CYNTHIA OZICK
47
sovereign people, with the knowledge that Jews will not again be pur–
sued for ill in their own land, that Jews will not again be flies-or
grasshoppers-in their own sight, but a covenanted people, that the
land will not again be perceived as vacant skull or dependent vassal, but
rather as the living receptacle of a generous civilization, then, at that
moment, which is
this
moment, can Jerusalem be called holy.
Perhaps, in denigrating the bare gaze, I have disparaged poets. To
compensate, only recall an amorous English poet of the seventeenth cen–
tury. When Andrew Marvell, wooing his coy mistress, undertook to
seek an emblem of eternity, he chose the Jews. And when the prophet–
poet Isaiah sought to inscribe the ways of a nation rooted in sanctity–
meaning the stay against the darkness of chaos-his words were as
clarifying as light: "The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the
effect of righteousness calm and confidence."
Which is exactly what "Jerusalem," chalked by a Jewish child on a
New York sidewalk long ago, stood for: the right order of the world, the
sanctification of the everyday. Ten thousand rains have washed away that
evanescent chalking; but Jerusalem, a free people's capital, is -written not
in chalk but in stone, and-in calm and confidence-bespeaks eternity.
Can Asians Think?
UN DERSTAN DI NG TH E D I V ID E
BETW EEN EAST AN D W EST
by Kishore Mahbubani
$1+ 00
Paper · ISBN
J-586.p -OH-X •
lo8
pages
"If you are looking for insight into how
others perceive us- and the events of
September
II
underscore that need–
then I know of no better guide than
Kishore Mahbubani ."
- Paul
A.
Volcker
"Interesting, provocative, and inteLlec–
tually engagi ng."
- H enry Kissinger
"Absolutely first rate essays."
- Samuel
P.
Huntington
Strangers in the House
COMI NG O F AGE I N
OCCU PI ED PAL ESTI NE
by Raja Shehadeh
"Explains better than a hundred
poli tical treatises why there is still
no peace in the Middle East."
- Amos Elon
"Shehadeh's voice is a rare one in the
turmoil of Palestine: angry yet dis–
passionate, committed yet free."
-Michael Ignatieff
"A poignant memoir . . . definitely a
voice that should be heard."
-William B. Quandt
Available at your local bookstore or call to order 1-8oo-6l9-7140 •
