Sapri Sale, Indonesian Muslim adventurer of the Hebrew language

Sapri Sale, Indonesian Muslim adventurer of the Hebrew language

“I made my dream come true!” » In a burst of laughter, Sapri Sale, 55, proudly shows his ” artwork “ : “the first and only Hebrew-Bahasa Indonesia dictionary (1) never published“. At first glance, this might seem trivial, the fruit of long work as a passionate linguistic researcher, but for this warm-hearted academic, “this dictionary of simple words in two languages ​​so different and a priori useless was a challenge in many respects and the culmination of long years of work”. Sapri Sale, who has been teaching Hebrew at the Istiqlal Grand Mosque in Jakarta since the beginning of the year, is a courageous transmitter of culture and faith.

Indonesia-Israel, a taboo relationship

Neither a secular state nor a theocracy, Indonesia (280 million inhabitants) presents a religious face with a Muslim majority (88%) yet with great ethnic and cultural diversity. “But no one was ready to finance the publication of a Hebrew-Bahasa Indonesia dictionary, because the Israeli subject is extremely sensitive in Indonesia,” he explains seriously. For many, Israel is considered a “enemy country”, even more so since the war in Gaza and against Lebanon.

“Indonesia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, no contact, no exchange… so proposing a work that allows a dialogue to be opened with the possible reading of sacred texts in Hebrew was a challenge. » For some, a provocation.

However, nothing intended Sapri Sale to publish such an opus. Born in the small town of Palu, in the heart of the large island of Sulawesi (Island of Celebes) in the west of Borneo, more than 2,000 kilometers from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, he is a real “chenapan” at school. “My father, of Bugis ethnicity, and my mother, of Kaili ethnicity, were Muslims, he says, and we spoke three different languages ​​at home. » Faced with this turbulent 15-year-old son, his parents make a radical decision that will turn his life upside down. “To punish me, in 1989 they sent me to a Koranic boarding school (or pétrek) in Mulang, on the island of Java, where I went to study the Koran seven days a week for… four years. »

Sapri Sale is very gifted in languages, masters Arabic perfectly and becomes knowledgeable about the Koran, to the point that the director of pétrek offered to finance his Islamic studies at the Sunni Al-Azhar University in Cairo. “After four years in a cage, I discovered life, freedom, the Koran, liberal life in Cairo at the time, he says, laughing, it was paradise. » And he began studying Hebrew in 1993 at the Israel Cultural Center. “The prejudice against Israel was strong, he continues, but I wanted to have another approach, to understand, to deepen through Hebrew and reading the Old Testament. » He was the only Indonesian to embark on such a cultural and spiritual adventure.

In 2015, “mission accomplished”

In 2006, he embarked on this monumental work while he was in New York, where he continued his Hebrew lessons… Nearly ten years later, in 2015, “mission accomplished”. “No one wanted to publish it, nothing surprising, too sensitive, too innovative, too risky, he assures, I had to self-publish it at my own expense and the few clients, moderate Muslims, bought it from me secretly, it was a clandestine act…” he frowns, suddenly very serious. Then he began teaching in a private school supported by an NGO defending interreligious dialogue.

“My students are passionate, some Catholics, others Protestants, a Muslim minority. They see the benefit of promoting mutual knowledge through linguistics and the study of texts, it’s magical! “, marvels the one who developed his distance learning courses with students living abroad. “The taboo gradually fell, he rejoices, the academic dimension took precedence over religion and ideology, to the point that the grand imam of the Istiqlal mosque offered me to teach a few hours a week. » The smile returns. Sapri Sale won, and he even took on a new challenge: the study of… Aramaic.

(1) When we talk about the language spoken in Indonesia, we specify “bahasa indonesia”, to clearly distinguish it from “bahasa malaysia” spoken in Malaysia, which differs slightly.

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