cover image City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present

City of the Great King: Jerusalem from David to the Present

. Harvard University Press, $42 (576pp) ISBN 978-0-674-13190-3

In the opening essay of this vibrant mosaic for readers of all faiths, archeologist Magen Broshi shows that Jerusalem, for most of its history, has been a multinational, multiethnic and multireligious city. Joseph Dan, professor of Kabbalah at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, examines the city's significance in Jewish spirituality as the embodiment of a vision of individual and national redemption and of the reign of justice. For Muslim and Christian Palestinians, Jerusalem has long been regarded as the hub of Palestine and as a pluralist city in which communities could coexist with mutual tolerance, maintains Muhammad Muslih, a political scientist at C.W. Post College in New York City. Other essays explore the Holy City in Christian and Islamic thought, its architecture and sacred sites, annual Christian pilgrimages, the battle within the Zionist movement between secularists and religious believers and depictions of the city in Jewish folk art, maps and modern Hebrew literature. Rosovsky is former curator at Harvard's Semitic Museum. Illustrations. (Mar.)