German Jerusalem

“A mostly compelling chronicle of an oft-overlooked piece of 20th-century European history.”

"Although Scholem’s youthful list of the essential components of Zionism was extreme in its idealism, the basic notions he articulated would have struck a chord with many of the German-speaking Jews from central Europe who, like him, moved to Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. The years during which these figures became a dominating presence in Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighbourhood form the subject of Thomas Sparr’s elegiac, anecdotal study German Jerusalem. For a period of four decades, give or take, a small cast of frequently brilliant polymath émigrés infused this leafy neighbourhood, a few kilometres west of Suleiman the Magnificent’s crenellated old city walls, with the aura of Mitteleuropean melancholy they’d sought to transcend by leaving Germany."

 “an outstanding contribution to image science as well as to the value of visual exegesis in inter-religious studies” 

"While others sang of building Jerusalem 'in England's green and pleasant land', Hitler refugees in the 1930s set about transforming Jerusalem into Weimar-era Berlin. The greatest Weimar poets, thinkers and creators gathered in a couple of elevated neighbourhoods and dreamed an impossible dream. Thomas Sparr brings it brilliantly to life in this scintillating evocation of an intellectual paradise."

"[Sparr’s] tome effectively performs the function of a topographical Gedenkbuch – a memorial book comprised of a dense, spatio-temporal network of names and addresses, recording who settled here when. And, intriguingly, who said what to whom and fell out as a result."

"Jerusalem speaks many languages but in Little Berlin, Rehavia neighborhood of the mid 20th Century, German ruled. Based on intimate knowledge, careful study and eloquent style, Thomas Sparr takes the reader through Rehavia streets to meet with German speaking immigrants  and refugees, follow their debates and hopes as well as wonder on their traces in present Jerusalem."

"I highly recommend this book which brings to life a first-class historical/human story of Rehavia as Jerusalem's intellectual, cultural and architectural landmark."

"Lively and poignant, German Jerusalem captures the key personalities and spirit of a remarkable time and place. This book will no doubt contribute to a greater appreciation of vital aspects of Jerusalem’s history that are in danger of being eclipsed from memory."

"Hongkew in Shanghai, Washington Heights in Manhattan, Swiss Cottage in London – all became homes for Jewish refugees from Germany after 1933. Rehavia in Jerusalem was another such enclave. But it was different because it was largely designed by German Jews themselves, because it harboured the political headquarters of the Jewish National Home, and because of the intellectual character of much of its population. Thomas Sparr, an observant literary-historical flâneur, explores the past and present of the district. He sketches cameos, real and imagined, of the thoughts, actions, and interactions of some of its luminaries, such as the philosopher-theologian Martin Buber, the architect Erich Mendelsohn, the poet and dramatist Else Lasker-Schüler, and the kabbalist Gershom Scholem. As we wander with Sparr into their living-rooms, libraries, and cafés, peer into their correspondence, and overhear their conversations, a unique milieu of modernist culture emerges into view."