Erna Meyer

Erna Konstanze Fanny Karoline Meyer (née Pollack; 13 February 1890 – March 1975) was a German and Israeli home economist and sociologist. She was an active participant of the Women's International Zionist Organization in Palestine. She earned a doctorate in household economics and gained recognition for promoting efficient domestic work and modern home design. After emigrating to Palestine in 1933, she wrote articles and gave lectures and cooking classes. She authored two bestselling books: The New Household, which promoted the rationalization of housework, and How to Cook in Palestine, a cookbook aimed at German-Jewish immigrants.

Early life Erna Pollack was born into an assimilated Jewish family in the German capital, Berlin, on 13 February 1890. She was the youngest of five children and the only daughter. In the 1920s they planned a wooden house in Unterzeismering on Lake Starnberg and settled there in 1927. Her advice was sought by furniture manufacturers and modernist architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and J. J. P. Oud. She took part in the and was involved in exhibitions promoting new models of domestic life—including "The Dwelling" (Die Wohnung), shown in 1927 at the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition at the Weissenhof Estate.

Meyer designed the "Memory Aid for the Housewife", a household card file, in 1930. In 1929, Erna and Arnold Meyer founded the monthly magazine Neue Hauswirtschaft ("New Home Economics"), which brought together contributions from political scientists, psychologists, economists, and social workers. Between 1929 and 1933, Meyer wrote regularly for both architectural periodicals and women's magazines and served as editor of Neue Hauswirtschaft.

Palestine Meyer's husband died in 1932. She was summarily dismissed from her job without notice in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. She consequently left Germany in late 1933 and emigrated to Palestine. During the 1930s, she served in a range of consulting and educational roles, including with the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO) and the Palestine Electric Corporation.

Meyer became active in promoting Zionist approaches to health and nutrition. This included giving lectures on Palestinian cuisine with cooking demonstrations, teaching cooking classes and offering counseling for German housewives, and presenting domestic skills at the 1934 Expo Tel Aviv. She also contributed to the Jüdische Rundschau and maintained a regular column in the Mitteilungsblatt. In 1936, she published her first post-migration cookbook, How to Cook in Palestine, which primarily targeted recent immigrants from Germany. It was widely successful, and Meyer quickly became a well-known figure among homemakers, who even asked her for autographs. In 1940 she published another cookbook, Kitchen Notes in Times of Crisis (Küchenzettel in Krisenzeiten).

Despite her continued involvement after emigration, Meyer was unable to regain the influence that she had once held in Germany. In the following decades, her public profile steadily diminished. She died in March 1975 in Haifa.

Publications