“I Want the Next Experience”: Israeli Adult Native Bilinguals Tell the Story of Their Childhood Bilinguality

Abstract

This chapter focuses on a retrospective report of the language experiences of native bilingual Israelis who were born to immigrant parents around independence (1948). It does so by examining narrative life stories of adult Israelis who reconstruct, and reflect on, the impact of language(s) in their lives. Growing up in a period of transition from the age-known identity of a stateless Diaspora Jew to the brand-new Israeli Jewish identity, children had the tacit responsibility of helping revive the Hebrew language. The interviewees describe their exposure to a language other than Hebrew at home and the emotional and psychological load of mediating between their parents’ and their own identities. These bilingual adults report on the journey of boundary crossing entailed by this reality. The narratives illuminate the speakers’ perceptions and their bilinguality during a period when speaking Hebrew was a cornerstone in shaping the Israeli ethos and imperative in identity formation of the new State and of its citizens. By underscoring each child’s mediation of their own bilinguality, and their subsequent engagement with the language of wider communication, this chapter illustrates how boundary crossing in research and can inform language education and language education research.