Don't be a Freier!

Eliezer Ben Yehuda

When Eliezer Ben Yehuda and his colleagues began the process of transforming an ancient language of holy texts into a modern language of everyday discourse, their goal was that Jews in their Old-New Land would speak neither Yiddish, the language of a people in exile, or some other language (English, German, French...), languages of other peoples.  So they revived the ancient language, or perhaps more accurately, built Modern Hebrew from the roots of the ancient language.  But of course, ancient Hebrew had no word for 'telephone' or 'radio,' among other words.  Even Rabbinic Hebrew, the Hebrew of scholarly writings of late antiquity, borrows words from other languages.  Other languages do as well.  The Israelis took a cue from the French, who established l'Académie française in 1635 under the imrimateur of Louis the 13th, and created האקדמיה ללשון העברית (Academy for the Hebrew Language) in 1953.  Years ago when I was studying in Jerusalem, we had a field trip to Givat Ram to visit the Acaemy, where we learned, for example, how Modern Hebrew adopted glida for ice cream.

Today, despite the best efforts of the Academy to control the growth and evolution of the language and make it logical, Hebrew has assimilated English words far in excess of what the Academy would prefer.  For example, Hebrew for 'shock' is helem, but one almost never hears Israelis use anything other than shock.  The Academy recently decided that Hebrew for 'podcast' should be taskit, but we'll see in a few years whether Israelis still use podcast or not.

One borrowed word - in this case from Yiddish - that has endured for some years is the term freier, which means 'sucker' or 'chump.'  Freier is not only a word, but an interesting concept in Israeli life.

Because Israelis have a self-image of as powerful and confident warriors, they bristle at any attempt to give them less than they think they deserve.  Any self-respecting Israeli who allows himself to be taken advantage of, is a freier, and Israelis work hard all day long to avoid being a freier.  Even Prime Minister Netanyahu famously used the word, on one of the many occasions when negotiations with the late Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat broke down, in 2006, proclaiming to his people: "I'm no freier."

Judge Rachel Freier.  How would you like to have those steely
eyes glaring down at you from the bench?  Another Judge Judy
in the making?

I feel kinda bad for Rachel Freier, a New York City criminal court judge, who is in fact Jewish and surely must get Jewish defendants standing in front of her and thinking "The judge is a freier; I'll bet I can get acquitted."  Probably, Judge Freier compensates by being extra tough...kinda like PM Bibi Netanyahu.

Selected images from The Daily Freier

I feel less bad for my friend Aaron Sheer, a Tel Aviv-based oleh from the USA, who has capitalized on the term and mindset of freier in creating his satire website, The Daily Freier.  To Aaron's pride, a leading Israeli blogger recently characterized his website as 'The Israeli Onion.'  The website's banner proudly proclaims:  "Live from Tel Aviv.  This is like satire and stuff."  You can find the Daily Freier here:  https://dailyfreier.com/

Given this, I should not have been surprised to see what you see in this picture to the right, which I saw pasted to a side window in a city bus of the 'Dan' bus company in Tel Aviv.  It is a pair of recruiting announcements that were pasted to the left side window in the standing area in the middle of the bus I was riding.

The announcement on the left, is one I've seen before; its large print reads: "When others are laying off, we're recruiting."  Bus drivers are a precious commodity in Israel, and both Dan and the larger Israeli bus company, 'Egged' always seem to be aggressively recruiting for new drivers. Both companies offer training to obtain one's bus driving license, and attractive benefits packages.  (Those contemplating Aliyah, take note!)

But the second announcement, the one on the right, I'd never seen before yesterday.  Its large print reads: "He who doesn't come over to Dan, is a Freier."  It is aimed at those who are already professional bus drivers, and its message is essentially driver, why would you want to drive for anybody else?  But it unabashedly uses the word freier to indicate a qualified driver who would languish in the lower-paid ranks of some other bus company.

The announcement gave me a chuckle, so I snapped a picture of it - what did we do before we had smartphone cameras??! - as I was getting off the bus. (Guess what the Hebrew word for 'smartphone' is?  You guessed it...although the official Hebrew word for mobile phone is nayad, you generally hear the word smartphone!)