Since the question is raised, I'd like to express my thoughts on this.

First of all, I want to make clear it is not about banning Israel's official language from the Israeli sections of SSC. I would actually think having more Hebrew speakers on SSC would be positive.

But then, beyond this principle, I also believe we have to keep in mind the purpose of forums is to communicate. Today, it seems that the Israeli forum sections are to a large extent English speaking. Skyscrapercity.com is a great chance for people that don't speak certain languages to get in touch with many different cultures and English, as "de facto" the most used language, is also a chance to help us in that.

We won't ban people for refusing to speak English or only speaking Hebrew, but they are putting barriers to themselves, and provocations like challenging the moderation will only get you in troubles (no matter the reasons, if people look for troubles they get it, that's an informal rule). I also want to insist on the fact that if you believe Hebrew is the official language of the Israeli forum, you get it all wrong, skyscrapercity.com has no official language. The only rule is about speaking the language people in the sections you're posting in speak.

Now, I think it would be positive to support the use of Hebrew, within frames that would allow most of us to follow the forum, within that forum. If, for example (that would be an idea), the forumers would want an Hebrew speaking section within the forum I'd support the idea.

(: אני לא מבין

del

LOL, looks like non-Israelis want to make language policy in Israeli section only b/c there are not much Hebrew speakers around (even among non-Israeli Jews) :crazy2:
I always thought there's only "common sense rule" saying: every language is allowed as long as:
1. there's no language hijacking in the thread (in most cases it means threads started in some language should be continued in the same language)
2. the language is supported by enough number of local forumers to keep the started threads alive

SSC is international forum, so there shouldn't be discrimination of any language only b/c 50% of forumers speak English, another 20% speak Chinese, another 20% Spanish and the lasting 90% speak Polish...

You have to keep in mind that there are forumers that aren't even Jewish, but they want to learn more about Israel through this forum. So, in my opinion, it would be better if discussions kept being held in English. However, Hebrew is Israel's main language, so it should be spoken in this forum, but like someone above mentioned, in an exclusive subforum.

PS: How come this forum is run in English? It seems that a very good English is taught in Israel. Hoy many Olim come from English-speaking countries?

You have to keep in mind that there are forumers that aren't even Jewish, but they want to learn more about Israel through this forum. So, in my opinion, it would be better if discussions kept being held in English.What about other forums? Polish, Spanish? Not interested or you have not enough power to FORCE hundreds/thousands of forumers to switch to English? So you just think forcing dozen of Israeli forumers is feasible b/c they are not numerous? What if I want to know more about Latin skyscrapers? Have I right to force Bolivian, Chilean etc. forumers to switch to English? Or maybe we should switch to Polish, as it's not Anglo-Saxon, but International forum and every language has equal rights? :shifty:However, Hebrew is Israel's main language,Hebrew and Arabic are the ONLY official languages of Israel! OK, some forumers would be happy to switch Israeli forum to Arabic, I'm sure! :lol:so it should be spoken in this forum, but like someone above mentioned, in an exclusive subforum.You mean Hebrew ghetto? :nuts:
PS: How come this forum is run in English? It seems that a very good English is taught in Israel. Hoy many Olim come from English-speaking countries?Not only this. Jewish diaspora is using many languages to communicate even inside one family, so many Jews do not need a school to speak fluently English, French or Spanish. They just visit their aunt ;)

English will remain the main language of Israeli forum not b/c it'll be enforced, but b/c of the multi-language diaspora not speaking/writing Hebrew fluently. It's like Lebanese forum, where some like 10% are being written in Arabic (again, great international diaspora with English being lingua franca, not being even the official language in Lebanon!).

del

English will remain the main language of Israeli forum not b/c it'll be enforced, but b/c of the multi-language diaspora not speaking/writing Hebrew fluently. It's like Lebanese forum, where some like 10% are being written in Arabic (again, great international diaspora with English being lingua franca, not being even the official language in Lebanon!).

Right.

This makes me wonder if the Israelis/Jews here speak other Judeo-something languages — Jiddisch, Ladino etc.

No one is being forced to use English.
SSC Israel forum is not for Israelis only, there are lots of users who have come to this forum and fell in love with Israel etc because they understood what is being said.
If it was Hebrew only, we'd kinda eliminate this forum from others who genuinely want to learn more about Israel.

To make a section just for Hebrew is a waste of time as even the Hebrew speaking users post in English.

My two cents :)

This makes me wonder if the Israelis/Jews here speak other Judeo-something languages — Jiddisch, Ladino etc.

I highly doubt that, unless we have very old people here :). You won't find too many young people who speak Yiddish nowadays (a few phrases picked up from grandma don't count).

And I don't think we have too many language hobbyists here who'd be learning a language like Yiddish for fun (I'm somewhat of a language enthusiast, but Yiddish is not the language I'm currently studying).

I don't know as well about Ladino, though I would guess the situation is similar. I am under the impression, though, that Ladino is more similar to Spanish than Yiddish is to German, so some people from a Ladino background do know some Spanish (which is useful to know).

That being said, however, many Hebrew speakers could be trained to read Yiddish with minor adjustments (again, as an enthusiast, I taught myself how to do that), and if one has a Yiddish background, it is possible to understand some stuff.

There are some like 2-3 mln Yiddish speakers around the world. I guess we have in Poland even bigger circulation of Polish/Yiddish biweekly ("Dos Yidishe Wort") than number of officially registered Jews.
Don't know about Ladino, but I bet there are more Ladino speakers in Latin America than in both Europe and Israel.

^^ According to some sources Ladino is spoken mainly in Israel. It's estimated some 200,000 people can still speak this language however this rate is gradually decreasing.

Right. Wiki says about some 110,000 speakers, 90% of which live in Israel. I'm surprised about that, as I thought, that b/c of Hebraization both Yiddish and Ladino almost died out in Israel. I wonder how much these both languages are still alive thanks to the Haredi Jews :nuts:

BTW, I doubt if anyone could post anything on topic in this thread any more :)

All the cool kids stray from topic!

We gotta keep Ladino, Yiddish and other Jewish languages survive and must be taught in worldwide Jewish schools and as well as schools in Israel.

This makes me wonder if the Israelis/Jews here speak other Judeo-something languages — Jiddisch, Ladino etc.

I would like to know how live is the sefardi culture in nowadays Israel?

Is there any tv channel or least programs in sefardi? radio? newspapers? is learned in any school???

I am spanish speaker and portuguese speaker and its amazing how similar is to both (actually to old castillian). Its a lovely culture I would love to be preserved.

Gracias!!

I would like to know how live is the sefardi culture in nowadays Israel?

Is there any tv channel or least programs in sefardi? radio? newspapers? is learned in any school???

I am spanish speaker and portuguese speaker and its amazing how similar is to both (actually to old castillian). Its a lovely culture I would love to be preserved.

Gracias!!

Spanish is taught in some schools but it's not compulsory. As far as I know- Ladino isn't taught at all.

I'm not Israeli, but I know that for many Israeli olim Yiddish was the language of the galut and even more, it was the language of the shoa. You have to bear in mind that maybe up to five million of the shoa victims were Yiddish speakers. So for those that came to Israel in the aftermath it wasn't favorable to teach and even speak this language, which reminded them of the trauma in Europe.

The same is true for other languages, such as German or Polish and so on. As a result the second generation after the shoa often didn't learn their parents mother tongue (of course you can't generalize). In many cases it was only the third generation that got interested in their grandparents origin and languages and started to learn them again.

There is some Yiddish culture left in Israel. There is a Yiddish theater, called the Yiddish Spiel and you can take courses. But it's nothing you hear in everyday life, except maybe in Bnei Brak and Mea Shearim.

Personally I'm quite fluent in reading and understanding Yiddish, especially the western dialects, which don't have a slavic influence. Speaking is a different story as I don't really have anyone to practice with. The few Eastern European shoa survivors I know, all speak German.

I'm not Israeli, but I know that for many Israeli olim Yiddish was the language of the galut and even more, it was the language of the shoa. You have to bear in mind that maybe up to five million of the shoa victims were Yiddish speakers. So for those that came to Israel in the aftermath it wasn't favorable to teach and even speak this language, which reminded them of the trauma in Europe.

The same is true for other languages, such as German or Polish and so on. As a result the second generation after the shoa often didn't learn their parents mother tongue (of course you can't generalize). In many cases it was only the third generation that got interested in their grandparents origin and languages and started to learn them again.

There is some Yiddish culture left in Israel. There is a Yiddish theater, called the Yiddish Spiel and you can take courses. But it's nothing you hear in everyday life, except maybe in Bnei Brak and Mea Shearim.

Personally I'm quite fluent in reading and understanding Yiddish, especially the western dialects, which don't have a slavic influence. Speaking is a different story as I don't really have anyone to practice with. The few Eastern European shoa survivors I know, all speak German.


It goes even deeper then that. some local Israelis hold resentment towards shoa survivors for not fighting when in Europe and going, as the term states, "as flock to the massacre". You see, back in the 30's those who came to Israel were considered mad men back in Europe, but after WWII those were the people who turned out to choose the right choice of coming to Israel, and the holocaust survivors were the ones who made the mistake, and now came to the one place where they could go too. There for' Yiddish, as well as Ladino, were considered shameful compared to Hebrew - The language of the pioneers of Israel.

חחחח תכתוב גם בעברית אין לי כוח לקרוא הכל באנגלית :/
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