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BOOKS
Journey to Jerusalem in photos
For some Catholics, a high point in their faith lives includes a pilgrimage to Jersualem. There, they can walk the Via Dolorosa that Christ walked during His passion, visit the Garden of Gethsemane, and stroll down the old, stony streets of a city that played such a large part in the Gospels and Old Testament.
Of course, the city also serves as an epicenter to Christians of all denominations, to Jews from around the world and to Muslims. This is what has made the city so intriguing and so volatile.
In “Jerusalem Always,” a photo book shot by Marcelo Bendahan and written by Heidi Gleit, the city takes center stage in all its beauty and complexity. In the book’s large, glossy pages, Bendahan manages to capture an enormous array of the places and faces that help define the city.
Some of the shots are what you’d expect. There is the huge, wide-angled photo of the Western Wall, an ocean of people jostling toward it with their prayers written on little slips of paper. There’s the photo of the Dome of the Rock — the oldest Islamic building in existence — built on the Temple Mount, on the most contested parcels of land in the world.
And there are beautiful shots of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The church (or rather, churches, since many different Christian sects run their own places of worship in the labyrinthine building) sits on the site traditionally believed to be Christ’s burial place.
Running alongside each photo is a brief paragraph or two explaining the shot as well as its subject’s significance. These explanations run in both English and Spanish, and are filled with interesting facts.
For instance, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher has only one door as an entrance, an ancient, wooden door. The door has an appropriately ancient key which has been kept for centuries by a member of the Joudeh family, who are Muslim. The door keepers (who have also held that job for centuries) are members of the Nusseibeh family, who are also Muslim.
Each morning, a member of the Joudeh family brings the key to a member of the Nusseibeh family to unlock the door. This arrangement was set down by Saladin in the late 12th century as a way to wrest control of the church from fighting Christian factions.
That arrangement seems to sum up much of the strangeness and history of Jerusalem. Other photos show the heavy military presence in the city and remind the reader of the terrible and seemingly endless violence that remains as much a part of the region’s history as anything else.
To temper this, though, the photographer and author also place many photos in the book of normal Jerusalemites — Christian, Jewish, Muslim and secular — going about their everyday business.
Families are raised; children go to school; young women shop for the latest fashions and old men congregate in the parks to sit, talk and while the day away.
All in all, it’s a great collection of snapshots of a place that remains so important for people of different faiths. It’s also a wonderful introduction to a place most of us will only visit in our thoughts and imagination.
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“Jerusalem Always,” Ed. by Marcelo Bendahan (Editorial Maestro Books, 2009). $36.50. Available at www.amazon.com.
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