I am a student and bank with Leumi. I don not read Hebrew but they provided all bank documents that I had to sign in Hebrew without any translation. It is 7 months on and the bank continues to issue statements in English even after they have been notified.

They simply hange up

Vat you mean no Inglish? Here we are in deh centre of town!

I am truly amused! Less than a month ago I read a long article about highly trained young professional Olim who had just arrived in Israel. Their plan? To get hired by a variety of Israeli companies and change things here! Nu?! MaKara? (Nu?! What happened?) Nothing instead of getting yourselves hired you are all here whining about what poor English Israelis have! If you are all Olim you are also all Israeli and from what I can see your English is very good....so....halas l'avodah! (get going get the jobs!)

And I fault the poor Ivrit education I received in school. But now that I am living in Israel, I look for ways to improve my Hebrew. When I speak, Israelis will note my American accent and try to respond with their butchered English. I tell them that I much prefer to speak in Hebrew since I barely understand what they are trying to tell me.They just assume that if I can't hear them then can't speak Hebrew. I sometimes tell them to slow down when they talk.Apparently their education in English is lacking as well.Though people can be really dense no matter what their mother tongue language is.

In Israel you should speak Hebrew just like in America you should speak English and in Japan you should speak Japanese. I don't think these people should be insulted because they don't speak English unless there company clearly states that the employees do speak English. You live in Israel you are the one who should be embarassed that you do not speak the language.

Before making Alyah i was here , was looking for a bank , and at the Bank Hapoalim in my , todays , town , i received all the documents in English . ALL !

Just about every service provider I have dealt with in the past 17 years has spoken to me in English. Sometimes they passed me on to another person, but I always got service.

First, new olim need time to learn Hebrew. And older people have a harder time learning a new language. Second, when I speak Hebrew (not well), often Israelis answer me in bad English. It would be lots more helpful if they would answer me in clear, slow, easy Hebrew. How can I learn if people won't have the patience to talk to me when I'm trying to speak Hebrew? I usually insist on continuing in Hebrew & there's this weird conversation in my lousy Hebrew and their lousy English.

An excellent report. Although my experience, related to average English command in public relation looks somewhat better.

In how many countries in the world do you just phone up for information or service in a foreign language and get huffy if you are not answered in your language? How silly. At the very least learn how to say in Hebrew, "excuse me, I don't speak Hebrew, can someone help me in English?" English is not Israel's language, nor is it somehow a sacred tongue. Besides, there are several hundred thousand Israelis born and raised in English-speaking countries, and most I know speak Hebrew. We may bot be Sabra, but we are still 100% Israeli! So hire us.

In Misrad hapnim speaks English outside of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. What a joke of a response... I know this for a fact!

reply to o.6 English is the only worldwide language of communication Try to speak Hebrew only in NY or any other big city & see where it will get u

here, I meet less people that speak English. It is the main international language.Even those people that work with customers overseas do not speak English on a level that they can use to communicate properly. Lately I have been reduced to speaking English with my cat.But she understands English better than anyone on my street. As for calling 100, they are as dumb as dirt and cannot understand Hebrew on occasion.

You are spot service is just plain bad in every language.Israeli companies would'nt think to hire English speakers that also speak fluent Hebrew God forbid.They are just so aloof if they can't speak English they try and fake it or put down the phone.When I get really bad service I purposely switch to English because I know they will not be able to handle it.

Sorry to say that Israeli companies do not hire anyone because they speak fluent English and Hebrew.Period!!!!

apparently all of the whiners here aren't qualified! I am an immigrant and I have a wonderful job which amongst other things uses my language skills....I speak, read and write 5 languages! Perhaps that's the ticket for others to learn more languages than just the "universal" English. Thing is in Israel if you have the skills you get the job!

In case you hadn't noticed, Ruth, YNET is in English (I'm not talking about the Hebrew site, of course), so the readers can reasonably be expected to be - GASP! - English speakers, whether that's politically acceptable or not. BTW, if this were, say, a Kurdish-language site, I wouldn't be surprised if there were an article on the difficulties of finding Kurdish-speaking clerks.

Yes, your description of the conversation in the restaurant made me chuckle. This sort of thing happens a lot.

Why, do you suppose, then, do you have all these companies/offices with electronic voices saying "Press 4 for English?" Doesn't it just make the office look silly (I'm being polite here) then to answer in Hebrew after one has pressed 4 as directed? Why not just dispense with the charade?

I think the difficulty here is that it is davka when your are a really new immigrant that your Hebrew skills are at their poorest and at the same time your need for help is the greatest. An oleh chadash can study in ulpan, but s/je will need to deal with bureaucracy before long he's done!

Although I do speak hebrew pretty good now sometimes when its technical it can still be hard to explain it in hebrew and there are some companies who make no effort at all for english speakers. You want to call HOT you have options of hebrew, russian or arabic and they must phone you back if you need to speak with somebody who speaks a word of english. The ISP 012 is one of the worst I have ever experienced, They are just companies with telephone hot lines in the stores thats where things can be really bad for anybody that doesn't know hebrew I would have thought that in an age of global communication there would be an even greater emphasis on the need to teach english to a high level in schools but I get the impression they don't do that.

The referee did not award a penalty kick for Barcelona ; (

They do speak Spanish. Where did you get the idea that they didn't?

Sorry to have to tell you, but English is NOT an official language in Israel. Only Hebrew and Arabic are "official".

Yeah being a tayar is one thing, loads of people in the tourist biz speak english... (strange that...) try connecting your TV to cable or ordering a plumber to fix your blocked drain then see how much english they know. We're talking here mainly about newly arrived immigrants (dealing with the services here) not tourists who want to meet Israelis (duh! easiest country in the world for that) - totally different story.

English-speakers aren't allowed to talk about their experiences?

Why is it then that Israelis seem to delight in making fun of non-native accents in Hebrew? (And no, Beatrice, I'm not whining, but I have found that rather insulting.)

I meant to add: so are you suggesting that I should feel embarrassed now about my non-native accent?