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

Ze'ev Walk grew up in moshav Sde Yaakov and went to high school in Haifa. He did his military service in Nahal and then lived in kibbutz Beerot Yizhak for six years. He left to become a teacher, and had different education-related occupations. At the time of the interview he worked as teacher and member of the school supervisory board in Jerusalem. He is married and has 6 children. ; ZW's parents belonged to a minority in Sde Yaakov, many Jews from Eastern Europe were living in the moshav. ZW's father was sent to Sde Yaakov as a leader of youth aliyah groups from Germany. He worked as teacher and became headmaster of the elementary school. The family also had a little farm. ZW was treated like an outsider among the children of the moshav, whereas his sisters felt more comfortable. ZW had more friends during his high school years in Haifa. His Zionist father encouraged him to live in a kibbutz. ; When ZW and his two sisters had just grown up, their mother died from cancer and the family dispersed. Their father soon married again, his second wife also coming from Germany. Together they spoke German. ZW's stepmother had 3 children of her former marriage and got another child with his father. ZW's father then studied history and pedagogy. He became a university lecturer and later director of the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem. ZW's paternal grandparents only spoke German at home, although his grandfather knew some Hebrew. ZW and his twin-sister lived with them for a year, when his parents - with the younger sister - went to Belgium to work with children camp survivors. ZW's twin-sister knows better German better than he does. As a kid ZW got teased because of the Yekkishness of his family: thriftiness, tidy clothes, classical music etc. The other ethnic groups in the moshav radically opposed against any Yekkish influence. Most members of the moshav were hard working farmers, ZW wanted to be like them: be a famer and do hard physical work. ; ZW tells about his time as paratrooper in the army. During his time in the kibbutz he studied a lot besides his work; he was the head of the cattle stable. His wife has a Polish background and survived Auschwitz. She encouraged him to become a teacher and became a teacher herself too. They left the kibbutz because they were not allowed to study. They lived in different parts of Israel, until settling down near Jerusalem 21 years ago. One of their six children still lives at home. ZW calls himself a typical Yekkish perfectionist, although he never spontaneously tells about his Yekkish roots. He loves it when he is mistaken to be an oriental; he appreciates that culture being less perfectionist. His father sticks to German virtues, ZW has taken over some of them. Very much in contrast to his father's research on the history of German Jewry, he is not interested in this subject. Genealogy does not interest him either. ZW does not like the sound of the German language, especially when it comes to southern varieties. He can still understand the German colloquial language though. One of his daughters is a movie director and sometimes has to go to Germany, but she does not like it. ZW himself is not interested to visit Germany because the modern country has nothing to do with his parents' homeland. He prefers to learn about the Nazi-era through books and films. He only reads in Hebrew, mainly newspapers and educational literature. Recently he started to learn a passage from the Talmud each day, and hopes to pass this ritual to his children.