Review by Booklist Review
Part historical travelogue and part sociopolitical commentary, Elon's provocative study of Jerusalem contrasts the traditional images of the revered city, sacred to three faiths, with the ironic reality that Jerusalem has actually suffered over the years. Although Elon reaches back to biblical times to uncover the origins of the city, he is especially concerned with present conditions and the future. Reunited after the 1967 war, Jerusalem still faces internal social conflicts, not just between Jews, Christians, and Moslems, but between factions within each of these groups. This state of constant controversy and dispute is hardly new for the city, as Elon's historical research makes clear, but a new stage of antagonism seems to have been reached in recent years. While the mythical power of the city's meaning for the world continues to be strong, the actuality in Jerusalem is seen to be a much more fragile fabric. Notes, bibliography, chronology; index. --John Brosnahan
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Modern Jerusalem, in Elon's words, is ``a breeding ground of ghettos.'' Israelis and Palestinians continue to work and live apart from one another; the city fissures into four rough quadrangles--Moslem, Jewish, Christian, Armenian--each with its own religion, its distinctive tongue or tongues. In a rich, beautifully written, impartial meditation that is also a healing act, Elon, noted Israeli author and journalist ( Herzl ; The Israelis: Founders and Sons ), measures the clarity of Jerusalem's biblical landscape against a past and present choked with religious and political strife. For a host of pilgrims from Dominican friar Felix Fabri to Mark Twain, Chateaubriand and Gogol, Jerusalem has served as a mirror of faith, despair, hope or disbelief. Elon, a contemporary wanderer through Jerusalem, as well as a long-time resident, sadly finds that the modern city ``has almost always been intolerant and exclusivist.'' (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Throughout his well-paced, gentle narrative, Elon proceeds to explore his premise that Jerusalem is a necropolis wherein the dead hand of the past often has more weight than the living hand of the present. To emphasize this, Elon drifts back and forth between Islamic, Jewish, and Christian viewpoints as well as historic events. Jerusalem closes with the observation that when historicity ceases to matter more than today's people, when the city is a community of people living in the present rather than a repository of relics and icons, then the Middle East and Jerusalem will be a better place. Recommended for large libraries with major collections in this area.-- David P. Snider, Casa Grande P.L., Ariz. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Kaleidoscopic view of the most famous and fought-after city in the world. At every turn, journalist Elon (Herzl; The Israelis, etc.) emphasizes Jerusalem's conflicts and contradictions. This ""Capital of Memory"" is coveted by three major faiths; its inhabitants celebrate three sabbaths, speak 13 languages, use seven alphabets. ""Too much holy zeal has been poured out here, for too long, into too narrow a space,"" he says about the Temple Mount--a judgment that also fits the city as a whole. Often Elon seems to be trying to mimic in his prose the dust, clash, color, heat of this holy place, as he piles up layer upon swirling layer of history, sociology, architecture, literature (and what other city could have repelled Melville and Koestler and Chateaubriand?), exhausting readers but also convincing them of Jerusalem's metaphysical punch. Splendid accounts of life in Hasidic Mea Sherim and in the Armenian quarter, and of the foolishness and devotion churning around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock, cap a tour de force that successfully re-imagines a town of limestone and chalk as a magical metropolis of shifting, deceiving, light-kissed mirrors. Enchanting and terrifying: an exact reflection of the city it describes. Among the endless number of books on Jerusalem, this stands out as one of the best. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
