cover image Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Lesley Hazleton. Atlantic Monthly Press, $16.95 (243pp) ISBN 978-0-87113-064-8

Affecting and compelling, this is a gifted writer's effort to understand herself and a city she cannot live with or without. A British Jew, Hazleton (Where the Mountains Roar, etc.) first went to Jerusalem at the age of 20, remained 13 years, then moved to New York City. Five years later, in 1984, she returned for what she intended would be a final breaking away, only to find herself drawn yet again to the much-changed city: ""The truth is that I felt at home in this place I was determined to leave,'' she writes. Recalling the innocence of the pasther own and the city'sshe writes vividly of the passions and wars that have wracked Jerusalem and all of Israel (the ``blood and racism and hatred''); the religious-secular clash for ``the soul of the city''; and the friendships and excitement that continue to attract her to this ``city of paradox.'' Her reflections and conversations with writers and intellectuals illuminate every facet of life in today's Israel. (May 12)