Hayim Nahman Bialik - Move To Germany

Move To Germany

Bialik then moved - via Poland and Turkey - to Berlin, where together with his friends Ravnitzky and Shmaryahu Levin he re-established the Dvir publishing house. Bialik published in Dvir the first Hebrew language scientific journal with teachers of the rabbinical college Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums contributing. In Berlin Bialik joined a community of Jewish authors and publishers such as Samuel Joseph Agnon (sponsored by the owner of Schocken Department Stores, Salman Schocken, who later founded Schocken Verlag), Simon Dubnow, Israel Isidor Elyashev (Ba'al-Machshoves), Uri Zvi Greenberg, Jakob Klatzkin (founded Eschkol publishing house in Berlin), Moshe Kulbak, Jakob-Wolf Latzki-Bertoldi (founded Klal publishing house in Berlin in 1921), Simon Rawidowicz (co-founder of Klal), Salman Schneur, Nochum Shtif (Ba'al-Dimion), Shaul Tchernichovsky, elsewhere in Germany Shoshana Persitz with Omanuth publishing house in Bad Homburg v.d.H. and Martin Buber. They met in the Hebrew Club Beith haWa'ad ha'Ivri בית הועד העברי (in Berlin's Scheunenviertel) or in Café Monopol, which had a Hebrew speaking corner, as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's son Itamar Ben-Avi recalled, and in Café des Westens (both in Berlin's more elegant western boroughs). The then still Soviet theatre HaBimah toured through Germany, renowned by Albert Einstein, Alfred Kerr and Max Reinhardt. Bialik succeeded Saul Israel Hurwitz after his death (8 August 1922) as Hebrew chief editor at Klal publishing house, which published 80 titles in 1922. On January 1923 Bialik's 50th birthday was celebrated in the old concert hall of the Berlin Philharmonic bringing together everybody who was anybody. In the years of Inflation Berlin had become a centre of Yiddish and Hebrew and other foreign language publishing and printing, because books could be produced at ever falling real expenses and sold to a great extent for stable foreign currency. Many Hebrew and Yiddish titles were also translated into German. Once the old inflationary currency (Mark) was replaced by the new stable Rentenmark and Reichsmark this period ended and many publishing houses closed or relocated elsewhere, as did many prominent publishers and authors.