Thorsten Schmitz
Thorsten Schmitz (b. 1966) started out as a reporter with the Tageszeitung, freelancing from time to time for Die Zeit and the Frankfurter Rundschau. Since 1998 he has been a correspondent in Israel for the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Updated: 1 December 2010
A film by a German director about the Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky was to premiere at the Berlinale. But it’s been stolen – and the director is afraid. 
Rich man, poor man: as the wealth gap widens in Berlin, the well-heeled are fencing themselves in. They feel safe in their gated communities – if only it weren’t for the neighbours…. The envy. And the protest. 
"You’ve never experienced a city like this one before,” they say. Berlin is the European city of choice for Israelis. Above and beyond bitter remembrances of expulsion and extermination, what they seek there now is, first and foremost, fun.