We don’t need to tell you how this past year has taken us all by surprise. A worldwide pandemic knocked a lot of us off our socks, and I don’t know anyone that saw that coming. But somehow this new reality has created some rather interesting and exciting changes to our lives. Changes that we never knew we needed. Change has been tough (!) emotionally, physically and financially for a lot of people. And in this new reality, we forge on and build a new life.
Companies are far more employee-friendly than ever before. After all, we are all human, with families and responsibilities outside of work for example going to the dentist is an important check-up to do during working hours. During Covid-19 anyone that was able to do their work from home and online was encouraged to do so. It’s a revelation! Literally, 2 hours are added to your day if you count the hour to and back from work! Many companies are switching permanently to remote working from home, and this is most definitely a perk for working for those companies. Working hours are calculated, rather than how long you have sat in your office chair.
With businesses closing, and people socially distancing, so have all schools and tertiary education had times of closure and students studied online and via correspondence. Ulpan Israeli, with the advice of the Health Ministry in Israel ( Here is the English version) that updates these rules frequently, closed face-to-face learning at the Netanya campus at the beginning of the pandemic. It was a scary time, wondering how this would affect students who were studying Hebrew. Many students study Hebrew with the intention of living in Israel, but with airports closed how could they get here.
We were overwhelmed by the response when we went ONLINE! Studying online became an obvious option for many reasons! We highlighted this here.
We were inundated with new students that were looking for native Israelis to teach them real McCoy Hebrew. Now it was not only students that were looking to make Aliyah or visit Israel, we had students from all over the world from their bedrooms, sitting rooms, churches, synagogues, coffee shops and office desks!
A fantastic group of students started with us, who were monks living in (country?). They partly learn from kabbalistic texts and Hebrew music that they use as part of their prayer rituals. They were diligent students that opted for a custom course to tailor for their specific learning needs. They sang for the Ulpan Teacher at the end of the course with passionate voices “ShamaIsrael” meaning “Hear, O Israel”.
Our students come from Russia, Chile, America, South Africa, England, China to name only a few. A French student named Shirel, joined us in the last program, she could not speak or understand anything in Hebrew. She was very excited to be using Hebrew and making herself understood after a beginner’s program, we put her video up on facebook here
Will life ever be the same as what it was pre2020? No one knows. But ONLINE Learning is here to stay at Ulpan Israeli. We want to give people an authentic Hebrew cultural experience and there are no better people to do that than our inspiring teachers here in Israel.
