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Article: Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century.
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- October 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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To write anything about Jerusalem apart from a mere list of uncontroversial facts requires great temerity. Everything is magnified there; everything bubbles at a terrible heat, and in its crucible some bizarre syntheses happen. The Rabbis had it right: God gave ten measures of beauty and ten measures of sorrow to the world. He gave nine of each to Jerusalem, and divided the one remaining share amongst the rest of the world. Standing at a suburban Jerusalem bus stop is like standing in the Narnian wardrobe: big grown-up people feel that they are about to step out from the mothballed furs into the snow under the lamp post.
Jerusalem's twentieth century has been a ...