I agree, Berlin has a halo that the rest of Germany does not. This said, there is a particular Berlin fetish, amongst Israelis, that's pretty pronounced, and is its own version of this phenomenon. Late in the spring, for example, my wife and I were looking at buying an apartment.
An Israeli friend here turned us on to an Israeli realtor, who had just moved to Berlin from the US, in order to sell property, or so we were told, specifically to other Jews. One building he was selling units in, on Karl Marx Allee, he was apparently trying to fill with Israelis only.
Needless to say, we ended up not doing business with the guy, for all the obvious reasons. His buildings were in far too shitty a condition to consider living in, too.
I saw that Leipzig piece. It was in the New York Times early in the summer, if I remember correctly.
Best, Joel
On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 10:44 AM, Angelus Novus < fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> joel schalit:
>
> > We moved there for work, Angelus.
>
> Hey, hey, I wasn't talking about you, or even about the article. I was
> pointing out that Doug's headline of young Israelis moving to *Germany*
> really isn't accurate.
>
> The point is that Berlin is a very popular city right now. It's not
> *Germany* that is attractive for people, it's Berlin. That's why the New
> York Times reporter projecting so much blahblah about "symbols of
> generational change" or whatever is just ridiculous.
>
> You don't see articles like this about Munich or Dresden. Once a while
> back in some U.S. or English publication I saw a reference to Leipzig being
> the next "hip" city, but everyone who's been to Leipzig knows what a joke
> that is. Leipzig suffers a major case of Berlin inferiority complex and
> likes to pretend it is in the same league.
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
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>
-- joel schalit skype: jschalit tel: +49 1514 0212899 email: jschalit at gmail.com web: www.joelschalit.com