  We suggest that breaking of SU(3) flavor symmetry mainly resides in the
baryon wave--functions while the charge operators have no (or only small)
explicit symmetry breaking components. We utilize the collective coordinate
approach to chiral soliton models to support this picture. In particular we
compute the $g_A/g_V$ ratios for hyperon beta--decay and the strangeness
contribution to the nucleon axial current matrix elements and analyze their
variation with increasing flavor symmetry breaking.
