-
Changing Definitions of Germanness across Three Generations of Yekkes in Palestine/Israel
- German Studies Review
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 39, Number 1, February 2016
- pp. 99-120
- 10.1353/gsr.2016.0008
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
German-speaking Jews arrived in Palestine in vast numbers from 1933 onwards. They are not Olim (ascenders, Jewish immigrants to Palestine/Israel) in the classical, Zionistic sense but emigrated out of necessity from Europe. Their history in Europe, and their arrival in Palestine reflect a particular integration into the nascent Jewish society, and resulted in a pronounced particularism that was transmitted across generations. To understand the interdependence of self-definition and superimposed ascription within a society that aims at absorbing immigrants, this paper chronicles the different definitions of Germanness amongst three generations of Yekkes (German-speaking Jews) in Palestine, later Israel, by focusing on community building, familial tradition, and everyday praxes of expressing Germanness.