How Do You Say “Yom Kef” In Arabic?

August 16, 2007 - 12:55 PM by Liza

TAFKA PP spent a day in the North recently, joining her office colleagues for a fun day of kayaking. Lots of companies and organizations in Israel arrange days like these for their employees, either under the guise team-building activities or simply as an opportunity for folks to enjoy some well-deserved time away from the office on company time.
Kayak What made TAFKA’s outing all the more interesting was the fact that she works in East Jerusalem, and her colleagues are all either Israeli or West Bank Arabs, a fact that lends itself to all sorts of interesting situations.
She writes, “Only once we’re on the water does the surreality of the next 2 hours dawn: I’m now in a boat with 3 colleagues whose common language is Arabic (which basically leaves me high and dry if we aren’t swearing, taking telephone messages or asking for more cheese), one of whom speaks some Hebrew, one of whom speaks English and also quite randomly does a killer impression of American tourists speaking/singing in bad Hebrew (apparently many march through his neighbourhood in the Old City regularly) and one newer girl who speaks no languages I speak, so we communicate mostly via gestures and smiles. Other boats that go past get very confused. “Are you guys American?” ask the Israeli National Service girls in heavily-accented English and patronizing smiles as they float past to hear me cursing (in Brummie) the fact that my sunglasses have just chosen to jump off my face and start a new life at the bottom of the river Jordan. “Ugh, Heaven Forbid! We’re from Jerusalem” I snap back at her in Hebrew, just as one of my friends spots a distant cousin in a nearby boat and deafens us all in a stream of Arabic excitement. Then a boat full of 16 year-old American girls drifts past, getting stuck in the riverbank trees until my Old City-dwelling colleague masterfully sets them free. “Ohmigod, Israeli guys are like, SO. HOT.” says one of them, gazing at his Palestinian back adoringly as we sail away, and then giggling as he strikes up a rousing chorus of American-accented “Hevenu Shalom Alechem” to serenade the settler family now floating by- who just so happen to be wearing T-shirts emblazoned with slogans advocating his transfer. It’s all getting a little too much for me to cope with, in all this heat, so I start singing “Row, Row Row Your Boat”- and the North is alive with the sound of music.”
She doesn’t blog often, but when she does, you’re sure to get your money’s worth. To read more about TAFKA’s day in the North, click here.