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A review by maneatsbooks
Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
5.0
Two stories perfectly illustrate the complicated absolutist history of Jerusalem.
In November 2008 the internet was flooded with videos of a fistfight between Armenian and Greek monks in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A small section of the roof of the church is disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians. At least one Coptic monk at any given time sits there on a chair placed on a particular spot to express this claim. On a hot summer day he moved his chair some 20cm more into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile act. Eleven were hospitalized in the ensuing fistfight.
The second story concerns The Immovable Ladder. Some time in the first half of the 18th century, someone placed a ladder up against the wall of the church. No one is sure who he was, or more importantly, to which sect he belonged. The ladder remains there to this day. No one dares touch it, lest they disturb the status quo, and provoke the wrath of others. The exact date when the ladder was placed there is not known but the first evidence of it comes from a 1728 engraving.
The ladder hasn’t moved for more than 293 years. No one knows who put it there, or why; just that it can never be moved.
Ever since the writers of the Bible created their narrative of Jerusalem, and ever since that biography had become the universal story, her fate has been decided faraway by other people - in Babylon, Susa, Rome, Mecca, Istanbul, London and St Petersburg.
The hot rocks of Jerusalem have seen more holy murder, rape, and plunder than any other place on this earth.
For 1,000 years, Jerusalem was exclusively Jewish; for about 400 years, Christian; for 1,300 years, Islamic; and not one of the three faiths ever gained Jerusalem without the sword, the mangonel or the howitzer. The true story of Jerusalem is therefore irrelevant. All that matters in Jerusalem is what is believed to be true.
As an inhabitant of a not uncontentious corner of Ireland / Northern Ireland / the UK (please delete depending on your level of uptightness) I approached this biography of Jerusalem in the full knowledge that nothing changes quickly, until you turn around and find everything utterly different.
And that's what I hope - that people can read a book like this and realise their preconceptions were only what they believed to be true.
Truth itself is more complicated, and comes with a body count.
In November 2008 the internet was flooded with videos of a fistfight between Armenian and Greek monks in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A small section of the roof of the church is disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians. At least one Coptic monk at any given time sits there on a chair placed on a particular spot to express this claim. On a hot summer day he moved his chair some 20cm more into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile act. Eleven were hospitalized in the ensuing fistfight.
The second story concerns The Immovable Ladder. Some time in the first half of the 18th century, someone placed a ladder up against the wall of the church. No one is sure who he was, or more importantly, to which sect he belonged. The ladder remains there to this day. No one dares touch it, lest they disturb the status quo, and provoke the wrath of others. The exact date when the ladder was placed there is not known but the first evidence of it comes from a 1728 engraving.
The ladder hasn’t moved for more than 293 years. No one knows who put it there, or why; just that it can never be moved.
Ever since the writers of the Bible created their narrative of Jerusalem, and ever since that biography had become the universal story, her fate has been decided faraway by other people - in Babylon, Susa, Rome, Mecca, Istanbul, London and St Petersburg.
The hot rocks of Jerusalem have seen more holy murder, rape, and plunder than any other place on this earth.
For 1,000 years, Jerusalem was exclusively Jewish; for about 400 years, Christian; for 1,300 years, Islamic; and not one of the three faiths ever gained Jerusalem without the sword, the mangonel or the howitzer. The true story of Jerusalem is therefore irrelevant. All that matters in Jerusalem is what is believed to be true.
As an inhabitant of a not uncontentious corner of Ireland / Northern Ireland / the UK (please delete depending on your level of uptightness) I approached this biography of Jerusalem in the full knowledge that nothing changes quickly, until you turn around and find everything utterly different.
And that's what I hope - that people can read a book like this and realise their preconceptions were only what they believed to be true.
Truth itself is more complicated, and comes with a body count.