And that's it, ulpan* is officially over. Five months ago I really didn't think I would stay in ulpan for 5 months... but here I am, with the final exam under my belt and one and half notebooks full of new vocab words. While I feel that this in itself is a major accomplishment, it really extends much farther than that because I have essentially been in ulpan, on and off, for 17 years.
(*Ulpan = school for intensive Hebrew language study)
It all started the summer I was 12 years old and a close family friend, who happened to be an ulpan teacher, encouraged my family to come to Israel and learn at the residential ulpan where she taught in Netanya. It was one of those idyllic childhood summers - spending my days out in the sun, exploring my independence in the kibbutz-like communal living setting and, of course, learning Hebrew (and I really did learn a lot of Hebrew that summer).
And thus started my long relationship with ulpan. Upon returning to the US after that summer, I promptly forgot most of my Hebrew or at least, it went dormant. When I went off to university years later and saw that they offered a Hebrew course, I eagerly signed up with hopes of rekindling the Hebrew part of my brain. My first year in school, the university was offering Hebrew 2 and thinking, "hey, I once knew some Hebrew," figured I could hack it. After one class, realizing that almost all the other students were children of Israelis who could speak fluently, but couldn't read or write to save their lives, while I could read a bit and write a bit but couldn't force a sentence through my lips, I knew I would have to wait until the next year when they would offer Hebrew 1. The following year I would work my way through most of the ulpan 'א (level 1) book which would propel me to א' פלוס (level 1 plus) when I would begin my next ulpan at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for my semester abroad. Like many people, when I headed home after 6 months in Israel, I felt like I was "nearly fluent." Looking back, however, I really knew very little.
I continued to work through ulpan workbooks as an independent study in my last year of university, determined not to lose what I had already gained. Then I moved to Israel (the first time, in 2006). Over the course of the next three years I completed a summer ulpan course at Haifa University and two years of part-time ulpan for the Educators program at Pardes. I felt like at that point, someone should have given me a medal for sticking through ulpan for all that time. To top it off, Matt and I even attended a once a week ulpan when we moved back to Chicago to keep our skills sharp as we prepared for aliyah.
As you can imagine, I didn't think ulpan was in my cards when we came to Haifa, I mean, enough is enough, right? On the other hand, one of the benefits of aliyah is 5 free months of ulpan... When the job search turned out to be less than fruitful in our first months here, I found myself wandering into the office of Ulpan Etzion Carmel. I figured I could start out in ulpan until I got a job and it would give me a reason to get up and out in the mornings and it couldn't hurt to learn a little bit more Hebrew. And I learned Hebrew, a lot of it. It is amazing how whenever you think you know a lot about something, you find out there is so much more to know. Beyond the Hebrew, I also met wonderful and interesting new people from all different backgrounds, coming together as we all struggled through the tough beginnings of aliyah. I honestly had no intention of sticking it out for the full 5 months, but as it turns out, I guess I like ulpan.
Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,
Stef and Matt
אני כל כך גאה בתי
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