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| A Woman in Jerusalem | 
 enlarge | Author: A. B. Yehoshua
Creator: Hillel Halkin
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $4.01
You Save: $9.99 (71%)
Buy New/Used from $2.96
Avg. Customer Rating:  (20 reviews)
Sales Rank: 87289
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 1
ISBN: 0156031949
Dewey Decimal Number: 892.436
EAN: 9780156031943
ASIN: 0156031949
Publication Date: August 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
To Whom Does Jerusalem Belong? November 6, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The abiding truth in this little novel is that Jerusalem is not a normal city and is claimed by many people. For Jews, Christians and Muslims it is a Holy City. For Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs it is the symbol of rightness and authority of who should be the 'Sextant' of the Holy Land. The 'Old City' is only one square mile of which the largest quarter (the Arab Quarter) contains Christianity's most sacred sites (the Via Delarossa) and eleven sects war over control of the 'Church of the Holy Sepulcher'. The Temple or Noble Mount where the 'Dome of the Rock' mosque resides is the site where Mohammed ascended to Heaven, where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac and was the site of the two Jewish Temples.
This story is not about any of these monumental questions, but what is owed to a non-combatant (a transient visitor) who is killed in a suicide bombing. She has not come to the city to fight for control, but to be part of this universal city. Her death served no one's purpose. In fact it was anonymous, because she wasn't identified for a week after the blast. She turns out to be a Russian Christian, who though trained as an engineer, was working as a cleaning woman in Jerusalem's largest bakery.
The owner, on finding that she was still on the company payroll from a 'nasty' article in a local paper accusing him of 'inhumanity', decides to send her home to be buried. The man who is to be the 'emissary' to the woman's home country is an ex-salesman who is now director of human resources. As we learn more about the woman, we also learn more about the director and the owner.
In his travels back to the woman's homeland, and eventually her hometown, the group taking the body back grows to seven. This is a mystical number and should not be dismissed as serendipity. When they finally reach her hometown...no read the book and find out for yourself.
The end of a journey is just the beginning of a new adventure. Life is a circle that no one knows the true ending of.
 The journey of the Human Resource Man November 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The original name of the novel in its Hebrew version is "The Mission of the Human Resource Man." And indeed, the journey is more of the nameless Human Resource director at a Jerusalem bakery than that of a woman killed during a Palestinian suicide bombing and becomes the focus of the Human Resource director's investigation.
The owner of the bakery is a retired, rich man who is sensitive to public criticism when it is discovered that the deceased woman was being paid her salary after she had left her job as a member of the night cleaning crew. He wants to do the right thing, and compels the Human Resource director to take upon himself not only the responsibility, but also the blame for the negligence in noticing her absence.
And so begins a journey for the Human Resource director, a journey that changes him as he becomes enmeshed in the dead woman's life--and death.
In comparing the English text to the original Hebrew version, it is clear that the editor had made a crucial decision (which must have been imposed upon the translator) to forgo the present-tense fluid, free-association narration of A. B. Yehoshua in favor of standard, commercial syntax in which the English version is written in the past tense, with the dialogue lines set apart in quotes. This major decision has decapitated the beauty of the A. B. Yehoshua's lyrical prose, stripping the novel from its fast-moving, seamless style into more of a plot-driven story than a character-driven story.
Nevertheless, this is a story worth reading as, in some interpretation, A Woman in Jerusalem parallels the capitulation of the Human Resource director to that of the State of Israel taking blame to placate public opinion even when there is no fault on her part.
A simple tale of humanity September 5, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a book that gradually gets under your skin. The storyline is deceptively simple--a victim of a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem goes unmissed and unidentified for a week before a tabloid reveals her employer and levels an accusation of corporate indifference to her death. The humiliated employer decides to make amends, using his otherwise self-absorbed personnel director to "do the right thing" for the deceased employee. What follows is a humorous/serious saga that pulls spontaneous acts of generosity and humanity out of all the story's characters.
This is not a book with sharply drawn plot boundaries or a predictable course or ending, but it is ultimately enjoyable and heartwarming in so many ways that make it superior to most good popular novels (in my opinion). A.B. Yehoshua is one of the most interesting and creative minds at work in literature at the moment and has many works out that serious readers should find challenging and highly agreeable. Most of his books are translated from Hebrew, but that difficult work seems to be uniformly well done by a variety of collaborators.
Rich and evocative August 6, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
A woman is murdered in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, her body long unclaimed, a journalist traces her to a bakery where she once worked and was not in death missed. The burial of this woman, Yulia Ragayev, the only person in this wonderful novel to have a name, launches the tale. The Bakery's Human Resource Director must find out who she was and what was her relationship to the bakery, in the process becoming emotionally attached to her. Indeed, it is a testament to Yehoshua's skills how well he brings this dead woman to life as a character in the story without using flashbacks or others recounting long memories of her.
To tell much more would give to much away about this engaging humorous story. A note should be said about those reviewers who complain that "A Woman in Jerusalem" lacked subtlety or depth. To say that this story is simple would be akin to saying that Carver's "What We Talk About when We Talk about Love" is about two couples having a drink or "Ulysses" is about a day in Dublin. The subtle layers of Yehoshua's novel contain much richness and thought, along with a great deal of pathos. Indeed, one must be impressed at the humanity and humor he brings to a subject as overwhelming as terrorism. Serious readers will not be disappointed.
A Death In Jerusalem January 18, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Yehoshua's book is both amusing and deadly serious at the same time. His writing style is reminiscent of J. M. Coetzee and Saramago. He uses a straightforward, simple but poignant language that expresses so much through its brevity. The book truly paints a marvelous picture of a journey, one that represents the roots of many an Israeli resident.
Yehoshua accomplishes his tremendous illustration by painting a picture that is at once both Kafkaesque and surreal. He takes his protagonist, a human resource manager from a large Jerusalem bakery, through a journey all the way to the old Soviet Union. With him, he takes the body of a woman that died in Jerusalem in a terrorist bombing attack. The trip brings him in contact with the two living blood relatives of the dead woman and the ex-husband. Each meeting has a special character and each one drives the human resources manager to proceed in a specific direction.
In addition, Yehoshua makes certain commentary on the government and the Cold War. But the central theme of the book regards the attempt to give the body dignity under very difficult conditions, no matter what it takes. As there is "no choice" but to do what is necessary.
The book is recommended for all serious literature readers. It truly is one of the great works of the 21st Century to date. It is highly recommended.
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