They Laid the Foundation: Lives and Works of German-Speaking Jewish Architects in Palestine

Beginning in the 1920s, and especially after the Nazis introduced the Nuremberg Race Laws in the 1930s, more than 130 Jewish architects chose to leave their native Germany and begin afresh in Palestine. Many of them, including Alex Baerwald and Harry Rosenthal, left behind significant buildings that were already central to the urban image of Berlin. Nevertheless, upon arriving in their new desert home, completely unaccustomed to the climate, the culture or the language, these Bauhaus-era repatriates set about laying the foundations of a new society with amazing vigor. This volume, assembled by the Israeli architect Myra Warhaftig, provides comprehensive documentation of works by this first generation of Jewish-Palestinean architects, including kibbutzim, villages and cities with housing developments, hospitals, schools, universities, theaters, administrative buildings, etc. It also includes documentation of the lives and works of many of the most entrepreneurial individuals to escape in the diaspora, who, along with their descendents, laid the foundations of modern-day Israel.