Lemire Vincent - Jerusalem 1900: the Holy City in the age of possibilities

VINCENT LEMIRE

Translated by Catherine Tihanyi and Lys Ann Weiss

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO AND LONDON

www.centrenationaldulivre.fr

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2017 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2017

Printed in the United States of America

Originally published in France as Jrusalem 1900. La ville sainte lge des possibles, by Vincent Lemire

Armand Colin, Paris, 2013

ARMAND COLIN is a trademark of DUNOD Editeur, 11 rue Paul Bert, 92240 Malakoff

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-18823-2 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-18837-9 (e-book)

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226188379.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lemire, Vincent, 1973 author. | Tihanyi, Catherine, translator. | Weiss, Lys Ann, translator.

Title: Jerusalem 1900 : the Holy City in the age of possibilities / Vincent Lemire ; translated by Catherine Tihanyi and Lys Ann Weiss.

Other titles: Jrusalem 1900. English

Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Translation of: Jrusalem 1900 : la ville sainte lge des possibles. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016033493 | ISBN 9780226188232 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226188379 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: JerusalemHistory19th century. | JerusalemHistory20th century. | Urban anthropologyJerusalem. | Municipal governmentJerusalem.

Classification: LCC DS109.925 .L4613 2017 | DDC 956.94/42034dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016033493

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI / NISO Z39.481992 (Permanence of Paper).

To Robert Ilbert, citizen of the Mediterranean

When history tries to rebuild, to reconstitute what in the past was the way of life, the way of perceiving the world, the way of living relationships with others, one must keep in mind that the people of the past had a future that may be called the future of the past, which forms part of our own past. Yet a great part of the future of the past was never realized. People of the past had dreams, desires, utopias that make up a reservoir of unrealized meaning. An important aspect of the rereading and revision of the transmitted traditions thus consists in discerning the promises not fulfilled by the past. The past is not only events, what happened and can no longer be changed (a very inadequate definition of the past), but something that remains alive in memory, thanks to what I might call the arrows of the future that were not shot or whose trajectory was interrupted. In this sense, the unrealized future of the past perhaps makes up the richest part of a tradition.

Paul Ricoeur, Identit narrative et communaut historique, Cahiers de politique autrement (October 1994)