Authoritative Comments

The 2017 Israeli Translators Association Conference has come and gone. It has left me a strong feeling of camaraderie, especially with my fellow legal translators.  There was a strange sense of a bar in the sense of a group of law people, not the watering spot. The lectures regarding legal translations, those of Emanuel Weisgras and Sue Leschen, became free, fascinating discussions of various issues that left, as they say in Hebrew, of a taste of "ode", the regret that there wasn't more time. Contrary to the old adage about lawyers according to which you can only have one lawyer change a light bulb because no room is big enough for the egos of two lawyers, legal translators disagree but are not 110% certain of their opinion.  All in all, they were productive and entertaining sessions.

Still, my highlights were the two plenary lectures by the invited writers, Yannets Levi and Amos. The first is the author of the Dod Arie (Uncle Leo in English) children stories. He spoke about the birth of his successful series of books. Like J.K. Rowling, he originally made up the tales as stories for his nieces and nephews. They were so successful that he wrote them down. He then discussed the various directions the translation took.  In particular, he mentioned that in Korea, the book was taken various seriously as a tool for installing Israeli creativity in Korean children. On a similar vein, Japanese children apparently require more visual images to follow the stories, possibly because of the complexity of and time required to learn Japanese. By the way, I also began as a translator, albeit unknowing, by translating impromptu the four first Harry Potter books into Hebrew to my young daughter.

The lecture by Amos Oz was also of note. He discussed his creative process, elaborating on his early morning walks and café observing as he tried to imagine the thoughts and history of all those around him, a bit like Sherlock Holmes. He then discussed several terms that he and his English translator struggled with. It emphasized that creativity is no less than important than language knowledge in translation.

In summary, the program was rich and satisfying. I return to work tired but filled with esteem for translators and writers alike. As Walter Konkrite used to say, "and that is way it is."