Immigrant Takeover

Yesterday, I went to the first meeting of one of my new classes for this semester, called "Who Are We? Diaspora Jewry." There were about a dozen students in the class, many of whom I recognized from my department. As we were going over the readings on the syllabus, the professor, who is always sensitive to language issues, told us that many of the readings were available in both Hebrew and English. Then he asked for a show of hands: how many people had difficulty reading Hebrew?

To my surprise, all but three hands went up.

Soft laughter ensued as the immigrants in the room suddenly realized our majority status. But one of the native Israelis was not amused. "Difficulty reading Hebrew?" she asked, consternation in her voice, perhaps wondering whether she had misunderstood the question. As we nodded, her face registered an expression that can only be described as horrified.

I decided to take it as a compliment that, over the course of the individual introductions that had preceded the syllabus discussion, she hadn't recognized us by our accents.