Why Schpinoza?

What is the origin of the inordinate attachment of Hebrew speakers and writers to the German language?

Hebrew may be the only language in the world in which primary-school children can quite easily read texts written thousands of years ago. (Impossible in Greek, because the classical language and the modern are too different; Sanskrit, like Latin, is a “dead” language; and I’m told that modern Chinese have great difficulty reading their ancient texts.) This may well be Zionism’s purest achievement - it hurt no-one else, and there is much pleasure to be found in it.

But beside the pleasure, there are also some oddities. One is the phenomenon of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, which insists on managing the language as if it were a commodity, and markets it with instructions how to use it. But I don’t intend to discuss the vagaries of the Academy this time. Today I’m concerned with the question, what is the origin of the inordinate attachment of Hebrew speakers and writers to the German language?

Many years ago Israeli translators liked to Hebraize foreign names of Hebrew derivation: they called Michael or Michel - Mikhael, Joseph - Yossef, Cyrus - Koresh, and so on. Sometimes they got carried away and Hebraized other names - “Romeo and Juliet” became “Ram ve-Yael”, “Othello” - “Itiel ha-Kushi”, and Shylock’s daughter Jessica became Yiskah. But no more. Nowadays Jeremy is not turned back into Yirmiyah, Simon is not restored to Shimon. However, the Israelis are quite zealous about names of German origin, even when the people in question are not German but American, for example, or Chilean. Thus the famous film-maker Steven Spielberg is invariably called Schpilberg; the actor Rod Steiger is called Schteiger, etc. And even names which are not German but resemble German names, such as Snyder or Stern, are turned into Schneider and Schtern. In a film in which the hero is seen reading “The Sentimental Journey” by Laurence Sterne, the Hebrew subtitles gave the author’s name as Schtern. Israelis pronounce the name of the French city Strasbourg as the Germans do: Schtrasbourg, and Sweden’s capital is known here as Schtockholm.

This is not all. The same tendency afflicts the transliteration of Hebrew words and names. Inter-city road-signs are written in a strictly scientific-phonetic spelling, which can confuse, if not madden, innocent drivers. Thus the name of the town Petah Tikva is spelled PETAH TIQWAH - excellent scientific spelling, but pity the tourist who has to figure out how it’s pronounced. The name Castel - a Latin word, for heavens’ sake! - is spelled QASTEL, presumably because in Hebrew it’s written with a ‘kuf. Apparently the people in charge of road signs don’t understand that a scientific transliteration belongs in scientific publications, not on the roads. They are not competing for academic tenure - they’re supposed to make things comprehensible to drivers who don’t read Hebrew or Arabic.

Luckily, the people in charge of street signs haven’t heard of scientific transliteration, and can improvise to their hearts’ content. The results are sometimes quite comical. For example, in Jerusalem a sign in the street named after Max Nordau is spelled NORDA’U. Why the apostrophe? Did someone worry that the passersby might not separate the vowels? But this is a trivial case. What bothers me is the widespread spelling of the Hebrew guttural sounds of ‘Het and Khaf into Ch. The word “rehov” is regularly spelled RECHOV. In English this reads like “wretch-ov”, and likewise in Spanish; in French it’s pronounced “reshov” and in Italian “reckov”. In which language does it come out right? - In German, of course. And that’s not all. Women whose names are Hava, Hanna or Haya write their names with Ch, so that their names are pronounced Tchava, Tchana or Tchaya (in English and Spanish); Shava, Shana and Shaya (French), and Kava, Kana and Kaya (Italian). In German it’s OK... Not long ago I received a letter from a person with the surname Hakham, in Latin characters Chacham - i.e., Tchatcham in English and Spanish; Shasham in French, and Kakam in Italian. But it works fine in German... I’ve not yet come across Chaifa for Haifa or Chevron for Hebron, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere.

The weirdest thing is what happened to the name of that Sephardi Jewish philosopher by name of Benedict or Barukh Espinosa or Spinoza. Most of the world pronounces the name as it is spelled, very close to the Spanish. In Israel, as in Germany, it’s pronounced Schpinoza. If that doesn’t show our inordinate love for the German language, I don’t know what does.

There can be no doubt that the influence of the Yekkim is still very strong among us, alongside that of the Russian Jews (that is why we say inflatzia and not inflatzion, for example; but at least it’s consistent, and there is no reason to prefer a different ending.) But the Yekke influence has spread to Jews throughout the world, which is why America celebrates Tchanukka, and in England in the spring the supermarkets sell a traditional Jewish dessert called Tcharoset.

So Chag Sameach to everyone!

End