Last week, I guided in Jerusalem for only the second time since October 7th. The Old City was predictably empty, but it was great to be back doing my regular job, however briefly. Following tradition, I took my tourist to Abu Musa’s tea stand in the Cotton Market (Suq El Qattanin), next to one of the entrances to the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa. The market was built by the Mamluks in the 14th century, and although it no longer sells much cotton, it still has plenty of charm, and – when there isn’t a war – it’s full of tourists and locals sitting together on simple chairs drinking coffee or smoking shisha.
While tourists can leave the Temple Mount via the Cotton Market gate, only Muslims are permitted to enter from there. As a result, tourists occasionally head obliviously towards the gate, only to be turned back. Last week, I was guiding the only tourist, but there was some action regardless. A young Palestinian man had a verbal altercation with one of the Israeli policemen guarding the entrance to the Temple Mount. The policeman was Druze, so they argued in Arabic, until they were on the verge of physical blows. My tourist asked me what was going on.
I once studied Arabic for a year, nearly a decade ago. It was at the Jerusalem Intercultural Center, where my wife was working at the time, and I was taught by a leading Arabic teacher in the city, Anwar Ben Badis. He was great, but I struggled. The problem was twofold: First, from my perspective, which I’m aware is disputed, Arabic is extremely difficult. Second, alongside work and other commitments, I didn’t have the time I needed to invest in it properly, which meant I was always struggling. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that many of my fellow students were pensioners, who had all the time in the world to do their homework, and each week returned far more proficient than me.
The JICC course is highly regarded, but poor Arabic instruction in Israeli schools and universities is a longstanding problem. English is the only mandatory language in Hebrew-language schools, with classes starting in second grade. Arabic is offered from the fifth grade, but only as an elective. Between seventh and ninth grades, students must begin three years of a mandatory second language – either Arabic or French. They can then do the bagrut – matriculation – in either language (Arabic schools, by contrast, must start Hebrew (alongside English) by second or third grade and continue through graduation). In 2011-12, only 11,000 high school students studied Arabic, out of a total of 253,000. There are also a few Hebrew-Arabic bilingual schools run by the Hand in Hand network.
According to Madrasa (‘School’), a civil society organization that works to teach Arabic to Israelis, 95 percent of Jewish Israelis have no ability to communicate in Arabic, though 22% of Israel’s total population are native Arabic speakers. In 2011 (the most recent figures available), only 11.5% of Jewish Israelis over 20 had any knowledge of the language. Of those, one in four consider Arabic to be their native language. Only one percent of Jewish Israelis were fluent in Arabic.
It’s not just the statistics but also how Arabic is taught. Although over 20% of Israel’s population mother tongue is Arabic, in 2021, out of 1,306 Arabic teachers, 406 were Arab (a decade earlier it was only 173). In high schools, fewer than one in 10 Arabic teachers are Arab. As Yoni Mandel, an expert on Arab teaching in Israel, puts it: “Arabic [in Israel] has become an Arab-free field.”
The emphasis in schools, and some universities, is on linguistics and preparation for intelligence roles in the army. In the words of Mendel: “[It’s] as if we’re learning ancient Greek, not a language of the Middle East, the closest language to Hebrew.” The focus is on Modern Standard Arabic (known as Fusha); only in 2019 was an elective spoken Arabic course introduced. There is an emphasis on grammar over communication, and students are not given the ability to use Arabic in non-academic settings. As a result, even those who graduate with a perfect score feel that their Arabic is weak. Despite this, 64% of Jewish Israelis think it’s important for Arabic to be mandatory in schools. Indeed, in 2015, maverick Likud MK Oren Hazan (of all people) introduced legislation to make Arabic mandatory, which didn’t pass the Knesset.
Thankfully, things are beginning to change. Mandel is one of the founders of a new program at Ben-Gurion University focusing on conversational Arabic. Meanwhile, Madrasa serves 110,000 students with free videos that allow them to learn the language at their own pace: “Our vision is that the Arabic language will become a common denominator across the various ethnic, cultural and societal groups in Israel and will help transform Israeli society into one in which all members of the society can communicate with each other fluently and without difficulty.”
Arabic has a complex place in Israeli society. It is both the language of over one fifth of Israel’s citizens, the language of the enemy, and the language of large numbers of Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the Middle East. Previously an official language, in 2018 the controversial Nation-State Law changed its status to “special,” adding “this clause does not harm the status given to the Arabic language before this law came into effect.” In 2022, when Ra’am MK Walid Taha gave a speech in the Knesset in Arabic, there was fury from the right. “Look at what we’ve gotten to,” Likud MK David Amsalem said. “Two Arabs speaking to each other [in Arabic]…You will speak Hebrew here in the Israeli parliament.” This was particularly ironic given that both his parents made Aliyah from Morocco.
Today, though, there is increased understanding of the importance of Arabic across the political divide. Whether it’s those on the far right who seek to know the language of the enemy, or those on the far left who seek a more binational future, there are no serious objections to ensuring that Israeli children speak better Arabic. As with many other eminently sensible ideas here in Israel, for now there is little sign of them being implemented. In the wake of forced cutbacks caused by the war, they presumably become even less likely.
In writing this, I appreciate that I’m being quite hypocritical. I haven’t studied Arabic since that year at the JICC, and if I’m being honest with myself, given other commitments, it’s hard to see myself doing so properly for the foreseeable future, or perhaps even until I’m a pensioner (although I am interested in people’s recommendations for language apps - please leave a comment or send me a message about this). It’s very important to me, though that my children will be able to learn to speak Arabic, especially in a city where one third of the residents are Palestinians. Finally, one doesn’t need to adopt the obviously colonial formation of the “Arab Jew” to acknowledge the importance of Arabic for Jewish history and culture, as reflected in the recent renaissance of Israeli music in Arabic, from groups such as A-WA, Dudu Tassa, and Yemen Blues, to name but a few.
Improved Israeli Arabic would naturally have an impact on our relations with Palestinians. Everyone remembers Sadat’s famous visit to Jerusalem in 1977, but what about an Israeli prime minister speaking Arabic? Here one possibility who springs to mind is the suave former Mossad director Yossi Cohen, an eighth-generation sabra. Speaking Arabic wouldn’t change the fundamentals of our conflict, but it might help shift the mentality. As Ittay Flescher, education director at Kids4Peace Jerusalem, says: “A common theme that often arises in our dialogue between teenagers is the issue of language. Many Palestinian youths often comment about how meaningful it is to be spoken to in their own language, in acknowledgement that another person is trying to make them feel more included and at home in this city.” Through learning each other’s language, we are symbolically acknowledging our mutual presence here.
So what about the confrontation at the market? I explained to the tourist that there were often tensions because of the clash between Jewish and Palestinian claims to the city, that the Palestinians view Israelis as occupiers, and in the absence of an agreed solution to this problem, hostility was inevitable, especially at a place like the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa. I think the explanation holds, but in this case, my lack of Arabic caused me to misread what was happening. When I went to pay for our drinks, I asked what the problem had been, and was told that the young Palestinian man was a bit of a meshuggana, and that both police and Waqf alike were keen to keep him away from the holy site. This, in turn, reminded me of the famous Saadat Hasan Manto Story “Toba Tek Singh” about the exchange of mental asylum inmates between India and Pakistan in the wake of partition, and it was curious to witness this unexpected moment of consensus in such a resolutely divided city. If only I had been able to understand what was happening in the first place.
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Another very interesting article. Thanks.