A Guest Post by Dr Harold Goldmeier
Before diving into Jerusalem Drawn
and Quartered by Sarah Tuttle-Singer (Skyhorse Publishing, due May 8, 2018),
I wondered, what more might be said about Jerusalem that hasn’t been presented
over centuries?
Moreover, how is Tuttle-Singer, with a reputation as a social media
virtuoso, in a position to write a meaningful book of polemology that
practically defines Jerusalem? Can this lurching work in progress I know from
her posts on social media bring clarity to the world’s holiest City imbued with
the Divine Spirit?
Sarah does so much better. The
book is one idiosyncratic, irresistible fast-read, revealing nitty-gritty life
in the City. She humanizes Jerusalem. Gone
are screaming headlines. No polemics. No religious zealotry. No blazing battles
over nationalism.
It is a tale about a young American woman coming of age in an explosively
young country. Sarah moves into an ancient but vibrant City coming into its own
after centuries of being drawn and quartered. If it were a book just about Sarah’s
life it would be ordinary. But she has a comfortable writing style that carries
the reader along with her.
Her mind works like an
artist’s eye letting Sarah view her surroundings differently than most other
people. Her personality is relatable, and together these functionalities result
in her weaving two trendy topics, her personal growth and that of the bracingly
straightforward modern Jerusalem. Her stories stimulate all five senses, and
Sarah is a marvelous storyteller. “The
street smells like coffee and ripe strawberries and saffron. You can buy bags
of pink and blue almonds, and Christmas lights during Ramadan, to illuminate
the night.”
Sarah offers snippets of the Old City’s
history, politics, and religions mingling with her stories about the daily life
of shopkeepers, residents, and tourists. All who pass through its gates, she
discovers, share her love and lust for the Old City and its people.
Sarah is a mix of Holden Caulfield and Lady Bird propelled by her Jewish
soul. Sarah flashes revelatory memories of teenage rebellion and angst.
Memories of her mother take on context and new meaning for Sarah in her
adulthood and motherhood. We watch Sarah learn to be an adult and like herself.
Jerusalem is no longer allowing its bad memories of being drawn and quartered
hold it back and Sarah’s bad memories help her find her own voice.
Sarah is notoriously independent and
flouts societal norms and expectations. At the same time, she reveals herself
to be a hena, i.e.,
a very sweet, beautiful girl, whose interactions with strangers evoke a smile and trust getting them talking. She tells about her
conversations with the Palestinian taxi driver boyfriend of a Jewish Israeli,
and the ultra-Orthodox wife and mother starving for affection. The cold stone Old
City can appear rough and raw, but believers
and the faithful can touch the indentation in one wall “left by Jesus Himself
when he stumbled and almost fell.” When
Sarah touches the cold Jerusalem stone, she feels warmth from the spot.
Sarah defines herself a patriotic Jew
choosing to live in her homeland, while yearning for a connection with
ultra-religious Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Armenians. Sarah cringes at the limited interaction
between them. “We all live in different worlds” in the same four quarters. It’s
a chasm she tries to bridge. She and the City are hip and novel today, centers
of attention. “Cell reception sucks in the Old City. It’s like, the closer you
get to God, the worse the network and the harder to communicate with humans.”
The Damascus Gate is it’s most
interesting entry point, “Where old women sit cross-legged in the sun and sell
ripe figs, where ultra-Orthodox Jews enter the Muslim Quarter in their black
hats and black suits to get to the Yeshiva or the Kotel, where tourists waft
down the steps into the shuck speaking French or Italian or Russian, where
young guys speaking Arabic with gelled hair are frisked and searched without
any reason other than the fact that they’re young guys speaking Arabic, where
you won’t see any Jewish Birthright groups because they’re warned ‘It isn’t
safe.’”
There
are three subjects this reviewer prefers the author explored in more depth. I
want to know more about her failed marriage. She uses it as a reference point
more than once and seemingly laced with love.
A
second lacuna is a story she tells of a mysterious male friend of her mother.
He was unknown to Sarah or her father. She tracks him down after her mother’s
death but there is no insight into his role in their lives. It niggles at the
reader why she mentions him, and though Sarah dismisses the notion he might
have been her mother’s lover the reader is never quite certain. Sarah includes
the story in the book for some reason. Why and what does she learn?
Another
problem with Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered are the consensual sex scenes. They
feel gratuitous. Perhaps the editor cajoled the author to include them to make
the book racier because sex sells? I have no doubt Sarah had these experiences,
but the sex is bath foam to her insights. Two mise-en-scènes are salacious but
not organic to the story.
The
book includes candid snapshots of the author in various settings. It’s a nice
touch reflective of the social media channel on which Sarah is a rising star.
They symbolically meld Sarah and the City. The book is not a memoir but an
enjoyable telling of personal stories about her life and Jerusalem’s in shared
discovery. Sarah is too young to write a
memoir, but no one is too young or old to read her breakout- engrossing book.
Keep writing like this and she better get fond of celebrity status.
Cover picture below
Reviewer’s Brief Bio:
Dr. Goldmeier received the Governor’s Award (Illinois) for
family investment programs in the workplace from the Com. on the Status of
Women. He was a Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard earning a doctorate.
His first book is HEALTHCARE INSIGHTS: BETTER CARE BETTER BUSINESS
He worked in the administrations of four Governors.
Currently, Harold is Managing Partner of an investment firm, a consultant to
firms in commerce and industry, writer, and public speaker on public policy
issues.
He teaches Mid-East Politics, Business Management &
Marketing, & Values & Ethics courses to international university
students in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Harold is a writer for GreenPoint Global and Seeking Alpha
both international firms specializing in topics about healthcare &
medicine, business management & investment, marketing & culture, and
the publishing industry.
His articles and book reviews appear in Scholars for Peace
in the Middle East, The Jerusalem Post, Seeking Alpha financial website, Life
in Israel, Arutz Sheva, Times of Israel, and US GreenTechnologies. Harold
contributed a series of articles in the Gale Business Insights Handbook of
Investment Research.
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