To Rule Jerusalem

Cambridge Cultural Social Studies

by Roger Friedland, Richard Hecht

Twentieth-century Jerusalem is doubly divided. It is a holy site for both Judaism and Islam. Additionally, secular Israelis and Palestinians alike ground their respective national identities within the city, sharing it with each other and with those of their own faith who yield to a higher divine law rather than a secular democratic one. To Rule Jerusalem is a historical and ethnographic account of how Jerusalem has become the battleground for conflicts both within and between the Israeli and Palestinian communities. Based on hundreds of interviews with powerful players and ordinary citizens over the course of a decade, this book evokes the ways in which struggles are experienced and managed in the life of the city. To Rule Jerusalem is a forceful study of the intertwining of religion and politics, exploring the city as simultaneously an ordinary place and an extraordinary symbol.

574 pages, Hardcover

First published March 29, 1996

About the author

Roger Friedland is a cultural and religious sociologist who writes on love, sex and God, as well as the intersections of religion and politics around the world. Friedland works on institutional logics, on the ways in which ordinary domains of human activity depend on belief in goods which are beyond sense and reason. He is working with John Mohr and Henk Roose on the logics of love among American university students and with Janet Afary on the relationship of religion, gender and intimate life in seven Muslim-majority countries Friedland teaches in the departments of Religious Studies and Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently visiting professor at NYU Media, Culture and Communication.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive tome over the fight to control Jerusalem. A must read for anyone interested in studying the history of the region.