Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Immigrant Parent Strikes Again!

Some of you may be familiar with Immigrant Parent. Some of you may even be Immigrant Parent.

Immigrant Parent asks your son's friend if he would "rotzah" something to drink.

Immigrant Parent understands only every other word that the teacher/ganenet is saying (and only every 3rd word if it's after 8:30 PM.)

Immigrant Parents' children have to teach them the classic kids' songs, instead of the other way around.

Well, Immigrant Parent struck with force today.

For about a week, Ariella has been telling me she needs a picture of "Amnon and Tamar." I brushed her off, not quite understanding, but today she tells me, "Mommy, tomorrow is 'partani' (enrichment class in school). I need to get a picture and do research today."

Now, I don't know about you, but where I was educated, we don't learn those stories in Tanach in which the characters might be viewed in an unfavorable light. For example, Rachav was, and always will be, an "innkeeper" and we just completely skipped from chapter 37 to 39 in Breishit. (I will give you all a second to check what was in chapter 38.)

So I was very surprised that Ariella was learning about the story of Amnon and Tamar. Especially since last week the topic in her class was bunnies. How did we jump from there to here? The connection seemed destined to lead me to some very weird places.

And I was even more surprised that her teacher was asking for a picture of this. Wow, she really does go to a progressive school, I thought.

Anyway, I sat her down and tried to explain the difficulty of this assignment. "Maybe your teacher meant Yehuda and Tamar?" I asked; though the story is equally as, um, delicate, at least it's in Breishit, which is what they're learning. "I mean, Amnon and Tamar is a story from Navi. And I'm not sure what your teacher means by getting a picture of it...."

"Mommy," Ariella explained patiently, "Amnon v'Tamar is a flower."

15 comments:

OneTiredEma said...

I love everything about this. (You really DO have all of Navi at your fingertips, don't you?)

And I freely admit that the afternoon of the language arts assignment that involved flower/plant names we spent a LOT of time with the dictionary. If it's not a kalanit, shkedia, or rakefet we have no idea.

SaraK said...

Oy. This is totally going to be me, too.

Arica said...

OK, so first off I am totally Immigrant parent speaking only the Hebrew words I know interspersed with English. Second-a flower! That is great! For some reason Israeli's know all the names of flowers-very bizarre!

faith/emuna said...

honey thats what we're here for. why didnt you just ask?
i had a friend who made aliya when her oldest started first grade. she called and said she got the supplies list and she needs to buy a eit zohar. she couldnt figure out the connection btwn the zohar and a writing instrument for a first grader. i explained that it was an eit zoher and it was a highlighter. anyway next time just ask, we're givers. and yeah israelis are really into their trees and flowers.

Commenter Abbi said...

Ohhh, you're in for a treat if you're not used to "risque" tanach stories. My second grader learned the pshat of Yehuda and Tamar this year. Fun times.

MorahT said...

MorahT loves it...no way I would've thought that it was a flower!!
but...you will be proud of me...I navigated by myself in Hebrew the whole bezeq phone menu (if you want this, נא לחייג אחת etc..and explained myself in Hebrew and after 3 phone calls got satisfaction..(in Hebrew)...aren't you proud? of course, they didn't mention any flowers' names!!

Kathleen said...

Totally going to be me too! And I thought it was the Tanach story too- would not have guessed a flower!

Gila Rose said...

Arica - yes, they are freakishly knowledgeable about the natural world.

f/e - if I asked, what would I blog about? :)

Morah T - I hereby offer you official aliyahbyaccident kappayim!

Dadz said...

GILS,
GREAT JOB ON THE HEBREW "VIKIPEDIA"

Gila Rose said...

Thanks DADZ. isn't it vunderful?

Anonymous said...

Do the Hebrews have a "hooey hooey" for the W sound like they have for the G sound and the CH sound? For those of you who did not grow up in our family, a "hooey hooey" is a technical linguistic term for those little word combo/apostrophes thingies that they use for non-Israeli sounds.

NekudaTova said...

haha! This is me, every single day! :)

Dadz said...

GILS,

WERY, WERY FUNNY

Unknown said...

How about the time I went through Bitachon and they asked me what my round, wrapped pieces of art were, and I said "Zeh Rimon."
I'm lucky I didn't go to jail.

Batya said...

Been there done that. Flora and fauna in Hebrew are tough even after 40 years. My garden suffers. Though you should know that a half century ago I got the Girl Scout badge that required being able to identify trees from their leaves. No, it doesn't help much here.