Złota Jerozolima? Spacer w poszukiwaniu świętości
Golden Jerusalem? A Stroll in Search of Holiness

Summary/Abstract: This essay contains reflections from the borderland of several disciplines, with anthropology acting as their keystone. In the course of an imaginary “stroll” across Jerusalem the author tours prominent sites of the Holy City and discovers its assorted aspects associated with three monotheistic religions embroiled – in the name of the same God – in an endless clash, whose outcome is a departure from the very essence of religion, i.e. the sacrum. The quintessence of the uniqueness of this town appears to be not so much its “holiness” as a metaphorical translatability of the phenomena taking place there into the condition of the contemporary world (control; conflict; the Debordian spectacle supplanting spirituality; an awareness of disintegration; superficiality; lack of cohesion, etc.). In the interpretation suggested by the author, while discovering the space of Jerusalem we experience it not so much via architectural allure but through various associations: predominantly Biblical but also – or perhaps primarily – connected with theories proposed by Rudolf Otto, Guy Debord, Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, Jan Assmann.

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