The library building constructed in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem (Balfour Street 6) between 1935 and 1936 for the bibliophile businessman and publisher Salman Schocken (1877–1959) is a rarity: Not only is it preserved as an authentic architectural structure, including its interior furnishings, it also continues to serve its original purpose into the present day – since 1961 under the aegis of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Designed by the renowned architect Erich Mendelsohn (1887–1953), who immigrated from Berlin in 1934, it was conceived by Schocken as a semi-public space of academic research and encounter.

Schocken’s book collection, which could be salvaged from Germany just in the nick of time, originally comprised around 60,000 volumes – including numerous original manuscripts, valuable Judaica and Hebraica, as well as first editions of German classics. Mendelsohn created a home for this collection consisting of the outside of a formally reserved two-story structure made from pale limestone (meleke). On the inside, the library exudes a bright, almost cheerful atmosphere. The large reading room on the upper floor, which consists entirely of satinwood, is augmented with a protruding semicircular glass oriel window. Schocken’s precisely cataloged collection of books – which is today no longer located in its entirety in Jerusalem – is housed in three low storage rooms at the rear of the building. The library building occupies almost all of the narrow, elongated property, leaving only a modest strip for plants and a south-facing terrace. In a sense, the Schocken Library represents the architectural presence of a German-Jewish ‘intellectual aristocracy’ in Israel and today testifies to German-Jewish cultural heritage.