JERUSALEM: Battlegrounds of Memory by Amos...

JERUSALEM: Battlegrounds of Memory by Amos Elon (Kodansha: $13; 286 pp.). Israeli author Amos Elon describes Jerusalem as “a city where history is relentlessly and superstitiously evoked every day by contesting sides.” In this thoughtful, tongue-in-cheek meditation, he traces the convoluted history of the city from its Bronze Age origins through the present day. The city has changed hands many times over the centuries, and the secular battles have been exacerbated by rivalries among Jews, Moslems and Christians, all of whom regard the city as holy. Elon is less than sanguine about the future of Jerusalem, now that it is entirely an Israeli possession, a situation many Palestinians regard as occupation by a hostile power.