A Walker in Jerusalem / It is the idea of Jerusalem--the imaginatively reconstructed city that exists in the memories and attachments of Jews, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians who live, work, and visit there--that Samuel Heilman explores as he walks about every comer, discovering its complex and different but intertwining layers of history and culture.
Samuel Heilman takes us on a journey to Jerusalem, the Holy City for three great religions. It is a complex journey, running through imagination and culture, the here-and-now as well as the there-and-then. Walking about the city, he meets a series of odd and extraordinary men and women, all of whose lives are intimately and inextricably linked to Jerusalem. For Christians, Jerusalem is the entrance into the everlasting, the site of restoration, the place of the Holy Sepulchre. To Moslems, the city is al-Quds, "the holy, " and it is also their home. And to Jews, religious and nonreligious, Jerusalem is the capital of their state, the soul of their homeland, and the sanctuary of their hopes.
