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Article: Wasserstein's Jerusalem. (Books).
- Article from:
- The National Interest
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The National Interest, Inc. 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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Bernard Wasserstein, Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 432 pp., $29.95.
BERNARD Wasserstein is driven by an obsessive commitment to symmetry. His title, Divided Jerusalem, refers not merely to the reality of a city torn between two estranged national and religious communities, but to the moral and historical claims that reinforce that separation. Wasserstein divides these two elements of Jerusalem's division into balanced equations, priding himself on fairness. Indeed, dispassion is his passion. Yet, in his ideological commitment to balancing the centrality of Jerusalem for the Jewish people with the often ...