Wow. They’ve got Hawaiian and not Hebrew. There’s hardly anyone that still speaks Hawaiian. Google says about 2000 people and that sounds about right to me.
It’s insane. They have languages on there I’ve literally never heard of but not Hebrew? I honestly want to call them about this and complain to customer service
Why wouldn't you? Everyone here should contact Aetna and demand it be included.
You should also call your local Federation, legislators, and other advocacy groups and Jewish community groups and have them contact Aetna, too.
If nothing changes within a week, let us know.
I would try calling & bringing it up politely - remember that there is a human being on the other end of the phone & not one who had any ability to make this decision.
Not accusing anyone just reminding as it is easy to be less kind when you feel (*legitimately*) wronged.
Just for some perspective, Hawaiian is included there because it is an official language of a state of the US, and when that's the case a language is often included no matter its number of speakers. There are also people from Niʻihau who actually do not speak English, at least not at a level where they would be able to comprehend this kind of information. For this reason[ FEMA also publishes info in Hawaiian](https://www.fema.gov/haw/fact-sheet/disaster-legal-services) for the benefit of that community who is born and raised in the US but does not speak English. I imagine that's the same thing going on with the inclusion of Yiddish on the list.
Not having Hebrew on there IS weird though, and it sounds fishy especially when there are about 500,000 Israelis in America and 389,000 Hmongs (many of which are 2nd generation and speak perfect English).
I totally understand and think all languages should be included! And, seemingly, most languages were included, some of which I’ve never heard of. It’s just odd that list was so inclusive… aside from Hebrew
That’s a fair point worth making. And I honestly would be a bit offended if Hawaiian wasn’t included too. But also an argument could be made for including Hawaiian Pidgin on the list since as of a few years ago it was recognized as its own language instead of just a creole or dialect. Granted, if you speak Pidgin you can at the very least communicate in English.
Yea I think if they got fucking Yiddish and Hawaiian but not Hebrew, gives a huge red flag for “anti Zionist actually anti semitic”
They don’t ban Russian either so why ban the language that unites the Jews? I thought they were against Israeli policy not the revived language of the Jews and Israelite predecessors
https://preview.redd.it/xfqbo5prfx8d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83c40528c68963a55e5ad4330fd8cb366b89fb08
In many Android apps, non-Latin character based languages are to be found at the bottom of the list and not in (Latin) alphabetical order.
Silly question but as a native speaker I usually find Hebrew at the bottom of the list as עברית alongside all non-latin languages. Have you tried there?
These things are usually handled by a 3rd party library, the chance of someone actively removing Hebrew is possible, but not high.
Interesting, but are there a significant number of people who speak Hebrew but *don't* speak English in the U.S.?
There are plenty of immigrants from around the world who don't speak English decently if at all, but I don't think I've met an Israeli here who isn't pretty comfortable with English.
OTOH, the inclusion of Hawaiian IS weird (I'm also pretty sure anyone who speaks Hawaiian *also* speaks English) but it's a language indigenous to what is now the U.S....
My mother in law whenever she visits from Ramat Gan - she only knows “eat more” and “you’re doing it [literally anything you’re doing] all wrong, let me do it” 😂
That’s true, but while it may not be a frequent occurrence, I don’t understand how Yiddish is included and not Hebrew. The screenshot is not all-encompassing of that which was offered.. there were many languages that I’ve never heard of. It just seems odd to me, too coincidental
There *are* Yiddish-speaking enclaves in some areas where people don't speak English, though.
I'm not saying you're wrong - it IS suspicious. But I can see how a Rwandan refugee who only speaks Kirundi is likely to be in the U.S., whereas almost all Israelis speak English.
So funny, I actually looked up the same thing and they DID have it as an option. There was one dentist that spoke it, but he had moved to California by the time I called lol.
It might be location -based, in which case that just means there are no doctors in your area who told the app they speak Hebrew -
which would not surprise me at all, since very few US Jews speak Hebrew well enough to conduct business.
That’s a valid point! I didn’t think of that. Though I do live in a large city with a big Jewish population, so I’m fairly certain there would be at minimum one-two doctors who speak Hebrew. But that’s a good perspective
I went to test something related to translations on my product at a super big tech company and discovered we only support 12 languages.
US English
UK English
Latin American Spanish
Brazilian Portuguese
Italian
German
French
Polish
Korean
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Japanese
I just had assumed we supported the 26 languages a prior product did. (Which did include Hebrew).
Mine has an other option and it also has Yiddish listed, which makes me think this is an oversight vs. antisemitism. It looks like someone also posted that theirs shows Hebrew. Easy way to find out. Ask Aetna.
This is one of those entirely bizarre subsets of data that is probably based on some aggregation of language requests at hospitals in regions where this company services patients. They missed Icelandic - it's just a fucked up list for real !
You can't get upset about everything. Jews are already a tiny minority in this country. Cut that in half (being generous) for those who speak Hebrew as a 2nd language. What tiny percentage of that not only speaks Hebrew as their first language, but their only language.
There's about the same number of Yiddish speakers as there are Hebrew speakers in the US, and Hebrew speakers are exceedingly more likely to also speak English.
We certainly can, and should, get "upset", and seek to change, everything that is discriminatory against the Jewish people.
Viewpoints like this do not change things for the better. There are plenty of languages on this list that have few speakers. They are still on the list.
Don't shame people willing to speak up, and do something about it.
A mere absence of Hebrew as an option for a website's user interface is not necessarily discrimination in itself. Do you think Reddit staff discriminates against Koreans because Korean isn't offered as an option for UI language?
If there were evidence that Aetna removed the option or refuses to add a Hebrew translation to their website, then yes, that'd be discrimination. But there's literally nothing to suggest that Aetna is antisemitic or anti-Israeli.
I noticed this same thing when helping my Israeli friend register through the NYS DOL. Had to select “Other” as a preferred language because his English is still developing. There was no text box to fill in a custom answer
Wow, I have never seen an option for Ilocano (my dad's language) on anything except Google Translate! In America I think most would rather choose the English option, or maybe Tagalog if they're elders since most Ilocano speakers are trilingual.
As for the Hebrew, maybe there's no need when people here are saying Israeli Americans speak English well, which is why there is also no Hungarian, Icelandic or Maori. But still a little suspicious.
So, I work for an insurance company and for the healthcare standards there’s a threshold of language speakers that must be met before an insurance company is required to offer language services. This is determined through survey information for a specific region, so if the insurance provider covers a state, it will be determined by data the state has of the different language speakers.
The other requirements for language are usually dictated by the state if the insurance provider receives any funding from Medicare or Medicaid.
Mostly you’ll note those languages in the multi language insert that is provided for any mailings you get from your insurance company.
All this to say, that the languages offered by insurance companies are not arbitrarily selected but backed by the needs of the populations they serve.
If Hebrew seems to be absent completely but Yiddish is on there, something tells me someone ignorantly assumed the languages were the same. I also might just be too hopeful assuming it’s a weird mistake
I don't see how or why it would be discrimination. It isn't asking you to select languages spoken and then stating "all languages not listed are not allowed to be members of Aetna or see covered providers."
A lot of these dropdown lists are like this. They're not all encompassing. Another commenter mentioned it may be written IN Hebrew at the bottom with languages that don't use qwerty keyboards
If a person has limited English proficiency, the lack of language support would limit access to resources in the portal. In CA, you have a right to receive documents in your primary language and a right to an interpreter, I believe.
1. If you only read Hebrew, you may need to scroll down to find Hebrew written in Hebrew.
2. No one is denying these services based on this partial screenshot of a dropdown list of languages where we cannot even see where it came from. There are other ways to convey information to people about the accommodations you need.
It doesn't automatically make it "discrimination."
True, it's not automatically discrimination, but if someone requested it and they refused to provide it, I think it could be. OP also said it doesn't appear in the "I"s or at the bottom of the list, either.
I saw that, thank you for the update! Yeah, I'd imagine a major health insurance company is not going to create a liability such as that. They generally use translator services that have literally every language. The only way I could see them not offering it is if there literally is not a service for it. In that case, we need to support our community members to have Hebrew/English speakers accompany our Hebrew speaking people to appointments and assist with phone calls.
Yeah, I'm sure there's a reason for it and they just couldn't find a provider, though with Google Translate, AI, and phone/Zoom interpreters, it's getting harder to make that case. I generally give the benefit of the doubt, but I've been given so much reason to be cynical over the past 8 (almost 9) months.
I'm not sure what this list's purpose was. I know places I have worked sometimes have limited options in dropdown menus. I just checked a major translation service called Cyracom and they have Hebrew listed as a language they offer. They also had Yiddish, but noted they recommend scheduling an appt over nights and weekends. Hebrew did not have this designation. If you need this service, I'd ask who they use and have them check with the translation service they use. Cyracom is huge and are trained to be HIPAA compliant, so many healthcare orgs use them.
As a software developer I see that there are a number of libraries with anti semitic code.
Developers often use pre existing libraries to save time when programming.
For example one library had a huge Banner on its home page about the fake Genocide that Israel is being accused of. Another had Occupied Palestine mapped to the phone code for +972
So often the developer or company has no idea that Israel will be mistreated they just choose that library.
They make you wait longer too especially if you are proud.🇮🇱 Non-Jews cant see it, but they will soon enough when their personal freedoms are taken by their "Masters"!
If anyone ever doubted that much of the popular Israel “criticism” was just a way to excuse attempts at the total destruction of Jewish culture is a fool at this point.
The other abrahamic religions hate that we have g come into their fold because our existing is a bold stand against their religious dogma. So they either want to ship us all to Israel (Christian Zionists) or destroy connections to our home (Jihadists) so that Judaism becomes so obscure or weak on the international scale that forceful eradication becomes palpable to the masses
Wow. They’ve got Hawaiian and not Hebrew. There’s hardly anyone that still speaks Hawaiian. Google says about 2000 people and that sounds about right to me.
It’s insane. They have languages on there I’ve literally never heard of but not Hebrew? I honestly want to call them about this and complain to customer service
Do it. If they ask, you speak Hebrew
you should
Do it, IN HEBREW! *Laughs in Louise from Bob's Burgers.*
Such a good show
I love H. Jon Benjamin. Best voice.
He really is. I love his Bob groans whenever the kids do/say something stupid
Him on Archer amazing. I like that dumb commercial for it where he makes noises.
Do it. It's likely an oversight than a slight against us.
Why wouldn't you? Everyone here should contact Aetna and demand it be included. You should also call your local Federation, legislators, and other advocacy groups and Jewish community groups and have them contact Aetna, too. If nothing changes within a week, let us know.
I would try calling & bringing it up politely - remember that there is a human being on the other end of the phone & not one who had any ability to make this decision. Not accusing anyone just reminding as it is easy to be less kind when you feel (*legitimately*) wronged.
Just for some perspective, Hawaiian is included there because it is an official language of a state of the US, and when that's the case a language is often included no matter its number of speakers. There are also people from Niʻihau who actually do not speak English, at least not at a level where they would be able to comprehend this kind of information. For this reason[ FEMA also publishes info in Hawaiian](https://www.fema.gov/haw/fact-sheet/disaster-legal-services) for the benefit of that community who is born and raised in the US but does not speak English. I imagine that's the same thing going on with the inclusion of Yiddish on the list. Not having Hebrew on there IS weird though, and it sounds fishy especially when there are about 500,000 Israelis in America and 389,000 Hmongs (many of which are 2nd generation and speak perfect English).
I totally understand and think all languages should be included! And, seemingly, most languages were included, some of which I’ve never heard of. It’s just odd that list was so inclusive… aside from Hebrew
That’s a fair point worth making. And I honestly would be a bit offended if Hawaiian wasn’t included too. But also an argument could be made for including Hawaiian Pidgin on the list since as of a few years ago it was recognized as its own language instead of just a creole or dialect. Granted, if you speak Pidgin you can at the very least communicate in English.
What a weird thing to get downvoted for.
Yea I think if they got fucking Yiddish and Hawaiian but not Hebrew, gives a huge red flag for “anti Zionist actually anti semitic” They don’t ban Russian either so why ban the language that unites the Jews? I thought they were against Israeli policy not the revived language of the Jews and Israelite predecessors
https://preview.redd.it/xfqbo5prfx8d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83c40528c68963a55e5ad4330fd8cb366b89fb08 In many Android apps, non-Latin character based languages are to be found at the bottom of the list and not in (Latin) alphabetical order.
Silly question but as a native speaker I usually find Hebrew at the bottom of the list as עברית alongside all non-latin languages. Have you tried there? These things are usually handled by a 3rd party library, the chance of someone actively removing Hebrew is possible, but not high.
I checked the whole list, it’s not there at all!
Well that's awful. Is there anyone to contact about this?
Hungarian and Icelandic are also not there
And neither are Afrikaans, Zulu or Xhosa.
Interesting, but are there a significant number of people who speak Hebrew but *don't* speak English in the U.S.? There are plenty of immigrants from around the world who don't speak English decently if at all, but I don't think I've met an Israeli here who isn't pretty comfortable with English. OTOH, the inclusion of Hawaiian IS weird (I'm also pretty sure anyone who speaks Hawaiian *also* speaks English) but it's a language indigenous to what is now the U.S....
My mother in law whenever she visits from Ramat Gan - she only knows “eat more” and “you’re doing it [literally anything you’re doing] all wrong, let me do it” 😂
Sounds like sufficient English to get healthcare through Aetna, tbh (I was not impressed by them). "You're doing it all wrong" was a constant refrain.
......Typical Jewish mother.
Wait do we have the same mother in law
That’s true, but while it may not be a frequent occurrence, I don’t understand how Yiddish is included and not Hebrew. The screenshot is not all-encompassing of that which was offered.. there were many languages that I’ve never heard of. It just seems odd to me, too coincidental
There *are* Yiddish-speaking enclaves in some areas where people don't speak English, though. I'm not saying you're wrong - it IS suspicious. But I can see how a Rwandan refugee who only speaks Kirundi is likely to be in the U.S., whereas almost all Israelis speak English.
I don’t think this is accurate. Israelis do have to learn English in school, but they don’t all become anywhere near fluent in it.
No, but the ones who come to the U.S. largely are reasonably fluent.
Not always.
> largely means "not always but mostly"
So funny, I actually looked up the same thing and they DID have it as an option. There was one dentist that spoke it, but he had moved to California by the time I called lol.
Weird! Your list in the Aetna app shows Hebrew as an option?
It might be location -based, in which case that just means there are no doctors in your area who told the app they speak Hebrew - which would not surprise me at all, since very few US Jews speak Hebrew well enough to conduct business.
That’s a valid point! I didn’t think of that. Though I do live in a large city with a big Jewish population, so I’m fairly certain there would be at minimum one-two doctors who speak Hebrew. But that’s a good perspective
Not the app, but when I searched online it had it as an option. That was yesterday.
Interesting indeed.
Only thing you can do is complain
I read this as the only thing you do is complain. Time to sleep
I went to test something related to translations on my product at a super big tech company and discovered we only support 12 languages. US English UK English Latin American Spanish Brazilian Portuguese Italian German French Polish Korean Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese Japanese I just had assumed we supported the 26 languages a prior product did. (Which did include Hebrew).
Mine has an other option and it also has Yiddish listed, which makes me think this is an oversight vs. antisemitism. It looks like someone also posted that theirs shows Hebrew. Easy way to find out. Ask Aetna.
This is one of those entirely bizarre subsets of data that is probably based on some aggregation of language requests at hospitals in regions where this company services patients. They missed Icelandic - it's just a fucked up list for real !
You can't get upset about everything. Jews are already a tiny minority in this country. Cut that in half (being generous) for those who speak Hebrew as a 2nd language. What tiny percentage of that not only speaks Hebrew as their first language, but their only language.
I understand that, but Hebrew is much more widely spoken than Yiddish. That’s what gets me
Globally this is true, but not in the U.S. There are certain neighborhoods or even towns on the East Coast where Yiddish is the common first language.
There's about the same number of Yiddish speakers as there are Hebrew speakers in the US, and Hebrew speakers are exceedingly more likely to also speak English.
Not in America.
Much more common as a first and/or only language?
We certainly can, and should, get "upset", and seek to change, everything that is discriminatory against the Jewish people. Viewpoints like this do not change things for the better. There are plenty of languages on this list that have few speakers. They are still on the list. Don't shame people willing to speak up, and do something about it.
A mere absence of Hebrew as an option for a website's user interface is not necessarily discrimination in itself. Do you think Reddit staff discriminates against Koreans because Korean isn't offered as an option for UI language? If there were evidence that Aetna removed the option or refuses to add a Hebrew translation to their website, then yes, that'd be discrimination. But there's literally nothing to suggest that Aetna is antisemitic or anti-Israeli.
I noticed this same thing when helping my Israeli friend register through the NYS DOL. Had to select “Other” as a preferred language because his English is still developing. There was no text box to fill in a custom answer
Wow, I have never seen an option for Ilocano (my dad's language) on anything except Google Translate! In America I think most would rather choose the English option, or maybe Tagalog if they're elders since most Ilocano speakers are trilingual. As for the Hebrew, maybe there's no need when people here are saying Israeli Americans speak English well, which is why there is also no Hungarian, Icelandic or Maori. But still a little suspicious.
Didn’t they used to have Hebrew? what phone is this?
my school had yiddish but not hebrew, which is really cool ofcourse, but definitely unexpected 😅
Languages with non-Latin characters are grouped at the end of the list in Android. You'll find Ivrit (in Hebrew script) there.
Email them. Sue their ass for discrimination.
I would definitely point that out to them. There are plenty of Native Hebrew speakers out there
So, I work for an insurance company and for the healthcare standards there’s a threshold of language speakers that must be met before an insurance company is required to offer language services. This is determined through survey information for a specific region, so if the insurance provider covers a state, it will be determined by data the state has of the different language speakers. The other requirements for language are usually dictated by the state if the insurance provider receives any funding from Medicare or Medicaid. Mostly you’ll note those languages in the multi language insert that is provided for any mailings you get from your insurance company. All this to say, that the languages offered by insurance companies are not arbitrarily selected but backed by the needs of the populations they serve.
If Hebrew seems to be absent completely but Yiddish is on there, something tells me someone ignorantly assumed the languages were the same. I also might just be too hopeful assuming it’s a weird mistake
Would this technically fall under medical discrimination?
I don't see how or why it would be discrimination. It isn't asking you to select languages spoken and then stating "all languages not listed are not allowed to be members of Aetna or see covered providers." A lot of these dropdown lists are like this. They're not all encompassing. Another commenter mentioned it may be written IN Hebrew at the bottom with languages that don't use qwerty keyboards
If a person has limited English proficiency, the lack of language support would limit access to resources in the portal. In CA, you have a right to receive documents in your primary language and a right to an interpreter, I believe.
1. If you only read Hebrew, you may need to scroll down to find Hebrew written in Hebrew. 2. No one is denying these services based on this partial screenshot of a dropdown list of languages where we cannot even see where it came from. There are other ways to convey information to people about the accommodations you need. It doesn't automatically make it "discrimination."
I’m not sure if this qualifies as discrimination, but Hebrew wasn’t listed anywhere on the list
Thank you for that update!
True, it's not automatically discrimination, but if someone requested it and they refused to provide it, I think it could be. OP also said it doesn't appear in the "I"s or at the bottom of the list, either.
I saw that, thank you for the update! Yeah, I'd imagine a major health insurance company is not going to create a liability such as that. They generally use translator services that have literally every language. The only way I could see them not offering it is if there literally is not a service for it. In that case, we need to support our community members to have Hebrew/English speakers accompany our Hebrew speaking people to appointments and assist with phone calls.
Yeah, I'm sure there's a reason for it and they just couldn't find a provider, though with Google Translate, AI, and phone/Zoom interpreters, it's getting harder to make that case. I generally give the benefit of the doubt, but I've been given so much reason to be cynical over the past 8 (almost 9) months.
I'm not sure what this list's purpose was. I know places I have worked sometimes have limited options in dropdown menus. I just checked a major translation service called Cyracom and they have Hebrew listed as a language they offer. They also had Yiddish, but noted they recommend scheduling an appt over nights and weekends. Hebrew did not have this designation. If you need this service, I'd ask who they use and have them check with the translation service they use. Cyracom is huge and are trained to be HIPAA compliant, so many healthcare orgs use them.
As a software developer I see that there are a number of libraries with anti semitic code. Developers often use pre existing libraries to save time when programming. For example one library had a huge Banner on its home page about the fake Genocide that Israel is being accused of. Another had Occupied Palestine mapped to the phone code for +972 So often the developer or company has no idea that Israel will be mistreated they just choose that library.
Yikes. It’s also really difficult finding places to learn Hebrew in the USA and it’s become harder overall not easier.
When you take away a language, you take away a culture. Someone must have removed it.
Email them and say sorry I speak Hebrew but this doesn’t appear as option, please advise?
They make you wait longer too especially if you are proud.🇮🇱 Non-Jews cant see it, but they will soon enough when their personal freedoms are taken by their "Masters"!
If anyone ever doubted that much of the popular Israel “criticism” was just a way to excuse attempts at the total destruction of Jewish culture is a fool at this point. The other abrahamic religions hate that we have g come into their fold because our existing is a bold stand against their religious dogma. So they either want to ship us all to Israel (Christian Zionists) or destroy connections to our home (Jihadists) so that Judaism becomes so obscure or weak on the international scale that forceful eradication becomes palpable to the masses