Language Diversity in Israel
Israel enjoys a unique diversity in the ethnicity and background of its people. It is a linguistically and culturally diverse community. The 17th edition of Ethnologue (Lewis et al. 2013) lists 35 living languages spoken in the country, which is especially notable if we take into consideration that the entire population of Israel does not exceed eight million. However, the status and study of languages in Israel, at least until recent years, have not fully reflected this diversity. This can be explained by the fact that Israel is a country where language has always been a loaded concept, closely linked to ideological, political, and social issues (Shohamy 1994).
In his survey on the sociology of languages in Israel, Ben Rafael (1994) shows how the traditional Jewish plurilingualism was displaced by an ideological Hebrew monolingualism as a result of the nation-building process. Nation, state, and language were identified, and the criterion of speaking Hebrew became the touchstone of fidelity to the State of Israel. The legitimization of Hebrew was strongly reinforced by numerous formal and informal institutions. The growing hegemony of Hebrew matched the idea of a prototypical nation-state, meaning âone nationâone peopleâone language.â Tremendous official and unofficial pressure on new immigrants resulted in the loss of many languages, as they were abandoned by the various immigrant groups that arrived to Israel. Maintaining oneâs language of origin was viewed as a threat. For many years, the monolingual ideology of the âmelting pot policyâ was based on the following beliefs (Shohamy 1994):
- Hebrew will only be learned by immigrants if all other native languages are abandoned;
- Learning Hebrew is a key component of acculturation and integration, which will be compromised if immigrant languages and the related memory of Diaspora life are maintained;
- National unity depends on national monolingualism;
- Maintaining other languages weakens national identity;
- The immigrant languages have no value;
- Forcing immigrants to switch to Hebrew will facilitate their immediate integration;
- No other language but Hebrew and the English taught at school are needed. Any other language needs can be cheaply met.
The rapid penetration of Hebrew in all spheres of social and private life in Israel led to a language shift that often transpired in a single generation. Even the intensive influx of new immigrants during the first decades of the state did not dramatically change this situation. On the contrary, Hebrew became a lingua franca for various groups of Jewish immigrants. Ben Rafael (1994, 76) concludes in his survey:
The data left no doubt: Hebrew has penetrated, transformed and unified the groups of immigrants who arrived to the country and who were originally speakers of Eastern and Central European languages. Over the generations, Russian, Polish, Romanian and German have been âdematernalizedâ in favor of the new language, Modern Hebrew.
If this is the case with well-known and broadly spoken European languages, the situation is all the more drastic with less known languages and dialects that were spoken by Jews throughout the world, which gradually disappeared after their immigration to Israel.
Many languages have been spoken by Jews in the Diaspora over the millennia. Since ancient times various Jewish vernacular languages have come into existence, the best known and most widely printed of these being Yiddish (Judeo-German). Yiddish was once the international language of Ashkenazi Jews (Central and Eastern European Jews and their descendants) (Weinreich 2008). It is estimated that Yiddish was once used by 11 million of the worldâs 18 million Jews, and many of them spoke it as their primary language. Their number decreased dramatically as a result of the Holocaust and assimilation. Yiddish is still spoken in Israel among ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi Jews; it is still used as a daily language in most Hassidic communities, and many Hassidic Yeshivas use the language as a daily means of communication and instruction.
Yiddish was never a part of Sephardic Jewish culture. These communities had their own international languagesâthe best known being Ladino or Judesmoâwhich is a hybrid of medieval Spanish and Hebrew, in much the same way that Yiddish combines German and Hebrew (Bunis 1999). Ladino, otherwise known as Judeo-Spanish, is the spoken and written Hispanic language of Jews of Spanish origin.1 At various times Ladino has been spoken in Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, France, North Africa, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, in the USA and Latin America. By the beginning of the twentieth century, with the spread of compulsory education in these countryâs native languages, Ladino began to disappear. Emigration to Israel from the Balkans hastened the decline of Ladino in Eastern Europe and Turkey.
Although Yiddish suffered immensely in the Holocaust, the destructive effect on Ladino was even greater. The communities of Salonika and other centers of Ladino were completely destroyed, and as there have always been fewer Ladino speakers than Yiddish speakers, the surviving Ladino-speaking community was much smaller. Private foundations partly supported by the Israeli government are making efforts to rescue and promote Yiddish and Ladino, both declared by UNESCO (âUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as endangered languages, but there is little hope that things will change dramatically in the near future.
Language Status in the Present
According to Israeli law, there are two official languages in the country: Hebrew and Arabic. English, which has a semi-official status, is extensively used at all levels of society. The original main law governing language policy is the 80-second paragraph of the âPalestine Order in Councilâ issued on August 14, 1922, for the British Mandate of Palestine:
All Ordinances, official notices and official forms of the Government and all official notices of local authorities and municipalities in areas to be prescribed by order of the High Commissioner, shall be published in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
This law, like most other laws of the British Mandate, was adopted by the State of Israel, subject to certain amendments published by the provisional legislative branch on May 19, 1948. The amendment (paragraph 15-b) states that:
Any order in the law which requires the use of the English language is hereby abolished.
Nonetheless, the situation de facto differs significantly from that proclaimed by the law. Hebrew has become the national language, profoundly dominating the other official language, Arabic, which in practice became just another minority language (Spolsky and Shohamy 1999, 117). Hebrew is now the most widely spoken language in Israel. It has also been adopted as the language of all official correspondence, from debates in the Israeli Parliament to the judicial courts. Several Israeli lawmakers in 2011 made an attempt, in their own words, âto fix an existing situationâ legally. They proposed a bill defining Hebrew as the sole official language of Israel. The law has mostly symbolic value, because it does not change the present situation very much, but as such it was severely opposed by the left wing and Arabic politicians (Kahn 2011).
The official languages of the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, are Hebrew and Arabic, but Arabic is scarcely used, because all Arab members have full command of Hebrew, but not all Jewish members understand Arabic. Following an appeal to the Supreme Court initiated by an Arab municipality, a regulation was dictated, that all public signs, including street names and road signs, must be written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. In theaters, opera houses, cinema halls, and television programs, English and Russian are generally used in subtitles and brochures.
The growing role of English as an international lingua franca, the importance of the connection with the USA, both as the international superpower that supports Israel and the country with the largest Jewish Diaspora, made English, as Spolsky and Shohamy (1999, 156) stated, âeverybodyâs second languageâ in Israel. Most Israelis learn some English, as outside of Israel, Hebrew is spoken by very few, and many Israelis have also spent time in English-speaking countries.
A command of English is taken almost for granted in the Israeli academia: serious academic research is first published in English, some advanced courses in Israeli universities are taught in English, students are allowed to present written papers, theses, and dissertations in English, and it is the lingua franca of international conferences. The use of English in Israeli institutions of higher education has grown so rapidly that the Academy of the Hebrew Language has declared war against the increasing use of English in these institutions.
Following an announcement sent to the graduate students in the Department of Chemistry at an Israeli university, stating that they must present all their written works only in English, the Academy of the Hebrew Language called on The Minister of Education to collect data and set clear criteria for the use of English in academic frameworks. The Academy published a letter of protest (November 29, 2012), calling upon the students to demand their natural right to study and write their works in Hebrew, and not in other languages. They further express their sorrow for the status offense and weakening use of the Hebrew language, merely 100 years after the Hebrew victory in the âwar of the languages.â2
Tali Ben-Yehuda, the academyâs director general, stated that âdemands that students study in English represent the gravest expression of the trendâ of minimizing Hebrewâs role in the academia. Demands that students speak or study in English constitute a phenomenon that is expanding considerably. She further warned (Nesher 2012):
Unless steps are taken, academic departments will instruct solely in English, and this will spread to high schools, because a conscientious parent will not send his or her child to a high school that does not prepare the youngster for university.
Knowledge of English is absolutely crucial for those employed in high technology enterprises and in tourist services, both of major importance for the Israeli labor market. As English became an important tool in oneâs marketability and a sign of prestige, it secured its place in the Israeli education system. As a school subject, it is a component of the compulsory school curricula, and passing the matriculation exam in English is an essential condition for obtaining a matriculation certificate. In a survey where subjects were asked to rank the languages used in Israel, including their own, Spolsky et al. (1997) found that 75 % of the Israeli-Jewish population consider English to be the most important language.
Israel Language Policy Today
Israel was always, and is still, a country of immigrants. Some of the most widely spoken immigrant languages in Israel are Russian, Amharic, Spanish, and French. The relevant Israeli authorities try to provide new immigrants with basic services in their language of origin, yet the limited funds allocated for this purpose do not always make this possible. The private sector seems to be much more effective and resourceful, providing newcomers with a wide variety of services in their languages (i.e. deli shops, barbershops, restaurants, media, etc.). The language pallet of Israel is not complete without mentioning the languages of foreign workers, such as Tagalog, Thai, Chinese, African languages as well as others.
The Israeli government has not formulated an official national language policy, bu...