Do I Have An Accent?

My father immigrated to Israel in 1950 as a toddler. He was born into a family which had survived the holocaust and had lived under horrible conditions. He had a sister he didn't know, as she passed away during the war when she was 4 years old.

My father's family of five was situated in a transit camp, called "Ma'abarah", and they had lived there in a tin house, under the burning sun of Israel for a couple of years. My father was blond and fair skinned and it didn't take him long to get awful sunburns. His hair turned red and his skin was beaded with freckles.

My father had picked up the language very quickly and had forgotten his mother tongue completely. Instead he had picked up some juicy words in Polish, Hungarian and Arabic from the other kids in the transit camp.

My father had no foreign accent. He spoke Hebrew fluently and no one could tell he was a new immigrant (shy of his red hair and freckles). Both his parents and him like the way he was integrated so quickly in Israel but years later he decided to adopt the rolling 'r' of the Romanians. He does not use it all the time, but some times - in times of happiness or distress - maybe in times he wishes to reconnect with his roots, a rolling 'r' would flicker in his speech.


--Time's up--