‘Jerusalem 1000 – 1400; Every People Under Heaven’

This beautifully-produced combination of a coffee-table book and exhibition catalogue was produced in conjunction with the exhibition of that title held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2016. It has been edited by Barbara Drake Boehm and Melanie Holcomb (both curators at the museum). For the exhibition hundreds of precious, beautiful and fascinating artefacts produced in and concerning Jerusalem in the Middle Ages were amassed from a wide range of sources all over the world. The book is a work of art in itself, with first-rate illustrations of the exhibits on each of its over three hundred pages of 150 gsm Perigord paper, typeset in Agmena and Dava Pro fonts, as the extensive and comprehensive final acknowledgements section tells us.

How I would have loved to be able to wander through the exhibition for several days, as it must have been a veritable wonderland of objects, manuscripts, reliquaries and jewellery created in mediaeval times, inspired by the city and concept of Jerusalem. For Jerusalem was not solely a physical but also a spiritual entity, a site of worship of all three principal religions, as well as a battleground where each one vied for supremacy.

One of the book’s opening paragraphs reads: “In about the year 1000 an extraordinary convergence of circumstances brought new attention to the medieval city, which continued unabated for the next four centuries. These included natural disasters, political turmoil, intense religious fervor, and a notable uptick in world travel.”

Thus, in the 1020s the Fatimid caliph of Egypt made agreements with Italian merchants and the Byzantine emperor to join him in rebuilding the city after a series of earthquakes, and the Karaites, a community of Babylonian Jews, proclaimed the need to move to Jerusalem. In 1099 European Christians achieved their dream, by means of the Crusade, of conquering Jerusalem. By 1187 Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, had retaken the city for Islam, to be succeeded by the Mamluk sultans who governed from Egypt. Each ruling power built and rebuilt monuments and centres of worship and study, in accordance with their beliefs, and in many cases destroyed those of their predecessors.

Improved conditions of travel by sea and land in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries enabled pilgrims and travelers to reach Jerusalem, and some, such as Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre, an Anglo-Saxon monk known as Saewulf, and the Spanish Jewish poet Judah Halevi, inter alia, left accounts of their travels, the storms they encountered at sea, and the wonders of Jerusalem.

On arrival in Jerusalem visitors were often as astounded by its markets as by its holy sites, with vaulted bazaars, areas devoted to specialized artisans, and a wide variety of goods on offer, as well as plentiful food. A visitor from Italy, marveled at the variety of foodstuffs available, another at the wide selection of meats and the abundance of kitchens, while a third noted ‘the citron, the almond, the date, the nut, the fig, the banana, milk in plenty, as well as grapes, honey and sugar.’

In both Hebron and Jerusalem, which were among the foremost pilgrimage sites for all three religions, as well as Nazareth and Bethlehem for Christians, food and religion were interconnected, mixed with commerce and motivated by the large numbers of visitors. For Christians, Jews, and Moslems a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was an important feature of religious worship, so that the city served as a lodestone for people from all over the world. Trade was also an important reason for travel, and commercial activity served to foster relations and interaction between the various communities.

The artefacts in the exhibition display the amazing skill and resourcefulness of the artists and artisans of the period, with each religion and community presenting its own special achievements and trends, whether in objects or manuscripts, some of them including beautiful, colorful illustrations. The period appears to have been characterized by immense creativity as well as intellectual and political activity, not to mention the armed combat that took place in and around the region.

All three main religions and the myriad communities comprising each one combined to produce a colourful array of objects, paintings, and artefacts that still today inspire us with wonder and enable the contemporary observer to enter, albeit partially, into the world and mindset of the people who inhabited and formed that fascinating period in human history.

Lockdown Lessons

It’s just a year since the Coronavirus alighted upon us, upsetting our way of life and causing us to abandon most of what we used to call ‘normal life.’

But what was ‘normal life’? For everyone it was something different, and hence for some people the restrictions and boundaries that were imposed on us were harder than they were for others.

Obviously, for parents of young children who were suddenly deprived of the school or nursery framework to which they had become accustomed the situation was far harder than it was for seniors like myself, and especially so if they were living in small, crowded apartments. During lockdown periods children were not even allowed to go outside to play, and that must have been dreadful for all concerned. And for the parents involved missing the stimulation provided by being in the work environment must have added to an already-heavy burden.

Older children, teenagers, and young people in general must also have had a very hard time. I remember my teenage years, when interacting with other people my age was all-important, whether it was in the classroom, the youth movement, at university, or in other social settings. The reflection of oneself that one finds in being in the company of other youngsters is what helps to define who and what we are, and being deprived of that inevitably leaves an immense gap in our social, intellectual and individual development.

For seniors like myself, however, the lockdown hasn’t really made too much difference. I’m lucky in living in a roomy house with a small garden, and have my OH with me. For much of my working life as a free-lance translator-editor I worked from home, and saw no hardship in that. In fact, when I started working in a major financial institution at a later stage in my life I found it quite hard to get used to. When I told my boss that I felt like a bird in a cage, he told me to go and walk or sit in the nearby park in my lunch hour, which I duly did. It certainly helped, and eventually I got used to going to an office and staying in it all day, and even enjoyed the company of my colleagues.

It has been a period in which we have turned in on ourselves, cutting down on outside activities and interaction with other people. I have divided my day into mornings for writing and afternoons for reading, with activities such as painting, gardening, playing the piano, as well as eating, cooking, baking, and watching TV and/or Netflix in between. OH has used the time to undertake various DIY jobs in and around the house, and I have certainly benefited from that.

There are few things I really miss in lockdown, and like most people, I have managed to get used to this. Not being able to go shopping myself no longer bothers me. On the contrary, I almost resent having to be in a situation where mingling with other people is unavoidable, and I try to time whatever excursion I find unavoidable to times when as few other people as possible are around.

We have managed to see some family members, including grandchildren, from time to time, whether outside in the garden or inside, weaking masks and keeping far apart. Until we had our second injection we did not indulge in hugging or kissing them, but since then we do (in moderation, of course). Being able to continue attending classes and meetings via Zoom is a boon, though something is nevertheless lacking, and I resent the tendency I see in every such setting for one or two people to dominate the meeting, no matter how hard the moderator or teacher tries to restrain them. But that’s human nature, I suppose, and that happens in every setting.

What I do miss most are concerts. I hear classical music on the radio all day, but there’s nothing like getting dressed to go to a concert, then sitting with like-minded people as we watch and listen to the orchestra giving of its best to perform wonderful music. Each time it’s a unique and matchless experience, and that is something that cannot be replicated with recorded music or even music performed live and broadcast.

So, roll on the easing of the restrictions on live performances of every kind! I’ll be the first in line to buy tickets.

Outrageous!

When I heard that the man, currently in police custody, accused of attempting to murder his wife (and who very nearly succeeded, inflicting horrendous injuries on her), was refusing to grant her a divorce, it made my blood boil. Since then I have learned that one of the rabbis in the court in charge of the matter put pressure on the husband to grant the divorce I breathed a sigh of relief..

Here we have a man who will, hopefully, spend most of the rest of his life behind bars, still vindictively and viciously attempting to reach out from his incarceration to impose a ban on any hope of future married happiness on the woman he has already indelibly harmed. Fortunately, it took just one enlightened rabbi to get him to change his mind, but that does not mean that all rabbis are so broad-minded.

The fact of the matter is that the ever-more frequent instances of a husband killing or maiming his wife are almost a staple of the nightly news programmes on Israel’s television, and we are not even aware of the number of husbands who refuse to ‘grant’ their wives a divorce.

What it comes down to, when all’s said and done, is that far from being a modern, forward-looking society, Israel is still stuck in a set of hide-bound laws, rules and regulations that hark back to a primeval society in which the female of the species is no more than a thing, a chattel, to be handed over from one male custodian, her father, to another male custodian, her husband, at the traditional marriage ceremony.

I won’t even give this arrangement the compliment of according it the epithet ‘mediaeval,’ as is often done to denote an archaic, antediluvian arrangement such as this. Mediaeval society, for all its faults, was not totally mired in primitive ancient attitudes. In the Middle Ages some women engaged in commerce or owned hospitality establishments, while certain high-born ladies were even able to rule countries and empires. Both European and English history display many examples of this.

The arrangement established at the time the State of Israel was founded gave the rabbinical courts authority over family law, and this has remained the situation till now. However, a growing proportion of Israelis resent having to kowtow to ancient beliefs and procedures, starting with the requirement that a bride must undergo ritual immersion before her wedding ceremony. That was all well and good at a time when there was no indoor plumbing or public sewage systems, but what is the point of it in this day and age? Absolutely none, other than to preserve unnecessary and ridiculous control over the individual’s private life.

Then there is the traditional marriage ceremony, which harks back to ancient practices that have no relevance in this day and age. There are those who see some beauty in maintaining ancient traditions, and I wish them every happiness, but there is no reason why everyone who gets married in Israel in the twenty-first century has to abide by them. And so an increasing number of Israelis choose to go abroad to get married in a civil ceremony which, because of the rabbinical veto, is non-existent in Israel.

The bottom line is that under Jewish and Israeli law a man who bullies, abuses, beats and even tries to murder his wife can still exert control over her by refusing to ‘grant’ her a divorce. In this day and age it is high time the law in Israel was changed to allow a women to divorce her husband, if that is her wish.

The time has come to put an end to the arbitrary hold a man in Israel has over his wife, and introduce legislation that enables full equality between the sexes in family law. It is high time the power of the rabbis and their courts was curtailed, allowing Israel’s population – whether male, female or other – to enjoy the basic freedom that is the right of every individual in the modern world.

Since I’m not familiar with Moslem law, this article does not refer to that community, which doubtless has issues of its own in this respect.

Image: wedding ring –Wikimedia Commons

‘Capital’ by John Lanchester

This book (which has also been made into a BBC TV drama) consists of a great many short chapters, each one describing the inhabitants of one of the houses in Pepys Road, South London. The houses were originally built for lower-income families, but the boom in property prices in London has made it more attractive for higher-income families, although some of the original residents have remained in place. Consequently, anyone owning a house there is rich, either before moving there or afterwards, if they remained there long enough.

The descriptions of the various families and individuals who live in the road starts in December 2007, when eighty-two-year-old Petunia Howe, the only resident to have lived there all her life, is looking out of her window waiting for a Tesco delivery van. This has been organized by her daughter, Mary, who lives in Essex, to save her elderly mother having to go shopping.

The Yount family lives in the house opposite. Roger Yount works in a bank in the City and is paid a handsome salary, with occasional bonuses. His wife, Arabella, enjoys the standard of living that her husband’s salary provides, employing nannies for their two small boys, engaging in extensive renovations of their house (and their house in the country), and indulging in expensive shopping and lunching sprees with friends. Nonetheless, she resents the fact that her husband works long hours and does not help with the children, so she has arranged to go away with a friend to a spa for Christmas, leaving Roger to handle the situation on his own.

Other residents of the road include the Pakistani family which owns the corner newsagents and general store, and live above it. We also meet the Polish builder Zbigniev, known as Bogdan by Arabella, for whom he does occasional building jobs in the house, and Smitty, the seemingly mysterious installation artist who is Petunia’s grandson.

As we get to know the various families and individuals, we are treated to a detailed account of Roger Yount’s job in the City, which involves a great deal of information about the intricacies of currency and stock-market trading, as well as interpersonal rivalries within the bank. We learn, too, about the life of a newsagent, with the daily grind starting well before dawn when the first newspapers are delivered and have to be unpacked, shelves have to be stacked and the till and the shop have to be tended. The life of a Pakistani family evolves before the reader’s eyes in all its English ordinariness as husband and wife try to balance work and home life while attending to the needs of the shop, their children and the father’s two adult brothers.

All in all, the detailed accounts of the very different lives of the various families offer an intriguing insight into situations and individuals in contemporary Britain which I found both fascinating and entertaining. The story covers the course of a year and ends in November 2008, during which, naturally, things happen. Arabella goes on holiday leaving a nasty note for her husband, who hires a new nanny. This turns out to be an attractive young Hungarian woman, but the expected love affair does not take the course the reader has anticipated, although Roger’s lascivious thoughts do.

Mysterious postcards are sent to the various houses, the police are brought into the picture, and eventually all is made clear, although only after one of the members of the Pakistani family has been erroneously arrested and interrogated, Roger Yount’s life has undergone a radical transformation and Petunia Howe has suffered a serious illness.

I don’t want to give too much of the story away, as there are all kinds of twists and turns, but suffice it to say that the book provides a well-written and enjoyable picture of the human kaleidoscope that constitutes contemporary London.

Cover design by Faber Cover images

Kudos/Hal Shinnie