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

Chanan Tauber grew up in moshav Sde Warburg and attended high school in Kfar Saba. He did his medical studies in Jerusalem. From 1969 until 1972 he served in the military as medical officer, the first 2 years in the Sinai desert, including the war. In 1972 he started his training to be an orthopedic surgeon, but in 1973 he served in the army again as surgeon during the Yom Kippur War. He continued his specialization in Paris from 1979 to 1980. Since then he worked at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. Later he became president of the Israel Orthopedic Association. At the time of the interview CT was Head of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Kaplan Medical Center. CT is married and has three children. ; CT grew up in Sde Warburg in a German-speaking neighborhood. His parents belonged to the founders of moshav Sde Warburg and CT was the first baby born in the village. At home he spoke German with his mother and the maternal grandparents, who lived with them. However he also spoke Hebrew with his father. He loved his maternal grandmother very much (she died in 1979, the grandfather already died in 1969), CT describes her as a real Prussian: very strict. Since he was in kindergarten, CT had to speak Hebrew outside of his home. He chose to take private lessons in German when he was in elementary school; during his youth he read a lot of German literature. CT mentions Heinrich Heine, whom he considers a symbol of German Judaism. His father, who enjoyed a classic-humanistic eduction, was the intellectual role model for CT and he tried to take over his father's humanist attitude. CT thinks his parents were rather liberal, not obsessed by discipline. He never rebelled against his education, and mainly has positive associations with the Yekkish and the German culture. He thinks his parents made efforts to impart on him the positive assets of their cultural heritage and that he was always able to differentiate between the benefits of German culture and Nazi-Germany very well. His father started to tell CT about the Nazi-era when he was 13 years old. CT still spends a lot of time reading, but now more in English (especially scientific and medical literature) and modern literature in Hebrew. ; CT's paternal grandparents could not leave Germany anymore, which was a trauma for his father because he was supposed to get visa for them after his immigration. CT tells how his parents and his maternal grandparents immigrated to Israel. CT's wife comes from a Dutch family, she is a pediatrician. Her parents were in Bergen Belsen concentration camp, because of that she does not visit Germany. She does however speak German with CT's mother who never learned Hebrew very well. She refers to German as “the language of her mother in law”. CT understands that many children of Yekkes have negative feelings towards Germany. He himself went to Germany for the first time in 1987 to attend a medical congress in Munich. He had a hard time understanding the dialect, however during a later visit to Berlin the German sounded very familiar to him ("his parents' language"). His parents returned to Germany many years earlier, because his father had business relations there. His parents made a lot of German friends. CT thinks that many Yekkes gave up their bourgeois habits because of the economic pressure in Israel. His ideal, as second generation, is to be a “levantine Yekke". CT's eldest son is the only one of his children who still knows some German. ; According to CT, the utopias of the founding fathers of Israel have not come true. The new state was formed by the youth movements' pioneer spirit. There was an ideological liberation after the Six Day War, Israel's ideal is no longer the melting pot. He thinks that a party like Shas got so many votes, because the Jews of European origin forced the oriental Jews to assimilate to their cultural traditions. On the other hand CT is not unhappy that the new Russian immigration wave brought a lot of (Western) intellectual potential to Israel again. He states that his concept of culture changed when he had the chance to observe the different ethnic groups in his hospital. He thinks that the human values of Moroccan or Iraqi Jews, for example how they honor their parents and old people, represent the true cultural values whereas Mozart and classic music - even though he still loves them - are only entertainment. CT feels that because of their multicultural society Israelis have a more comprehensive approach to culture than Europeans.