6 February 2009 (12 Shvat 5769)
When I was still struggling in purgatory called doctorate and started to lose the freshness I had felt in the topic of my dissertation in the beginning, a friend of mine tried to encourage me by telling me that I would be able to engage myself in any area or topic of research after finishing my doctorate. She was right but on one condition - as long as I have enough time. The last semester that ended this Sunday was extremely a busy one; I could barely do anything but preparing materials for my courses. This Monday I finally started to breathe, but have no time to rest, as I have to concentrate on (and finish by the end of this month) a paper on a topic that has been interesting me for many years - the sociology of Jewish languages in general. I am no less busy now, but I I get enormous intellectual pleasure in this study.
Since I was a child, I have been interested in languages, not so much structurally as in relation to the society and culture of their speakers. The main reason why I have decided to specialize in Hebrew (as well as Yiddish and Esperanto) is that their cultures attract me. Linguistic structure also interests me, of course, but it is not enough. So I, unlike a number of linguists I know, would not be able to specialize in a language simply because its structure is interesting. In choosing topics for my MA thesis and PhD dissertation, however, I had to make a compromise. For both of them I chose topics in the area of morphology for practical considerations, though what truly interested me was sociolinguistics, or macro-sociolinguistics, to be more precise.
I was lucky to find a position in Israel, as it is an ideal place for researchers of Hebrew and Jewish languages not only in that they are actually spoken here but also in that there are many fellow researchers specializing in them. For the past four years I could not only meet my old colleagues here but also got acquainted with new people, being exposed to new ideas and inspired by them. As a result, my areas of interest both broadened and shifted.
I consider morphology as the starting point of my academic career, and I am still interested in it. But with a limited amount of free time, I seem to have chosen rather unconsciously those areas and topics that are closer to my heart and mind for my papers. This may also explain why I receive better feedback when I speak and write on topics that are multilingual/crosslinguistic, diachronic and/or sociolinguistic than on those that are monolingual, synchronic and/or structural. And what few papers I have written since I moved here in August 2004 are concerned more with the former.
13 February 2009 (19 Shvat 5769)
[no update due to a busy schedule]
20 February 2009 (26 Shvat 5769)
Last year I participated in a workshop on authentic Ashkenazic folk dance held in Jerusalem. This was one of the things I had long wanted to learn systematically. When I first heard that we would have ten sessions and each session would last three hours, I wondered if we would have so many things to learn. But once the workshop started, I realized I had been totally wrong. When it ended, I felt I had only scratched the surface. I enjoyed this unique learning experience so much that the desire to learn more has only become stronger and stronger since then.
To my great joy, this weekly workshop started again last Thursday. Our teacher, Prof. Walter Zev Feldman, is one of the few authorities in the world who remember authentic Ashkenazic folk dance. He is also a world famous klezmer musician playing with a period instrument, and is one of those who started the so-called "klezmer revival" in the 1970s in the United States. His and his fellows' occupation with authentic Ashkenazic folk dance seems to be connected to this klezmer revival. As the number of those who were born in Eastern Europe and still remembered the authentic tradition of Ashkenazic folk music and dance was dwindling, they tried to save this tradition from being lost forever. There is, however, a sharp contrast between klezmer music and Ashkenazic folk dance. In spite of efforts by our teacher and other "revivalists" the latter is in a precarious situation. Few people, both in Israel and the United States, including haredim, remember this authentic tradition. It started to be replaced in the 1960s by what we see now in Jewish weddings.
Someone who has witnessed and/or experienced the authentic one would not be able to help feeling that the modern version is even vulgar. What distinguishes the two, as I see it, is the tempo. The former is much slower, which also leads to more restrained and elegant body movements. Paradoxically, this restraint gives far more expressiveness. Every time I see our teacher dance, I am enchanted by each movement he makes and am amazed how expressive a human body can be.
Pursuing a common interest or goal together often gives participants sense of unity. Dancing together may be only second to fighting a war together in this respect. When I was still teaching in Japan, I also taught the kind of Ashkenazic folk dance I had learned from a good old friend of mine in my courses in Hebrew. As could be expected, my students were reluctant in the beginning, but once they started dancing, I could see how they were enjoying, and after the dance they seemed to be united. I can feel this sense of unity in this workshop. In such a context it is far easier to socialize with others. We had only two sessions so far, but I have already shmoozed with quite a few participants about our shared interest in and love for this tradition. In our specific case there seems to be another important factor that contributes to our sense of unity; it is a feeling of exclusiveness, that is, the feeling that we are learning (and enjoying) something that is barely known to others.
27 February 2009 (3 Adar 5769)
[no update due to a busy schedule]