The Arabic language has an inferior image here, and that's the main problem of those who teach it in local schools. "The Arabic language and culture are seen as inferior and primitive," Arabic teacher Carmit Bar-Or recently told Haaretz reporter Or Kashti ("Arabic teachers: Security situation is damaging the subject's image," November 30, 2006). Has there always been such a negative attitude toward Arabic in this country?

From my experience, I can testify that in many places in old-time Jerusalem, one could hear Arabic spoken. Not necessarily by Arabs who lived in mixed neighborhoods like Romema or near Jewish homes, but mainly by Jews who had immigrated from Arabic-speaking countries. In a large percentage of the veteran Jewish neighborhoods south of Agrippas Street and the Mahane Yehuda market, Arabic was spoken.

These neighborhoods were populated by families who came from Arabic-speaking Jewish communities in northern Syria (or southern Turkey) or from western Iraq. Some spoke an ancient Aramaic dialect. But most used what is called a Shami (Syrian) Arabic dialect, and they could be identified by their synagogues, which are still standing in the streets descending from the center of Jerusalem to the small Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Bader, on whose land Sacher Park and the Knesset were built. These include the synagogues of the Urfals, and of natives of the cities of Diarbekir and Qamishli - and, of course, of the capital of those regions: the city of Aleppo, which had been home to a large and wealthy Jewish community.

	Advertisement

In the schools at the time they taught a little spoken Arabic, using the book written by the veteran teacher Dr. Israel Ben-Zeev (who advocated the idea of converting the Arabs in Israel). Many of us knew by heart the first story in the book, about "The Grave of the Righteous Man." This is a story about a grave that, according to Ben-Zeev, was found "between Bir Zeit and Atara, nearer to Atara." Immediately after the Six-Day War I once traveled to an unfamiliar area north of Ramallah and suddenly I saw a sign pointing the way to Bir-Zeit and Atara. In fact, between them, "nearer to Atara," as the book said, there is an impressive ancient site called Sheikh Qatrawani, to which Ben-Zeev was undoubtedly referring. Students who studied spoken Arabic in Israeli schools usually didn't remember much more than a few sentences - like the beginning of the story about the grave.

Undermining sovereignty

The incident that made me want to study Arabic occurred even earlier, during my regular army service. "Coincidence is better than a thousand plans," says a popular Arabic proverb, and the incident in question took place in 1958, at the end of my military service. We were on guard duty at the time, along what was called "the city line" - in other words, the border that divided Jerusalem. They sent me and my childhood friend Uzi Raveh to the slope of a narrow wadi in southeast Jerusalem, which separates the village of Jabel Mukhaber, which is adjacent to Armon Hanatziv, from the neighborhood of Abu Tor. There were few houses in Jabel Mukhaber, and the members of the western Sawahra tribe, who lived there, used to cross the wadi on foot to Abu Tor. The path they used twisted among rocks and thorns.

In one place, at the bottom of the wadi, the path crossed over the border between the State of Israel and the kingdom of Jordan, which was not clearly marked, by several meters. Thus the Arabs who used the path penetrated the sovereign territory of Israel by a few meters, and our commander told us we had to stop this. Why? What would happen if they entered Israel by a few meters, we asked. The familiar reply was: "If you give them a finger they'll take the entire hand."

The wadi north of Abu Tor and the hill above it were defined as a demilitarized zone that army units were forbidden to enter. There were no people in the area.

The two of us, Uzi and I, stood on the bottom of the wadi, and opposite us an elderly Arab woman was descending the path from Jabel Mukhaber. She was carrying one basket in her hand and a larger one on her head, and two little children were holding onto her dress. Uzi told her that it was forbidden to pass here and that she should make a detour. He spoke a little Arabic that he had learned from his grandmother. The Arab woman told Uzi that it was impossible to make a detour because there were thorns and rocks there, and so she had to walk on the path. She also pushed us a little, and we retreated and allowed her to walk on the path and to undermine Israeli sovereignty.

A few days later I was doing guard duty by myself in a small wood at the entrance to the Ben-Zvi training farm. After 1948 the various buildings there had been transferred to the use of the Hebrew University, which had been exiled from Mt. Scopus, with its various departments scattered all over the city. In those days the building of the university campus at Givat Ram had begun, including the student dormitories; meanwhile the central building of the training farm served as a dormitory for a few students.

It was a late summer afternoon and around me, among the trees in the wood that faced the farm, there wasn't a soul. On the narrow road leading to Armon Hanatziv there was no traffic except for isolated UN vehicles that passed by there every few hours. About a kilometer west of there, on the edge of the Allenby Camp that had been built by the British and now served the Israel Defense Forces and the defense establishment, and near the wall of St. Claire's convent, there was a small Israel Police checkpoint.

It was hot and sat under the trees. I leaned back, and apparently dozed off a little. After a short while I awoke in panic and looked around. My weapon, an Uzi submachine gun of the old type with a wooden butt, was gone. What should I do? The loss of one's personal weapon was, and still is, a terrible nightmare for any soldier, certainly in the regular army. I turned to the farm building and looked for a sign of life. On the second floor I heard voices from one of the rooms whose door was not completely closed.

I was in panic, I knocked and entered the room. There were three young men there, students, slightly older than I was. One of them looked familiar to me - thin, fair, somewhat redheaded. A year or two earlier I had met him as an officer in one of the military courses. His full name was Yosef Luntz, but everyone knew him by his nickname, Luntzi. He was from Haifa and had been discharged from the army a short time earlier and had come to study at the university. His two roommates in the student dormitory at the farm were also from Haifa, childhood friends who had come to Jerusalem to study and lived together.

On one of the beds I was happy to see my weapon. I told them that they should stop playing games and return my Uzi. Luntzi answered that it wasn't so simple, that this was a crime of abandoning a weapon and I had to stand trial. "What trial, come on," I pleaded. Within a minute the three organized themselves into a field court. One was the prosecutor, one the defense attorney and the third the judge. The charge was falling asleep on guard duty, and not ordinary guard duty, but "in the face of the enemy," said Luntzi, pointing at the Arab homes in Jabel Mukhaber that could be seen from the window.

The sentencing was swift. They would give me small change and I would run about two kilometers to Shimon's small grocery store in the Baka neighborhood to buy "white beer." I ran as fast as I could, bought the beer and got my weapon back.

After that, every time I was sent to guard in the area I visited the room of the three students. They were in their first or second year of Arabic and Middle East studies, and they aroused my curiosity. One of them was Reuven Merhav, later to become a senior member of the Mossad and the director general of the Foreign Ministry, who occasionally reminds me of the field court that sentenced me. The third member of the gang, who later went on to study law, was Eitan Geva, a well-known Jerusalem attorney.

Why not Arabic?

Two years later I myself arrived at the university in Givat Ram, and like many of my friends I didn't know exactly what to study. Uzi Raveh, who had guarded with me, decided to study agriculture. He was a graduate of the Kaddouri agricultural school. He ended up as a senior official the Finance Ministry and a bank manager, who remained a close friend, beloved to many until his death about a year ago.

I decided at the time to take up Middle East studies, after meeting Luntzi at the entrance to the Jewish National and University Library on the Givat Ram campus. At the time he was completing a major paper about the meeting in the summer of 1918, in the desert, between the Hashemite prince Faisal, son of Hussein, the leader of the Arab revolt, and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, after which an agreement of cooperation was signed between the Arab country and the Jewish national home that would be established in Palestine. Luntzi served in senior positions in the defense establishment. He died young of an illness in 1983. His last position was commander of the Gaza Strip, with the rank of brigadier general.

Many of the students who now choose to take up Arabic and Middle East studies have practical intentions. They want to serve or work in the intelligence and defense establishments, the Foreign Ministry or research institutions. Education Ministry statistics indicate that in recent years there has been a decline in the number of high-schoolers taking matriculation exams in Arabic (at the highest level - 5 units). At the start of the present academic year at the Hebrew University, several students were asked why they had decided to study English, French, German, Japanese and Chinese, instead of Arabic. One of them replied that studying a foreign language is like acquiring a key to a new house containing treasures of science and culture. Anyone studying Arabic also acquires a key, but soon discovers that it is the key to an empty house. What can one do with Arabic, he asked, adding: be a scholar of the Koran or a spy in the Shin Bet security services?

One of the factors influencing the decline in Arabic studies is the political situation. The greater the violence and terror attacks, the greater the reluctance to study Arabic. It even happens that those who do know Arabic don't like to flaunt their knowledge. After all, this is the language of the enemy. During the dramatic visit of the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in Jerusalem, I was surprised to discover how many of the politicians and MKs at the time knew Arabic. Most of them were natives of Iraq who had previously been reluctant to demonstrate their knowledge of the language, but with the advent of such an honored guest, when there was hope for peace and the hostility and hatred declined, it was suddenly convenient and pleasant to demonstrate their knowledge of the language of the neighbors, whom everyone hoped would become friends instead of enemies.

Today I often pass near the wall of St. Claire's convent on Hebron Road on the way to the famous Sherover Promenade that overlooks the narrow wadi beneath Jabel Mukhaber. A park called the Peace Forest was built in the wadi. Opposite the promenade is Rachel Yanait's agricultural training farm, looking empty and deserted. Leading up to it is a narrow road filled with weeds, evidence of the fact that it is not well traveled. Entry to the neglected farm is forbidden. Beyond the gate and the fence one can see piles of stones and thorns, and several dilapidated buildings. The large neighborhood of East Talpiot was built beyond the farm.