Synopsis:
Jerusalem is more than a holy city built of stone. Domain of Muslims, Jews, and Christians, Jerusalem is a perpetual contest, and its shrines, housing projects, and bulldozers compete in a scramble for possession. Now one of Jerusalem's most respected authorities presents a history of the city that does not fall prey to any one version of its past.
Meron Benvenisti begins with a reflection on the 1996 celebration of Jerusalem's 3000-year anniversary as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel. He then juxtaposes eras, dynasties, and rulers in ways that provide grand comparative insights. But unlike recent politically motivated histories written to justify the claims of Jews and Arabs now living in Jerusalem, Benvenisti has no such agenda. His history is a polyphonic story that lacks victors as well as vanquished. He describes the triumphs and defeats of all the city's residents, from those who walk its streets today to the meddlesome ghosts who linger in its shadows.
Benvenisti focuses primarily on the twentieth century, but ancient hatreds are constantly discovered just below the surface. These hostilities have created intense social, cultural, and political interactions that Benvenisti weaves into a compelling human story. For him, any claim to the city means recognizing its historical diversity and multiple populations.
A native son of Jerusalem, Benvenisti knows the city well, and his integrated history makes clear that all of Jerusalem's citizens have enriched the Holy City in the past. It is his belief that they can also do so in the future.
Review:
In City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti assumes and achieves a seemingly impossible task--telling the political, architectural, social, cultural, and religious history of the holy city of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, seems to know every rock, every person, and every conflict that has any significant place in the city's history. He describes them all with the objectivity of a scholar and the passion of a lover, qualities that make City of Stone equally useful for armchair historians and curious travelers. For example, Benvenisti's vivid and circumspect histories of the Temple Mount (where the Jews' first temple stood and where Mohammed began his famous Night Journey) and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (built on the purported site of Jesus' crucifixion) expertly convey not only the complicated political and religious battles for national and clerical control of these sites, but also give a solid of sense of what it's actually like to be there. Benvenisti's powers of analysis and observation are best synthesized in his final chapter, which explores, among other topics, the abiding desire of Christians, Jews, and Muslims to be buried in Jerusalem and therefore to become more holy by resting in its holy soil. "They all sought a safe haven, a new land, a new life--they all strove to build the celestial Zion," he writes. "Perhaps this accumulation of hopes and desires buried in the graveyards of Jerusalem may nuture faith that peace and reconciliation can prevail, even in this world." --Michael Joseph Gross
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