Second generation of immigrants from German speaking countries ("Yekkes")

Ruth Talmor grew up in Sde Warburg. She met her husband during her military service and married in 1973. They lived in Haifa for two years and in Kfar Saba for another year, during this period she worked as a travel guide. They then moved to Sde Warburg and RT studied English to become a teacher. She has 3 children and works as an English teacher. ; RT's husband has Polish and Russian roots, her liberal parents accepted him immediately. RT also accepts her children's partners: her son's wife is from a Yemenite family. RT and her husband like her very much, but her parents did not accept the marriage and did not even attend it. But there are also stories the other way around, where oriental partners are not accepted by Ashkenazi families. She thinks that this sort of racism is not just typical for the Yekkes, but more general between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. ; When RT's elder sister started learning Hebrew in Kindergarten, the spoke more and more Hebrew at home. However with her maternal grandparents RT only spoke German. Her grandfather taught her to write in German; her father now teaches her son some German. She is still able to read German slowly. During the first decades most of the people in Sde Warburg were Yekkish. The language in the committees was German until a new group of immigrants joined them in 1958. At that time, nobody refused German in Sde Warburg, her father read Schiller and Goethe to his daughters. Her parents always spoke German with each other. RT is able to think in German, English and Hebrew. Her husband learned German quickly when he started to work with an Israeli-Austrian architect. Her son learned Arabic at school; RT regrets that many young and older people decide against Arabic as optional subject for ideological reasons, and that they perceive Arabs only as terrorists. She thinks that she has not absorbed a lot of German culture, but considers her love for nature and walking in the countryside as typical German characteristics. She never wanted to live in a city, but her children prefer it. RT thinks that German virtues (like being polite) were only partly taken into the Hebrew culture, the Israeli culture is much more aggressive because of the influence of Eastern Jews. The Yekkes however influenced the legal system. Yekkes often thought that Israel was primitive, RT's Zionist uncle immigrated during the 1920s and left the country again soon after. RT listens to classical music, work is important to her. ; RT was in Germany only once, in 1967, within the scope of a sports club exchange program. Her parents never wanted to go there again. There is an exchange program between Sde Warburg and the town Warburg in Germany. She got a lot of invitations from German tourists who had come to Sde Warburg, also her father opened his house for them. She thinks the people who come visiting have good intentions, especially the young people were very nice. When she took groups of young people to Yad Vashem, they often cried terribly. The most conspicuous characteristics of the German groups is their punctuality. ; RT's parents hardly ever talked about the Nazi-era. She thinks obedience to authorities is not only a German problem. She states that the conflict with the Palestinians is too complex to compare it with fascism. She deplores that media are imparting a negative image of Israel on the young Europeans. RT criticizes the intifada, she must suppress her fear. In her school there is a project to encourage communication between Jews and Arabs, they have weekly meetings and a sort of exchange of teachers and pupils.