It's 5:30pm, Do You Know Where Your Ba'al Dikduk Is?

A post on westbankblog ("A Blessing From the Grocery Clerk") reminded me of an incident I had with a friend of mine in Israel a number of years ago. I wrote about my friend, Louis, a couple of weeks ago at YU. In Israel we were room mates when we were in the One Year Program studying at Hebrew University.

Louis is something of an expert (his word) or fanatic (my word) when it comes to dikduk--the kind of person who would correct Israelis in the middle of their conversation. Besides correcting them on things such as "b'glal she'" when it should be "mipnei she'", he would correct them when they said "LaBriut" saying that grammatically it should be "Livriut"--I used to say LaBriut to him to annoy him and Livriut to impress everyone else with my (nonexistent) knowledge of dikduk.

One day we were walking in Yerushalayim, when he noticed an elderly Arab walking ahead of us, turned to me and said, "I have to ask him what time it is." And why was it so important that he strike up a coverstion with the Arab? "Look at the time...it's 5:30!" And what is so special about asking an Arab the time when it is 5:30?

Louis wanted to hear an Arab say "Khameish V'Kheitzi"

Louis made Aliyah a number of years ago, and though I have not heard from him in a while, I am sure that Israel and Hebrew and not quite the same as when he arrived.

Speaking of Hebrew, Powerline has a post on Sunday about Milton Himmelfarb, a former contributing editor of Commentary magazine:

Edward Himmelfarb is Milton Himmelfarb's son. We have corresponded on matters related to Power Line. Today Edward Himmelfarb writes:

Thank you for your kind words about my father, Milton Himmelfarb, on Power Line. I remember an email exchange with you about a year and a half ago, in which you recalled having heard him speak at your shul in St. Paul in 1975, which, I might say, shows you have a very impressive memory.

I spoke at my father's funeral on Thursday, mostly of personal recollections, but I thought you might be interested in the last page and a half or so, in which I discussed his article "Going to Shul," written while saying Kaddish for his father, my Grandpa Max. So I've attached a copy of my eulogy. ("Going to Shul," by the way, is one of the articles linked at Commentary's web site.)

We were sitting shiva with my mother at their house through motz'ei shabbat, and the children and grandchildren have now gone home to finish shiva there. My mother is with two of my sisters.

During his illness we could only think about him and worry and try to help. God gave us a little extra time with him, though not nearly enough. But at least now we can stop worrying and we can think back with pleasure to celebrate his life.

Shul, kaddish, shiva, motz'ei shabbat...and later he also discusses gematria. It just kind of struck me that though one of the people who posts on Powerline is Jewish, and from time to time there are posts about Israel, still Powerline has a broad range of topics and their audience is not a purely Jewish one. Yet there was a sprinkling of Hebrew words in the post with absolutely no attempt to translate or explain them.

I don't know if there is anything to make of that, but I just thought it was interesting.

Technorati Tag: Hebrew and Israel.