1. See for example Hotam, Yotam, Modern Gnosis and Zionism: The Crisis of Culture, Life Philosophy and Jewish National Thought (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007)Google Scholar; Shumsky, Dimitry, Between Prague and Jerusalem: Prague Zionism and the Idea of a Binational State in ’Ereẓ Yisra'el (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Leo Baeck Institute and Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2010)Google Scholar; Spector, Scott, Prague Territories: National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka's Fin de Siècle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

2. Chanan Lehmann (son of Kurt Lehmann, brother of Alfred and Siegfried), interview by author, Tel Aviv, Israel, May 31, 2007.

3. Expressionism was never a formal artistic movement with which artists explicitly identified themselves. Thus, the definition of Lemm as an expressionist is based on the style and content of his prose, as well as on the fact that he worked and published in journals associated with the expressionist movement, such as Die Aktion.

4. The most comprehensive work on Alfred Lemm is Florian Sendtner's Master's thesis, which includes valuable information on Lemm's life and his publications, an analysis of two of his prose texts, and a discussion of some of his publicist articles. The unpublished thesis has very few references to Lemm's articles on Jewish issues. See Sendtner, “Alfred Lemm—Leben und Werk” (MA thesis, Regensburg University, 1992). Two more articles tracing Lemm's whereabouts and work are: Sendtner, , “‘Phantastisch bis zum Vertrakten’—Der unbekannte expressionistische Schriftsteller Alfred Lemm (1889–1918),” Menora, Jahrbuch für deutsch-jüdische Geschichte (1995): 181–98Google Scholar; Košenina, Alexander, “Neue Lebensspuren des expressionistischen Schriftstellers Alfred Lemm,” Zeitschrift für Germanistik 3 (1995): 600–610 Google Scholar. The following article dicusses one of Lemm's short stories: Williams, Gordon, “Alfred Lemm and Rudyard Kipling: Ironic Commentaries on Women's Wartime Shifts,” Comparative Literature Studies 40, no. 3 (2003): 265–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Lemm's articles were published in various newspapers, most of them associated with avant-garde and radical schools of thought. His articles appeared in the following newspapers and magazines: Die Neue Rundschau, Die Schaubühne, Vossische Zeitung, Das junge Deutschland, Die weissen Blätter, Die Aktion, Die Erde, Das Forum, Der Friede, Der Sturm, Zeit-Echo, Die Tat, and Frankfurter Zeitung. Some of his articles were published in the Jewish press, including Ziel-Jahrbuch, Das jüdische Prag, Neue Jüdische Rundschau, Neue Jüdische Monatshefte, and Der Jude. The most comprehensive bibliography of Lemm's texts appears in Sendtner, “Alfred Lemm—Leben und Werk.”

6. Bürgin, Hans and Mayer, Hans-Otto, eds., Die Briefe Thomas Manns, Regesten und Register, Band 1: 1889–1933 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1976), 227Google Scholar, quoted in Florian Sendtner, “‘Phantastisch bis zum Vertrakten,’” 187: “etwas Grotesk-Seelenhaftes … etwas wie eine Schüler- und Nachkommenschaft.”

7. Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer, 29 September 1916, in Kafka, Franz, Briefe an Felice und andere Korrespondenz aus der Verlobungszeit, ed. Heller, Erich and Born, Jürgen (1976; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993), 713Google Scholar, quoted in Sendtner, “‘Phantastisch bis zum Vertrakten,’” 184.

8. Lemm, Alfred, “Weltflucht,” in Ego und Eros, Meistererzählungen des Expressionismus, ed. Otten, Karl (Stuttgart: Goverts, 1963), 336–53Google Scholar; Lemm, Alfred, “Weltflucht,” in Prosa des Expressionismus, ed. Martini, Fritz (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1970), 245–63Google Scholar. “Weltflucht” may be translated as “flight from the world” but also as “escapism.” The first translation is more suitable to the content of the story, though the second translation will also be taken into consideration later in this paper, when interpreting Lemm's opinions.

9. Lemm, “Weltflucht,” 67: “Tatsächlich hatten keine grosse Ereignisse oder dramatischen Erlebnisse seinen Lebensgang angehalten. Schon das Wenige, das er als Zuschauer rechts und links von seinem ruhigen Wegen sah, kleine aber bedeutsame Proben der Wirklichkeit genügten, in seinem Herzen den Entschluss entstehen zu lassen. Ihn auszuführen schien ihm viel leichter als weiter sich einem Dasein zu verpflichten, das unterwegt des hohe Reich der eigenen Seele herabkorrigieren wollen.”

10. I thank Galili Shahar for this insight.

11. The list of oversensitive characters includes Henry (“Weltflucht”), Bernhard (“Fias Hochzeit”), Salomea (“Die Hure Salomea”), Reinhold (“Der arme Reinhold”), and Felician, the protagonist of Lemm's only novel, Der Fliehende Felician (Munich: Georg Müller, 1917)Google Scholar. Excluding Reinhold, they all die from what seems to be part suicide, part exhaustion.

12. Lemm, Alfred, “Der Herr mit den gelben Brille” (verfasst 1915), in Mord–Erzählungen, vol. 2 (Munich-Pasing: Roland Verlag, Dr. Albret Mundt, 1918), 9–18 Google Scholar.

13. Bogner, Ralf Georg, Einführung in die Literatur des Expressionismus (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges., 2005), 66Google Scholar.

14. Lemm, “Die Hure Salomea” (written 1917), in Mord—Erzählungen, vol. 1 (Munich-Pasing: Roland Verlag, Dr. Albret Mundt, 1918), 9–42 Google Scholar; “Der arme Reinhold” (written 1913), Mord, vol. 1, 44–65.

15. Lemm, a, Der Fliehende Felician (Munich: Georg Müller, 1917)Google Scholar.

16. Lemm, Der Fliehende Felician.

17. Max Brod as quoted in Bartels, Adolf, Die Deutsche Dichtung der Gegenwart (Leipzig: H. Haessel, 1921), 222Google Scholar, in turn quoted in Sendtner, “Alfred Lemm—Leben und Werk,” 63–64.

18. In Lemm's prewar prose there is only one character whose Jewishness is specifically mentioned, Austrian Jewish poet Weinbaum, who appears in Der Fliehenden Felician. Some of Lemm's contemporaries claimed that Weinbaum's character resembles a real Austrian Jew, Otto Weininger (1880–1903). In his controversial book, Sex and Character, Weininger exposed his antisemitic, homophobic, and misogynist world view. See Weininger, Otto, Geschlecht und Charakter: eine prinzipielle Untersuchung (Vienna: Braumüller, 1903)Google Scholar. On the similarities between Weinbaum and Weininger see Sendtner, “Alfred Lemm—Leben und Werk,” 48–49. In a review of Der Fliehenden Felician in Die Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, Ludwig Geiger suggested that two more characters in the novel might be Jewish, though the only indication for this is the Jewish sound of their names: crazy architect Deutsch and leader of the rural commune, Ruth. See Geiger, Ludwig, “Rezension zum ‘Fliehenden Felician,’” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 8, no. 32, August 10, 1917, 383–84Google Scholar. Geiger stated that while the novel as a whole suffers from exaggeration and immaturity characteristic of a first novel, it nevertheless demonstrates the author's talent and capability and “one might hope that [in the future] the vinegar will turn into drinkable wine.”

19. Anz, Thomas, Literatur des Expressionismus (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2002), 132–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bogner, Einführung in die Literatur, 51.

20. Bogner, Einführung in die Literatur, 55–56.

21. Lemm, Alfred, “Vom Wesen der wahren Vaterlandsliebe,” in Schriften gegen die Zeit, vol. 3 (Berlin: Heinz Berger, 1917)Google Scholar.

22. Lemm wrote to writer Annette Kolb, a promoter of Franco-German understanding, asking that his essay be translated into French, but the plan did not materialize. For more on this matter see Sendtner, “‘Phantastisch bis zum Vertrakten,” 192–93.

23. Alfred Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden,” Selbstwehr—Unabhängige jüdische Wochenschrift, February 11, 1916, 3; Lemm, Alfred, Der Weg der Deutschjuden—Eine Skizzierung (Leipzig: Der Neue Geist, 1919), 4–5 Google Scholar.

24. For more information on the “Jewish Census” during WWI see Meyer, Michael A., Lowenstein, Steven M., and Brenner, Michael, eds., German Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3, Integration in Dispute (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 370–78Google Scholar.

25. On the “cult of the Ostjuden” and the ambiguous stance towards eastern European Jewish culture, see Aschheim, Steven E., Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800–1923 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982)Google Scholar, esp. 185–214; Brenner, Michael, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 142–48Google Scholar.

26. Alfred Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden,” Die Tat. Sozial-religiöse Monatsschrift für deutsche Kultur, February 1916, 946–57. The article from Die Tat was published shortly thereafter also in the Jewish paper Selbstwehr, in three consecutive parts: Alfred Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden,” Selbstwehr—ein jüdisches Volksblatt, February 11, 1916, 3–5; “Wir Deutschjuden (Fortsetzung),” February 18, 1916, 2–4; “Wir Deutschjuden—Nach und Hauptwort,” February 25, 1916, 3–4.

27. Die Kulturbewegung Deutschlands im Jahr 1913—Ein Verzeichnis der Neuerscheinungen des Verlages Eugen Diderichs (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1913)Google Scholar, unnumbered page: “Sie umfasst alles, was ernsthaft der Erneuerung des Lebens zustrebt” (my translation, emphasis in original).

28. Scott Spector and Stephan Eric Bronner made similar arguments regarding the German-speaking avant-garde in general and the expressionists in particular; Bronner, Stefan Eric, “Paris and Berlin 1900–1933,” New German Critique 16 (Winter 1979): 149–50Google Scholar: “As a whole, what bound an avant-garde movement together was the member's alienation from the status quo.… [T]he most diverse artists could interact with one another precisely because opposition was the crucial factor in terms of unity. The point becomes even clearer in a display of books published by the Kurt Wolff Verlag. More than in America, German publishing houses retained a certain socio-political orientation; … the Kurt Wolff Verlag was known for publishing avant-gardists, The list is fascinating: Barres, Kafka, Benn, Becher, Claudel, Brod, and Jarnmes are just a sample. Quite a group, with little that might unite them except the idea that they stood in opposition to the positivist-rationalist bourgeoisie and its notion of progress.” In his study of the “Prague circle” (which included, among others, Franz Kafka, Max Brod, and Franz Werfel), Scott Spector, too, opposes the liberal humanistic image of German expressionism in general and the Prague circle in particular. He emphasizes the similarities between the expressionists’ attack on modernity and the antimodernism propagated by the volkist Right in Germany. The main enemy of the Prague circle, claims Spector, was not the volkist movement (although they distanced themselves from it), but the liberal bourgeois world of their parents. See Spector, Prague Territories, 94–115. George Mosse actually went further when arguing that volkist ideas influenced Jewish national thought. Mosse, George L., “The Influence of the Volkish Idea on Germany Jewry,” in Germans and Jews: The Right, the Left, and the Search for a “Third Force” in Pre-Nazi Germany (London: Orbach and Chambers, 1971), 77–115 Google Scholar.

29. Alfred Lemm, “Grossstadt Unkultur und die Juden,” Der Jude, August 1916, 326: “Wie alle Westeuropäer sich nach dem Osten, vermutlich nach Rssland wenden werden, um sich von dort neue Kraft zur Heiligung zu holen, so die Westjuden zu ihren östlichen Stammgenossen.”

30. On the relationship between German Jewry and eastern European Jewry, and on the image of the Ostjuden, see Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers.

31. Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” 53: “[W]enn in der ganzen westlich-europäischen Welt von dem gegenwärtigen Vernichtungskampf nur den restlos ‘europäische’ Menschentypus übrig bliebe, der die Realität so über alle Massen beherrscht, jener kriegerische Typus, der ja den gegenwärtigen Kampf heraufbrachte und in Zukunft auch nur auf das äussere Macht sänne, womit Europa für innere Kultur nicht mehr in Frage käme. Liegt doch in der Palästinasehnsucht der heutigen Juden schon ein gut Teil Europa- und Weltflucht.”

32. Lemm, “Grossstadt Unkultur und die Juden,” 319–26.

33. For a discussion of Weimar culture as a visual and extroverted culture, emphasizing the outward appearance of things, see Ward, Janet, Weimar Surfaces: Urban Visual Culture in 1920s Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

34. In Lemm's articles and essays the terms Volk and Nation, as well as the terms Land and Heimat, are frequently interchanged.

35. Alfred Lemm, “Galizisches Tagebuch,” Zeit-Echo 1915–1916, January 1916, 116–21; Lemm, “Aufzeichnungen eines Krankenträgers,” Zeit-Echo 1915–1916, April 1916, 211–16; Lemm, “Fahrt durch Polen,” Frankfurter Zeitung, September 3, 1916. “Fahrt durch Polen” was also published in Selbstwehr—Unabhängige jüdische Wochenschrift, September 15, 1916, 2–5.

36. Lemm, “Galizisches Tagebuch,” 120.

37. Alfred Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden—Nach und Hauptwort,” Selbstwehr—Unabhängige jüdische Wochenschrift, February 25, 1916, 4.

38. Alfred Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden (Fortsetzung),” Selbstwehr, February 18, 1916, 2; also in Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” 21: “Was kann unsere deutsche Sprache ersetzen?”

39. Alfred Lemm, “Von der Aufgabe der Juden in Europa,” Der Jude, 1917, 307–18. In 1916, Martin Buber, Gustav Landauer, and Alfred Lemm all held lectures at Siegfried Lehmann's newly opened Jüdisches Volksheim. It is plausible to assume that Lemm attended Buber's and Landauer's lectures. In addition, Lemm's article was published in Buber's paper Der Jude. Either way, Buber's influence is discernable in both the theoretical and practical elements of the article—in the essential and romantic stance, in viewing Hasidism as an extreme embodiment of the Oriental soul, and so on—as well as in the many positive references to Buber's and Landauer's works. On Buber's distinction between the Western and Oriental soul, see Buber, Martin, “Das Orient und das Judentum,” in Vom Geist des Judentums—Reden und Geleitworte, vol. 1 (Munich: Kurt Wolff, 1916), 9–48 Google Scholar.

40. Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden,” Selbstwehr, February 18, 1916, 3.

41. For example Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” 20: “Das, was als Sein in jenem Typus deutscher Juden ist, den wir darstellen, - und nur sie, die ‘Deutschjuden’, umgreift unsere Forderung - verträgt nach der jüdischen Seite hin nur so viel Erweiterung, als die unbefriedigte deutsche nicht Einspruch erhebt” (my emphasis).

42. Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” 21: “[S]o haben wir doch zu tief Deutsches eingeatmet, als dass wir es exstirpieren könnten, ohne uns die Luftwege zu beschädigen … Wir vergassen nicht Jerusalem. Nun aber können wir Deutschland nicht vergessen … Palästina ist uns eine kostbare Erinnerung, kein Gebrauchsraum … Unser So-Sein lässt sich in einem Leben nicht ändern; lässt man einen Teil absterben, verkümmert das Ganze” (my translation, emphasis in original). See also in Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden, Selbstwehr, February 18, 1916, 2.

43. Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” 21: “Wir selbst, die Lebenden, sind verfahren und verflucht. Nur unsere Nachkommen haben Aussicht auf Erlösung. Was die Deutschjuden für sich selbst nicht erreichen können, vermögen sie an ihren Kindern.… Die geistige Trennung zwischen dem Deutsch Juden und seinen Nachkommen ist die Konsequenz, die er ziehen muss, wenn er für die Gesundung seines Volkes eintreten und dennoch die eigene geistige Ungeteiltheit sich erhalten will … Sie müssen für das zukünftige Volksideal ein Opfer bringen … dadurch, dass eine gewisse Entfernung zwischen ihnen und ihren Kindern sein wird.”

44. Lemm's last essay, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” is the most comprehensive of his texts on Jewish matters. Although it includes parts from earlier articles, it is not a mere summary of the previous articles. It is, therefore, necessary to treat each of Lemm's articles separately, in order to follow the changes and developments in his thought through the years.

45. Alfred Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden.”

46. Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden,” 3–4.

47. Eduard Färber, “Wir Deutschjuden—eine Entgegnung,” Selbstwehr—ein jüdisches Volksblatt, April 7, 1916, 1–2.

48. Ludwig Strauss, review of “Wir Deutschjuden,” by Alfred Lemm, Der Jude, April 1916, 60: “Was die Idee des ‘Mittellandes’ betrifft, so hat, scheint mir, dem Verfasser hier der Evolutionsgedanke das Bild der Tatsachen verschoben. Die östjüdische Kultur ist dem Westjuden ebenso fern we die entstehende neuhebräische.”

49. Strauss himself immigrated to Israel in 1935, and from 1938 worked as a teacher at the Ben Shemen Youth Village.

50. For more on the Der Aufbruch circle, see Lunn, Eugene, Prophet of Community: The Romantic Socialism of Gustav Landauer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 249–51Google Scholar.

51. Alfred Lemm to Martin Buber, 15 April 1916; reprinted in Košenina, “Neue Lebensspuren,” 603.

52. Lemm came up with the idea of establishing a Jewish university already in 1915 (at the latest), before he began publishing articles on Jewish matters. In October 1915, Lemm sent Martin Buber a detailed plan for the future Jewish university. The letter and the plans for the university are found in the Martin Buber Archive at the National Library in Jerusalem, Israel. The letter (without the plan) is reprinted in Košenina, “Neue Lebensspuren,” 603.

53. Lemm, “Grossstadt Unkultur und Juden,” 325–26.

54. Lemm, “Wir Deutschjuden,” 4: “Jenes Land als ein grosses Filter, aus dem in jahrzehntelanger Klärung wieder ein reineres Judentum hervortropft.”

55. Lemm dedicated the second part of his essay to an assessment of the situation of eastern European Jewry: Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” part 2, 23–36.

56. Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” 36: “Solche Erziehungsstätten müssen, um die Jugend einer lebendigen volklichen Beeinflussung auszusetzen, innerhalb eines geschlossenen stammjüdischen Milieus stehen.”

57. Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” 37.

58. Ibid., 38.

59. Lemm was referring to the “community of the free school” (die Freie Schulgemeinde) in Wickersdorf, Thuringia, established by Wyneken and Paul Geheeb in 1906. Wyneken opposed the authoritarianism of the German education system and supported far-reaching pedagogical reforms. He called for the development of an authentic and autonomous “youth culture” through which youth could express itself, and from which the future culture would develop. Wyneken also claimed that a “free and healthy education … can only take place in rural surroundings,” far away from the negative influence of the big city and the parents and close to nature. The proximity to nature also supported the physical dimension of his educational vision: hygiene, sports, agriculture, and hiking. Wyneken had a big influence on the German youth movement in the early twentieth century. However, he failed to impact the established education system in Germany, and it was rather the Soviet government that expressed interest in his ideas, and put some of them into practice in the 1920s. See Gustav Wyneken and Paul Geheeb, Programm der Freien Schulgemeinde Wickersdorf (1906) [KO], Archiv der deutschen Jugendbewegung, Burg Ludwigstein, Akte 994; Laqueur, Walter Z., Young Germany: A History of the German Youth Movement (New York: Basic Books, 1962), 54Google Scholar.

60. Various plans for strengthening Jewish education were mentioned in letters written by Lemm, Hugo Bergmann, Ernst Joël, and others to Martin Buber. For more details, see the following letters: Ernst Joël to Martin Buber, 11 March 1916, in Buber, , Briefwechsel aus sieben Jahrzehnten, vol. 1: 1897–1918, ed. Schaeder, Grete (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1972), 420–22Google Scholar: Joël suggests his own educational plan and compares it with the plans of Rudolf Leonhard and Lemm; Bergmann, Hugo to Buber, Martin, 30 December 1918, in The Letters of Martin Buber: A Life of Dialogue. ed. Glatzer, Nahum and Mendes-Flohr, Paul, trans. Richard, and Winston, Clara and Zohn, Harry (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996), 237Google Scholar: Bergmann writes Buber that if he plans to immigrate to Palestine soon, he must take with him a group of people that would “join forces around you for common action: as a preparatory committee of the university or as the faculty of an adult institution (your old college plan and Lemm's ideas)”; Alfred Lemm to Martin Buber, [Autumn 1917?], in Košenina, “Neue Lebensspuren,” 606: Lemm sent Buber his manuscript dealing with the establishment of a new Jewish settlement in Germany (perhaps it is the manuscript of Lemm's last and lost book) and encouraged him to promote his plan or to connect him with a group of Zionist activists of whom he heard, which was also trying to establish a Jewish garden city in Germany.

61. Letter from Lemm to Buber, [Autumn 1917?], and letter from Lemm to Siegfried Bernfeld, June 1918, both reprinted Košenina, “Neue Lebensspuren,” 606.

62. On Bernfeld see Laqueur, Young Germany, 61; Margalit, Elkana, “Social and Intellectual Origins of the Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movement,” Journal of Contemporary History 4 (April 1969): 25–46 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63. An advertisement on the first page of Lemm's volume of short stories, Mord, declares that a book bearing that title is currently in preparation.

64. Sendnter, “Phantastisch bis zum Vertrakten,” 195.

65. As mentioned below, in 1917 Lemm sent Buber a manuscript (from which he has only a limited number of copies, he wrote) dealing with the idea of a Jewish settlement in Germany. In 1918, he sent Bernfeld a text regarding what he termed Siedlungsarbeit. Alexander Košenina claims that in both cases Lemm is referring to the lost manuscript, though in my opinion it is also possible that he was referring to the essay “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” which appeared in 1919 (see Košenina, “Neue Lebensspuren,” nn. 64, 81). In addition, in an article by Siegfried Lehmann from 1918/1919, Lehmann refers to Lemm's project of a Jewish settlement, putting the words “Siedlung neben die Stadt” in quotation marks, which may indicate that he is referring to Lemm's lost manuscript holding the same name. See Siegfried Lehmann, “Notwendigkeit der neuen Gemeinschaft: Beitrag zum Programm einer neuen jüdischen Jugendgemeinschaft,” Jerubbaal. Eine Zeitschrift der jüdischen Jugend, 1918–19, 90.

66. Anonymous, as quoted in Sendtner, “Phantastisch bis zum Vertrakten,” n. 36: “Die Siedlungsidee war seine [Lemms] Utopie, seine Heilslehre, die Verkündigung seines Paradieses. Ihn, der warmen Herzens in die Politik greifen wollte, zeichnete aus, das er keinen Vorteil der Mechanisierung, keinen Gewinn der Zivilisation, keine Verstärkung durch Organisation opfern wollte. Inh trieb nicht Weltflucht (so der Titel einer Erzählung Lemms), sondern Menschenliebe: seine Siedlung soll neben der Stadt liegen, es gibt keinen‚ Zurück zur Natur’, es darf und kann nur vorwärts gehen, nach unserer Natur.”

67. Maybe Lemm's pragmatism is actually one of the characteristic features of utopian thought at the time. In 1929, German Jewish sociologist Karl Mannheim published his book Ideology and Utopia, in which he tried to define utopian thought. According to Mannheim, it must exceed the current reality while offering a concrete plan for change in that reality. One of most important criteria for ideology and utopia is feasibility. Following Mannheim, we may return to judge Lemm's vision as a utopia. See Mannheim, Karl, Ideologie und Utopie (1929; Frankfurt am Main: Cohen, 1965), 178Google Scholar.

68. Siegfried Lehmann, unpublished draft of a lecture, 1942, as quoted in Naor, Mordechai and Giladi, Dan, Ben Shemen Youth Village—70 Years, 1927–1997 (in Hebrew) (Ben Shemen: ’El Ha-kefar, 1997), 17Google Scholar.

69. Salomon Lehnert (Siegfried Lehmann), “Jüdische Volksarbeit,” Der Jude, May 1916, 109.

70. Ibid.

71. Siegfried Lehmann, “Notwendigkeit der Neuen Gemeinschaft,” 85–91.

72. Ibid., 89–91.

73. Ibid., 89–90.

74. Simon, Ernst Akiba, “Dr. S. Lehmann's pedagogical path” (in Hebrew), in Lehmann, Siegfried, Idea and Realiztion: Speeches and Conversations, prepared for publication by Yekel, Avraham, trans. from manuscripts by Hochberg, Hannah (Tel Aviv: Tarbut Ve-ḥinukh, 1962), 16Google Scholar. See also Weiner, Anita, Away from Home: The History of Child Placement in the Land of Israel during the British Mandate (in Hebrew) (Ramat Gan: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad and Sifriyat Po‘alim, 1984), 91Google Scholar: “Ben Shemen, like other youth villages [in Israel] was aimed without exception at orphans or children whose parents remained in their countries of origin.”

75. Weiner, Away from Home, 15.

76. Naor and Giladi, Ben Shemen Youth Village, 30.

77. Simon, “Dr. S. Lehmann's pedagogical path,” 15–34.

78. See for example: Siegfried Lehmann, Die Anarchie als Grundlage der jüdischen Gemeinschaft (Leipzig: O. Brandstetter, n.d.), 16.

79. Buckmann, Elisabeth, Ben Shemen: integration zweier Kulturen in einem israelischen Kinderdorf (Frankfurt am Main: Deutsches Institut für Internationale Padagogische Forschung, 1965), 9–16 Google Scholar; Norman De Mattos Bentwich, Ben-Shemen: A Children's Village in Israel (Jerusalem: Jewish Agency, 1959)Google Scholar; Weiner, Away from Home, 66–68; Naor and Giladi, Ben Shemen Youth Village, 29.

80. Naor and Giladi, Ben Shemen Youth Village, 17: “In retrospect it is possible to assume that Alfred's worldview and beliefs deeply influenced his younger brother, Siegfried, who put them into practice.” Sendtner, “Alfred Lemm—Leben und Werk,” 11: “[Lemm] dealt with the theoretical background of Siegfried Lehmann's practical work.”

81. Siegfried Lehmann, “Rural Education” (in Hebrew), in Idea and Realization: Speeches and Conversations, 164–65.

82. Tramer, Hans, “Der Expressionismus. Bemerkungen zum Anteil der Juden an einer Kunstepoche,” Bulletin für die Mitglieder der Gesellschaft der Freunde des Leo-Baecks Instituts 5 (1958): 33–56 Google Scholar.

83. Max Brod, “Unsere Literaten und die Gemeinschaft,” Der Jude, 1916/17, 457–64. As quoted in Horch, Hans Otto, “Expressionismus und Judentum. Zu einer Debatte in Martin Bubers Zeitschrift ‘Der Jude,’” in Modernitat des Expressionismus, ed. Anz, Thomas and Stark, Michael (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1994), 127–28Google Scholar.

84. Rudolf Kayser, “Der neue Bund,” Der Jude, 1918/19, 523–29. As quoted in Horch, “Expressionismus und Judentum,” 129–30.

85. Alfred Wolfenstein, “Jüdisches Wesen und Dichtertum,” Der Jude, April 1922, 428–40. As quoted in Horch, “Expressionismus und Judentum,” 131.

86. See Lemm, “Grossstadt Unkultur und Juden”; “Von der Aufgabe der Juden in Europa”; “Der Weg der Deutschjuden.”

87. According to Lemm, the “Jewish essence” of German Jews (and, it is implied, of artists of Jewish origin) manifests itself, for example, in the use of the German language. Lemm points to the existence of a “minor language” (to use the term coined by Delleuze and Guattari)—a specific Jewish use of the German language. “Most German Jews speak and write a slightly different German—perceptible only with a most delicate sense—than native Germans. … As a whole, German Jews are Germans in as far as their sensitivity to the German language extends, and Jewish in as much as they change it” (emphasis in original). Lemm, “Der Weg der Deutschjuden,” 6–8. In German: “Die Mehrzahl der deutschen Juden spricht und schreibt ein irgendwie anderes Deutsch – nur dem feinsten Empfinden spürbar – als die Stammdeutschen … Im ganzen sind die deutsche Juden so viel Deutsche, als ihr Empfinden in der deutsche Sprache aufgeht, und um so viel Juden, als sie sie verändern” (emphasis in original).

88. Horch, “Expressionismus und Judentum,” 133–34.

89. Ibid., 120.

90. Rejection of modern urban culture is partially present already in Herzl's exposition to Altneuland, though Herzl's Zionist vision described in the rest of the book still includes modern cities as an indispensable component.

91. Tramer, “Der Expressionismus,” 35. On the reaction of German Jewish intellectuals to the cultural crisis experienced by Wilhelmine Germany, see Milfull, John, “Marginalität und Messianismus. Die Situation der deutsch-jüdischen Intellektuellen als Paradigma für die Kulturkrise 1910–1920,” in Expressionismus und Kulturkrise, ed. Hüppauf, Bernd (Heidelberg: Winter, 1983), 147–58Google Scholar.

92. In that case his life might have been similar to that of Peter Zadek, the son of Susi, Lemm's wife. Several years after Lemm's death, his widow, Susi Behr-Lehmann, remarried. In 1934, after the Nazis rose to power, she immigrated with her husband and son to London. After the Second World War, her son Peter returned to Germany and became one of the greatest and most admired theatre directors in German-speaking theatre. Zadek is an example of a German Jew who was deeply involved in the cultural life of Germany.