Undoing the ulpan

The days of the Israeli ulpan are numbered. In recent months, the government has proposed transferring responsibility for immigrant Hebrew education from the Education Ministry to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry - a move that would lead to the privatization of Hebrew education for newcomers, perhaps as early as mid-2009. In a proposed new system, new immigrants would receive vouchers for Hebrew study, which they could then use at various language schools throughout the country.

The passing of the ulpan system would mark another nail in the coffin of a collective Israeli identity, as these classes not only taught new arrivals the fundamentals of modern Hebrew, but provided them with an automatic community of peers, who together experienced the trials of acclimatization and survival in their new home.

With the recent marking of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, we are reminded again of the wonderfully bizarre miracle of modern Hebrew, and the persistent determination it has taken to establish the language as one in which all aspects of contemporary life can take place.

Throughout Israel's history, Hebrew has been a symbol of the country's pioneering spirit, helping to serve as the basis of the image of the resolute "New Israeli" willing to leave behind the Diaspora way of life for existence in a new culture. In this sense, the ulpan was as much a "finishing school" as a language course, and teachers and fellow students offered mutual encouragement and counsel, helping one another in matters related to everything from housing to employment to religious community.

The ulpan system of full-time language immersion was adopted in 1949 as a response to the waves of immigration that flooded Israel soon after independence. Along with other national projects, such as the establishment of state media outlets and the creation of pioneering settlements along the country's various frontiers, ulpan classrooms worked to bring together Jewish immigrants from all over the world into a conglomerate that would begin to see itself as possessing a single national identity. Until this day, Israeli immigrants receive 500 free hours at ulpanim, most of which are managed publicly by municipalities, universities, kibbutzim and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

The teaching methods of the ulpan system have been studied extensively by language teachers from other countries, and have also served as a model for the revival of lost languages in places like Catalonia, New Zealand and Wales, where beginning language courses are known as "Wlpan" in Welsh. "The ulpan is something we have been building for the last 60 years," says Dina Koren, a teacher in Tel Aviv's municipal Ulpan Gordon. "From when the state was first established, we emphasized one country with one language," she continues, noting that, "Ulpan is much, much more than language - it is a treasure of culture. We are always stunned anew to hear from olim [new immigrants] that the ulpan is their home - how they meet people, find work, and learn about culture." Ulpan students are "panicking," she says, in the face of the potential changes, which they are certain will deprive them of the community and language skills they depend upon for integration.

As part of the campaign to discredit the ulpan system and pave the way to privatization of Hebrew instruction, a number of charges have been made in recent months regarding the quality of ulpan instruction and the fact that graduates of six-month ulpan programs cannot speak Hebrew fluently. A study presented to the Knesset's Immigration and Absorption Committee in January, which concluded that most ulpan graduates over 30 are unable to read and write Hebrew, was offered as evidence that the 500 hours of ulpan time allotted to each immigrant are not enough to achieve sufficient fluency.

Instead of using this information as a basis for increasing ulpan hours, or improving the system in other ways, officials have latched on to the study as an excuse to dismantle the ulpan system as we know it. Some of the Hebrew teachers at risk of losing their jobs have argued that new immigrants denied the opportunity to study in ulpan will be less productive members of the Israeli economy. But it is unlikely that government officials would directly sabotage the economic viability of the population. Instead, the trend of recent years seems to show that Hebrew has come to be considered less and less of a basic and crucial part of becoming Israeli, as the existence of a unified Israeli culture becomes less crucial as a value in general.

Placing the ulpan on the budgetary chopping-block raises serious questions, not only about Israel's relationship with Hebrew, but also about how the state relates to its immigrants and their role here. If even the minimal common denominator of a single language is no longer a top priority, the country's population will become increasingly segmented and pluralistic, its many disparate groups lacking much to hold them together.

Knowledge of Hebrew, then, seems to have become less of an essential foundation of "Israeliness" and more of an "accessory" that certain immigrants will have the option to purchase. Is the Hebrew language no longer part of the definition of "Israeliness"? Does the state no longer wish to endow its new arrivals with a certain minimal common cultural package? These are questions we should consider now, before the ulpan has become a thing of the past.

Israel's cultural diversity is one of its strengths and beauties, and the ulpan, far from being the enemy of pluralism, has long been one of the few places where members of different backgrounds could meet and mix, against the background of a common language. It would be a shame to give up on all of that on the basis of a few statistical studies and bureaucratic maneuvering.

Leora S. Fridman is a Dorot Fellow living in Tel Aviv. She has studied at Tel Aviv's Ulpan Gordon, and at the ulpanim of both the Hebrew University and Ben-Gurion University.