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
- ^ a b Aderet, Ofer (7 September 2012). "Take a Biss of This Book!". Haaretz. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
- ^ 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
- Gold, David L. (1981). "The Etymology of Yiddish Yeke". Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik (in German). 48 (1). Franz Steiner Verlag: 57–59. JSTOR 40502725.
- Weinbaum, Laurence; McPherson, Colin (2000). "No Milk and No Honey: The Yekkes and the Ostjuden". Jewish Quarterly. 47 (3): 25–30. doi:10.1080/0449010X.2000.10705191 (inactive 31 January 2024).
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link)
External links
- Machon Moreshes Ashkenaz
- The American Yekkes (Yisrael Kashkin, 2016)
- K'hal Adas Yeshurun of Jerusalem Nusach Project
