Else Lasker-Schüler

Else Lasker-Schüler (1869 – 1945) was a German-Jewish poet. She  won the prestigious Kleist Prize for literature, and was described by Viennese literary critic Karl Kraus as the “greatest lyric poet of modern Germany”. In 1934, after being physically attacked by Nazi Storm Troopers, she fled Germany. Soon after relocating in Palestine, she fell into poverty and bad health.

Like many other German-Jewish scholars and artists, Lasker-Schüler found an intellectual refuge in the newly established Schocken Library in Jerusalem. In 1940, Schocken invited Jerusalem’s intelligentsia to attend a poetry reading by Lasker-Schüler. He also paid her a monthly stipend, and directed the Haaretz newspaper to print translations of her poetry.  A volume of her correspondence with Schocken, Briefe aus dem Exil (Exile Letters) was published in 1986.