A slice of ulpan life

Ulpan Etzion is tucked into a corner of the Jerusalem neighborhood Ba'ka, between a canopy of trees and apartments fashioned from golden Jerusalem stone. "Ulpan" literally means "studio," and is the most common porthole through which immigrants to Israel begin the arduous process of learning the Hebrew language and adapting to life in a new country. The intensive language immersion program was developed in the wake of the Holocaust and the fledging country's need to build a national language upon the backs of the thousands of immigrants coming to Israel who all spoke different languages.

In my class of slightly more than 30 students, there are three Ukrainians, four Russians, three Brazilians, one Venezuelan, one Canadian, five Americans, three Brits, five French, four Belarusians and one Moroccan. The school also has contingencies from Gibraltar, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Holland and Romania. They are all Jewish.

When my teacher, Riki, turns her back to write something on the board, simultaneous pockets of conversation erupt in at least four different languages. The room has just as much diversity as the United Nations, and I'd imagine that the conversations are just as lively.

Many of my classmates are new immigrants to Israel who are struggling to figure out their new lives. And they all have come to Israel from the various corners of the earth for very different reasons.

Marcello, a 22-year-old from Venezuela, tells me about the lawlessness in the city where he grew up. He tells me about a bunch of vandals holding a gun to his head and then running off into the night laughing. "Israel," he says, "is so much safer." Julie, a 23-year-old from France, tells me about how hard it is to find kosher food and live in a place with a scant Jewish community. Plus, it didn't hurt that her French boyfriend is studying at Haifa's Technion University.

For five hours a day, five days a week, for five months, students not only learn how to conjugate verbs, but begin the process of acculturation into Israeli society. We have lessons (all in Hebrew of course) that range from geography and politics to history and popular culture. The class itself isn't much different from what I remember of the third grade in Jewish day school. We sing Hebrew songs. We repeat after the teacher. We tell silly stories about what we ate for breakfast. But we also discuss current events during a time that truly could be historic - the cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians, Prime Minister Sharon's disengagement plan, politicking in the Knesset - and learn the words and phraseology needed to understand and partake in conversations outside the classroom.

What's more is that outside of the classroom, virtually anyone can help you with homework. I've asked people on buses, waiters, and even a 7-year- old girl on her way to school for help conjugating this verb in that tense. I ask people in the grocery store what a word on a package of rice means. I sit in the front seat and chat it up with taxicab drivers, trying to use the latest learned vocabulary words - and they love it.

Ulpan programs also sponsor day trips (tiulim) for students to see the country, from the home of Israel's first Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion in the Negev Desert to the 3,000-year-old walled city of Jerusalem. These trips are dirt cheap, usually include lunch and are guided by natives who can navigate the language gaps among the group.

All of Israel's ulpan programs are heavily subsidized by the government. New immigrants to Israel do not have to pay a dime for their language instruction. As a tourist, I pay just about $100 a month, and the instructors really help you learn. The costs vary from program to program. Classes at the national universities are more expensive, whereas the locally administered programs are cheaper (and often better).

All ulpanim are administered by the quasi-governmental organization called the Jewish Agency for Israel, which among other things helps to absorb the thousands of immigrants to Israel every year, and the Israeli government's Ministry of Education, which creates the curriculum and trains the teachers.

You don't have to be a new immigrant to study at an ulpan - nor do you have to be Jewish. There are tourists like me who come to Israel for anywhere from two weeks to six months to spend time boning up on Hebrew. While Etzion was the first such school created in Israel, there are now dozens of ulpan programs around the country in virtually every city in Israel - from development towns in the north to Tel Aviv. Another very popular Hebrew language option, and certainly the cheapest, is that of Kibbutz Ulpan Programs. This allows foreigners to live in the somewhat socialist cooperative agricultural communities, work a few days a week picking mushrooms, tending to the animals, or any number of menial yet critical tasks to the enterprise, and study Hebrew in-class on the off days.

I read somewhere that if the rabbinical scholars living 1,000 years ago came back to Israel, they would be able to read the newspapers and converse with taxicab drivers. While Hebrew has certainly undergone changes in the three millennia since it was introduced, it still remains a powerful historical connection to Jewish history and a meaningful window onto modern Israeli life.

Perhaps more important, however, is that ulpan programs are a great way to meet fascinating people from all over the world and learn how to say important things such as "What do you make of the latest vote in the Knesset?" and "What time does the falafel stand close?" These lessons have gotten me far in this country while ensuring that my stomach is perpetually full.

For more information:

Ulpan Etzion
www.jafi.org.il

World Zionist Organization
www.wzo.org.il

Kibbutz Program Center
www.kibbutzprogramcenter.org

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