To be honest, my relationship with teaching Hebrew did not begin with Hebrew, nor with teaching, but with a curiosity about human communication, especially between people who have built-in obstacles between them.

What sort of real, authentic communication – even connection – can exist between people? What is it made of? How does it work? What allows it to flow, and what stops it? What encourages it, and what stands in its way? I found myself drawn to what seemed like the most obvious and fundamental barrier to communication between people: language.

It all started quite by accident. I met someone who had been learning Hebrew for many years. He invested time, was disciplined, and accumulated knowledge. But he couldn’t hold a conversation. He told me:

“I know a lot of words – really, a lot. I practice my flashcards every day. My grammar is great, and I even know entire passages by heart from my bar mitzvah blessings. So why can’t I sit in front of someone and have a conversation?”

I could see the sense of failure in his eyes. He “knew” the language, but he couldn’t use it. The language, whose entire purpose is to enable communication, had failed to fulfill its only function for him.

It had one job. And the language he “knew” had failed at it.

So I asked him one more simple question: “How did you learn?” He shrugged. “Books. Apps. Some private lessons. Mostly on my own.” He paused, then added, “I’m shy. I didn’t really speak Hebrew with anyone.”

And that was it. Only then did a huge realization hit me: the reason he couldn’t speak wasn’t what he learned, but how he learned. He had learned Hebrew through books, rules, and explanations about the language, but he hadn’t really used it to communicate. He had used many tools to learn about the language… But no tools to use it.

Above: the very beginning, 2016.

A different approach to teaching

That realization stayed with me. I remember thinking: if I’m interested in communication, then this is a fascinating case. What would it take for someone like him to truly communicate in a language that wasn’t his mother tongue? What would it mean to learn a language in a way that allows a person not just to know it, but to use it to create real, authentic communication and connection with another human being?

And with that realization, back then in my early 30s, I understood that to enter this space, I could not – and should not – be “a teacher who teaches Hebrew”. Not really a teacher, nor really teach Hebrew, not in the way those words are traditionally understood.

When we think of a teacher, a very specific image comes to mind, one that seems to transcend generations, cultures, and societies: a teacher standing beside the book, explaining what’s written in it. The book is the authority. The teacher is the channel delivering the content. And the student is passive, receiving that information.

This model may be suitable for subjects like history, chemistry, mathematics, or even the study of dead languages like Latin or Ancient Greek – any field where knowledge is meant to be stored in the brain. But language is not that kind of knowledge. Language was never meant to be stored in the brain.

Language is a living, dynamic creature whose purpose is to help people reach one another, to create connection. And that kind of language cannot live on the page alone. It must be experienced: by stepping out of the pages of the book, out of the rules, out of passive learning. By using the mouth that speaks it and the ear that hears it as the true tools of acquisition.

Above: our annual team celebration, 2021.

What does it mean to communicate?

A language learned only in the mind remains internal. It becomes part of your inner dialogue – something you can analyze, but not inhabit. But a language learned through your mouth and your ears changes direction: it moves outward, and into the world, it leaves the closed circuit of thought and enters the shared space between people. Only then can it fulfill its purpose: to connect one human being to another.

The learner must bring the word into their body and befriend it. Play with it. Play around it. Let the tongue roll it. Search for it. Hear it. Smell it. Discover the unique color it carries. Make mistakes with it. Lose it for a moment and then rediscover it. See it from different angles. Hear its echo out there. Sometimes resent it. Sometimes laugh at it.

Only then does it become their own.

And at a certain moment, almost without noticing, something happens that still, to this day, feels like a small miracle to me: The language stops being something foreign or external, something to “know.” It becomes yours. And in that moment – quietly, without any announcement or drama – communication, the very thing that sparked my curiosity in the first place, takes place.

Years have passed since then. These thoughts became the foundation of Citizen Café. They shaped the Hebrew we choose to teach, the people we choose to guide in the learning process, and the learning experience itself. But more than anything, they created the space where communication can turn into a real connection.