It always bothered me how ancient illustrious languages faded away and disappeared and nobody had the foresight to record their last moments of life. In a world where, for example, the Egyptian language was clearly dying and only a handful of elderly speakers remained, how could nobody have the presence of mind to interview these elders and gather whatever information was available? By some accounts, spoken Egyptian (in the form of Coptic) persisted into the 17th century in Upper (Southern) Egypt. Egyptian hieroglyphics were translated (by a European) in 1822. Hence, there was a gap of only about 200 years between the total extinction of a spoken language that had lasted for around five thousand years and its decipherment. Had Jean-François Champollion (the man who first deciphered hieroglyphics) lived 200 years earlier, how many insights might he have gotten had he been able to meet people who still spoke a form of the language? We’ll never know.
I found myself in a similar situation during my sojourn in Israel – except that I was fortunate enough to meet speakers of Mizrahi Hebrew face to face. With the exception of Yemenites, Mizrahi Jews did not pass these traditions down to their children or grandchildren. In the vast majority of cases, “Mizrahi” Jews today (in Israel) are oblivious to the Hebrew traditions of their recent ancestors, yet many of them still have the mentality that, since they’re “Mizrahi,” they’re experts on these traditions. Nothing could be further from the truth, and here I’ll relate three actual occurrences, that I personally experienced, that will illustrate this point:
- I was attending rabbinical school in Jerusalem. Several Yemenite students also attended this school, and I was friendly with them. The subject of Yemenite pronunciation came up, and I pointed out that there is a difference between the pronunciation of the letter Sadi (צ) and Semakh or Sin (ס,שׂ). A young Yemenite objected. “They have the exact same pronunciation!” he claimed. I knew he was wrong, because I had taken the time to ask the elders, to pay close attention and to emulate what I’d heard. He, on the other hand, believed that since he’s Yemenite himself, and since he grew up with this tradition, he’s the expert. We argued back and forth for a while. Not far from the yeshiva lived a Yemenite elder of renown. His name was Mori Yehyeh alSheikh. “Mori” is an honorary title among Yemenite Jews, similar to “rabbi.” Mori Yehyeh was famous for his folk remedies. He gave me a powder to take for my hepatitis. I don’t know if it helped, but it tasted awful. We visited Mori Yihyeh together. My Yemenite friend was embarrassed when I was vindicated. An American Ashkenazi knew his own tradition better than him – because I had asked the right questions, and he had not.
- I was on a bus, and I found myself sitting next to a friend of mine. I believe we had attended the above-mentioned yeshiva in the past. We were then both married. He was of Tunisian heritage and his wife was Yemenite. He told me that, while he admired Yemenite Jews, he found their Hebrew pronunciation confusing and odd. I pointed out to him that the Hebrew of his own grandparents was much closer to Yemenite Hebrew than to his own Hebrew. He didn’t know what to make of it. Obviously, he had grown up with his own family, including his elders. How could he have not even noticed this. He thought the concept was absurd. I confidently told him to actually ask his grandparents, or other Tunisian elders. He agreed to do so. The next time we met was a couple of years later. He told me that he had, indeed, spoken to his elders – and discovered that I was right. He didn’t change the way he spoke Hebrew, but he did make the effort to change his pronunciation for prayers. He had spent his entire youth in close proximity to Tunisian elders, but never noticed how they spoke or read Hebrew; it took an American Ashkenazi to get him to notice this.
- I was married to a woman whose parents and siblings were all born in Southern India (Cochin). They spoke Malayalam during family gatherings. At one such gathering, they were speaking some Hebrew so that I could be part of the conversation. I pointed out that my wife pronounces the letter Resh (ר) from the back of her pallet, near the throat, while the rest of the family pronounces it from near the teeth. They looked at me as if I’d landed from outer space. Their jaws dropped incredulously and, at first, they mocked me. But then they tested it by having each of them say something that included that letter. Suddenly, their attitudes changed. They had grown up together, spent their entire lives in close contact, spoke to each other regularly – and never noticed this. It took an American Ashkenazi to bring this to their attention. It didn’t matter to them one bit because it made no difference to their lives, but it did illustrate how people can be oblivious to the obvious for decades – and that one outsider with a bit of curiosity can easily learn more about a tradition than those who grow up with it and take it for granted.
The next time somebody claims to be an expert on an ethnic tradition by virtue of the fact that he is a member of that ethnicity, demand better credentials; being of a specific bloodline does not guarantee expertise in such matters.
