Ludwig Mayer Books

It’s easy to miss this cramped old shop, tucked away between restaurants and cafés in Jerusalem’s Downtown Triangle. Founded in 1908 by a German bookseller of the same name, Ludwig Mayer Books is one of Jerusalem’s oldest bookshops. Its location and much of its interior have changed little since 1935 when the store opened in the Armenian Quarter. Its shelves are packed full of academic books in English, Hebrew, German and French, covering humanities, philosophy, archaeology, history, Jewish studies and physics. Also available are collections of maps, travel guides and books on Arab-Israeli history as well as numerous antique editions of scholarly works. What makes this place particularly interesting is its expertise in locating hard-to-find and out-of-print books and shipping them abroad to institutions, private collectors and libraries.