Suck Ari.

My name is Ari. I have come to like it; but, it has been a winding road.

For the first of my life my name was pronounced with a hard ‘A,’ as in Aah-ree. It was as if my doctor was forever lurching behind an ever present nearby bush with a tongue depressor in hand just waiting for someone to hit that first syllable. Or, should that annoying duck from the Aflac commercial forget its one line, my named seems the potential blooper-in-waiting that might emerge from its dreadful bill.

To add insult to injury, there were a few folk who, for whatever reason, would pervert the already grating pronunciation to the fingernails on chalkboard variation of Ei-reeh – that is the hard ‘A’ stretched out a bit too long with the ‘ree’ overextended and shoved out through the nose.

So, with the advent of my Zionism and desire to adapt my name to how I always assumed it would be pronounced in the land that I assumed would always eventually be the place I call home, I opted for the soft ‘A,’ which would be Ah-ree. Now, saying my name could be easily instigated with a refreshing sip of a cold and delicious Fresca on hot and muggy day – Ah…ree!

Then I came to Israel and found that, the aesthetic value of the change in pronunciation aside, the whole issue was moot. Ari is not actually an Israeli name.* As I had been told the name is Hebrew and it does mean ‘lion,’ well technically speaking. The more accurate and used word/name would be Aryeh. Ari, to be certain, translates as Aryan.

Due to all this mess, when I introduce myself to an native-Israeli, Arab or Jew, my name is inevitably repeated back to me as Aryeh or Arik or Harry (an improper assumed moniker made that much less desirable due to its invariably immediate connection with this Harry Potter character who seems to be popular at the moment.)

Usually I am rather insistent regarding the proper pronunciation of my name which, more often that not, involves the uber-annoying detail of having to spell it out. Aleph-Reish-Yud. And, of course, this is as ironic as being a Jew named after the master race. I simply can not properly say or pronounce the letter ‘Reish.’ It’s the hardest letter of them all. Unlike the American ‘R,’ the sound of which originates in the back of the mouth, the sound of the Israeli pronounced ‘Reish’ originates from the top of palate with the rear of the tongue holding the sound. Sound complicated? You’re damn straight it is! I can offer up a reasonable reproduction but there is just no mistaking the fact that I’m just not the real McCoy.

Consequently, I’m left with a name that is just a Jewish-American idea of what a Jewish-Israeli name might be.

And to add further insult to the already injured, in Arabic Ari means ‘my dick.’

Fuckin’ A.

*This is not completely true as I have met two Israeli Ari’s during my half decade in Israel.