. Their youthful enthusiasm was unbounded, and the spirit in the classroom was uplifting. We sat at desks, and the teachers used the blackboards, rather than sitting around in a circle and singing songs as was done in Ulpan Etzion.

When I started working at Hadassah, I would spend hours with Miriam, my new Hebrew secretary, and we would translate the most complicated modern Hebrew medical files. We took the patients’ folders and translated the summaries. We found some textbooks for nurses in Hebrew, which we would read aloud. Joe Borman sent Aryeh Shaeffer, a 5^th year student, to teach me supplementary medical terminology, and I was soon fluent in Hebrew. So fluent, that many of the students did not recognize the words as they had become accustomed to the assimilated Latin terms.

I started interviewing the patients, and this was possible with a very small, rudimentary vocabulary. Determined not to use a translator from Hebrew. I wrote down all the new words with the English translation and would walk around with the written note in my pocket until each word was imprinted in my memory. I soon found that when cross-examining a patient, I was becoming more and more fluent in the use of the language with its particular inflections

My first excursions into teaching students were in English, but with Aryeh’s help, I acquired a good technical vocabulary and was able to teach small groups of students quite comfortably. They became a willing audience, and would correct any of my mistakes or omissions.

My first major effort was teaching the “Introduction to Cardiology" course to the fourth year students in September 1973. Here, I was faced with a class of 100, who were more critical. I started in English, but after the third or fourth lecture, I was able to slip into “pigeon” Hebrew.

By the end of the year, I was relatively fluent in the language, and I continued to read, to write a little, but to maintain a very fluent conversational language. Soon, I was thinking in Hebrew, and over the next 40 years, have continued to read books in Hebrew, enrich the vocabulary, jotting down all the new words on a slip of paper, which I kept in my shirt pocket. Unfortunately, I used my Hebrew secretary to write reports and correct my language but did not put pen to paper, nor did I read sufficiently so that the language has been an oral experience. I still have difficulty with spelling in Hebrew.

The language changes your personality, and although English will always be my first language, I love the lilt of Hebrew, its inflections, and it’s thought processes. This is real integration into the country, and I have always expected my new young doctors who come on Aliyah to become fluent in the language.