Yekke

German Jews in Israel
Total population
70,000 (2012)[citation needed]
Regions with significant populations
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Netanya, Ashdod, Beersheba and many other places
Languages
Hebrew, German, Yiddish, Shassi
Religion
Judaism

A Yekke (also Jecke) is a Jew of German-speaking origin.[1]

Demography and history

The wave of immigration to British Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s known as the Fifth Aliyah had a large proportion of Yekkes, around 25% (55,000 immigrants). Many of them settled in the vicinity of Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv, leading to the nickname "Ben Yehuda Strasse." Their struggle to master Hebrew produced a dialect known as "Yekkish." The Ben Yehuda Strasse Dictionary: A Dictionary of Spoken Yekkish in the Land of Israel, published in 2012, documents this language.[1]

A significant community escaped Frankfurt after Kristallnacht, and relocated to the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, where they still have a synagogue, Khal Adath Jeshurun, which punctiliously adheres to the Yekkish liturgical text, rituals, and melodies.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Aderet, Ofer (7 September 2012). "Take a Biss of This Book!". Haaretz. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  2. ^ Lowenstein, Steven M. (1989). Frankfurt on the Hudson: The German-Jewish Community of Washington Heights, 1933–1983, Its structure and Culture. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0814323854.

Further reading