Grunewald en Oriente

Beginning in 1933, the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem, established as a garden city in the early 1920s, became the epicenter of Israel's German-Jewish community. The writers Else Lasker-Schüler, Gershom Scholem and Martin Buber, among others, arrived there fleeing from Nazi persecution and, together with many of their compatriots, created an authentic German-Jewish microcosm in the country's capital. Although the neighborhood, which had an idyllic location, soon became the focal point of a long divided city, it also represented an important meeting place that promoted the spirit of brotherhood and concord between different peoples. Thomas Sparr gives us a brilliant and vivid account of the unique community of stateless people who found refuge in Jerusalem when they needed it most, as well as the social and political tensions they faced in their search for a new home.