FROM PREFACE

That Jerusalem is a holy city for Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans is common knowledge. But not many people are aware that Jerusalem is also a city of strange contradictions and astonishing curiosities. In Jerusalem the sacred and the profane mingle and produce startling results. Elizabeth Anne Finn states in the preface to her novel Home in the Holy Land:

Life in the Holy Land is singular in many respects, but in none more than in the strange mixture of circumstances and events. Associations, sacred and profane, sober and ridiculous, civilized and barbarous, sorrowful and merry, jostle each other in a manner which is hardly to be conceived by those who have not experienced it.

And Charles Warren, whose pioneering archeological work in Jerusalem has gained him world-wide fame, claimed that Jerusalem was “a city of contradictions.” “In her,” said Warren, “all nature is in disorder; all order would be unnatural.” No wonder that Jerusalem has been a happy hunting ground for people with an eye for the odd, the strange, and the curious. Yet no one has ever published a book on the curiosities of Jerusalem. This book, it is hoped, will partially fill this lacuna.

Curiosities have often been confused with trivia, and books dealing with curiosities have been regarded as mere “browsing” matter. They are said to require no intellectual sophistication on the part of the reader, for curiosities are expected to provide only amusement. This characterization can not apply to this volume which not only seeks to provide pleasurable reading but also enables the reader to grasp Jerusalem’s unique role in the history of mankind. Too many visitors in Jerusalem see only the surface, leaving virtually untouched by the city’s unique charm, its matchless shrines, and its historic monuments. The writer is confident that those who read this book will encounter Jerusalem with eyes that see and hearts that understand. Even the tourist who “does” the city in a couple of days, hurrying from one site to another, will be better equipped to comprehend the wonders of Jerusalem ’s spiritual and historical phenomena.

The curiosities chosen for this book are the result of much exploration. They were selected with utmost care and arranged in a logical context. The writer hopes that they will delight and inform the readers as much as they have fascinated and enlightened him.