Jerusalem 1913

The year 1913 marks the approximate time the conflict between the Jews and Palestinians began, as Zionists moved to their ancient Holy Land before WWI. The polemic subject and its history have become vital to understanding today's clashes in the Middle East. Joyce Bean takes the author's lead by making it a story about people, and her inflections make the principals seem human without giving them theatrical characters. Her motherly voice disarms a subject so controversial it has caused unending war. Because the author is a woman, one can feel Bean speaks for Marcus in a story she has worked hard to research, some from personal experience. Since much of the Jewish State's beginnings aren't current wisdom, listeners will feel better informed. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

January 8, 2007
In Ottoman Jerusalem, families of different religions picnicked together at popular shrines and vouched for each other at the bank; Muslims and Jews were business partners and neighbors; and Arab children dressed in costumes for the Jewish holiday of Purim. How then did this city of ethnic diversity become a crucible of sectarian conflict? Marcus (The View from Nebo
), a Pulitzer-winning former Wall Street Journal
correspondent, focuses on the year 1913 as a turning point, when leaders at the Zionist Congress argued for both cultural and demographic domination of Palestine, while at the same time Jews and Arabs were negotiating a possible peace. Marcus also highlights three men who helped shape the destiny of the future Israeli capital. Albert Antebi was a non-Zionist Syrian Jew who advocated for Jewish economic solvency and strong relationships with Muslims; ardent Zionist Arthur Ruppin directed the establishment of Jewish settlements; and Ruhi Khalidi, a prominent Muslim , although not an Arab nationalist, actively opposed Jewish immigration and land purchases. Marcus masterfully brings a Jerusalem of almost a century ago to pungent life, and her political dissection of the era is lucid and well-meaning although she never explains the gulf between moderate Muslims of 1913 and today's Islamist and radical movements.