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Jerusalem - The Biography, by Simon Sebag Montefiore
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- Sales Rank: #1026704 in Books
- Published on: 2011
- Binding: Hardcover
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
A flawed masterpiece: never clear what it really wanted to be and in the end a mixture of self-indulgence and failed dreams
By Bill Greenhalf
Amazon defines two stars as meaning `I don't like it' and I didn't like this book. Nevertheless, I'm glad I've read it and I certainly respect the immense effort that went into writing it and I would recommend bits of it. In my opinion there are small sections that would work well as standalone vignettes, of the type that are published in history magazines: examples are the Preface and Helena the first archaeologist. The final chapters, from `The British Mandate' to the `Epilogue' would also stand alone as a fairly provocative bit of political discussion. Most of the rest of the book would be better written as bullet points of interesting (if often contradictory) factlets. This is my opinion and my opinion seems to contradict the vast majority of the reviewers on Amazon and certainly the quoted great and good who endorse the book on its cover. I suspect that the positive reviews are rewards for the ambition rather than the delivery. I also suspect that they are wrong in assuming that Montefiore really set out to produce a definitive history of Jerusalem.
I have a hypothesis as to what went so terribly wrong with this book. I believe that Montefiore set out to write the story of his illustrious family: a form of self-hagiography. He came equipped with a vague but comfortable set of family myths and a privileged position whereby he could access the very best sources. This is after all a man who can acknowledge the advice and help of the Duke of Edinburgh in writing his book. I believe that the focus of his intended story was Sir Moses Montefiore. I have stood by the citadel in Jerusalem and looked out on the incongruous Montefiore windmill, imagine how much greater the impact would be of that sight if your name happened to also be Montefiore. How much greater still would it be if you had been brought up with Zionist pilgrims visiting your ancestral home just because Sir Moses had once lived there. As a historian it is obvious that Simon Montefiore would want to place his hero in the context of the history of the city he helped to mold. How tragic that the greater the level of research the less impressive the role of the author's hero appeared. The book Simon Montefiore wanted to write simply wouldn't work but having committed so much time and effort in researching and drafting his epic, I believe Montefiore had little choice but to cobble together the best bits of his research in what he called `Jerusalem: The Biography'
In the preface the author quotes Dr Nazmi al-Jubeh as saying of Jerusalem's history "Take away the fiction and there is nothing left". Mr Montefiore made the wise decision to go with the flow and accept particular mythologised views of history, rather than breaking up the main text with constant caveats. However, his pride in his research and credentials as a historian forced him to write his book with interminable foot notes, each basically saying to the reader `I know what I have written is only one version and this version is probably untrue from a historical perspective'. For example, people believe Christ was born in Bethlehem, we are happy with that belief and that is the truth presented to us in the main text; but Mr Montefiore like all main stream historians knows this to probably be untrue. He puts the myth in the main text then tells us in a footnote that actually Herod most certainly did not kill the first born sons: we know of many of Herod the Great's crimes, great and small - this was not one of them. The Romans did not require their citizens and subjects to return to their ancestral home for a census; furthermore there was no census (of any form) at the time of Christ's birth. Nevertheless, the gospel Christ was born in Bethlehem, it is a form of truth and it is a `fact' of greater historical importance than the possible birth of a man called Jesus in Nazareth. It is the gospel Christ who changed the world. By splitting the story and placing what he considers to be important in the text with the caveat in the footnote Mr Montefiore probably thought that he would avoid upsetting fundamentalist Christians while also avoiding the risk of looking foolish to his peers: maybe it worked, but for me it makes an unsatisfactory book.
For 500 pages Montefiore drags us through his own personal Damascene conversion. He ends up in a position I personally find fairly attractive: accepting Israel warts and all but sympathizing with the Arab cause. This political correctness is probably another reason that the book has received such rave reviews. It could be seen as wholesome but for me it would have been a lot better if he just gave us the finished thesis, instead he presents a series of arguments with himself without giving us the conclusions. Below are a couple of examples.
I believe Montefiore's sympathies are torn between a visceral sympathy for Zionism and an intellectual position that means he cannot help questioning its foundations. The book gives an impression that the author is on a journey from a dream of Zionism to a realization that the entire concept is built on quick sand. The tipping point comes at page 229 of the paperback version. Having spent a great many of the preceding pages describing how Jews became Christians, Muslims and generally blending with other religions and races, Montefiore finally begins to confront the undeniable fact that Judaism was often evangelical and frequently people became 'Jewish' - by choice or through coercion. Having given one spectacular example of the Turkic Khazars converting en masse to Judaism, Montefiore admits in a footnote that if `much of European Jewry are actually descended from Turkic tribesmen' this would undermine Zionism. He then clutches at the most fragile of straws and says: `But modern genetics refutes this theory: the two latest surveys suggest that modern Jews, both Sephardic and Ashkenazi, are around 70 per cent descended from Middle Eastern genes'. Mr Montefiore is clearly no scientist, much less a geneticist. I have a PhD in molecular genetics and to me this terrible sentence is physically painful. In technical terms all the mitochondrial and Y chromosome data that is being referred to shows is that like large proportions of the world's population many Jews have a common maternal or paternal inheritance with non-Jewish people from the middle east, this in no way precludes them from having lineages through mixed male and female lines to Khazars or for that matter Inuits. Put simply you are equally related to your maternal grandfather and your paternal grandmother and considerably more closely related to both than you are to your great, great, great, great grandfather traced back on the male line from your father's side. The body blow to Zionism described by Shlomo Sand (amongst others) is that Jews are not racially pure travelers in genetic time who have returned to claim their birth right. Montefiore's own arguments inevitably endorse this and the fact that those claiming Jewish descent are not pure blood Khazars (presumably by this logic, if they had been they would be entitled to the ancient land of Khazaria) does not mean they are pure blood Judeans entitled to the ancient land of Israel.
Montefiore tells us of a conversation between Balfour and Weizmann. It is clear that the writer believes that Weizmann is showing profound wit when he criticizes the option given of a Jewish homeland in Uganda by asking the author of the infamous declaration if he would be happy if given Paris as a home rather than London. The implication being clear to any nationalist, a Briton could only ever respond in the negative because London is inalienably British. In actual fact this is hokum, the only real link between Balfour and London was his personal experience of the city. There was no link via any strand of DNA or any epigenetic conditioning. Take away personal experience and national mythology and there is no reason why a Briton should not be as content to occupy Paris as London. Similarly, a `Frenchman' with no personal experience of France may have an emotional link to the Seine, but there is no biological link that attaches him more to that river than to the Thames. For anyone other than a Zionist Weizmann's rejoinder that his people's link to Jerusalem is more profound than the link between a Briton and London, because `his people' had occupied it before London was even built, is preposterous. At such a vast distance in time it is impossible to know if Balfour or Weizmann was closer in line to the ancient builders who laid the first bricks on Mount Zion.
I think Montefiore understands the logical problems with being a Zionist, but he also understands the pain of standing at the Western Wall, so very close to the Holy of Holies and feel the sense of injustice that 'his people' even now cannot claim their birth right. I sympathize. It is not logical, it does not make a good book, but it is understandable.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
an amazing history
By joel rubin
3 thousand years in several hundred pages. Each era is facinating, violent, depraved and sadistic. You couldn't make this stuff up. I wish Montefiore had more details with the early years, but I guess those details are impossible to come by and he only sticks with the facts. And for that I thank him.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
JERUSALEM, BIOGRAPHY
By Victoria
Gripping to say the least. When the history came to 'my" era, some major glaring omission, commissions of error or oversight. Example: The first major Jewish revolt against the White Paper (no more Jews into Palestine) reprisal was the bombing of the s/s Patria - a ship load of refugees not permitted to disembark in the Haifa Harbor, Which caused world revolution against the British who wanted to deport the survivors to Madagascar. Not "worthy of mention". The hanging of the three Irgun members and then the kidnapping and hanging of two British soldiers (reprisal), not a mention. This act of terrorism caused major anti-Semitic waves in England. The grove in which the two were hung is a historic grove in today's Israel. That was the Black Sabbath. What the author mentions is not the right Black Sabbath at all. It was a total country curfew where a new mother was shot to death when she hung diapers on the roof. I wrote the author with indisputable dates, names, and places but received no reply. A gripping book, with major holes in modern history.
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