We Were Europeans: A Personal History of a Turbulent Century by Werner M. Loval, Gefen Publishing House, 2010, ISBN 9789652295224, 520 pages including index, no price listed.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — Although he is not a household name, Werner M. Loval has led a life that has brought him into contact with numerous political leaders of the 20th and 21st Century. He is a leader in many Israeli circles –real estate, Reform Judaism and Rotary Club among them – and also has a following in his homeland of Germany and in two of the countries to which he was accredited as an Israeli diplomat, Guatemala and Mexico.
Born Werner Löbl in Bamberg, Germany, his book tells of his distinguished heritage in that country—his Yekke yichis as Israelis might say—and moves on to the Nazi era, which he and his older sister Erika were fortunate enough to escape via the kindertransport to England. Eventually, their parents also were able to take the long way out of Germany—across the eastern frontier, through the Russian Empire, to the Pacific, thence to San Francisco (where they were not permitted to disembark), and eventually to Ecuador, where they made a new home.
Undeterred by reports of Nazi submarine wolf packs, Erica and Werner, as young teenagers, made their way from England to South America, where they lived until the family could get visas to move to New York. During their time in Ecuador, Werner learned to speak Spanish, which would serve him quite well in later life.
In New York City in the immediate post-World War II period, Löbl (Loval is a Hebraization of his surname), came into contact with Teddy Kollek and other members of the Israeli delegation who were lobbying the United Nations for the partition of British Mandatory Palestine into two countries – one Arab, one Jewish. At the time, prior to most African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries becoming independent, Latin American countries constituted a major block in the nascent world body and Löbl lent his language skills to the diplomatic quest.
Several years later, Israel’s independence having been established, Löbl decided to move to that country, where he eventually became involved in the public relations division of Israel’s foreign ministry, a pleasant job that involved ferrying various dignitaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt, around Israel on official tours. It was during this period, too, that as a young American immigrant, he conceived of building housing projects for English-speaking olim—a precursor of his later real estate career. He helped design, get permits and draw up plans for the fashionable Nayot housing project in Jerusalem.
He met his wife, Pamela Sabel, at a joint meeting in 1955 of the British Olim Society and the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI), and romanced her at a New Year’s Eve party at the Guatemalan Embassy in Jerusalem to which he had been invited by Jorgito Garcia Granados, the charge d’affaires. Their wedding at the King David Hotel drew such dignitaries as Moshe Dayan, Moshe Sharrett, Teddy Kollek, Chaim Herzog, and Zalman Shazar, as well as Granados and a variety of other diplomats whose acquaintances he had made in New York and Jerusalem. The wedding was such a social highlight that clips of it still can be seen in King David Hotel historical films.
Early in the 1960s, Loval (as he was now called) was sent by Israel’s foreign service to Guatemala—the home country of his friend—where Israel maintained an embassy that was officially credentialed to all six Central American countries. He got to know the affluent Jewish community in Guatemala, before being reassigned to Mexico as the charge d’affaires. Among the visitors to Mexico he helped host were Israel’s Foreign Minister Abba Eban (with whom Loval clearly was impressed) and Exodus author Leon Uris.
Representing Israel, Loval also visited Juan Bosch, president of the Dominican Republic, just weeks before he was ousted in a coup d’etat that would lead to the American intervention in that country.
By August 1966, Loval was ready to return to Israel, where he first got into the travel business at the behest of Sir Isaac Wolfson. Later he handled public relations for Tel Aviv University, and finally developed the Anglo-Saxon Real Estate Agency, which specialized in selling properties and occasionally developing them for English-speaking clientele.
Started in Jerusalem, the company expanded to Tel Aviv in partnership there with David Blumberg, and eventually opened offices throughout Israel. While Loval didn’t come right out and say so, he apparently made a ton of money. Pamela meanwhile also was making a name for herself, serving as personal assistant to Aura Herzog, wife of Israel’s President Chaim Herzog.
The couple had four children: Jonathan, an architect; Bennie, successor to Werner in the real estate business; Debbie, a practitioner of alternative medicine, and Daphna, a social worker.
Besides being a personal narrative, Loval’s memoir fills us in on the countries and organizations that became part of his life story. We learn, for example, about the struggles of non-Orthodox Judaism in Israel; the success of Rotary in crossing ethnic boundaries, and the travel opportunities afforded by membership in an international real estate organization. Further, we travel with Loval on numerous return visits to Germany following the war, and watch as he helped to establish the Obermayer German Jewish History Awards recognizing Germans who have confronted and have tried to help their country atone for the awful legacy of the Holocaust.
Loval includes in his book family tree information, excerpts from diaries, photographs, copies of letters from important people, certificates of accomplishment – the full range of scrapbook material from an interesting and noteworthy life.
While one does not get the impression that this is a “tell-all” book – for example, Loval really does not confide why he decided to leave the diplomatic service instead of perhaps climbing to a full ambassador – it is definitely a “tell-enough” book, helping readers to understand from his family’s standpoint many of the events of the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World