Do you identify with your family's origin?

Ruchel

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 7:33 am

Raisin wrote:

we had shabbos guests once who old us they keep the Dutch minhag of waiting one hour after meat for dairy. Why? Their grandfather lived in Holland for a few years before the war. (I think he was from Germany and subsequently made it to the USA)

Yah that's not how it works... My great grandfather zatsal was a chief rabbi in Amsterdam and did not have the Dutch minhag because he wasn't Dutch.

It's ok marrying someone with a different background. Just make sure you're ok with adopting his customs, and that you don't feel all lost in his family and mentality. Unless you're ok with that. I wanted to pass down a minhag I could at least relate to.

amother

Slateblue

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 7:58 am

OP here. When I say I'm a Yekke, I don't mean that I'm German. I'm American, of course I'm not German. But as a Jew, I'm a Yekke. I was raised in a yekkish community with the yekkish minhagim my family has been keeping for hundreds of years. I think that makes me a Yekke. But otherwise I'm an American, as I was born and raised here and English is my first language (I don't even speak German other than a few phrases I picked up from my grandparents and some nursery rhymes/lullabies they taught me).

amother

Navy

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 8:35 am

samantha87 wrote:

What is tate banks?

Signed, a Yekke who has never lived in Germany.

The expression in yiddish is; es hut gehulfen vee far a toiten dee bankes!
In English; it helped like bankes for a dead person.

'Bankes' is a very primitive healing method that was a very often utilized for lack of other medicine. It's something like a suction cup placed on parts of the sick person's body. It probably didn't help even when the person was still alive, but definitely not for a dead person.

Last edited by amother on Wed, May 03 2017, 11:53 am; edited 1 time in total

chanchy123

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 9:07 am

Raisin wrote:

It totally works that way. Or at least it did before the war. When my great grandparents came to South Africa from Lithuania and Latvia they started waiting three hours, because that was the minhag hamakom. The community in SA was Yekkish.
After the show people started being more makpid on their minhagim. Before the war or even a bit before that, Jews who moved to new communities would be completely immersed in the new community and adopt their minhagim.

mommy3b2c

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 9:24 am

amother wrote:

This.

My nationality is American. But as a Jew I am Hungarian. I feel no national pride to Hungary. Nor am I loyal to them. My loyalties are with America.

amother

Blue

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 10:32 am

I consider myself Ashkenazi, as far as minhagim. I'd never call myself litvish, except in the sense of saying that I'm not chassidish, bec I have no family connection to Lithuania.

My family background is a mix of Hungarian, Russian and some German, but I'm not and don't see myself that way. There's a reason my grandparents left.

My MIL likes to say that my mother's a good cook because she's Hungarian, but I think those types of stereotypes are very outdated. People my generation don't make comments referencing grandparents' places of birth (at least, not in my community).

I think the culture we live in influences us far more than we realize. And if you were born in America, and all the more so if your parents were too--you're far more American, culturally, than you are European.

zaq

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 10:39 am

Raisin wrote:

But that doesn't make him, or them, Dutch. It makes him a Yekke who adopted a Dutch minhag. (Interestingly, none of the bona-fide, born-in-Holland Ashkenazim of my acquaintance waits one hour.)

The poster to whom you were responding asked if her late MIL's being BORN in China makes her Chinese. To answer that, we would need to know Chinese citizenship laws Wink

water_bear88

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 10:57 am

mommy3b2c wrote:

This.

My nationality is American. But as a Jew I am Hungarian. I feel no national pride to Hungary. Nor am I loyal to them. My loyalties are with America.

For sure, that's what I meant when I said I'm part-Lithuanian. I guess I should call myself part-Litvak, but that already feels like I should have the minhagim which I don't because it's not my father's father's side that's from there. What defines Litvish? Like if the FFB sections of my family for the last 3 generations have always followed Rav Soleveitchik or his children/talmidim, does that make me Litvish-MO? Or just MO, even though my grandparents who originally followed him probably did so becuase he was Litvak?

Btw to all Litvaks, part-Litvaks, and anyone else who cares- there's an online petition circulating asking to prevent the building of a conference center on top of the old Jewish cemetery in Vilna. I'll try to find the link again. (Reminded because no, I feel no connection to the non-Jewish Lithuanians who would build over my ancestors' graves.)

amother

Purple

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 11:00 am

mommy3b2c wrote:

This.

My nationality is American. But as a Jew I am Hungarian. I feel no national pride to Hungary. Nor am I loyal to them. My loyalties are with America.

The only European-born Ashkenazi Jews I ever knew to have any kind of national feeling for their country of origin were, ironically, German. Those from Russia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, etc. etc. were of one mind: There's a good reason why we (or our grandparents) left the old country, and we don't want to have anything to do with it.

Except the Yekkes. What is it with these people? I've heard enough paeans to "Deutsche Ortnung" and praise of all things German with denigration of all things American or Eastern European to last several lifetimes. Even from people whose families were wiped out. This is inexplicable. If my country, no matter how beloved, had done to my people what Germany did, I would change my name, rip up my passport, see a hypnotist to make me forget the language, and boycott all things coming from that country.

chanchy123

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 11:06 am

amother wrote:

What city? Johannesburg was overwhemingly Polish Litvaks.

But they came to a community founded by Yekkes as far as I understood. My great grandparents must have arrived in the 1920s or thereabouts.

amother

Slateblue

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 11:06 am

amother wrote:

We boycott all German products. I would never ever drive a BMW or Mercedes or VW. My grandparents want nothing to do with Germany as a country and never ever went back since they left. But they're not giving up their minhagim and they're not giving up their first language. They don't want to forget the bedtime stories their parents read them or the recipes they grew up enjoying even though those things are all unequivocally German.

zaq

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 11:13 am

studying_torah wrote:

The first time I heard Torah pronounced Tay-rah I was very confused. I grew up chassidish but went to bais Yaakov type schools, so I guess I'm a mutt.

The first time I actually heard someone daven Booreech attoo elukahynee I almost had to walk out of the sanctuary lest I disgrace myself by bursting out laughing. I had heard that were people who davened this way but until then had never met anyone who did.

mommy3b2c

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 11:18 am

zaq wrote:

Lol. You would crack up from my kids. They speak like that. The funniest part is that they don't look like they would and neither do their friends. It's cute to hear them learn together in those accents. A bunch of modern American looking kids with heavy accents.

amother

Blue

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 11:28 am

amother wrote:

Of course their feelings are understandable re wanting to boycott, but it might be worth mentioning that Germany is a huge supporter of Israel and weapons supplier.

zaq

Thu, Apr 27 2017, 11:41 am

amother wrote:

I consider myself Ashkenazi, as far as minhagim. I'd never call myself litvish, except in the sense of saying that I'm not chassidish, bec I have no family connection to Lithuania.

.

Litvaks don't come just from what is now Lithuania. The Lithuanian Jewish sphere of influence encompassed neighboring countries just as the political entity known as Lithuania encompassed at its peak not only modern-day Lithuania but also Belarus, Ukraine, parts of Poland and Russia, and even a small part of Latvia. Regardless of the extent of Lithuania's political borders at any given point, Jews from these areas generally identified as Litvaks and followed Litvish customs.

Some people use the term "Litvish" to mean "not Chassidish", but this is a misnomer. Then again, so is "misnagdish" since there aren't any true misnagdim any more. We need someone to coin a more apt term.