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But in recent years, a growing number of Jewish visitors have begun to quietly pray, raising fears among Palestinians that Israel is plotting to divide or take over the site. Although I don’t agree with the publisher’s broad claim that this book is ​ “sen­si­tive and fair, assum­ing noth­ing and draw­ing every­thing,” I rec­om­mend it as a unique read.Under longstanding arrangements, Jews are permitted to visit the site, but not to pray there. Chron­i­cles from the Holy City is a pic­ture album of one family’s year in a spe­cif­ic place. I found this to be a cool way to present a trav­el­ogue. The draw­ings are sim­ple yet detailed and enjoy­able to read, with a max­i­mum of eight pan­els per page. Yet the peo­ple he meets with are not shy about strong­ly voic­ing their own polit­i­cal stances, and there is no expla­na­tion of how past his­to­ry has cre­at­ed the cur­rent-day polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion. He seems to be open-mind­ed as he asks ques­tions and gains insight.

Delisle, who is nei­ther Jew­ish nor Arab, engages with dif­fer­ent sects of Jews, Chris­tians, and Moslems, sec­u­lar and obser­vant. He writes about the traf­fic, the bor­der check­points and the secu­ri­ty bar­ri­er, the hol­i­days and the sights.

Through his draw­ings, Delisle describes his explo­rations of Jerusalem and oth­er places in Israel as he cares for his chil­dren and expe­ri­ences the com­plex­i­ties of dai­ly life in this land. Delisle and his fam­i­ly are housed in an apart­ment in Beit Han­i­na, in East Jerusalem, an area tagged on his map as ​ “annexed since 1967.” Delisle’s wife works for Medecins Sans Fron­tieres (Doc­tors With­out Bor­der), a human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tion which claims to be polit­i­cal­ly neu­tral. Jerusalem is Guy Delisle’s third graph­ic non­fic­tion book depict­ing dai­ly life in a city ​ “few are able to trav­el to.” Delisle’s line draw­ings, in gray or beige shades with wel­come rare splash­es of col­or, are divid­ed into twelve sec­tions, begin­ning with the author’s arrival with his wife and chil­dren in August, pro­ceed­ing through the months of the year and end­ing with July when the fam­i­ly departs.Īlthough the obser­va­tions depict­ed in the draw­ings are per­son­al, they are meant to be some­what objec­tive, a ​ “stranger in a strange land” com­ment­ing on what he sees day-to-day.