Page 12 - Rehavia advanced 130918
P. 12
Advanced level – רמה מתקדמת
The Yekkes (Germans: Yiddish pejorative slang)
At its outset, Rechavia was designed by the German architect Richard Coffman,
who had emigrated to Palestine in 1920. He planned it after a typical German
garden community. The streets were symmetrical, each house had a garden, and
there was a green, central boulevard for pedestrians. The interior decoration of the
homes was also in the "Yekke" style: bookcases with the works of famous German
authors such as Heine and Goethe; a piano; large easy chairs; and oil paintings on
the walls. The language of "Gazastrasse" (Aza Street) and "Rambanstrasse" was
German.
"They still have not internalized that the gates of Germany have been closed to Jews
and to the world; they will never return to Germany. They comfort themselves with
the thought that the evil regime will come to an end and the German exiles will
return to Germany and will once again rejoice in the German culture which they had
an active role in creating. Only temporarily do they live here, as strangers, as
guests, as outsiders, as foreigners." S.Y.Agnon
Most of the German Jews emigrated to Palestine beginning in 1933 with the
ascendance of Hitler to the Chancellorship, until Jews were forbidden to leave
Germany. They settled in Rechavia next to its Sephardic residents and changed its
personality. They conveyed a bourgeois image of the neighborhood, what was
considered an affront in that pioneering, socialist time. Many jokes were spread
about the strictness and inflexibility of the Germans; and of the bad Hebrew they
spoke. One famous joke of that era (doesn't work in English - it is a play on words)
where the German is asked if he understands "ATA MEVIN?" - it sounds to him
like "Are you from Vienna?" And he answers: "No, I am from Berlin."
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