40
PA RTISAN REVI EW
A few steps further down, at 6 Balfour Street, Salman Schocken, the
Germa n-Jewish department store magnate, pu bl isher, a nd book collec–
tor, had a very substantial library built in
1935
which contained many
exceedingly rare manuscripts. Schocken's home, one of the most impres–
sive in Talbiyeh, was around the corner on a side street (now Smolen–
skin Street). Schocken had known Erich Mendelssohn, one of the most
famous architects of the time, in Germany where Mendelssohn had
designed some of the leading Schocken department stores; the one in
Stuttgart can be found in most histories of modern architecture.
Mendelssohn stayed in Palestine for a few years in the late 1930S, built
many private and public houses, and later went to the United States, as
Schocken did in his old age.
Mendelssohn loved Talbiyeh and at the southern end of Balfour Street
built a windmill, a landmark to this very day, which served as both his
office and apartment. He liked the light of Talbiyeh, especially in the late
afternoon, which he thought was the light Rembrandt had tried to
depict; he even named one of the balconies in the Schocken library
"Rembrandt." The Schocken villa was (and probably still is) one of the
most expensive buildings in Talbiyeh. Soon after the war it became the
headquarters of General Barker, the commander-in-chief of British
troops in Palestine, who suggested that one should hit the Palestinian
Jews (who caused him much annoyance at the time) where it hurt them
most, namely in their pockets. But the pockets of the Palestinian Jews at
the time were not deep and Barker's strategy was ineffectual. After the
British had left, Salman Schocken tried to sell his villa for two hundred
thousand Israeli pounds. The state of Israel wanted it as the official res–
idence of the president, but Izhak Ben Zvi (who succeeded Weizmann,
the first president) and his wife found the house too ostentatious and
luxurious, not commensurate with their modest lifestyle, and it eventu–
ally became the Rubin Academy of Music.
Next
to
the Schocken villa now is the official residence of the Israeli
prime minister. This house was built in
1936-38
by Edward Aghion, a
wea lthy Greek Jew from Alexandria. Many other prominent Jewish citi–
zens of Jerusalem lived in Talbiyeh, including some of the better-off intel–
lectuals such as Martin Buber, and they often belonged to the league of
Arab-Jewish rapprochement then ca ll ed lchud. At the time, lchud pub–
lished a monthly called
Beayot (Problems)
for which I occasionally wrote.
As a result I came to know most of the leading members of the group,
such as Hugo Bergmann and Ernst Simon, who lived a few hundred yards
from Buber. There were no clear borders between Talbiyeh, a mixed
neighborhood; Rechavia, which was entirely Jewish; and Katamon,
