Jerusalem is one of the most contested urban spaces in the world. It is a multicultural
city, but one that is unlike other multiethnic cities such as London,
Toronto, Paris, or New York. This book brings together scholars from across
the social sciences and the humanities to consider how different disciplinary
theories and methods contribute to the study of conflict and cooperation in
modern Jerusalem. Several essays in the book center on political decisionmaking;
others focus on local and social issues. While Jerusalem’s centrality
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is explored, the chapters also cover issues
that are unevenly explored in recent studies of the city. These include Jerusalem’s
diverse communities of secular and orthodox Jewry and Christian
Palestinians; religious and political tourism and the “heritage managers” of
Jerusalem; the Israeli and Palestinian LGBT community and its experiences
in Jerusalem; and visual and textual perspectives on Jerusalem, particularly
in architecture and poetry. Adelman and Elman argue that Jerusalem is not
solely a place of contention and violence, and that it should be seen as a
physical and demographic reality that must function for all its communities.
