»Platzmachen für Gott« – Else Lasker-Schüler , Rabbiner Kurt Wilhelm und der religiöse Liberalismus in Palästina

Abstract

The article traces the involvement of the German-Jewish poetess Else Lasker-Schüler in the diverse activities of the only non-orthodox community in Jerusalem of the 1940s and its founding rabbi, Kurt Wilhelm – himself also a German immigrant. It further demonstrates how Rabbi Wilhelm attempted to transfer to Palestine the tenets of German Jewish liberalism: education, religious tolerance, humanism and meaningful religious services, and how the European Liberal Movement of Judaism supported this endeavour. In addition the essay shows how other prominent German Jewish immigrants like Martin Buber , Hugo Bergmann or Ernst Simon responded to Wilhelm’s liberalism by gathering around his Jerusalem community – and how, as a consequence, this group had a decisive influence on Else Lasker-Schüler ’s final years and works.