[3] Schornstein kept the Copenhagen position throughout World War I, till 1919,[4] after which he was forced to quit the job due to disagreements with the community leaders who refused aid to the multiple Jewish immigrants that came to Denmark from Russia in those days.

[1] In 1935, Schornstein immigrated to the Land of Israel, and, at the age of 65, opened a pet shop named "Gan Hayot" ("zoo" in Hebrew) in Tel Aviv.

On 25 November 1938, Schornstein handed over ownership of all the animals owned by him to the Zoo Society, in exchange for their transfer to the new location, and provisioning for them.

For a while, Schornstein earned a living by selling pets, but in August 1940 the Tel Aviv municipality forbade him from continuing that activity, leaving him with no source of income.

[12][13] In 1947 he moved to Netanya, where the local municipality gave him a plot of half a dunam — 500 square metres (5,400 sq ft) — for a petting zoo.

[18] A bronze sculpture of Schornstein, created in 1945 by the artist Käthe Ephraim-Marcus, was placed on the Gan Ha'ir site, as a donation by her children Ephraim and Carmela Marcus.