Abstract
The following article deals with the story of two German Jewish brothers, Alfred Lemm and Siegfried Lehmann. The first—a forgotten journalist and writer, the second—a doctor and educator, the founder of the Ben Shemen Youth Village in Mandate Palestine. Through the specific story of the two brothers, the article traces the path of messianic antiurban ideas prevalent in expressionist avant-garde circles in pre–World War I Europe, to the circles of German Jewish Zionism and from them to Palestine-Israel. Though German expressionism was itself an urban intellectual phenomenon, expressionist prose often exemplified antiurban and antimodern sentiments, as in the case of Lemm's prose. According to Lemm, redemption from the ills of modern society shall be found in withdrawal from the modern city and return to physical and metaphysical “roots.” Lemm's antiurban attitude influenced his brother Siegfried and found its full manifestation in the founding of the Ben Shemen Youth Village in 1927.
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