Jerusalem - The Biography, by Simon Sebag Montefiore

This book is an excellent read for anyone who, like me, likes History. Very well written, amazingly even-balanced considering the subject sometimes touchy and the author being related to one of the prominent English-Jewish families who mattered in the city's history, exhaustively researched, it reads almost like an adventure book. One is drawn into the complexities of a city so revered for millenia by so many peoples, empires and religions, and it helps to understand its present dilemmas. It's a fascinating story indeed, full of sound and fury as the Bard would say, and with many humorous and unexpected details.

The book is organized chronologically - after opening with the description of the siege and conquest by Titus, it goes back to the origins of the Canaanite city and then proceeds along the centuries until the war of 1967, with a short epilogue about the last 40 years. One of the interesting insights is the notion of how many important population shifts there were, and it shows the roots of the present Arab and Jewish presence in and attachment to the city. One can sense the passing of time and the changes it brings, and how history is ever changing.

The author tries to be impartial about the present conflicts, and I think he reasonably succeeds. He tells his story passionately, though, and ends in a somehow gloomy mode of sursis, balanced between the sense of History's continuity and timelessness (expressed by the description, in the last chapter, of the routines of the several religious shrines in the Old City) and the impending doom hovering over the city caused by the present situation.

Jerusalem today lives in a state of schizophrenic anxiety. Jews and Arabs dare not venture into each other's neighbourhoods; secular Jews avoid ultra-Orthodox who stone them for not resting on the Sabbath or for wearing disrespectful clothing; messianic Jews test police resolve and tease Muslim anxiety by attempting to pray at the Temple Mount; and the Christian sects keep brawling. The faces of Jerusalemites are tense, their voices are angry and one feels that everyone, even those of all three faiths who are convinced that they are fulfilling a divine plan, is unsure of what tomorrow will bring.

And yet, things can be, and were different, as one can read in a previous chapter about the 19th century:

... but in between, in a half-submerged folk culture, there was much blending, despite the stringent rules of each religion. At the end of the Ramadan fast, all the religions celebrated celebrated with a feast and a fair around the walls, with merry-go-rounds and horseraces, while vendors exhibited obscene peepshows and Arab sweets, Maidens Hair and Turkish Delight. During the Jewish festival of Purim, Muslim and Christian Arabs dressed up in the traditional Jewish costumes, and all three religions attended the Jewish Picnic held at the tomb of Simon the Just north of the Damascus Gate. Jews presented their Arab neighbours with matzah and invited them to the Passover Seder dinner, while the Arabs returned the favour by giving the Jews newly baked bread when the festival ended.Jewish mohels often circumcised Muslim children. Jews held parties to welcome their Muslim neighbours back from the haj. The closest relations were between Arabs and Sephardic Jews. Indeed the Arabs called the Sephardis "Yahud, awlad Arab - Jews, sons of Arabs", their own Jews and some Muslim women even learned Ladino. During droughts, the ulema asked the Sephardic rabbis to pray for rain. The Sephardic, Arab-speaking Valeros, the city's leading bankers, were business partners with many of the Families. Ironically, the Arab Orthodox Christians were the most hostile to Jews, whom they insulted in traditional Easter songs and lynched as they approached the Church.