Say It Again Say Something Else

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Introduction

Introduction

Ayelet Tsabari is an Israeli writer of Yemeni descent who lives in Canada and writes in English language, her 2d language. Her short story, "Say it Again, Say Something Else," was role of her 2013 collection The Best Place on Globe, which won the prestigious Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in 2015.

"Say it Once again" explores questions of identity in contemporary Israel through the character of Lily, a teenage girl who has recently come from Canada to live with her aunt and cousin in Petah Tikva, Israel, after the death of her mother. Lily is of Yemeni descent which, in Israeli society, makes her Mizrahi. "Mizrahi," Hebrew for "eastern" (plural "Mizrahim") is a catch-all identity referring to Israeli Jews whose family unit roots are in Asia, Africa, and the Arabic-speaking regions of Northward Africa, the Levant, and the Arabian Gulf. Mizrahi culture in Israel has historically been marginalized by the dominant Ashkenazi, or European, elite, and, though Lily speaks Hebrew and "even looks the part," she "feels like a stranger, an outsider."

Her outsider status is related to her Mizrahi heritage, her having grown up in Canada, and her nascent queer sexuality. All of these identifying characteristics place Lily at the margins of Israeli society in unlike means, much equally the story itself, every bit a work of Israeli literature in English published in the diaspora, stands at the margins of Israeli civilisation. This kit offers resource related to both some of the major themes of the story—Mizrahi and queer identity in Israel—as well as the author's experience of writing in her 2nd linguistic communication.

Cover paradigm: Photograph of Ayelet Tsabari by Jonathan Bloom

Subjects

Resources

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1: Short story excerpt, Ayelet Tsabari's "Say It Again, Say Something Else," 2013.

2: Spoken language extract, Ayelet Tsabari's Nili Adler Memorial Lecture, "Language, Longing, and Belonging," 2017.

iii: Essay extract, Jhumpa Lahiri's "Teach Yourself Italian," 2015.

4: Essay excerpt, Ayelet Tsabari'due south "Why I Chose to Write in English," 2016.

v: Music video, A-WA's "Habib Galbi," 2015.

6: Verse form, Adi Keissar's "Black on Black" translated by Ayelet Tsabari, 2016.

Teachers' Guide

Reading and Background

• The story "Say Information technology Again, Say Something Else" tin be institute in Ayelet Tsabari's brusk story drove The Best Identify on Globe, published in the U.Due south. past Random House. Y'all can besides read the press release announcing the 2022 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, which was awarded to The All-time Place on Earth.
• More information about Ayelet Tsabari, including her bio, tin be institute on her web page. Tsabari has been the subject of many interviews, including this one from the Apr 2022 effect of Lilith magazine.
• For an analysis of Tsabari'southward work, including a discussion of "Say Information technology Again, Say Something Else," consult "Hebrew in English: The New Transnational Hebrew Literature" by Melissa Weininger in the Summer 2022 issue of Shofar.
• Background on translingual literature, works written by authors in non-native languages, is bachelor in Steven M. Kellman's Switching Languages.

Resources

This chat between Lily, the story's protagonist, and Lana, her new friend and the object of her amore, occurs when Lana, waiting for the bus to the mall with Lily, suggests that they should get off the bus if they run across someone who "looks suspicious," and then explains that anyone who looks Arab meets this benchmark.

Lana's insistence that her detail European heritage has been subsumed past a monolithic Israeli identity is at odds with Lily's insistence on the coexistence of dual identities, a argue that is at the heart of the story'south exploration of the multivalence of Jewish identity, national identity, and sexual identity.

Suggested Activities: Have two students play Lily and Lana and read the extract aloud. Discuss the assertions that each girl makes in the passage. Can Arab and Jewish identities coexist? Why might Lana insist that her Belarusian heritage has been superseded by her Israeliness? What are the implications of each position? Y'all may invite students to share whatsoever experiences they have had living with multiple identities. Were in that location particular moments when they felt they had to choose 1 identity?

For a more sophisticated course, separate the class into two teams, one representing Lana'south position and one representing Lily'southward position. Ask the teams to use the text of the story to come up upward with a set of points in favor of each position, and to address any possible critiques of information technology. Permit the teams to engage in a brief debate about the validity of each position.

Source: Ayelet Tsabari, "Say It Again, Say Something Else." The Best Identify on Globe. (New York: Random Business firm, 2013), 40.

In this speech, Ayelet Tsabari discusses some of the themes of her work and what it's similar to write in her second language. This excerpt focuses on her personal groundwork equally an Israeli writer of Yemeni descent and the mode that her background was underrepresented among the writers she read as a child, also every bit in history classes and public life. She references a character from one of her stories, a immature Israeli boy, Uri, of Iraqi descent, who hopes to be a writer i solar day but has no role models until he encounters the work of the Iraqi Hebrew poet Ronny Someck. Mizrahi people take always been underrepresented amidst Israeli poets and writers, as they have been in other areas of Israeli politics, art, and culture. The marginalization of Mizrahi culture in Israel is 1 of the central themes in "Say It Again," likewise as in the rest of Tsabari'southward collection, The All-time Place on Globe.

Suggested Activities: Ask students to call up of examples from their ain lives when they identified with a fictional graphic symbol or historical effigy. What made them feel connected to that grapheme? Did that grapheme or figure share their own cultural heritage or not? Did they ever feel that they were not existence represented in the pop civilization they were reading, watching, or listening to? How did they respond to that lack of identification?

Jhumpa Lahiri is an American writer whose parents immigrated to the United States from India. Much of her fiction is concerned with the themes of clearing and migration, family history and continuity, and cultural identity. Several years ago, after experiencing a bang-up bargain of success every bit a writer in America, Lahiri moved to Italy and made the decision to brainstorm to write simply in Italian. In this essay she explains that decision, what led to information technology, and why she thinks she chose such an unusual path forwards. Similar Tsabari, Lahiri made a conscious selection to write in a non-native linguistic communication to which she had no familial or cultural connexion.

Suggested Activities: Read the excerpt together. Explain Lahiri's family background and her decision to write in Italian. Discuss why a successful writer might brand the choice to write in a 2nd (or 3rd) language. What are the advantages or disadvantages of writing in a language that is not native? What is the connection between English and Lahiri'south relationship with her parents? How is this related to her agreement of her own translingualism? What questions does Lahiri's quotation raise most why Tsabari might choose to write in English?

Like Jhumpa Lahiri (meet resource 3 of this kit), Ayelet Tsabari fabricated the decision to write in her second linguistic communication. Although her family unit background and history is very dissimilar from Lahiri's, many of Tsabari's observations about her pick to write in a second linguistic communication are strikingly similar.

Suggested Activities: Consider this essay excerpt alongside both the extract from Lahiri's essay (resource iii) and the excerpt from "Say Information technology Once more" (resource 1). How does Tsabari's essay resemble Lahiri'southward and how does it differ? Are at that place aspects of her feel that are particular to her own groundwork and identity? Are there aspects of her experience that are universal? And how does the character of Lily in the story reverberate on some of the themes from Tsabari'southward and Lahiri'due south essays about language, identity, and cultural heritage?

Israeli band A-WA (pronounced ai-wa, which is Standard arabic for "yep") is comprised of three Yemeni-Israeli sisters who combine electronic dance music with Yemenite women'southward chanting and folk songs. Raised in a village in southern Israel, these sisters embrace their dual heritage, singing in Arabic with a distinctly modernistic twist.

Suggested Activities: Watch the video, and ask students to bespeak out the ways in which A-WA blends modern sounds, images, and stories with seemingly traditional ones. Which language are they singing in? What other evidence is at that place of the ring'south Arab identity? Is at that place also evidence in the video of the ring's Jewish and Israeli identities? How does A-WA and its work chronicle to Lily's assertions nearly Arab-Jewish identity in "Say It Again"?

Adi Keissar is an Israeli poet of Yemeni descent who is the founder of Ars Poetica, a literary motility that seeks to increase the visibility of Mizrahi artists and writers in Israel. The name "Ars Poetica" is both a nod to Horace'south poem of the same championship and a play on the Arabic word ars, meaning pimp, which is derogatory slang in State of israel for Mizrahi men. Keissar's poem "Blackness on Blackness," originally written in Hebrew, addresses the themes of language, heritage, and family so central to "Say It Again," a connection made closer past the fact that Ayelet Tsabari created this translation of the poem into English.

Suggested Activities: First, read the poem in one case out loud while the form follows along with the text. Then inquire the grade to close their eyes and pay attending to their own thoughts and feelings every bit yous read the poem out loud again. Ask students to offer any images, memories, ideas, thoughts, impressions, or feelings that the poem triggered in them. Use these as a blueprint for discussing the themes of language, family unit, continuity, and identity central to the poem. Allow students to discuss the style that the poem arouses their own personal connections to the very specific story about a young girl and her Yemeni grandmother. Ask students to draw connections between Keissar'due south poem and Tsabari's story and then to write their ain poem or story in response to these two works they accept read.

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Source: https://www.teachgreatjewishbooks.org/resource-kits/ayelet-tsabaris-say-it-again-say-something-else

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