Paper short abstract:

The paper offers a glance at a marginal community in mandate Palestine of the 40's, consisting of Central-European leftist intellectuals, through close examination of a cultural and political initiative of theirs: a periodical issued between the years 1943 and 1945.

Paper long abstract:

Between April 1943 and June 1945 a German-written periodical named 'Heute und Morgen: antifaschistische Revue' appeared in Erez-Israel. The unique group responsible for its establishment consisted of fellow figures rendered exceptional within the general population of the Yishuv: They were Central-European leftists, exiles in their own eyes who regarded Erez-Israel as a Refuge. Though stemming from various geographical and social backgrounds, shared by all were a sense of detachment, continuous affinity to their homelands as well as variable reservations towards the Zionist movement and its leadership in Erez-Israel.

Rooted out of their cultural and linguistic sphere, members of the group sought to constitute an alternative 'field of belonging' in the ever-foreign Levant, within which they could face conflicting components in a split identity, formulate and utter controversial political stands, preserve and further cultivate their affinity to the language of their homeland and to its culture, and maintain bonds with fellow exiles dispersed throughout the globe.

The paper aims at highlighting the roles played by the German language as a 'cultural carrier' in achieving the goals ascribed to the periodical by its founders; evaluating the political observations manifested in the bulletin, based on a careful observation of the manifold term 'Anti-fascism'; and clarifying ambivalent stands introduced in the volumes with regards to topics such as: the 'Jewish Problem' and the Zionist solution, the uniqueness of the Jewish suffering, the question of German guilt and the future of the European continent inclusive of the roles of (Jewish) intellectuals within it.