Jerusalem

Delisle's (Burma Chronicles; Pyongyang) year in Jerusalem stemmed from wife Nadège's assignment with Doctors Without Borders. Yet Jerusalem, he learns, is all about borders. Its exclusively Israeli or Palestinian communities and many religious microcommunities crosscut the city, and the civic, military, and in-group rules about who goes where are constantly shifting. The result is daily disruption for everyone, with more dangerous disruptions from violence like the Gaza War (known in Israel as Operation Cast Lead) that punctuated Delisle's stay. Yet a façade of normalcy fronts this teetering society where finding a convenient café or children's playground becomes a personal triumph seemingly as newsworthy as the latest Israeli/Palestinian dust-up. Writing as an uninvolved outsider, Delisle finds himself nonetheless developing a sensibility to the city; at one point he wryly observes, "Thanks, God, for making me an atheist." The simple-seeming art is black/gray wash with moody color enhancements.