Dying for Jerusalem: The Past, Present and Future of the Holiest City

This book of recollections and reflections encompasses personalities, places, culture, religion, politics, demographics and history. The author lived in Jerusalem from 1938 to the mid 1950s; he compares his recollections of those years with the Jerusalem of today. He covers a wide array of subjects, including archaeology, the Dead Sea scrolls, the history of the Kibbutz and the divisions in Israeli society, from the Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox) to the Post-Zionists, a small group of academics. A typical chapter would start out with famous or obscure personalities from the past and then evolve into a gripping discussion of important issues. Chapter 4 does a good job of explaining terms like Sephardim, Mizrachim and the Jews that came from North Africa and Asia, whilst the next chapters are devoted to German Jews and their contribution, as well as the famous scholar of Jewish Mysticism Scholem Gershom, and the Hebrew University. The Holocaust and Yad Vashem museum are discussed in chapter 7, Musa Alami and the Arab-Jewish conflict in the next, whilst early Jewish attempts at creating a binational state form the subject matter of chapter 9. The author is at his most engaging when describing certain sections of Jerusalem - then and now - in the chapters on Talbiyeh, Mea Shearim and Musrara. Other chapters deal with the influx of Russian immigrants that started in 1989, the city's famous holy places and the psychological condition known as Jerusalem Syndrome. The quotes about the city from reference sources published during the 1800s are quite funny and revealing. In the epilogue, Laqueur laments what he considers the deterioration of Jerusalem, where problems include poverty, municipal debt and demographic challenges. The inner city is not doing well although the satellite towns around the city are prospering. This chapter includes interesting facts on the city's media like the Jerusalem Post, and a long discussion of the old and the contemporary Jaffa Road. There are 14 black and white illustrations and photographs, the dust jacket contains a portrait and short biography of the author, and the book concludes with an index. One aspect of the author's style is slightly annoying: his extreme detachment and aloofness, and his pessimism about the future of the city. I sincerely hope he is wrong on this. Overall, this is a valuable and informative work about the people, places and recent history of this remarkable city, and a brilliant chronicle about how Jerusalem has changed since the 1950s.

Jerusalem and Israel are not short of books about themselves but they are short of unbiased books and for that this is worth a read. For those who have little insight into Israeli society and only see the headlines and are onyl subejcted to the hate speech of Noam Chomsky and Ed Said, it is worthwhile to read something that is closer to at least being honest regarding the great diversity of the Holy City and the Holy Land. Truly Jerusalem is one tragedy and one great hope and one victory for all involved, as a resident this book is worth a read. Seth J. Frantzman

I like this book. It is written by someone who first arrived in the Levant in 1938 and has seen Jerusalem change quite a bit since then. We read about archaeology, about Golda Meir, about the kibbutzim and Sephardim, about the Hebrew University, about Yad Vashem, about Mea Shearim, and much more. A fascinating chapter deals with what tourist guides have had to say about Jerusalem. The author makes some excellent points. He admits that Israel is overpopulated (I'd say "land-poor"). He says that Jewish settlements in the Levant prior to the establishment of Israel have "as much to do with colonialism as colonialism has to do with colonoscopy." I agree. He attacks "post-Zionism," and he even finds fault with Ed Said! Good for him! He mentions that Ed Said demanded an "admission of guilt by the Zionists," and then quite properly asks how the Zionists could "apologize for the Arab uprising in December, 1947 following the UN partition plan, and the invasion of the Arab armies in 1948." On the other hand, I think Laqueur is way too easy on Musa Alami, especially given that he admits that the British 1939 White Paper "was largely his work." To me, that puts significant responsiblity for hundreds of thousands (or more) murders on Alami. I think Alami deserves an enormous amount of criticism for all this. I also find fault with a line I suspect most others will agree with. Laqueur boasts that "the historical meaning of the university was to educate - to make students smarter and teach them to think. Today there is a real danger that the modern university has become merely a training ground for specific professions - it teaches students to do. Is the university losing its soul?" As I said, I suspect that most folks will agree with Laqueur. But I sure don't. I am all in favor of universities helping to get students to become smarter, to learn to study, to think better, and so on. But the most important function of a university has to be, in my (perhaps unique) opinion, to teach students subject matter! So, no, I do not think that the university is losing its soul if it does a good job at this! There are a couple of other places where I feel that Laqueur has gone overboard. He implies that it is "natural" and "patriotic" to fight against real or imagined demographic changes. But I think this would justify genocide. In a similar vein, he implies that many folks who oppose terrorism would themselves be terrorists had they been born Arab! Well, I'm not much into counterfactual histories. And I'm not going to argue questions such as whether if I had wheels, I'd be a garbage truck. But I think it would be strange to claim that had I been born Italian, I'd have supported the Mafia. In fact, I was born American, and I've never been tempted to support the Ku Klux Klan. And I think it would be rather wild to imply that had I been born Arab, I'd support Arab terrorism. I'm deducting a star from an otherwise fine book for all this.