From Publishers Weekly
A quasi-memoir of his time spent living and working in Jerusalem, Laquer's volume exploits the author's experiences and relationships with key figures in Jerusalem's history (Eliezer Sukenik, Golda Meir, Richard Kauffman, Gershom Scholem, Mordechai Shenhabi) as the starting points for several discussions and reminiscences of the people, events, trends and movements that shape Jerusalem. Laquer, a know-it-all without the pretense, is clearly conflicted: the writing has a cathartic element to it, as the author laments the economic plight of the city, "the exodus of the young, secular, and enterprising among the population," the increasingly ultraorthodox culture of the city and the diminishing hope for compromise between Jerusalem's Jews and Muslims, while confessing his undying feelings for the place. From the "second religion" of archaeology among Palestinians and Israelis to the distinctive architecture of the city's neighborhoods to the first contact of well-established Palestinian Arabs with newly arrived Ashkenazi Zionist immigrants, Laquer's account creates a remarkable sense of time and place-a worthwhile read for anyone interested in knowing more intimately the city and its history.
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Table of Contents:

Introduction: Young Man on the Road to Jerusalem, 1938 1

Chapter 1: Sukenik and the War of Archeologists 25
Chapter 2: Golda Meir and the Post-Zionists 40
Chapter 3: Kibbutz: Utopia Plus Ninety 61
Chapter 4: Eliachar and the Sephardi Aristocracy 87
Chapter 5: Rehavia: Kaufman, Koebner, and the German Jews 101
Chapter 6: Scholem and the Hebrew University 117
Chapter 7: Shenhabi, the Holocaust, and Yad Vashen 139
Chapter 8: Musa Alami and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 157
Chapter 9: Gabriel Stern and the Binational State 173
Chapter 10: Recollections of Talbiyeh 193
Chapter 11: Mea Shearim and the Black Hats 209
Chapter 12: Musrara and the Panthers from Morocco 233
Chapter 13: Serfaty, Curiel, and the Dilema of the Jewish Communists 255
Chapter 14: Dr. Sobolev and the Russian Repatriants 271
Chapter 15: Baedeker, the Holy Sites, and the Jerusalem Syndrome 287

Epilogue: I Saw the New Jerusalem 313