1 August 2008 (29 Tamuz 5768)
For the past few months I have been working on my negative character traits. One of them is anger; nothing seems such a waste of energy to angry with someone who is not important for you at all. But unfortunately, I am still a work in progress; every once in a while I (still) become angry, though I seldom display my anger externally except in extreme cases. With whom do I (still) become angry? With childish adults, in a word. Such grown-up children seem to be distributed in every walk of life in every country, though there may be some cultural variations. At least here in Israel childish behaviors by adults in public can be classified into two types, including their concrete manifestations: 1) egocentricity, and 2) self-indulgence (the difference between the two is very subtle).
Egocentricity manifests itself at least in three forms in Israel: 1) breaking the line, 2) littering (almost) everything (almost) everywhere in public, and 3) not picking up the excrement of your dog and leaving it on the street. Observing people waiting on line (and comparing them across cultures) can be an extremely fascinating anthropological exercise. This can tell a lot about the mentality of a society in question. In this context I cannot help but behave as in Japanese culture; I nether cut in line nor "reserve" a place on line. There is a well known strategy to the effect that if you cannot change something, you join it. My conscience does not allow me to start behaving as average Israelis, who do these two things as if they were their birthrights. Most surprisingly, people here, who generally complain about everything and lose no time in honking immediately seldom criticize such egocentric adults.
Littering is such a rampant phenomenon that I have lost any force to get angry with those who litter, except in the building where I live. There are at least a few tenants who constantly litter at the entrance to our building. Naturally, nobody else picks up the garbage and remains there eternally unless I pick it up and discard it into the litterbin almost on a daily basis. It is frustrating that I have no idea who these egocentric litterbugs are. If I detected them, I would spare no harsh word to attack them verbally.
Many people who have never visited Jerusalem may think (erroneously) that it is a beautiful city. It is, but only from a distance. What do you think is the most commonly seen object on the streets of the Israeli capital, probably like elsewhere in the country? Yes, excrement of dogs. Although I am more and more convinced that pets, including dogs, are nothing but surrogates for human beings, this is none of my business as long as owners of pets keep the minimal manners. I think picking up their excrement is definitely one of them. It is a pity that so many people are negligent of such a basic thing. When we cannot rely on good will of people, we must enforce a law. If I were the major of Jerusalem, I would prohibit the position of a dog unless its owner is responsible for its excrement in public.
The second type of childish behaviors by adults in Israel is self-indulgence. It manifests itself most prominently when one is confronted with something that is (a little) beyond one's comprehension. In my opinion an intellectually healthy and mature adult would consider it as an intellectual stimulus for self-development. I have seen so many people, who are otherwise considered intellectuals, who simply decide to give up tackling with it so easily, and either bother the lecturer and others who want to learn by engaging themselves in talking among themselves and/or even daring to criticizing the lecturer for "torturing" them with such "difficult" stuff. The last thing they would do, of course, is to look for their lack of understanding in their ignorance. It seems to me that this behavior is a new development in Israeli culture and has nothing to do with diaspora Jewish cultures. Although I consider Jerusalem as my new home, I definitely feel far more identified with the mentality of the latter, especially its traditional emphasis on learning for the same of learning, at least among Lithuanian Jews, whom I admire and like best of all the diaspora Jewries.
8 August 2008 (7 Av 5768)
Of all the languages I have studied I actively use three - Hebrew, English and Japanese - on a daily basis. Because of my specialty (Hebrew and Jewish linguistics) I have seldom used Japanese for academic input, even when I was still in Japan, and since I immigrated to Israel, I have decided not to use it for academic output, either, as it is not one of the international lingua francas of Jewish studies, including Hebrew and Jewish linguistics, so it is neither understood nor appreciated here. Ironically, however, I seem to receive more requests from Japanese publishers to write articles (naturally in Japanese) now than when I still lived in Japan. I have always taken it for great honor and agreed to do so as a way to return what I can do to the country where I was born and brought up, especially because the articles I have requested to write are generally more for the general public.
Having worked on such an article for the past few weeks, I have felt (and been amazed at) anew a high level of my stylistic control over my own writing if it is in (standard) Japanese, in spite of the fact that I have never been taught how to write, whether academically or not, in this language; besides, standard Japanese is quite different from my mother tongue, which is a dialect of Japanese spoken in Akita.
I feel more or less equally comfortable in reading Hebrew, English and Japanese, but when it comes to writing, there seems to be a fundamental difference between Japanese on the one hand and Hebrew and English on the other, to say nothing of other languages I have studied. Writing in Japanese, I feel that I have full stylistic control over every single word I use; for example, if I replace one word with another, I can immediately feel the stylistic difference it causes. Unfortunately, however, I cannot feel the same in Hebrew and English in spite of all the time and money I have spent in learning and improving them. In other words, I have not succeeded in developing stylistic control over my writing in Hebrew and English on an intuitive level, nor am I sure whether I will ever reach such a level at all.
Every time I prepare an article for publication in languages other than Japanese, I have to have it edited stylistically by someone else. I cannot intuitively detect the stylistic change this causes, but I can vaguely feel that such a fundamental stylistic change has been made to my writing that I cannot say anymore that it belongs to me though the content may remain the same. To make matters worse, my articles published in Hebrew and English were edited by different people with different styles. This way I have actually been left with no choice but to ask to reproduce me under different and false identities so that my articles may see the light of day. This is the kind of price of which implication I can fully appreciate only through writing in Japanese (and taking full stylistic control of it).
15 August 2008 (14 Av 5768)
Ever since I was a small child, I have always liked to plan everything in advance, though naturally I have not always been successful in carrying out everything. When I was a junior high school student back in Japan, I was even a member of a club for planning imaginary trips that will never be implemented. Sometimes I even find more pleasure in planning something than in being in the middle of that plan. This may be why I almost always plan trips abroad well in advance, often one or even two years in advance so that I may be able to enjoy this preparation period for a longer period of time.
Next Tuesday I am making a ten-day trip to Jewish New York. Although I had been dreaming of revisiting there since I was there for the first time about ten years ago to take part in an annual gathering of Yiddishists called Yidish-Vokh ('Yiddish Week'), I never imagined that I would realize this dream this year. It was only about two months ago that I made a sudden spontaneous decision to participate in the Yidish-Vokh this summer after checking that I happened to have enough money for the flight.
The Yidish-Vokh I took part in about ten years ago is one of the most unforgettable linguistic experiences I have ever had in my whole life. About one hundred of us Yiddishists, mainly from the United States, spent a whole week, including shabes, in the language we love. I made there the acquaintance of some interesting and important people, including those who later completed their doctorate in Yiddish studies and two famous Yiddish linguists, Prof. Joshua Fishman and the late Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter. I have kept in touch with some of them, including Prof. Fishman, who is also the founder of a discipline called the sociology of language. I have been corresponding with him in Yiddish from time to time. I was overjoyed to hear that he would be in the Yidish-Vokh this time.
I have two more reasons to get excited about this trip. Being a Yiddishist is a good way of making friends with people in those places where you have never lived on the four corners of the world. Through a short paper I published in Yiddish on the basis of the talk I gave at the Yidish-Vokh I got acquainted with Prof. George Jochnowitz, who has become a close friend and penpal in the course of time. Although our shmoozing has been mainly by email, I met him twice when he came to Jerusalem to take part in the World Congress of Jewish Studies; this time I can finally meet him in his "homeground" New York City after this annual gathering of Yiddishists to be held in its suberbs. The other reason is that I finally seem to be able to take my "revenge" on a Yiddish bookstore in New York City. I went there ten years ago after the Yidish-Vokh, only to find that I was five minutes late for the closing of the bookstore. I had to gaze enviously at a number of "juicy" books in or on Yiddish displayed at the show window. I am also glad that I seem to be able to taste some "exotic" kosher cuisine that is not so easily available in Israel and visit a few important institutions related to Yiddish in New York City.
22 August 2008
(no update due to a trip)
29 August 2008 (28 Av 5768)
Yesterday I returned to Jerusalem after a ten-day trip to Jewish New York. I spent the first seven days in the Yidish-Vokh ('Yiddish Week'), an annual Yiddish-speaking summer retreat at Berkshire Hills Emanuel Adult Vacation Center in Copake, NY, then after this retreat I spent two days in New York City. This was one of the most unforgettable trips I have ever experienced in my entire life. I still remain dreamy in the afterglow of this precious experience and terribly missing some of the people I met there.
This was the second time for me to participate in the annual Yidish-Vokh, so there were no big surprises. In the beginning I even wondered how I would spend a whole week there without getting bored. But this turned out to be a totally wrong question. As the time passed, I became more and more absorbed in this unique event, enjoying from the variegated program, shmoozing with those whom I know from my last participation about ten years ago, and making friends with new people. When I had to say good-by to them before leaving the place, I could not help crying. Actually I still continue to cry, if not literally.
It was really nice to meet Prof. Joshua ("Shikl") Fishman again. Not only did I have a chance to talk with him about our common academic interest, sociology of language, but also did he do me a great personal favor for which I may remain eternally indebted to him. The most touching talk in the program was by his wife Gele about their decision and subsequent efforts to raise their children in Yiddish in New York. It was even more touching to see Shikl sobbing as he listened to this talk. As the event approached its end, I cursed myself for not having planned to stay in New York longer afterward. But naturally, I could not foresee a totally unexpected incident that made me feel this way.
All in all, this experience has increased my love for Yiddish and summoned up strong motivation to deepen my practical and theoretical knowledge of this amazing language. I was thinking of participating in two conferences on Hebrew and Esperanto in Bialystok and London respectively next summer, but I will probably opt for returning to New York to take part in the Yidish-Vokh instead.
Returning to New York City, I had what I consider a rather surrealistic meeting with Prof. George Jochnowitz, who is a world authority on Judeo-Romance languages. We first met online about ten years ago; since then we have become quite close to each other. He has the patience to read this online journal and even take the trouble of sending his insightful comments regularly. I met him twice in three dimensions in Jerusalem, but I never imagined that I would be able to see him in his native New York City and even see his apartment in Manhattan. Now I can see before my eyes where he writes to me. After having a kosher South Indian supper together, he accompanied me a little toward the hotel where I stayed in mid Manhattan. On the way we saw a klezmer musician playing some klezmer piece. I was in such a good mood after meeting George and having a good shmooze that I spontaneously started dancing to his tune; I also felt safe enough to wear a yarmulke there as I do in Israel.
Thank you and good-bye, dear (Jewish) New York. Hopefully, I will see you again in the near future.