JERUSALEM MOSAIC

Reading Jerusalem Mosaic is like walking through the winding narrow streets of that holy city. At every turn one meets the unexpected. The labyrinth of ideas that are evinced in these monologues illustrates clearly why peace is difficult to attain. Interviewed for this book were young right-wing and left-wing Sabras, Ethiopians, Muslim and Christian Arabs, Armenians, and Jewish immigrants from the US and Russia. These teenagers differ politically and religiously. Their languages are Arabic, Hebrew, and Yiddish. They inhabit the same city but not the same culture. What they all do share is Jerusalem. Mozeson and Stavsky depict the true essence of Jerusalem by speaking to her children. There are 36 monologues filled with the loves and hates, hopes and fears of 36 very different individuals. Each reader will find one child that he can particularly identify and sympathize with. These children are the future of Jerusalem and of Israel. They are the hope that Jerusalem will one day be a complete work with all its diverse stones forming a perfect mosaic. Although it is quite evident where Mozeson and Stavsky's (The Place I Call Home, 1990) liberal bias lies, their slant does not diminish these eloquent essays about peace. (Nonfiction. 12+)