India’s only Hebrew teacher hopes visit will boost language
Khurshid Imam is delighted by the deepening ties between India and Israel following PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The assistant professor at the Centre of Arabic and African studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) teaches Hebrew —the country’s sole university teacher to do so — and hopes closer ties between the two countries will lead to greater interest among Indians to learn Israel’s native language.
“We have been running the language course since 2006. Only internal students can opt for it. Now that the relations between the two countries are improving, we expect to see the introduction of a proposed certificate/diploma course so that students outside JNU can also enroll themselves,” said Imam, a bearded, skullcapdonning Muslim who returned after a degree from Israel in 2000.
“The two countries have talked about enhancing peopleto-people relations, which covers academics as well,” he added.
JNU is the only university in the country and Imam the only faculty to teach Hebrew. But it is an optional subject available to students enrolled in other courses. The course in Hebrew is currently run in two batches of 30 students each. But Imam believes the demand to learn Hebrew is set to grow. “Israel is a strong political and economic nation and its language will have enough scope.”
Apart from the course at JNU, Presidency University in Kolkata offers an undergraduate course in Global Jewish History and OP Jindal Global University in Haryana has a Centre for Israel Studies. “We expect the Hebrew language would soon be reintroduced at University of Mumbai as well. The Tel Aviv University of Israel plans to establish a Centre for Israel Studies there as a result of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two varsities,” Navras J Aafreedi, a Muslim-Jewish relations activist who teaches at the department of History at Kolkata’s Presidency University, said.