Hebrew<>Amharic Interpreters in Israel

Today I am posting remotely from Israel, where I am attending a landmark workshop on cultural competence in health care with several colleagues, all with the goal of better serving this country's highly linguistically and culturally diverse population.

In an early post back in July, I had mentioned a wonderful project to train Hebrew<>Amharic interpreters to provide professional medical interpreting via telephone to various clinics throughout Israel.


This course was the first of its kind in Israel. The program was the initiative of Dr. Anat Jaffe, Head of the Endocrinology Department at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, and Professor Miriam Shlesinger, Head of the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies at Bar Ilan University. The two worked in close collaboration with "Tene Briut" coordinator Pekkado (Yossi) Gadamo; epidemiologist Dr. Eltchee Seffefe; linguist Dr. Embesse Tabbere; and Michal Schuster, a Bar Ilan doctoral student, whose work centers on intercultural issues in healthcare delivery.

The From Our Lips to Your Ears project is slated to receive contributions from interpreters in Israel, and it is hoped that many of the interpreters from this project will share their stories too.