Seize Chroniques De Jérusalem Authored By Guy Delisle Distributed As Interactive EBook

much lighter than Sacco's sitelinkPalestine, Delisle approaches this book about Israel/Palestine as more of a tourist than a journalist, casually observing and recording his observations in a lighthearted, sometimes funny, manner, It doesn't contain as much depth as sitelinkPalestine, but I suppose it presents a more balanced view of the conflict and showcases what everyday life is like for foreign residents.


The artwork is simpler, too, though this is not necessarily a bad thing,

sitelinkBlog sitelinkFacebook sitelinkTwitter sitelinkInstagram sitelinkYoutube This book is disturbingly proPalestinian and antiIsraeli, The author makes zero effort to learn about his host country's rich culture and history, He shows contempt for Israel and seems continually shocked when things in Israel are different from his hometown, He simply shrugs with apathy as helpless dog is chained up in a cage for days and probably abused by one of his neighbors,

When the author learns about the thousands of deadly rockets Hamas fired onto the houses of Israeli civilians, he responds with, "Cool, " He compares ultraorthodox Jews to monkeys, He gives no background information to inform his readers about various altercations, He portrays Israeli Jews as a angry, hostile villains and Palestinians are all depicted as helpless victims,

Lets not ignore thepound elephant in the room: Many people hate Jews and that will probably never change, There is a disgusting double standard of bias against Israel from people like this author who constantly blast and attack Israel out of hate,

This author was unafraid to write openly about North Korea, it's dictators and brutal regimes in his first graphic novel, This author may loath totalitarianism, but he seems to loathe free Jews in Israel even more,

For a more detailed explanation, please read Aeron's insightful review at the link:

sitelink goodreads. com/review/show a slow burn Graphic Memoir definitely not a novel, The most sacred and crucial place on earth in the eye of a stranger, Delisle's exploration of Palestine/Israel as a comic artist is honest, witty and quite thoughtprovoking, If you asked me a year ago what I wanted from the graphic novel world I would have said: a more colorful Guy Delisle travelogue, And here it is! A fantastic book with more color, more humour and more depth than his previous ones and big enough that I didnt feel it went by too fast or that it wasnt worth the money.
It left me with a feeling of completion and the satisfaction that I got a solid and visually appealing account of a year in Jerusalem,



Jerusalem is Guy Delisles fourth travelogue and, in my opinion, his best, It blends travel he travels more than in his previous books, including two short trips to Europe, selfdeprecating humor his funniest book yet, religion always a fascinating topic and great artwork.
Its obvious that a lot of work went into this,



Delisle lives in East Jerusalem with his wife and two kids and coveys what its like to live in a bizarre city torn apart by political unrest and deepseated religious beliefs.
A place where the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a neverending concern, A place where followers of three major religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam have yet to learn how to live together in peace, A place of social and geographical segregation, Starting, a separation wall was built to control the entry of Palestinian West Bank residents into Israel and was defended by the Israeli government as a security measure designed to prevent terrorist attacks.
The barrier is still under construction and its length upon completion is estimated to be approximatelykilometers,

Its a complicated reality which Delisle manages to present in understandable terms, always keeping an open mind and a perpetually fascinated attitude as one would expect from a foreigner in a strange place or an atheist confronted with religion.
He is cynical and ignorant, but also curious, interested, observant, funny, questioning, he tackles a wide variety of topics ranging from peculiar religious practices to theGaza War and, all the while, he immortalizes in his drawings a year of his life.




So what makes Jerusalem and its surrounding areas so different To name a few oddities: Samaritans adamant in their belief that prayers must be placed over and not

on the doorframe like Jews wrongly think, ultraorthodox families averagingchildren and living below poverty line because the husbands dont work and are exempt from military service they study sacred texts instead, parallel transportation systems Israeli buses that go everywhere except the Arab quarters and Arab minivans that operate nowhere but the Arab quarters, the omnipresence of guns, Spiderman kippas, an Arab family renting crosses to people who want to reenact Christs Passion, stores being closed on either Friday, Saturday or Sunday according to their owners religious affiliation.
No farther than Tel Aviv coffee shops are open on the Sabbath and girls in bikinis are smoking hookahs on the beach,

All in all, a wonderful book and highly recommended if you like graphic novels, travel, humour or you're interested in religion, Sadly, according to sitelinkthis interview, we won't be seeing any more travelogues from him anytime soon, The cartoonist author, Delisle, spends a year in East Jerusalem with his girlfriend and their children while she works for Doctors without Borders, The book is his travelogue of that time, but Delisle manages to spend a year in an incredibly diverse and vibrant city and not be changed in the least by it.
He shows contempt for almost everyone he meets and seems continually surprised when things are different from a more secular international city, He never asks why people do what they do, just is surprised by their actions,

And yet, I really wanted to like this book, I enjoyed his storytelling style and style of illustrating, The character appears laid back and sweetly naive, He starts off slowly in an apparent attempt to just report what he sees, He does admit up front that Doctors without Borders supports the Palestinians and so they are given housing in the Arab quarter, His girlfriend gets transportation to Gaza daily, But as the story progresses you start noticing things, That he never asks why things happen, or why things are as they are, On pagehe claims that "settlers do not work," they live on charity, A blatant lie. Oh yes, almost all Israelis are referred to as "settlers, " On pagehe casually refers to Tel Aviv as the capital! Thereby denying that Israel itself considers Jerusalem is it's capital, That's when you start noticing the bias of the book,

He points out several times the intrusive and annoying procedures ElAl the Israel airline puts him through, Does he ever ask why Maybe because his girlfriend works for DwoB, an NGO that sympathizes with terrorists That maybe the concern is that he too is a terrorist sympathizer and that ElAl is justified in their security concerns Nope, sorry, no analysis.
Just his annoyance.

On pagewhile visiting the zoo there's a report, "the Israeli army is bombing Gaza this very instant, . . " of course it goes on to detail air strikes, civilian casualties, closed borders, Any reporting as to why Nope, sorry, no mention of Palestinian shelling or bombing, There's a report of an ambulance being attacked, We are left to assume that it was by the Israeli army, That's when I began reading more critically,

That he learns nothing from his stay in Israel is apparent, A few examples:
He gives several presentations and workshops on cartooning to Palestinians throughout the year, During the first one, he "accidentally" shows a cartoon of a naked woman and man, One might think that he could figure out that in a society where women dress modestly and often go veiled, they might be a little offended by the nudity.
In fact, a third of his audience leave immediately, At the next presentation, he shows the same images to "see what would happen, " One might expect that he would learn from his first experience and be more sensitive to the Muslim culture, but he doesn't, He does it again and again,

During passover which he bizarrely calls the "Jewish Easter" which shows a major misunderstanding of both holidays, when Jews are forbidden to eat products with yeast in them, he gets annoyed that many of his regular foods are hidden behind plastic sheeting.
Instead of asking why this is or is it's ok to buy them, he pushes the plastic aside and takes what he wants p,. What he doesn't realize is that by doing so, he could be making many foods in the store unkosher and if someone saw what he was doing, possibly cost the store time and money to clean up his mess.


He is especially critical of Israeli Jews in the book, seeming to have no understanding of Judaism and no desire to learn, He repeatedly comments on the prevalence of weapons among Israeli Jews, but never seems to ask why, He eats in a cafe where people are remembering those who died at a suicide bombing at the same cafe a few years earlier, but gets continually surprised that there is security guard at the door who checks his bag.
He never connects the dots and understands that the check is to make sure he isn't a suicide bomber, He looks at a guard with a gun at Masada and comments that "you see weapons even in the most peaceful places" p,. But never asks the guard why she is there or why she carries a gun,

He goes to the ultraorthodox neighborhood of MeaShearim a lot, He draws a sign he saw on the wall that asks tour groups not to pass through the neighborhood, I was in Jerusalem at the same time as he was and know that the sign continues and asks tourists to dress modestly and respect the beliefs of the residents though this part of the sign is not in the book.
He seems to think that the residents just don't like tourists, and ignores the fact that the tourists may act in ways that are offensive to the residents, I'm not sure he understands that some of his behavior is offensive, though clearly he doesn't care when it is,

The most shocking frame of the book is when he compares ultraorthodox Jews to monkeys on page, I didn't get the impression that he is overtly antiSemitic, but I think the last people to make such a comparison were the Germans in the's,

The books reads like the journal of a man who walks through life untouched by any of it, It's a random collection of images and tells no coherent story, Many of the images and stories contain no explanation or if they do, it is often incomplete or incorrect, He generally cares only about doing his drawing but has no care to learn what or who he is drawing, It's a shame he wasted the opportunity of spending a year in Jerusalem,

Credit where credit is due I took the bulk of this review from Aaron, another Goodreads reviewer, Thank you Aaron!.