GERMAN JERUSALEM

Rehavia, an Israeli neighborhood in the holy city of Jerusalem, is the central focus of this historical survey.

Sparr, publisher at large for German publisher Suhrkamp, tells Rehavia's story by way of its most notable 20th-century inhabitants and visitors. These include well-known figures like Gershom Sholem, Hannah Arendt, and Martin Buber but also lesser-known figures such as Anna Maria Jokl and Mascha Kaléko. “The history of this city district may be told through its geography, architecture, urban planning or chronology,” writes Sparr. “But the decisive thing is the biographies of its inhabitants, who moulded the history of the neighbourhood over decades, just as Rehavia shaped the paths of their lives.” In the years before and after the Shoah and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Sparr contends that Rehavia (Hebrew for “the vastness of God”) endured not only as a refuge for German-Jewish hybrid culture, but as a site of major spiritual, intellectual, and artistic contributions to world history. While ably translated from the original German by Brown, the prose isn’t likely to win any awards. Sparr’s style is straightforward, and the author sometimes breezes past fascinating moments that could have garnered deeper study. The author’s main strength is his ability to weave the many strands he's gathered into a nuanced braid of history from a variety of perspectives. However, such nuanced history is almost exclusively written by and for the victors; readers looking for insight on contemporary Arab-Israeli issues should look elsewhere. Some may wish that Sparr had endeavored to make more connections between traumas endured by the German-Jewish settlers of Rehavia and the experiences of those mostly Arab civilians who were displaced by their arrival. The author instead focuses on intersectionality within Rehavia, privileging as his subject those Jews of German descent who gave the neighborhood its unique character and offered the world its most brilliant minds.

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