My Jerusalem: Essays, Reminiscences, and Poems

by Salma Khadra Jayyusi

Here is a passionate and eclectic collection of essays, poems, and scholarship that brings to life Jerusalem, that most enigmatic and compelling of cities, in its embattled, contemporary guise as well as in its ancient history. The book begins in the immediacy of today’s Jerusalem—with its dispossessions and laws, its bloody conflicts and massive skyscrapers—and moves backward in time to Classical Jerusalem, working to disentangle the knots of the three great monotheistic religions, and finally comes to rest in a section that is a testament to the physical facts of Jerusalem: its monuments and alleys, its smells, its music, its people. Throughout it all, the Jerusalem that emerges is, as Mureed Barghouthy puts it, “the Jerusalem of the people,” for it is the people who live or have lived there, who know the “Jerusalem of houses and cobbled streets and spice markets… of our neighbor the nun and her neighbor the muezzin, who was always in a hurry.” Tellingly, the anthology begins and ends with the words of poets: “I’m not interested in / Who suffered the most,” writes Naomi Shihab Nye in the introductory poem. “I’m interested in /People getting over it.” This book is about a beloved Jerusalem whose intricacies and human inventions are ultimately larger than the current conflict.

352 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2005

About the author

Salma Khadra Jayyusi (born 1926 or 1927) is a Jordanian-Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She is the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provide translation of Arabic literature into English.

In 1960, she published her first poetry collection, Return from the Dreamy Fountain. In 1970, she received her PhD on Arabic literature from the University of London. She taught at the University of Khartoum from 1970 to 1973 and at the universities of Algiers and Constantine from 1973 to 1975. In 1973, she was invited by The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) invited her for a lecture tour of Canada and the US, on a Ford Foundation Fellowship, in 1973. In 1975, the University of Utah invited her to return as a visiting professor of Arabic literature, and since then she has been based at various universities in the United States.

Reviews

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of poetry and essays on Jerusalem, focusing on the impact of 1948 on the Arab Palestinian communities living in the city. An often mournful and angry collection of voices, which is no surprise given the difficulties for both Muslim and Christian communities to maintain a proper presence in the city and to celebrate their heritage as part of a multi-ethnic and multi-faith space, now undoubtedly under threat. Highlights include Nizar Qabbani's and Naomi Shihab Nye's poetry, as well as Muhammad Asaf's (formerly Leopold Weiss) reflections on the city.