Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 7/30/1981
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: Israel
NATIONALITY: American
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/sarah-tuttle-singer
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born July 30, 1981; children: two.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Freelance writer and blogger. TimesOfIsrael.com, social media director and news media editor; Kveller.com, contributing editor; writer for Time.com, Jezebel.com, OffBeatMama.com, Parenting.com, and for Scary Mommy and Ladies’ Home Journal.
RELIGION: Jewish.WRITINGS
Contributor to Avital Norman-Nathan’s anthology, The Good Mother Myth: Redefining Motherhood to Fit Reality, Seal Press, 2013.
SIDELIGHTS
Sarah Tuttle-Singer is news media editor and social media editor at Times of Israel, the largest online newspaper covering Israel, the region, and the Jewish world. Born in the United States and raised in Venice Beach, California, she moved from Los Angeles to Israel where she lives with her children. Interested in people from all over the world and all walks of life, she also writes personal, political, and parenting articles for Time.com, Jezebel.com, OffBeatMama.com, and Parenting.com. She also lectures through the Jewish Speakers Bureau.
In 2018, Tuttle-Singer published her memoir, Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered: One Woman’s Year in the Heart of the Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish Quarters of Old Jerusalem. After being stoned by Palestinian kids in 1999 outside a gate to the Old City of Jerusalem when she was eighteen, Tuttle-Singer was afraid to venture out into the ancient city, but she soon overcame her fear. She returned to Jerusalem as an adult with her children to spend a year exploring what is known as the hottest piece of real estate in the world. During her year, she lived part of the week on a communal moshav and the rest of the week living in the four quarters with Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish residents. The book chronicles the interesting people she met, communities, ancient history, food, culture, religious rituals, and things that make Jerusalem so special. She also learned to make friends with people who were once her enemy, and to enjoy the views of the city from the rooftops.
Although Tuttle-Singer’s memoir tends toward the operatic with her mother’s death during her childhood, “Certain descriptive passages of the sounds and sights may be a bit rich for some readers, but Tuttle-Singer’s approachable personality will prevail for a good many more,” according to a Kirkus Reviews critic. Ellis Shuman praised the book online at Times of Israel saying: “Tuttle-Singer’s writing is lyrical and poetic. It is a love letter to a fascinating city.”
On the Jewess website, Kylie Ora Lobell observed that “In many of her writings, Tuttle-Singer comes off childlike, but in a good way. She is in awe of the people and the world around her and is fascinated by even the smallest of interactions, like when she bought scotch from a religious Muslim woman at Heathrow Airport.” Speaking with Lobell, Tuttle-Singer described the diversity of people she met in Jerusalem: “I think people are people are people, and there are good people and there are a–holes. And if we look for good people, we’ll find them. They’re everywhere.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2018, review of Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered: One Woman’s Year in the Heart of the Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish Quarters of Old Jerusalem.
ONLINE
Jewess, https://jewessmag.com/(November 16, 2017), Kylie Ora Lobell, author interview.
Times of Israel Online, http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/ (May 8, 2018), Ellis Shuman, review of Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer
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Sarah Tuttle-Singer (Hebrew: שרה טאטל זינגר; born 30 July 1981) is a United States-born media editor.[1] She is the New Media Editor at The Times of Israel,[2] a current affairs website based in Jerusalem, Israel, that launched in February 2012. She also blogs at The Times of Israel,[3] Kveller,[4] Scary Mommy,[5] Ladies' Home Journal, and TIME.com.[6] She has been published in Avital Norman-Nathan's Good Mother Myth anthology.[7]
Her writing covers a range of personal topics including parenting,[8] divorce, death, abortion, and living under rocket fire.
Books[edit]
Included in: Avital Norman-Nathan (31 December 2013). The Good Mother Myth: Redefining Motherhood to Fit Reality. Seal Press. ISBN 978-1580055024.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer was raised in Venice Beach, California on Yiddish lullabies and Civil Rights anthems.
She now lives in Israel with her two kids where she climbs roofs, explores cisterns, opens secret doors and talks to strangers.
Sarah has written for a variety of places including Times of Israel, Kveller, TIME.com, and Ladies Home Journal about her life in Israel, her love of Jerusalem, and her family. But mostly she just writes about people.
Sarah also speaks before audiences left, right, and center through the Jewish Speakers Bureau, asking them to wrestle with important questions while celebrating their willingness to do so.
She is a work in progress.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer
New Media Editor, Times of Israel
Sarah Tuttle-Singer is an Los Angeles expat growing roots in Israel. She lives with her two kids in a small village next to wild fields and endless sky. She is a widely read writer (TIME.com, Kveller, Jezebel, Times of Israel) and the new media editor at Times of Israel, the largest online newspaper covering Israel, the region, and the Jewish world. Sarah loves to write about Israel - both the personal and the political, and she loves building community around writing and varying points of view. She loves people, and enjoys engaging with the thousands who read her work and follow her on social media - people from al-Halil and Hevron, people from al-Quds and Yerushalayim. People from all over the world from all walks of life and faith. People who sometimes love what she writes, and people who sometimes really don't. Her writing and work on social media has led to speaking engagements with the MFA, the IDF Spokesperson's office, and various synagogues and coexistence groups. Sarah loves Israel enough to choose to live here every day, AND to call this place out on it's problems, too - for she believes that being a patriot means throwing yourself into the ring to fight FOR your country - a country she loves enough to raise her kids in as a single mom. Sarah loves drinking coffee and scotch with friends old and new, and then finding the miracles in each moment and writing about it. Sarah is a work in progress.
Super Jewess: Writer Sarah Tuttle-Singer of Times of Israel
Kylie Ora Lobell | On כ״ז במרחשון ה׳תשע״ח (November 16, 2017)
Sarah Tuttle-Singer is one of Israel’s most outspoken critics, as well as one of its most ardent supporters. Like the country itself, she is full of contradictions.
The mother of two, writer, and Times of Israel New Media editor is often sparking up an online conversation about the Israeli occupation, the mysteries of the Old City, and her entertaining interactions with customer service agents. She frequently updates her Facebook page with rants about how the Israeli government is handling certain situations, as well as posting about how much she loves her country.
Tuttle-Singer, a Venice Beach, Calif. native, said she wanted to live in Israel since she was 16. “Nearly 15 years and two kids later, I made aliyah. It wasn’t easy at first —the most meaningful things in life often aren’t — but besides having kids, moving to Israel was the best thing I’ve ever done.”
The writer spends her time living on a moshav half the week, and the other half in Tel Aviv or in the Old City of Jerusalem, working on her upcoming book, “Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered: A Year Spent Living in the Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish Quarters of Old Jerusalem.”
Sarah Tuttle-Singer’s upcoming book.
On any typical day, Tuttle-Singer is drinking coffee during the day, and sipping on Single Malt at night. When she’s not at her quiet moshav, she said she is “climbing roofs in Jerusalem and walking around the Old City and exploring cisterns, and drinking spiced tea. And some days, I’m in Tel Aviv, writing from the beach, or Jaffa Port, watching the sunset, and taking photos of things that catch my eye and give me a sense of wonder.”
In many of her writings, Tuttle-Singer comes off childlike, but in a good way. She is in awe of the people and the world around her and is fascinated by even the smallest of interactions, like when she bought scotch from a religious Muslim woman at Heathrow Airport.
Or when she thought she was in a cab with a Jewish driver, but then was pleasantly surprised when he turned out to be Arabic. She reflected, “I think people are people are people, and there are good people and there are a–holes. And if we look for good people, we’ll find them. They’re everywhere.”
Since Tuttle-Singer is critical of and sympathetic to both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, she gets her fair share of hate comments on her posts. She said that many times, she has been called misogynistic names, like “whore,” and someone told her they hope she gets raped and killed.
“That said, most of the people who disagree with me politically are respectful, and I learn from them,” she said. “And they’ll defend me online when the too-vocal minority write vicious things. I’m grateful for these friends.”
Despite the threats, Tuttle-Singer isn’t afraid to post her opinions on a variety of subjects other than Israel, like womanhood, sexuality, and being a parent. And she has received tons of supportive messages about her writing.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer in Jerusalem.
“During the #MeToo social media phenomenon, strangers reached out to me to share their story,” she said. “And in some very special instances, men asked me some thoughtful questions on what constitutes harassment and assault, because they want to be clear moving forward and make amends if necessary.”
In one especially poignant post about #MeToo, Tuttle-Singer detailed her personal story. She wrote about the Israeli worker from an internet company who installed her internet and then proceeded to hit on and repeatedly harass her.
She wrote, “He knows where I live. He knows I live alone with my kids. If I call the company he works for to complain, he could get fired. I don’t want him to get fired. He’s harassing me but he isn’t assaulting me. He’s got two kids at home. If he gets fired, he could come back and hurt me for getting him fired.”
Tuttle-Singer received many comments from friends and fans that offered words of support and came with up ideas for how she could protect herself. “I am lucky that I get a lot of beautiful messages, too. And those make me feel so, so good,” she said.
Along with not being afraid to “go there” when it comes to sexual harassment, Tuttle-Singer has a fun and refreshing take on parenthood, as well. As a writer for Kveller, she’s come up with article topics like, “Why I’m Saying F*ck You to My Kids’ Homework,” “What to Do When Your Daughter Says, ‘Mama, I Can’t Stand You,’” and “You Are F*ing Up Your Kids.”
Sarah Tuttle-Singer with her children.
Though Tuttle-Singer is single, and a mother, she said she is by no means a single mother – just a divorced one. She shares legal custody with her ex-husband, who is in Israel with his wife, and she relies on her ex’s mother for help and support.
“[My ex] is the first person I call during the special moments of grace when [our kids] are holding hands or washing the dishes or co-writing comic books… or just being silly and adorable and wonderful,” she said. “Our marriage didn’t last, but we are still in it together – and one day – God willing – we will be grandparents together.”
As for now, Tuttle-Singer is going to enjoy her kids while they are young and keep working hard at writing about Israel, whether she’s highlighting its flaws or its eternal beauty. No matter what, she said, everyone in Israel is family.
“Family sometimes disagrees and needs to criticize. Because ‘Kol Yisrael Arevim Ze Le Ze, [or] ‘All of Israel is responsible for one another,’ doesn’t just mean we have to have each other’s backs. It means we have to call each other out on our mistakes and take responsibility for them, too.”
She continued, “I love Israel with wild ferocity, and I am committed to being part of helping make this country even better than it is. Because being here means that I get to speak out and challenge the status quo the only way I can: Through being a citizen and voting, and through writing.”
You can follow Sarah Tuttle-Singer on Facebook.
Make sure you buy a copy of her new book, “Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered,” which will be out in May 2018.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer
Sarah Tuttle-Singer is the New Media Editor at Times of Israel, and the author of "Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered". She writes about her life, and enjoys meeting new people.
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Sarah Tuttle-Singer lives in Israel with her 2 kids and cat, in a village next to rolling fields. Sarah is the New Media Editor at Times of Israel - the fastest growing news site on Israel. Author of "Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered", published in 2018, she writes about her life for a variety of places including Times of Israel, Kveller, TIME.com & Jezebel. She writes about her life.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer
Dangerous when bored
Sarah Tuttle-Singer is an LA expat (reluctantly) growing roots in Israel. She is a contributing editor at kveller.com, and has written for jezebel.com, offbeatmama.com and parenting.com. She is also the social media director at timesofisrael.com. She is dangerous when bored.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer Pens Complex Love Letter to Jerusalem
BY Kylie Ora Lobell | PUBLISHED Apr 11, 2018 | Yom HaAtzmaut
Sarah Tuttle-Singer first fell in love with Jerusalem in 1997 when she was 16 and begrudgingly went to Israel for the summer at her parents’ insistence. Back then, the Los Angeles native wanted to spend time lounging by a pool in Mar Vista instead. In 2010, together with her Israeli husband and two young children, she made aliyah. That same year, she and her husband separated. They eventually divorced.
As a single mother, Tuttle-Singer gained prominence in Israel for her no-holds-barred, emotionally raw, visceral writings about both her personal life and her political views. She has more than 18,000 followers on her Facebook page as well as a large following on the Times of Israel website, where she is the new media editor. At the end of 2016, she decided to move to the Old City of Jerusalem for a year and spend three months living in each of its four quarters.
“I wanted the experience of truly getting to know the four quarters and the people in them,” Tuttle-Singer said in an email to the Journal. “Because once I was afraid to be in the Old City [during a visit there when she was 18, Palestinian kids threw stones at her], and it pains me that here is arguably the center of the universe for the children of Abraham. The Old City is so fraught and divided.”
Tuttle-Singer turned those experiences into her book, “Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered: One Woman’s Year in the Heart of the Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish Quarters of Old Jerusalem.” It will be released on May 8 by Skyhorse Publishing. It includes original and previously published stories from her writings on her Facebook page and the Times of Israel website.
The experience of living in the Old City is soul-wrenching, and I won’t lie and tell you it was all rainbows and kenafe [cheese pastries] and coffee and conversations about coexistence.” — Sarah Tuttle-Singer
“The experience of living in the Old City is soul-wrenching, and I won’t lie and tell you it was all rainbows and kenafe [cheese pastries] and coffee and conversations about coexistence,” Tuttle-Singer said. “I was scared some nights. I was lonely. I was hurt. I felt about a million conflicting feelings that cut me like shards.”
She writes about one instance in which a man sexually assaulted her. In another essay she writes about how she lost her glasses in the Western Wall tunnel and twisted her ankle.
Despite the challenges, Tuttle-Singer said, “There were way more stunningly wonderful things that happened, too. Real friendships emerged. Kindness. Humor.”
One of those moments occurred after she twisted her ankle and a woman named Um Ibrahim took her in for the night. She writes in her book, “I didn’t get my glasses — my mom’s glasses — they’re still there at the bottom of the cistern, but I’m okay with that. Because I had tea instead with Um Ibrahim, and we ate little almond cookies, and we talked about our mothers. Hers used to sit just outside Damascus Gate selling whatever was in season.”
Part autobiography, Tuttle-Singer’s book also covers her life growing up in Southern California, learning about the importance of Israel from her parents, the death of her mother from cancer, and her marriage and divorce after having two children within two years.
At the same time, she writes about her everyday experiences chatting with people from different backgrounds. She connects with everyone from a once-homophobic Palestinian man who realized he was gay, to an ultra-Orthodox rebbetzin with several children who yearned to be loved by her husband.
On Facebook and in her writings, Tuttle-Singer is not afraid to spark debates about Israel, as well as express her irritation at the current Israel-Palestinian conflict. She is still angry about “the systemic inequality between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs within the Green Line, the disgraceful treatment of the African asylum seekers [and] the way non-Orthodox Judaism has become marginalized.”
Still, quoting renowned Israeli author Amos Oz, who wrote, “I love Israel but I don’t like it very much,” Tuttle-Singer said she loves Israel even when she cannot stand it, and that she is going to continue fighting for what she believes in: bridge building and social justice for people in Israel and around the world.
“I wrestle with all these things because of a deep, abiding love for the place I’ve chosen to make home, both for me and for my kids,” she said. “And I want to be part of the solution to all these challenges, and the only way to do that with the talents I have is to roll up my sleeves here and get to work.”
She hopes to continue her writing and giving lectures about her love of Jerusalem to “anyone who wants to bring me out to their community.”
“Even if our leaders make peace, God willing, some day, it will not matter what is written on that paper so long as the folks on the streets hate one another,” she said. “I don’t want to live like that, and I certainly don’t want my kids to live like that, so I want to start these conversations with people who are my ideological opponents but are still willing to talk to me.”
While she doesn’t expect there will be any major revelations after just one conversation, “If one conversation leads to another and that leads to another and that leads to another, that’s the beginning of friendship. And that’s pretty special.”
Sarah Tuttle-Singer on Jewrotica
By Melanie Weiss | March 29, 2013
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Keshet
From queer text study and institutional inclusion to profiles of queer clergy and youth voices, the Keshet blog features new ideas and reflections by and for LGBTQ Jews and their allies. The blog is produced by Keshet, a national organization with offices in the Bay Area, Boston, and New York that works for full LGBTQ equality and inclusion in Jewish life.
There’s a new player on the Jewish blog scene, and it’s not holding back. Jewrotica is a “pluralistic and sex-positive organization that explores the intersection of Judaism and sexuality through essays, literature, erotica, and in-person programming.” Keshet caught up with Sarah Tuttle-Singer, former social media outreach coordinator and current contributor, to ask about what it’s like to write for Jewrotica, and what the existence of this new site might mean for LGBT Jews.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer
You’re a writer for a variety of Jewish publications – in what ways (other than the very obvious one) is Jewrotica different?
I’m a big believer in authenticity – in “owning your sh*t.” In other words, if you’ve got something provocative to say, then say it boldly, and don’t cower behind cheap metaphor. Writing for Jewrotica is a literalization of this – because unlike publishing on Kveller and Times of Israel (two sites which I adore!) not only is the content I submit on Jewrotica potentially problematic, but explaining the article in the context of the site also invites a secondary conversation. (Just ask my dad.)
That said, Jewrotica also understands that there are people with things to share that don’t want put a name to it. And that’s why it’s great that Jewrotica allows writers to use pseudonyms or submit anonymously. This definitely frees writers to push their boundaries in a safe space if they are uncomfortable going public with their experiences, interpretations, or fantasies.
I guess if I’m going to break it down, writing publicly for Jewrotica requires very serious intention – kavanah – for me. Do I believe there should be a place where Judaism and sexuality intersect? Hell yeah. And that’s why I love being part of this site.
Jewrotica breaks down its content by a pretty large number of variables – from PG through XXX, genre, categories like “romantic” or “awkward” or “naughty,” but nothing indicating sexual orientation, gender, anything like that. Was that intentional? Does it change the experience of writing for the site or shaping its content?
I’m deferring to Ayo Oppenheimer, the founder of Jewrotica for this one:
“Our tags include queer / LGBT, just like they include other groups within the Jewish and sexuality spectrum. We are pluralistic and aim to be as inclusive as possible, and have published stories by gay and lesbian writers. Just recently, we published a prose poem by Arielle Greenberg Bywater called “Putting Out.”
In fact, all three of our Valentine’s stories, essays and poems this year were queer-focused and written by gay Jewish authors, so that sends a pretty strong statement. However, we’re open to suggestions about how to be more inclusive. Jewrotica is a website, an organization, a movement, but mostly its an evolution and an organic creation. If you have an idea, tell us. If you want to get involved, reach out. We’re all about pushing boundaries in thoughtful ways and would love to include folks in being a part of what Jewrotica will become.” [You can contact the Jewrotica team here.]
Favorite Jewrotica piece to date? Why?
I think Hugo Schwyzer is a beautifully brutal writer who takes his readers on very complicated and visceral journeys. I love this piece.
This story was arousing and painful on different levels.
Why Jewrotica? What’s Jewish about it?
Why not? What isn’t? Sorry, couldn’t resist answering that in a stereotypically Jewish way.
But seriously. Jewrotica is a conversation about sexuality – a work in progress, really. And while many people within our culture have absorbed stigmatizing stereotypes about sex, or feel that sex and spirituality have no place in the same conversation, Jewrotica seeks to change that.
How open is Jewish community to a publication like this?
Three Jews, five opinions. Depends on who you ask. A few Facebook friends have defriended me because they were uncomfortable with some of the content I was sharing – and that’s cool. Plenty more have subscribed. And submitted articles.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer was raised in Venice Beach, California on Yiddish lullabies and Civil Rights anthems.
She now lives in Israel with her two kids where she climbs roofs, explores cisterns, opens secret doors and talks to strangers.
Sarah has written for a variety of places including Times of Israel, Kveller, TIME.com, and Ladies Home Journal about her life in Israel, her love of Jerusalem, and her family. But mostly she just writes about people.
Sarah also speaks before audiences left, right, and center through the Jewish Speakers Bureau, asking them to wrestle with important questions while celebrating their willingness to do so.
She is a work in progress.
Tuttle-Singer, Sarah: JERUSALEM, DRAWN AND QUARTERED
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Tuttle-Singer, Sarah JERUSALEM, DRAWN AND QUARTERED Skyhorse Publishing (Adult Nonfiction) $24.99 6, 1 ISBN: 978-1-5107-2489-1
A memoir of a year spent in the Old City in the heart of today's Jerusalem.
Tuttle-Singer, the new media editor at the Times of Israel, was enraptured with life in Jerusalem ever since her first youthful visit, and she remains in love with the Holy Land as a grown-up Israeli now living again in the ancient city. During the year she chronicles, the author lived part of each week on a communal moshav with her two young children. The rest of the week, she lived in the various quarters of the Old City, where the disparate Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures are encapsulated in one small spot on a map. "On the days I'm not with my kids," she writes, "I'm in the Old City, because it's one thing to understand this place through the thoroughfares, and it's quite another to go behind the walls and see what's hidden, what doesn't meet the eye." Tuttle-Singer enjoyed views from the city's rooftops, watched Arab elders play backgammon, and danced with bar mitzvah celebrants. She delighted in such things as the "amazing" chicken-and-rice dish called maklouba and the wide variety of odors wafting through the city. She was friendly with merchants and became a confidante of many candid residents of the walled district. It wasn't all charm and understanding, though. There were the nervous young soldiers carrying rifles and demonstrators throwing rocks. When she was 18, the author was stoned by Palestinian kids. During her youth in Los Angeles, she lost her mother, who now haunts her daughter's impassioned memoir, which tends toward the operatic. Certain descriptive passages of the sounds and sights may be a bit rich for some readers, but Tuttle-Singer's approachable personality will prevail for a good many more.
A quirky, novelistic tour as much about the author as Jerusalem.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Tuttle-Singer, Sarah: JERUSALEM, DRAWN AND QUARTERED." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375170/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e5440c46. Accessed 29 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534375170
Review of Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered by Sarah Tuttle-Singer
May 8, 2018, 9:21 am
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Walking through Jaffa Gate you probably pay little attention to the merchants hawking olive wood crucifixes or to the man squeezing fresh pomegranates. You barely notice the women hanging laundry from their balconies in the Jewish Quarter and you take for granted the presence of the vigilant Border Guards. None of this matters as you gravitate toward Jerusalem’s main attractions — its holy places of worship. But what lies behind the green metal doors on the sides of the narrow alleyways?
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Those doors are opened for us in Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered by Sarah Tuttle-Singer (Skyhorse Publishing, May 8, 2018), an exploration of both the spiritual and the terrestrial aspects of the Old City. The book introduces us to the Armenians, Christians, Jews, and Muslims who live within its walls.
We join author and journalist Tuttle-Singer as she embarks “on a strange and wonderful adventure where [she is] actually living in Jerusalem’s Old City — a year of living as an insider-outsider, a visitor looking for community, but never really growing roots.”
Claimed by Israelis and Palestinians alike, this small area of terra sancta is frequently the focus of religious friction, of riots and stabbings. “Maybe it’s a little crazy to live for a year in the Old City during these days of great tension when the calm here dances like an angel on the head of a pin,” the author admits. “But I don’t mind being a little crazy. That’s part of what it means to be a journalist — you take yourself to the edge, close enough to look over and feel your heart stammer, but with enough sense to know when to back off.”
Through Tuttle-Singer’s eyes we see the Old City as we’ve never seen it before. We view the crowded quarters from atop its rooftops. We get an insider’s perspective on Jerusalem’s allure and mystique, something no tour guide or history book can provide. Tuttle-Singer’s writing is lyrical and poetic. It is a love letter to a fascinating city.
“I love Jerusalem best in the morning when she’s still naked, before the shops are open and the scarves and jewelry cover the stone. And I like to watch her wake up and get dressed while I drink my jasmine green tea from the balcony overlooking Jaffa Gate. Or earlier still, from the Western Wall, when sacred time meets sunrise, and Jews and Muslims pray together although separately behind their glass at the brink of sunrise.”
Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered: One Woman’s Year in the Heart of the Christian, Muslim, Armenian, and Jewish Quarters of Old Jerusalem is much more than an ordinary travelogue. The author’s tale of her extended stay in the Old City is unabashedly frank and intimate. Not only does she detail encounters with Israelis and Palestinians, she also shares the trials and tribulations of establishing a new home in Israel for herself and her family. Thanks to this highly personal memoir we are better positioned to understand and appreciate the complexities and beauty of the Holy Land’s most coveted real estate.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer is a widely-read writer and the new media editor at Times of Israel. She is an LA expat currently growing roots in Israel, where she lives with her two children. She speaks internationally and recently received a prestigious ROI fellowship grant from the Schusterman Foundation.
Book Review: Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered by Sarah Tuttle-Singer
Posted on March 22, 2018
by Elise "Ronan"
Toward the West, and toward the sea, the land rolls across the sweet green fields and little towns. If you walk out Jaffa Gate and head straight for a few days, you’ll hit the port city. There are rules, and there is order, you get to where you want to go. But toward the east, the land is austere and pitiless. The desert rages, and the wind howls. And Jerusalem is in between, regal queen and wild-eyed prophet, righteous, and despairing. She’s there, and that’s all.
I became familiar with the writings of Sarah Tuttle-Singer from reading The Times of Israel. A rather upstart little webzine that tried to bring a modern, young feel to reporting about Israel, the Jewish world, and the Middle East. TOI broke all the normal rules. It became an international sensation. Sarah was a great pick for its media director.
If you follow Sarah on social media you know that she is definitely not shy with her opinions. And it came as no surprise when she announced that she was going to spend a year living in the Old City of Jerusalem and was going to write a book about her adventures. People thought she was completely mad. Out of her mind. But they also knew this was something that was so very Sarah.
What she produced in, Jerusalem, Drawn and Quartered, is an amazing memoir about a lifelong journey of love, longing, strife, and beauty. Sarah introduces herself to the reader with an honest remembrance of her own traumas. She survived an abusive relationship. Those who have read her blog posts know this. But what you get here is a searing rendition of what she lived through, and survived. Being a survivor and telling your story is empowering. If for no other reason than understanding and embracing the strength it takes someone to remove themselves from such horror, read this book.
We understand the unmitigated loss she felt when her mother died from cancer. And that void is evidenced throughout this book. Where ever Sarah goes, her mother goes with her. Having buried my own mother just over two years ago, I feel her pain, her sorrow, and understand how she sees her mother throughout her journey. I too see my mother sometimes where I least expect her.
Sarah takes us deep into her own love of Israel and especially Jerusalem. This is not a casual love. This is an all encompassing, deep in your soul love that washes over a person daily. Sarah’s love of Jerusalem is written in her DNA, in her bones.
Jerusalem is the center of the Jewish world. We pray towards Jerusalem. Our holiest days recall the pilgrimages to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. We end our Passover Seders with “Next Year in Jerusalem.” So to understand Jerusalem, to see what it is like to live in modern Jerusalem, for Sarah this was also a calling.
Sarah pulls no punches. She is brutally honest. Jerusalem is a holy city, but it also a city of people. It is a city of zatar, hummus, fresh bread, the sabbath siren, the muezzin’s call, the holy light at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the tourist, the rabbi, the nun and priest, the imam and the Waqf guard, making sure that Jews do not pray on the Temple Mount. It is soldiers and border guards, with their acne and guns charged with preventing terror attacks. It is the Palestinian population that deal with frequent stops, frisks, and the guns of these young soldiers pointed in their direction. It is stabbings, bombs, prayers, red thread to ward off the evil eye, and the cat lady in the Jewish quarter who takes in a three day old kitten that had been saved from a drainpipe by a group of moslem men.
….the Jewish kids are afraid to walk in the Muslim Quarter, and the Muslim kids are afraid of the soldiers, and how the soldiers are probably afraid too, sometimes. And how there are people in the Armenian Quarter who have never walked five minutes from their own front door because they are afraid of the Jewish Quarter and the Muslim Quarter, and how almost everyone stays behind invisible walls, except for the mermaids who can go everywhere because they don’t quite fit anywhere…
Sarah captures every aspect of Jerusalem. Written in beautiful prose, you feel as if you are walking along with her. You feel what she feels. You see what she sees. You try to understand the people who live in Jerusalem, Jew, Moslem, Christian, Armenian, and what Jerusalem means to them.
And as I read what she writes, I cry. I cry because I understand her love of Jerusalem, her desires, her need to find peace, joy, and fulfillment in a City that is so much a part of her soul that if it did not exist, she simply would not understand how to breath.
At the end of her sojourn does Sarah come up with a peace plan? No she does not.
In the end, her only plan is to try to be kind.