A review by robertrivasplata
Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle

adventurous funny informative lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.0

Guy Delisle reprises his idiot abroad persona (who you may recognize from Pyongyang & Shenzhen), this time in 2008 era Jerusalem. For some reason, Delisle seems more French than in his other memoirs I've read (even though he's from Quebec). Maybe it's because he's having more conversations in Jerusalem than in Pyongyang, Shenzhen, or the Factory back home, so his attitudes show more. Or maybe it's the ways the Holy City & it's people play foils to Delisle's atheism. Depicts the prosaic everyday aspects of his family's year living in East Jerusalem, such as supermarkets, cafes, playgrounds, traffic jams. He also goes out of his way to witness the occupation, visiting checkpoints, the separation wall, Settler violence flashpoints (e.g. Sheikh Jarrah), & among other places in the West Bank. The various religious sects (both obscure & mainstream) get their share of attention from Guy. Islam gets less coverage, but maybe that's because his access to the Muslim Holy Sites, & even to secular Muslim spaces & to Muslim people themselves is more restricted. Jewish & Christian communities appear able to be as open or closed as they want to be, while Muslims have movement & association restrictions which place limits on their contacts with outsiders. Delisle meets many Jewish settler fanatics, but never any Palestinian ones, probably because no Palestinian fanatic can risk meeting anybody. I was struck by the image of the Gaza MSF building's rooftop markings lost among the other buildings in its neighborhood during the 2008-9 Israel-Hamas conflict.