These are a Few of Our Favorite Things

On By B2G

Tell me you’re a Yekke.  

“I come on time”  

That is kind of cliche.  

Let’s talk about smaller things that unite us. 

(Besides, I’m not that good at coming on time.) 

So here goes… 

  1. Coming on time. There are many levels of this. You may not be good at this, but you may have a hard time when people totally ignore time. My father z’l always lectured us about coming on time. I I would tell him that the event I was going to never starts on time. He would reply, “So you be the first one there!” “Come early and then you can relax.” “These people are shluchs, don’t try to imitate them.” I can hear these commands as I type this now.  

There is a story in my family. A cousin married a Yemenite girl in Israel. Her parents lived in a remote town. They hosted Shabbos Sheva Brachos. My parents came early, the rest of the guests came right before Shabbos. When my parents arrived they found out that ALL the guests would share a large bedroom. This included several married couples and a young Kollel couple too! (Apparently, this family had not caught up with the century and thought they were still in Biblical Yemen!)  

Because my parents came early they told the family that none of the guests could stay together and arrangements were quickly made. They thereby saved a lot of people from an uncomfortable situation. 

  1. We like European type foods. (I think we do?) These include: Chocolate cakes with cherries in them. Coffee. Cinamonny Spicey cakes.  Cookies with Jelley in them. Coffee. Butter on fresh bread. The Mandlebroid with the candied fruit in them. Coffee. MAYONAISE on everything. (Except potato salad where it is conspicuously absent.) Radishes. Fruit soup. Insert your family’s thing here:_____________. Coffee. 
  2. We have some interesting types of people in our community that other communities don’t always have. This includes: People who know other people’s birthdays or Bar Mitzvah parshas decades later. People who call each other on very specific dates for many years. People who have been chavrusos for decades. People who have attended a shiur for decades. Grown men who still get bensched by aging parents.  
  3. We like order. How do I know? I have been to several Jewish communities in North America and Canada where I have walked in the Shul and found that the Gabai is a Yekke- or WH expatriate. I found a Wimple on the Torah in the Toronto Community Kollel. I was given an Aliyah in the YI of Hancock Park (LA) by an Eschwege.  I did an informal survey a while ago and received answers like: YI of Riverdale (Dr M Katzenstien HIR (L Metzger) Yereim of Detroit (Roberg) The White Shul (Bruckstien) Shomrei in Baltimore (Taragin/Froehlich) Bais Avigdor Flatbush (Rothschild) and perhaps more? 

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