Washington – Trump’s Hebrew Translator Lets The President’s Words Speak For Themselves

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    Washington – A San Francisco teacher hired to translate into Hebrew President Trump’s “not very eloquent” (as she puts it) speeches last week in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem said she isn’t proud to be working for this administration and promised “my students get preference, especially over this particular president.”

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    Merav Rozenblum, a Hebrew teacher at Jewish Community High School of the Bay, is a contract translator for the State Department and has worked with three presidents — including a 2013 trip to Israel with Barack Obama.

    Rozenblum, who moved to the United States from Israel in 2001 and has been working at the San Francisco high school for nine years, said her job is to exactly translate the president’s words from English to Hebrew, even if she disagrees with what he’s saying.

    “The ethics of my profession require that I repeat whatever was said as precisely as I can without adding anything personal,” she said. “If somebody reads my translation and can read between the lines my criticism, then I have not done my job well.

    “Of course, when it comes to my principles, I would feel better translating for a president that did not offend about half of the American people. But when I work, this should not be reflected in anything that I do.”

    Rozenblum and a colleague in Washington, D.C., were hired to translate Trump’s May 21 speech in Saudi Arabia at the Arab Islamic American Summit. They were told to expect a 3,000-word draft of the speech at 6 a.m. California time on May 20, and agreed to divide it in half and then proofread the other’s work.

    The draft arrived 12 hours late — at 6 p.m. Saturday — and the two translators were given until 6 a.m. Sunday to turn in their work. After Trump gave the address, the Hebrew version was updated to reflect minor changes he made in the actual speech.

    “This president speaks in very short sentences, so it wasn’t a very difficult speech to translate,” Rozenblum said.

    In the Jerusalem speech at the Israel Museum on May 23, Trump went off script to add a reference to the Manchester bombing. Rozenblum also changed her colleague’s translation of one of Trump’s comments there.

    Talking about the American security partnership with Israel, Trump said, “Under my administration you see the difference — big, big beautiful difference.” Her colleague in Washington “made it sound better” in the Hebrew version, Rozenblum said, but she stuck with his original words because “I wanted it to sound as lame as it was [by using] his usual hollow words.”

    Rozenblum, who translated Obama’s 2009 “A New Beginning” speech at Cairo University into Hebrew, said the previous administration was well organized and the speeches were more challenging to translate because they were better written and included quotes from the Talmud and the Quran.

    Rozenblum traveled to the Middle East with Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, as an interpreter.

    “The protocol requires that the president is interpreted by an American. They always travel with an interpreter, they cannot use local interpreters,” she said. “Just like there’s a special unit that brings the president’s water and food, they bring their own interpreters.”

    A graduate of Bar-Ilan University’s program for translators and interpreters, Rozenblum also translates Spanish into Hebrew. She said she felt better working for Obama than she does for Trump.

    “I am not very proud of translating for this particular president, but I feel that I do my work for my colleagues, for the American people,” she said. “This is what I do, and I do it the best I can.”


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    11 Comments
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    Liepa
    Liepa
    6 years ago

    Ah shoitah !!!

    6 years ago

    If she is unhappy working for this president, she is free to quit. last I checked slavery was abolished in America almost two hundred years ago. She can go back to Israel as well, and translate for her Arab friends.

    AlbertEinstein
    AlbertEinstein
    6 years ago

    Plenty of fish in the sea. Fire her and get someone else.

    favish
    favish
    6 years ago

    stupid liberal.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    6 years ago

    Thank you for a very interesting story.

    yosher
    yosher
    6 years ago

    The Yored, the Israeli that chooses to move to Golus, is typically one of few ideals. This one has ideals, bad ideals, as this is the first President of the US who has shown this much fondness of Israel. Shame on her vile mouth.