Jerusalem: The Biography

"Jerusalem, a Biography" ... there can never be an agreement on the `biography'. There is no story of Jerusalem that is not rabidly contested as to `facts', natural or supernatural, analytical or anecdotal, or ... merely made up ... but there can be little doubt that Jerusalem remains the center of the human ambition to be a city possessed. This 'biography' that melds narrative with archaeology is compelling. 7000 years of history is not easily compiled for this city's role in civilization. A story free of criticism, worldview bias and angry refutations is simply not possible. The binary nature of the past reviews from 5-stars to 1 stars is an evidence to the strong personal response.For me, it was a 5-star read. It is an excellent guided tour of the city and populations in time and place. Jerusalem is in fact the story of genocide, near extermination, our more simply just destroyed. The Temples of Solomon, Zerubbabel, and the Maccabees were dug out to bedrock to build Herod's Temple complex. Roman Titus strip mined the acropolis in 70AD. The Temple traces were wiped out excepting the nearby, vital Gihon Spring which the author cites as the most archaeologically excavated site on the planet.The place can be the pinnacle of human joy only to revert in the same generation to horror^3. Yet ... it remains the spiritual center of 3 major religions for reasons not to be found in human logic. It is a rather worthless piece of real estate as property goes in rugged terrain and off the main drags of the trade routes. It rises only when power voids among the hegemons permit it. Only in the modern era does it exist at its more ancient population levels.Jerusalem is an extraordinary violent story made more violent as supernatural Good and Evil are seen to perpetually battle for control. The reader that stops at page 70 or so is missing the complex Muslim history which is every bit as lethal to Jerusalem's residents as Titus. By 1300AD, the Crusades were over, Islam was in chaos and the Jews were scattered around the world. The spiritual center of the 3 Abrahamic religions was claimed by all manner of Sultans, Popes, and European kings, but Jerusalimites numbered but 2000 leaderless peasants of which 2 were Jews, a hundred or so were Christians and most were Muslim banished North African tribes dwelling in destitution amidst the 1500 year ruins of repetitive total destruction. Not until the 1850's did much change. Is it a rational place or an irrational place to possess and to continue for the thousands of years until the present? Montefiore attempts to tell the story. To Pagans, Jews, Christians and Muslims ... Jerusalem is an equally lethal and irresistible place ... a tinder box for annihilations and of no earthly value.Jerusalem is unlike any other relic on the planet with its insignificant geographical location. The reader is left to wonder at the story. That Jerusalem survives at all is a miracle of sorts in chapter after chapter of Montefiore's work. Elsewhere in the ancient world, ancient and far more powerful cities were forever abandoned, but not Jerusalem. Mohenjo-Daro never survived. Troy was not reborn to greatness, Persepolis never survived. Neither great Nineveh nor Babylon survived. The great city at Amarna disappeared and was `undiscovered' until the past century. These other ruins do not tell the narrative from the people of the street in these great and abandoned places. They have no granular, connected narrative like Jerusalem. Millions of people go out of their way to seek this remote Judean hill town of Jerusalem where millions lived and died and some believe it to be the essence of man's final rest. These are too numerous and multi-cultural to be coincidence or merely pursuit of myth. Like moths to the flame, humans are attracted to Jerusalem.Montefiore tries mightily to render a `biography' but it is just not possible to satisfy everyone or to be rendered without an historically informed position woven through the controversy of the cities biography. The essence of any author must come through in narrative this large. An 'unbiased' accounting of Jerusalem could not be constructed that made rational sense.This is a long story that pages by quickly for the historical reader. I read it in 5 days. It could easily be doubled in size exploring the leads in the excellent footnotes. Jerusalem is one of the most important historical books the year.

Outstanding - very detailed, so requires considerable re-reading to get all the nuances, but WOW... Just WOW!

Jerusalem the BiographyA rich and intriguing book, and packed with detail that makes for slow progressI have read this book as part of a graduate course I am taking on the Biblical Lands. It is packed with information, almost too much so, in that it covers Jerusalem from its beginnings as a small Jebusite town of less than 15 acres and 1,200 inhabitants to the present as an urbane, divided, internally warring city of great economic and political contrasts. Jerusalem is presently controlled by the State of Israel and parts of it are nominally shared with the Palestinian Authority. It stands at the cross roads of vast political and economic conflict between Western powers and developing Islamic national, and pan-national resistance to that control. The one time cooperation of the Muslims to “go along to get along” has gone and now Jerusalem and neighboring Muslim nations are in a virtual state of war with the so called “Islamic State” which seeks to impose its political control across national boundaries and implement fundamentalist Islam, such as has not been seen in millennia. To implement this “Islamist” control the ISIS fighters have mounted a war of terrorism, imprisonment and decapitation which is made real to the world through media disseminated via the internet.What is most striking to me is that Jerusalem is the holy site for three monotheistic religions and the essence of what Montefiore reports is the wholesale slaughter, plundering, and looting of the occupants of Jerusalem, and the political despotism that has controlled Jerusalem across the millennia. The political elite of Jerusalem have come from across the face of the earth and seemingly the prime motivation is not that of religious sanctity but economic and political gain. Montefiore reports that the sacred Jewish, Christian and Islamic holy sites in many instances are carried on in a carnival atmosphere focused on the core economic activity of Jerusalem, tourism.Montefiore recites very carefully the history of those that have controlled and directed the destiny of Jerusalem. Always that control has been vested in one or another religious group of the three monotheistic religions. What I find ironic and of note is what Montefiore reports in Chapter 40, entitled “Arab City, Imperial City 1870-1880.” His opening sentence of the chapter, is telling: “The real Jerusalem was like a Tower of Babel in fancy dress….Ottoman officers wore embroidered jackets coupled with European uniforms; Ottoman Jews, Armenians and Arab Christians and Muslims sported frock-coats….” He continues on page 377 and comments that all of the religions, after the end of the Islamic Ramadan fast celebrated with a feast and fair mode outside of the city walls. “During the Jewish festival of Purim, Muslim and Christian Arabs dressed up in 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 neighbors with matzah and invited them to the Passover Seder dinner, while the Arabs returned the favor by giving the Jews newly baked bread when the festival ended. Jewish mohels often circumcised Muslim children.” And on the chapter continues reciting the ways that Jews, Christians and Muslims cooperated in that 19th century period; all of which has now come crashing down.Bottom line, this is a wonderful book that requires concentration and persistence. One is also helped by a love of history and a passing acquaintance with many of the issues and historical periods covered.