When Harry Meets HebrewRead the whole thing.
Back in 1999, when Gili Bar-Hillel was given the task of translating “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”—known in the U.S. as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” or simply as Book One of the renowned seven-volume series—no one yet fathomed the boundless commercial success that would characterize the Harry Potter franchise. Indeed, Israeli publishers Yedioth Ahronoth Books and Books in the Attic gave Bar-Hillel the Potter project as a tryout, of sorts; a fairly experienced translator, she’d been asking them for work. Knowing that she was a member of the International Wizard of Oz Club, the publishers figured that she had enough enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, children’s fantasy literature to accurately render the story from English to Hebrew.
Eight years later, however, Bar-Hillel is a bona fide Israeli celebrity, known nationwide as the woman who makes the imaginative world of Harry Potter accessible to thousands of Hebrew-speaking fans. Still, the differences between Hebrew and English syntax, the unique vocabulary and culture of Harry’s universe, and Bar-Hillel’s inability to find out background information missing from the books—series author J.K. Rowling’s British publishing house, Bloomsbury, carefully shields her from the public—all combined to make Harry Potter an often befuddling project to translate. Indeed, the issue of what constitutes an “accurate” translation has engaged Bar-Hillel throughout her unlikely rise to national fame, as well as led Israelis to sometimes laud, and other times deride, her word choices and judgment.
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