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ISRAEL-DICTIONARY Jul-6-2006 (730 words) With photos. xxxi
For French-born brother in Israel, language is the key to the heart
By Judith Sudilovsky
Catholic News Service
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- From his small balcony, Brother Yohanan Elihay can see the East Jerusalem Palestinian village of Sur Baher and the multilevel apartment buildings of the Jewish Armon Hanatziv neighborhood, where he lives with another brother from his order.
It is an apt view for the 80-year-old, who has spent more than half a century in Israel working to bring Israelis and Palestinians together through language -- most recently with The Olive Tree Dictionary, an 8,000-word, 17,000-phrase Arabic-English dictionary published by Minerva.
"Language is the key to the heart," said Brother Elihay, who chose to speak in Hebrew. He was born in France as Jean Leroy, but his chosen surname, Elihay, means "God lives" in Hebrew.
Brother Elihay's first contact with the Middle East was in 1946 when, as a young man, in lieu of serving in the French army he served for a year as a French teacher in Lebanon. It was during this time that he was also first exposed to the enormity of the Nazi Holocaust.
Afterward, he entered the Dominican seminary in France, then joined a Catholic order whose calling it is to live, pray and work in areas experiencing troubles and to build a personal relationship with the lands' inhabitants. Brother Elihay said he knew the place he wanted to work was the fledgling state of Israel.
"It was the beginning of Israel and they were in danger" of attack from the Arab states, "and there were a lot of Holocaust survivors," said Brother Elihay, sitting in his sparsely furnished, orderly living room.
He asked that the name of his order not be mentioned because he fears members living in Arab countries would be put in jeopardy if people knew the order also has members living among Jews in Israel.
In 1956 Brother Elihay was the first from his order to come to Israel, and he was joined a year later by another brother. In 1960 he applied for and received Israeli citizenship.
At first he worked in ceramics and helped build the floor of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, but slowly, by virtue of his lifelong love for languages, he became involved in writing Arabic-language textbooks and dictionaries.
Brother Elihay said he can communicate in Hebrew, Arabic, English and French.
He studied Arabic and Hebrew on his own while living in Jewish and Arab communities in Israel. Having already studied biblical Hebrew as a student, he said he had a better grasp of that language. In order to learn Arabic, he spoke endlessly to people, taping their conversations and asking them questions about pronunciation and word usage, filling notebooks with translations and usages of new words. He used his notebooks as the basis for Arabic language courses and dictionaries he wrote and devised over the years for those who speak Hebrew, French and English.
The 7,000 word Hebrew-Arabic dictionary he compiled in the late 1970s is still used in Israeli schools and universities and by the Israeli army. The 5,000 word French-Arabic dictionary he published in 1973 is still sold in France. Now he hopes to line bookshelves with his new dictionary which, though five years in the making, is actually a compilation of his linguistics work.
All his written language work has been with the Palestinian Arabic dialect, which he believes provides an excellent basis for communicating with the rest of the Arab world because it is very close in pronunciation to classical Arabic, which all Arabs understand, and contains words used by various other Arabic speakers in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.
While other English-Arabic dictionaries exist, they are on a much smaller scale than The Olive Tree Dictionary. In addition to the translation and transliteration of the word, the dictionary includes the pronunciation in two dialects, as well as 17,000 phrases and sample sentences demonstrating the usage of the words.
The dictionary also includes a 100-page, 14,000-entry English-Arabic index, a verb table and a list of several basic grammatical rules.
"For me you can't live in a country without speaking the language, and here there are two languages," the brother said.
"My dream is to help Israelis learn the Arabic language," he said. "What makes me happiest is to get a phone call from someone thanking me for writing the language books because they have helped him study Arabic."
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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