Back in April, the Sandler Sign Language Research Lab at the University of Haifa hosted the third(?) Yom Iyun. It translates literally to "day of study" but was essentially a day-long conference on various aspects of deaf culture, history and language in Israel. Though my Hebrew and ISL are limited (especially in such high register settings such as college presentations) I was excited to go and see not only what I could understand, but also to learn more about the deaf community I'd been affiliated with the for the past eight months.
Like all deaf-centric events, the first order of business is socializing and catching up with friends. Good to know that some deaf culture characteristics are static. It turned out to be a great time to catch up with some people I'd not seen for a few months, or had met once, or who had never met me but had heard there was a Gallaudet student floating around in Israel. As there are only about 10,000 or so Deaf people is Israel, news travels fast.
photos courtesy of Doug McKenneyThe topics for the day covered everything from the history of ISL, history of deaf culture in Israel and other sign languages used in Israel, such as Bedouin and Algerian Sign Languages. The Beduin are an interesting crew. Of Arab decent, they were nomads that traveled through what is now Jordan, southern Israel, and Egypt before the British mandate expired and borders were made and summarily closed.
As many Bedouin groups were isolated, the gene pool became closed and many genetic traits are now much more prevalent. One of these traits is deafness, and has caused an above-average number of deaf people in the community. From this was born Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, a language used fluently by many deaf and hearing Bedouins. Rumor has it there's a village where half the inhabitants are deaf and everyone knows sign language, but I have yet to substantiate this.
As Israel is such a nation of immigrants, there are also pockets of deaf people who have kept their own native languages instead of or in addition to learning ISL. There is a large Algerian Deaf community in Israel though, like the Bedouins, their exposure to ISL and it's greater applicability are causing many to abandon Algerian Sign Language. A recent resurgence in its usage by the Algerian-Israeli Deaf community, may just keep it in use here.
The day also included a dance performance by Amnon Damti, a deaf dancer who I had met back in October at another deaf event. He performed a piece alone, expressing the differences between moving between the hearing and Deaf worlds. Though I'd met him a few times before, this was the first time I actually saw him perform. It was very interesting to see deafness expressed through dance, some of which was choreographed to music and some which was him dancing in silence. I also need to get down to see "By Bread Alone", a show by Nalaga'at, deaf-blind theatre company in Jaffa.
For as many similarities as there are between the American and Israeli deaf communities, there are also some stark differences. Unlike ASL, ISL uses much more lip-reading and speaking. This comes, in my opinion, not only from the influence of oralism and hearing culture, but from the cultural aspect of the Hebrew language as part of Jewish culture. Indeed, this emphasis on learning Hebrew is seen in other aspects as well: the ulpan system for teaching people Hebrew; the government providing immigrants 5-hour daily Hebrew classes free for six months; the teaching of Hebrew within the Jewish community outside of Israel (I had a wonderful conversation with a Tunisian shopkeeper, all in Hebrew). The ability to read, write, speak and lip-read Hebrew isn't part of hearing culture, it's part of Jewish culture both hearing and deaf.
There is also another, much more practical reason: with much of the county being immigrants, there is a necessity for a common language among the people. That language is Hebrew. And considering the relatively small size of the deaf community here, being able to communicate with hearing people is much more of a necessity for everyday life. Because of this, the use of Signed Hebrew and cochlear implants is much more accepted here than in the US, not in place of deaf culture or ISL but in addition to it. With limited access to services that are few and far between in the first place, being able to function independently in the hearing world is a requirement for most Deaf people.
That's not to say the debate of cochlear implants and oralism versus signing isn't here; it most certainly is. But it's interesting to see how the connection of the Hebrew language to Jewish identity, both in the hearing and deaf communities, as well as the availability of services influences peoples' viewpoints on core Deaf issues.
So, that was the Yom Iyun in a nutshell. There's apparently a DVD being put together of all the presentations, though everything is either spoken Hebrew or ISL (with Hebrew real-time captioning). There is a great book by two of the Yom's organizer's, Dr. Wendy Sandler and Irit Meir, called "A Language in Space: the Story of Israeli Sign Language". The first half is all linguistics, but the second part is a great history on the development of the Deaf community in Israel and ISL. Just if you're looking for more information...
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