City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem

Jerusalem is more than a holy city built of stone: it is a battle cry, a magic spell, an act of defiance, a claim of sovereignty. The scramble for the soul of Jerusalem began three millennia ago. Only in the past century did the battle between distant empires and warring sects of believers evolve into today's deadly struggle between the peoples for whom Jerusalem is now home: Jews and Arabs. To justify their rival claims, each faction has written extensive but partial and politically motivated chronicles of the city's ancient and contested history. In City of Stone, Meron Benvenisti overcomes this legacy of self-interest to write an unofficial history of the city, a many-sided story without victors or vanquished. He describes with unparalleled depth, vividness, and compassion the triumphs and defeats of all the city's residents, from those who walk its streets today to the meddlesome ghosts that still inhabit the Holy City. Benvenisti focuses primarily on the 20th century, but, as with everything in Jerusalem, ancient history and ancient hatreds are constantly discovered just below the surface. These age-old hostilities have created not segregation but rather intense social, cultural, and political interactions. This bond of life in the city has produced a compelling human story, full of both tragedies and ironies. One of the city's native sons, Benvenisti knows the streets of Jerusalem and the shadows where each group has buried the truth of its past. In graceful and flowing prose, he unearths this hidden history to demonstrate what all of its rival groups would like to forget -- that all of its citizens have enriched the Holy City, and no one group can use the past to justify the future. - Jacket flap.