Charlie Rose

NowHearThis  12/16/2011 06:20 AM Report

I have been watching the series about Jerusalem on BBC4 and, given Simon Sebag Montefiore's background am bemused at his approach. He touches a column that is all that remains from an ancient historical building of religious significance and says he can feel its history oozing out. I am sure the column while pretty old remains intact, so it must be he that has sprung a leak.

This a is a pity because even though I have no religious convictions myself, Jerusalem and its history is of interest. But I have to wonder if it is being told objectively when I hear comments like that. He gives the impression of being a fervent believer of one religious persuasion or another and makes me wonder how big a dose of salt his comments have to be taken with.

Of course, what stands out particularly from the second episode above else is the amount of evil done in the name of religion, the persecution and the wanton slaughter time and time again. Watching it leads to my thinking will it happen again as part of the "settlement" between the Palestinians and the Isrealis when they eventually get around to it?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/11/2011 04:07 AM Report

Here is a Jerusalem flash mob:

http://youtu.be/RzhQuQGyulA

Yes, on the Shalom. Lots and lots of dancing and shaloming.

ShalomFreedman  12/11/2011 01:49 AM Report

I wonder if Simon Sebag Montefiore is deliberately underplaying the difference between the place Jerusalem has in the Jewish religious tradition, and the place it has in the other monotheistic religions. For Jews Jerusalem has a national historic religious meaning that differentiates it from the place it has in the two other monotheistic faiths. For Christians Jerusalem has first and above all religious meaning, while for Muslims its importance however great is secondary to that of Mecca and Medina.

For Jews it is the center of every way and even in the two - thousand period of Jewish exile there was( with one brief interval) a continuous Jewish presence in the City. Longing and praying to return to it were one central element in Jewish life throughout the years.

Sebag-Montefiore's narrative stops in 1967. Since that time there has been an access to worship for all faiths that there was not there previously. The only quite difficult to understand limitation here is the limitation on Jews praying at their holiest site on the Temple Mount. This area the Haram- al- Sharif is for the Muslims the site of the El Aqsa mosque and they insist on forbidding any Jewish prayer in the area.Israeli governments have gone along with this for fear of inciting a global Islamist jihad against the Jewish state. What is ironic is that for this more than four - decade abstinece which prohibits Jews from worshipping at their holiest site the reward has been , and this of course not for this reason, an if possible, even more extremist Islamist attitude which would deny not simply any future Jewish presence in Jerusalem, but which denies as both Arafat and Abbas have done the Jewish historical presence in Jerusalem.

I would only add one more major point. The great proof of Jewish presence and central significance in Jerusalem is in the Bible. There Jerusalem is mentioned over three- thousand times. It is of course King David who made the city the capitol of the twelve tribes, united the people of Israel and began to make Jerusalem into a major center of spiritual life for mankind.

REMant  12/09/2011 11:44 AM Report

Well, we certainly could use a good, accessible, truthful history of the place, because there's been far too much bunk about it, going back thousands of years. There is a favorable review in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/29/jerusalem-biography-simon-sebag-montefiore-review I appreciated his characterization of the "Arab Spring."