Lost and Found in Translation by Rafi Sackville

Israel Today Lost and Found in Translation

By Rafi Sackville

The website, Anglo-List.com, caters to the growing needs of the English-speaking community here in Israel. It has a delightful section titled “bad translations” which encapsulates the difficulties new immigrants face when translating from Hebrew to English and vice versa.

In one screen shot from Google Translate someone had entered the words ba’alei chaim, which means “animals.” The translation offered by Google read: “Not tested on my husband Chaim.”

Google is constantly upgrading and improving their service because since that posting one can now enter the word “animals” in Hebrew and end up with the correct English translation. This doesn’t mitigate the fact that, for newcomers, and even immigrants who have been in Israel for years, Hebrew-English translations can be a veritable minefield.

Even if you do employ the ser-

vices of a certified translator, the outcome can still be murky and vague.

To get a glimpse into the vagaries of translation, technical writers and translators in Israel have a website that keeps them up to date. Elephant.org.il offers a glimpse into the foggy and complex world that confronts a translator.

For example, in one of his excellent columns, “Translatable but Debatable,” Mark Levinson gives us an insight into the obstacles he and his colleagues face. The Alcalay Hebrew-to-English dictionary translates the verb ma’as as “to hate, abhor, detest, despise, reject, refuse,” whereas the noun ma’oos translates as “abominable, loathsome contemptible, repulsive, despicable.”

Choosing the correct word is not as easy as it appears. If you want to describe someone’s bad behavior, which word is most fitting? The possibilities are endless.

To help me navigate the intricacies of the world of translation, I contacted Mr. Perry Zamek, a professional translator living outside Yerushalayim.

I’d seen Perry’s photo chairing a meeting of the Israeli Translator’s Association (ITA). He quickly disabused me of the notion I had about his profession. I mistakenly believed that translators had their own union and were an amalgamated body that worked hand-in-hand with the government and large organizations.

The ITA amounts to a large networking group that provides support and updates for their members. It does not have any political sway in (most importantly) regulating prices. In fact, when the Israeli government puts out tenders to any government agencies for translation work, it is not uncommon for the job to end up with the lowest bidder, even when the results are sloppily amateurish.

Perry has been professionally translating for almost thirty years. He has been on the ITA committee for seven years serving as chairman and treasurer, and is still working hard to set up the organization as a non-profit group.

A lot of his work is in translating visas and student documents. Perry’s approach is to make the documents as similar as possible. This may sound axiomatic, but oftentimes even the most basic of facts become problematic. Names can be tricky. For example, most people would write the name chesnun-hey as Chana. Perry described a few occasions when people spell their names differently, like Hana.

Or take words that are impossible to translate. “Schadenfreude” means deriving pleasure from someone else’s misfortune. That’s difficult to translate. Conversely, the Yiddish word “fargin” means the opposite, to derive pleasure from someone else’s good fortune. Good luck coming up with a translatable word in

English. It doesn’t exist.

Perry explains that “the theory is to translate towards one’s native tongue and not away from it. Bi-lingual translators are very rare.”

Perry is adamant when discussing what he sees as his profession’s greatest hurdle: the tendency by many not to view translators as professionals. It’s an issue that converts into the dollars and cents of his livelihood. Some agencies will offer rock bottom prices; one cent a word is not going to pay bills when the current rate runs between ten and fifteen cents.

The currency of language, its nuances and constant changes, are taken seriously by translators. A good piece of advice that makes the rounds among them is to be constantly reading – newspapers, magazines, scientific papers, anything that keeps them up-to-date with the ever-growing changes in lexicon.

Work can be irregular, usually

coming by word of mouth. Perry has found jobs with overseas consulates with whom he works translating visas. In 2018, the Australian government stopped accepting the working visas of visiting students from Israel written in Hebrew. The process started to run through Berlin, and at one point, Perry worked 16-hour days, six days a week translating over 300 documents.

With airline restrictions, Covid-19 has had a profound effect on translators commissioning new work.

One might think there’s more money to be found in translating works of literature. Perry says that translating novels and the like pays

The translation offered by Google read: “Not tested on my husband Chaim.”

less per word. Perry was fortunate to work on Rav Moshe Lichtenstein’s Moses: envoy of G-d. Envoy of his People.

Interestingly, the constant need to keep up-to-date with changes in speech means that works of literature translated years ago are not completely understood by a new generation of readers. This is why there are always new translations

of older works being published.

Unlike visas and corporate documents, works of literature require a translator to get into someone else’s head and maintain their style and tone of voice.

Back on anglo-list.com, I found a few more gems that must drive people like Perry crazy. I found that beitzah kasha, a hardboiled egg, had been translated into “difficult work.”

If you’re looking to translate documents into Hebrew, you can contact Perry at perryzamek@gmail. com . Don’t settle for anything less than premium quality. You want an expert and not someone who might translate two simple words like “smoking forbidden” into “violators will be fine.”

Rafi Sackville, formerly of Cedarhurst, teaches in Ort Maalot in Western Galil.