The husband and wife were from Switzerland - they met in school in Bern, married there, and emigrated to Israel in the early seventies. They have lived intermittently in Bern and Jerusalem with their three sons since then. Since Tova is under the impression that I speak German, the dinner was pretty exhausting as the conversation flowed from German to Hebrew and back to German, and I tried to keep up with the German parts and not ask too many questions. Fortunately, there was a good bit of English thrown in for my benefit. The couple ended up talking a lot about their courtship in Bern, how beautiful the city is, arches and bell towers and everything. They even broke out some special Swiss cookies for us to have for dessert, specially delivered to them (best I could understand) by their dentist who recently made a trip to Switzerland and picked up the cookies by request in Basel (I think). While the couple reminisced about Bern, their two sons (who somehow grew up in Israel and still managed to speak high German) made fun of their Swiss accents.
Tova's friend, Yvonne, sought out Tova after seeing some of her paintings at the Israel Museum some years ago, and this is how they became friends. Yvonne is also a painter and sculptor, and we spent some time looking through her canvasses and drawings. She and Tova talked about difficulties Yvonne was having with this or that aspect of a certain painting. This all took place in German. I didn't even know Tova could speak German. The grandchildren who were running around the house could also understand German along with Hebrew, and one of them has a Brazilian mother, so he can speak Portuguese as well. That has been one of the most fascinating things here: everyone is a polyglot of some sort, usually speaking three languages or more. For example, the young guys who work at the front desk of my hotel speak Arabic (native), Hebrew, English, and French. The evening waiter speaks all those plus Italian and two different Arabic dialects. I have met people all over the city who can effortlessly glide from one language to another, and I am so envious of that ability. I wish the United States could somehow value this kind of linguistic freedom, rather than debating in Congress over forcing immigrants to learn English or complaining when roadsigns appear in Spanish as well as English (something I've heard in Nashville).
This is not to say that Hebrew is not the dominant language here; it definitely is. The point is just that it seems acceptable and even expected for people to speak other languages, and (in my experience) there is a general patience with that. Shabbat shalom.
