Gaaton

Back in the 70s I went to Germany looking for some sort of job, as I knew a fair amount of the language. It was then legal for Americans to work there, and I had little else on my mind, so I decided to give it a try.
I experienced what immigrants face when dealing with a new home country. Most Americans are unaware of just how much that entails. It includes a tolerance for not understanding any or enough of the particular language spoken in one’s presence.
Foreigners in Germany have to deal with a substantial amount of bureaucratic hassle, as they do in any country. In order to get a job one has to have both an Aufenthaltsgenehmigung to live there, as well as an Arbeitserlaubnis to work there. The complication is that neither one is given unless one already has a job. What?
At least back then in the 70s few rank and file Germans either knew or wanted to speak English, especially with me. My status was a Gastarbeiter, a guest worker, a member of the underclass, if there was one. All my everyday chores, from grocery shopping, to riding buses with impatient drivers, to buying clothes, to visiting a doctor, to doing my job at Siemens I took care of in German.
Furthermore, as I am not German I had few if any rights there when it comes to finding employment. That I already knew a fair amount of the language meant that I could generally read and understand signs, forms and applications. However that was only part of the difficulties, as no surprise, their culture is different, with different, sometimes illogical demands.
For instance, everyone, including Germans must sign in with the local police, to record their place of residence. That meant that after I moved out of the Youth Hostel into a rented room I had to fill out a form I had picked up in a local version of 7-11 and hand it in at the local police precinct. When I moved out I had to pick up another form, fill it out and hand it in, again at the local cop shop. In the US that would be unthinkable, but in most, if not all of Europe it is law, for everyone. It has nothing to do with having citizenship, or having a criminal record or not. The staff was always respectful and even friendly, so I had no problem with it.
After a few months, as my funds were OK I decided to see Greece, just to warm up, as it was January. The thing was, after a couple of days it snowed even there in Athens. About the only warm place I could find was the Hilton, but that was not anywhere near what I could afford. I found a student charter flight to Israel for $36, so I figured I might as well see the place.
To work on a Kibbutz one has to take a physical, so in Tel Aviv I found myself in the office of one Dr. Levi. As he was temporarily busy elsewhere, I was able to see that a lot of his medical journals were in German. So, when he appeared I spoke German, as I’d minored in it in Colorado. Of course he understood, but after a few minutes asked me why I wasn’t speaking English. He saw that I had an American passport with a surname that is not German. I don’t remember what I said, but it was something like, as we weren’t in the US, why not use German, as he obviously knew it. I figured I could always use the practice. What’s more the country of Israel is filled with immigrants who speak who knows what language(s). Among people serving the public, finding a common one would be an everyday occurrence.
That was my first experience using what might easily be called a despised language in Israel. I found that it was quite handy, even welcomed among the older crowd, the generation of those who survived the Nazis. Back in school in Colorado I’d insisted on learning German, and jumped in with both feet. I made sure to minimize my accent, just as a matter of pride.
They placed me on a Kibbutz in the western Galilee, not that far from the Mediterranean coast. The border with Lebanon was maybe a couple of miles to the north, at the top of the hills. The settlement Gaaton, named after a local creek, was started back in 1949 by a bunch of Hungarian immigrants. As they had been middle-class they all knew Yiddish and/or German. Until Hitler got into power those in eastern Europe who aspired to much were at least conversant in German. It was the lingua-franca, the language of science, literature and practically anything else that mattered, sort of like English is today.
German immigrants back in the 20s and 30s started the local town, Nahariya, on the coast. The bookstore as well as the newsstands had plenty of reading matter in their language. No surprise, the older shop keepers often spoke better German than Hebrew.
What is a Kibbutz? Suffice it to say that it’s a government supported commune, nominally organized along agricultural and Marxist lines. I figured I might as well see what living on one was like, as back then I had little else on my mind. In return for working a full week, I got pocket- money, work clothes, room and board, a foreign film once a week, exposure to people about my age from various countries, plus occasional tours around the country. In short it was a good deal.
In Israel the Kibbutz took care of most of the paperwork, so getting a visa extension was no problem. It was just as well as my knowledge of the Hebrew language at first was non-existent, then by the end of my stay, limited.
There was a complication however, in that to avoid health department problems in Europe, I needed to get a cholera vaccination. That I had to get taken care of on my own, which entailed finding the relevant clinic in Haifa. A further technicality was that street signs in Israel, whether in Hebrew or English start with the two letters “ha”. That detail screwed things up for a while…
Then there was the experience I had buying a transistor radio. When I found a shop in Haifa, it was before I knew enough Hebrew, so I tried German, and it worked. The middle-aged man came alive, speaking the language without a trace of accent, as though he were on TV. It made his day. In Israel, despite the Holocaust, the German language is alive and well. For those with a taste for contradictions it is a wonderful place.
It may seem as though knowing a number of languages requires a huge amount of intelligence, but no, it does not. I met a man from Romania who knew at least five, though intellectually he was a dim-bulb. I would guess his IQ would be vaguely 85, if that. On the other hand I met an older man, Yaakov Bernstein, who knew perhaps a dozen. When he was present it was next to impossible to conversationally hide from him. He was quite intelligent as well as well-read, but the word was it was not a good idea to ride in a car that he was driving. Being conversant in more than a few languages can easily turn one’s brain into apple sauce. I could interpret short conversations or instructions only via English, and not directly between say, German and Hebrew.
Back then in the 70s the security situation was at the very least unsettling, as there had been a number of terrorist attacks and massacres of civilians. It was nothing unusual to find myself looking at all sorts of military small arms, from Mauser automatics dating from WWII, to Uzi sub-machine guns to AK-47 assault rifles. Bolted to a Daimler Benz Unimog light truck they had a captured Soviet heavy machine gun.
The national language of Israel is Sephardic Hebrew, which to my ears was completely outside my zone of understanding. Most everybody knew if not passable English then something else, such as German, French or Spanish. Vaguely 40% of Gaaton was from Latin America. The mosaic of languages was very much a part of the culture, and it seduced me in no time.
The rooming situation was a riot, in that the three of us did not share a common language. Mike was from Britain, so the two of us used English. Gidaliya was from the Soviet Union, so he and I used German/Yiddish. Mike didn’t understand either so he was outside. Mike and Gidaliya used Hebrew, which I didn’t know at that time so I was out of it when they spoke. When Mike and I spoke, Gidaliya didn’t understand as he didn’t know any English.
Interpreting inevitably was selective, as that’s the way gossip is. Who was doing whom, and when, was not always common knowledge. The entire settlement was permissive so there was a lot of action. The knowledge of an extra language was quite handy indeed. The two Russian men there were rather crude and promiscuous to say the least. The other one, Shmaia, had a head for languages, and learned adequate English along with Hebrew. I used English with him, as he always wanted to practice. Russian women were not sexually active for whatever reasons, and back then were not dressed well at all. Soviet borders were not open to the outside world, and the people were wild-cards, uneasy with foreign contact. The other volunteers weren’t overly normal either, as if they’d been pillars of their respective communities, they would have stayed home. Although, one of them later got her life in order and has been a journalist at the Seattle Times for a some time.
One of the Hungarian founders, Haya, a middle-aged mother of two, worked in the kitchen. Her husband looked burned out, but she still had a need. The result was that she had a lover in his 20s, and it was common knowledge and socially accepted. That sort of thing was completely new, but I found that it didn’t bother me. It was part of the local reality.
I was at a small party once, and a woman propositioned me in German from the other end of the room. As I was the only one who understood, there was a sense of privacy, but still, I practically fell out of my chair. Was I insulted? Of course not, but what can I say, I’m not really used to people being so blatant.
Young people, in their 20s had a way of showing up from who knows where, and often as not did not even want to speak English, even if they knew it. I found it positive and refreshing that the world’s most useful language can easily be ignored by those not interested.
Later on I took an academic interest in Hebrew via the 6-month program they call the ulpan. I found the cultural ride fantastic and exhilarating. Semitic languages are quite distinctive, to say the least. Unto itself Hebrew has a very regular grammar, which makes it accessible, even to westerners. German grammar is vaguely like a drill cadence, while Hebrew is not that different, again in its own way. What is more, the etymologies of a lot of western words trace back to the Middle East via the Bible. That kept my imagination active, as connections turn up left and right. For instance the Hebrew word etmol, yesterday, is not that far away from the word etymology. The Hebrew bakasha, request, is suspiciously close to the Turkish or perhaps Arabic bakshish. Within Hebrew the word nesheeka, kiss, is closely related to neshek, which means “weapon”. The Hebrew ragil means “regular”. In Semitic languages one can practically ignore the vowels.
The Hebrew language itself is semitic, yet is laced with vocabulary and idioms that stem from the huge number of immigrants from Europe. It certainly comes from the Old Testament, but there are countless instances where it lacks modern relevance. A lot of the everyday usage is implicitly western, while the swears are all Arabic. From a different standpoint, on the radio at that time there were Hebrew-language propaganda broadcasts from Egypt. The thing was however, that they were not in the modern Israeli version, but another, bereft of western, non-semitic usage. It sounded completely different. However clear, understandable and grammatically correct, it amounted to a dead language.
The place was certainly Zionist and Jewish, but not at all religious; pork and ham were freely, wildly available. I got familiar with the different holidays, but the religion itself did not and still does not mean anything to me. For that matter, I cannot say that Christianity means much to me either, though I saw no reason to work on Christmas.
In time the language mosaic that so grabbed me started to wear thin. Nor is the Marxist way of life for me either. Economically my needs are simple, but socially, it is just not my style. There is too much resentfulness built-in, much worse than in the small town in Vermont where I came from. Still, I am better off from the experience.
When the time came to leave, at the airport I thought I might as well be polite and use the national language, Hebrew. The thing was, security in that part of the world means a lot more than it does here. I spoke their language without the usual American accent yet had an American passport that showed that I was born in the US. That got the security official suspicious, and she handed me off to her superior. He proceeded to quiz me about where I was born, and where I got the passport. Meanwhile the two men seemingly passing the time sitting on a huge pile of baggage started laughing at me and the predicament I was in. They were implicitly soldiers in civilian garb, armed to the teeth with weapons conveniently out of sight. I switched back to English and explained everything they asked, and they let me continue to the ticket counter. They were serious but polite, and even apologetic afterwards. The lesson was that when at the border and presenting one’s passport it is best to speak one’s national language without a foreign accent.
A lot time has passed, but my stay there is very much with me. Surprisingly enough I can still rattle along in Hebrew, though to a much more limited extent. I went to a Hebrew language meeting and was able to hold my own. The main constraint is that Hebrew is inherently cultural, and what can I say, I am not Jewish. When in Israel I learned it for practical, everyday reasons, nothing more.