Train Engineer

Stronger than the wind! Can Nikia master the tricky ‘reshes’ and

0 Comments | Jerusalem Post, Jul 2, 2010 | by DAVID BRINN

Any English-speaking immigrant who’s faced the tongue- twisting challenge of learning Hebrew can empathize with Nikia Brown’s plight.

No matter how long most of us have worked at wrapping our mouths around those “reshes” and “hets,” and perfecting that Sabra pronunciation, it still comes out sounding like we just got off the boat.

The only difference between us and the 34-year-old African- American convert to Judaism is that while the neighborhood makolet man is the one snickering at us, Brown is getting critiqued on national television.

One of the 18 finalists in the eighth season of the popular Channel 2 singing competition series Kochav Nolad (A Star is Born), Brown, who lives in Holon, barely knew a word of Hebrew two months ago when she decided on a whim to try out for the show.

“When I first auditioned, I didn’t realize that I would have to sing in Hebrew every week. I could have fainted when they told me,” Brown said on Wednesday, during a short break in between rehearsals for that night’s show in which she was tackling Gali Atari’s “Stronger than Wind.”

It was Brown’s bluesy, gospel voice – despite its prominent accent and pronunciation problems – that in May carried her into the competition that has made stars out of the likes of Shiri Maimon, Harel Skaat and Ninet Tayeb.

That and her intriguing back-end story. Brown and her husband, Terry, converted to Judaism after getting married and making their home in Kansas City, Missouri.

“We were searching for something, and we ended up going to synagogue services once,” said Brown. “Then the more we learned about Judaism, the more we fell in love with it. It comes from someplace deep in our hearts.

Almost three years ago, Terry surprised Brown with a vacation to Israel – and they and their newborn daughter Tziporah never left.

“We loved it here, and have started the aliya process, which is still in process,” said Brown, likely referring to frequent problems that black American convert immigrants encounter from the Interior Ministry before they receive citizenship.

Brown wasn’t aware that an Israeli version of the hit US series American Idol existed until a friend mentioned it and suggested that she audition.

“I didn’t even decide to go to the audition until the night before. I waited 12 hours, and sang a verse of [hip hot hit] “Ein Gvulot” by Sivan that I had memorized – I didn’t know any songs in Hebrew,” said Brown.

For her final audition, she used English phonetics to learn the lyrics to Arik Einstein’s classic “Uf Gozal” (Fly, Little Nestling), and her performance resulted in Brown becoming the first finalist in Kochav Nolad’s history who didn’t know Hebrew.

Her selection was tempered by the trepidation of the judges, including Dana International and Tsedi Tzarfaty, who warned Brown that her Hebrew deficiencies were likely to be a formidable obstacle in the competition, a high- level field filled with seasoned singers whose main advantage over Brown was their fluency in the language they were singing in.

Enter Yoel and Orly Ganor, the directors of Ulpan Or – with its logo, “Learning Hebrew at the speed of light.”

“My wife and I don’t really watch TV much, and we had never watched Kochav Nolad
american pronunciation