To this day our language has kept its stony, concentrated, concise character, striving for the essential. This makes Hebrew practically untranslatabl… - Shulamith Hareven

Whoever wants theater to "beautify" reality, the papers to "beautify" reality, literature to create "positive" heroes, and the nightly news to be "constructive" is raising loyal subjects, not citizens. The "ornamental" perception of life...has no place in an education system whose goal it is to raise citizens and autonomous adults. And if a teacher does not have the courage to look reality in the eye as it is, together with her pupils, and to think with her pupils, the education of pupils should not be placed in her hands. It is not them but herself that she shields from reality; it is she, in essence, who does not have the strength to cope with reality. And self-pity has little to do with education.

The question remains: aside from a great writer, or a writer-historian of Barbara Tuchman's stature, who can draw an accurate picture of the situation and not enrage those who were there? Who can highlight the distress of both sides, without betraying either one?

Jerusalem-which sometimes feels like the frontline of an ongoing war