In the video, they can be seen dancing together — mother and daughters — at a joyful family event. The daughters are singing the song playing in the background, but their hands are busy with something else: They are translating the lyrics into sign language for their mother, Hagit, in real time, without stopping dancing.
Hagit was born deaf. Her mother contracted rubella during her pregnancy and, as a result, Hagit cannot hear anything. Despite this, during that moving moment at the event hall, she felt included.
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Hagit Edri (second from left) with her daughters and new son-in-law. 'I taught my daughters they don’t have to translate just because they feel they have to'
(Photo: Courtesy of the family)
“I was very moved that my daughters translated the lyrics of the songs playing in the background for me,” she explains in sign language, while her daughter Oranit, sitting beside her, translates her words for us.
“It was so important for me to understand what the song was about and what the lyrics said,” Hagit adds. “I can’t hear anything, not even faint sounds, and their translation makes me feel less disconnected from my surroundings.”
The joint interview with the two took place one day before another emotional event: Earlier this week, Oranit married her partner of 11 years, and at that event too — as in every significant moment in the Edri family — sign language took center stage.
What is it like growing up with a deaf mother?
Oranit: “Growing up with a deaf mother — and a deaf father too — is very different from growing up with a hearing parent. It’s so different that it’s hard to describe to someone who didn’t grow up with a deaf parent.
Oranit and Hagit Edri. 'Growing up with a deaf mother is an incredibly valuable gift'
(Photo: Courtesy of the family)
“The bottom line is that growing up with deaf parents is amazing,” she says. “There are certainly quite a few complexities and difficulties along the way, but overall it’s an incredibly valuable gift, one that manages to outweigh whatever difficulties and complexities there may be.”
Hearing children of deaf parents — known in the Deaf community and beyond as CODAs, an acronym for Children of Deaf Adults — often grow up taking on the role of intermediaries. They are the ones who translate at health clinics and banks, at parent-teacher meetings and in conversations with neighbors, serving as a constant bridge between their parents and the hearing world.
The role can foster maturity, responsibility and full command of both languages, but it can also become a burden when a child feels that their parents’ lives run through them and that they never have the chance to simply be a child.
Hagit herself says she raised her daughters with a conscious decision not to make translating an obligation. “My mother raised me with a lot of love and patience, and I passed those things on to my daughters,” she says.
“The common assumption is that when you have a deaf mother, you have to translate every word for her. But I taught my daughters that they don’t have to translate just because they feel they have to — only when they’re comfortable, when they feel it’s something they want to do and when it feels natural to them at that moment. I didn’t want it to be something that would put pressure on them.”
'There has to be an interpreter at the ceremony'
Two sign-language interpreters accompanied the wedding — one for the parents’ deaf friends and one for Hagit and her husband. “And I’ll also try to translate for them as much as I can, so they can understand from me what’s happening during the emotional moments,” Oranit said on the eve of the wedding.
“It’s important to me that they be in the same space as me and feel like they’re part of it,” she explained. “Most of the time, they are in a space with hearing people who are talking among themselves, without being part of the conversation. It’s so painful and unnatural — for them and for us as a family. That’s why we, their daughters, try to pay attention to this all the time and translate what’s being said around them, so they can be part of what’s going on.”
The Edri family. 'We inherited our love of dancing from Mom and Dad'
(Photo: Courtesy of the family)
For Hagit, there was no question about it. An interpreter at the ceremony? “Of course, obviously. There has to be one,” she replied after Oranit translated the question for her, her determined expression leaving no room for doubt.
Sign language is, as noted, the language spoken at home in the Edri family. Oranit and her sisters have used it since childhood, and her partner — and, as of this week, her husband — has long been part of that world as well. “We’ve been together for 11 years and he speaks the language almost as well as we do,” Oranit says proudly.
And what about the next generation? Will they know the language too?
“Of course. I’ll teach my children sign language from the age of zero, exactly as I and my sisters were taught.”
'Music in my heart'
Words can be translated into sign language; music is a little harder. But when the dance floor opens, Hagit dances along with everyone else — after developing her own method over the years to help her identify the rhythm of the song playing in the background.
“I look at the people around me — at their rhythm as they move, their jumps and even their facial expressions — and I get clues from them about the style of the song being played at that moment. That’s how I understand the rhythm I’m supposed to dance to,” she explains. “I can also feel the bass and the beats through my feet, especially when the dancing takes place on a wooden floor, near a wall or a speaker.”
So are you looking forward to dancing at Oranit’s wedding?
“Of course. I’ll probably spend most of the time, together with my daughters and my husband, on the dance floor.”
The bride herself was also eagerly awaiting the dancing at the wedding. “Mom loves to dance, and she passed that love on to me,” Oranit says. “My partner also loves to dance — it runs in our family. Dancing, jumping and celebrating with my parents and sisters — that’s what I’m looking forward to most, after the ceremony, of course.”
And just before the dancing, Hagit has one request for all of us: “It’s important to me to raise awareness that there are deaf people like me who cannot hear at all, and that everything needs to be made accessible to them in sign language.
“I very much hope that all hearing people will learn sign language, including in schools — in my view, it’s a must,” Hagit adds. “For quite a few people, it’s the only way to communicate — with each other, but also with the hearing world. And how can you communicate when the other side doesn’t learn the language?”