THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

I WAS BORN IN JANUARY 1955 IN GERMANY, SO TO SPEAK. REHAVIAIS the “Little Germany” of Jerusalem, where I was born and raised. It was a literaryplace, and bore the promise of prosperity. The streets were named after Moshe BenMaimon, Maimoni des, Avraham Ibn Ezra, and Shlomo Ibn Gvirol, the medievalscholars and poets of the Iberian Golden Age. The glory of that period was renewedhalf a millennium later in Germany’s modern age, which produced MosesMendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig, and thewonderful Else Lasker-Schüler. This grand but slowly dying German-Jewish traditionfound its way to Rehavia, its final refuge. At the time, there were few places like this,in Israel or elsewhere, where modern Bauhaus architecture distinguished houses onthe outside and heavy, leather-bound German libraries filled the inside.As a young boy, I often would see Martin Buber pacing softly up and down thestreet. I used to think that all streets had Martin Bubers of their own. The Nobellaureate writer S. Y. Agnon visited our home, and I was sure he visited everybody inour neighborhood. Akiva Ernst Simon once complimented me as a child, and Ithought everybody had a Professor Simon to compliment them. Even the skinnychimneysweep, Mr. Arnheim, who rode his noisy Sachs scooter with his blackenedbrooms, provided a connection to Germany. There were many others: The SchockenLibrary was across the street, and Rehov Ben Maimon, the street of my childhood,