Jerusalem Day Archives - Noah Kennedy

A Tale of Two Jerusalem Days

A couple of years ago I found myself changing my flight to Jerusalem to include a side-trip to Jordan, so that I could meet a friend-of-a-cousin-of-a-friend who had offered to help me with my research. It was difficult to find anything about the man I was to meet, but among the precious snippets I could…

Kai Bird’s Crossing Mandelbaum Gate

While doing background reading on the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, I came across Kai Bird’s poignant and insightful account of his childhood as the son of American consular officials who served in Israel [...]
Reading Fields of Blood while watching Charlie Hebdo

I know the sorrow I feel for those murdered in Paris – the creative artists, their colleagues and those killed trying to protect them – is shared by a massive international host who revere the [...]
The Field of Blood by Nicholas Morton

Nicholas Morton’s new book on the formative years of the Crusader states is a delight on multiple levels. The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East provides [...]
The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas

The publisher of The Last Palestinian touts it as the first book in English to profile Mahmoud Abbas, the man who succeeded Yasser Arafat as leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and has since been [...]
Inside an Islamic document restoration facility on al Haram al-Sharif

On a recent trip to Jerusalem, I got an unexpected and fascinating tour of a facility just steps away from the Dome of the Rock that is dedicated to restoring old Islamic documents. My host was [...]
A Tale of Two Jerusalem Days

A couple of years ago I found myself changing my flight to Jerusalem to include a side-trip to Jordan, so that I could meet a friend-of-a-cousin-of-a-friend who had offered to help me with my research. [...]
Donald Trump, Theologian

Recently, James Carroll wrote a sensitive piece in the New Yorker (“The Radical Meaning of Pope Francis’s Visit to Juarez”) about the testy exchange between Pope Francis and Donald Trump regarding immigration. Midway through the brief [...]
Making Moderate Islam by Rosemary R. Corbett

Nobody seemed to care that an upscale Islamic community center was being proposed for lower Manhattan until 2010 when Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post christened it “The Ground Zero Mosque”. Sporting its new sobriquet, the [...]
The Persistence of Myth

While working on a chapter on Jerusalem during the British Mandate (1917-1948) I ran into one of the private micro-dramas I assume most writers run into and that I learned long ago nobody else is [...]
Fred Donner and the Early Days of Islam

One of the pleasures I’ve discovered in time I’ve spent so far on my current project is meeting interesting people, and also discovering how generous some people can be with their time and expertise. This [...]

Jerusalem Day

A Tale of Two Jerusalem Days

Kai Bird’s Crossing Mandelbaum Gate

Reading Fields of Blood while watching Charlie Hebdo

The Field of Blood by Nicholas Morton

The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas

Inside an Islamic document restoration facility on al Haram al-Sharif

A Tale of Two Jerusalem Days

Donald Trump, Theologian

Making Moderate Islam by Rosemary R. Corbett

The Persistence of Myth

Fred Donner and the Early Days of Islam