Full review by Stephen Derori

Jerusalem is a city that can be visited in a day, explored over a lifetime, and still remain only partly understood. Arnold Slyper’s In and Around Jerusalem for Everyone is an invitation to do something very different from conventional sightseeing:Walk. Explore. Look. Stop. Discover. This is not simply another Jerusalem tourist guide. It is a substantial and unusually ambitious combination of walking guide, hiking handbook, historical introduction, nature guide and practical companion to Jerusalem and its surrounding countryside.And that combination is what makes the book so valuable.
🚶‍♂️ JERUSALEM ON FOOT. Slyper's fundamental insight is a simple but important one: Jerusalem is best understood by walking through it. The book offers 20 walks within Jerusalem itself, together with 23 hikes in the countryside surrounding the city, extending into the Judean Desert. That immediately takes the reader beyond the familiar Jerusalem of:🕌 The Old City ✡️ The Western Wall ⛪ The Church of the Holy Sepulchre 🌿 The Mount of Olives 🏛️ The major museums and monuments. Slyper encourages us to discover the less obvious Jerusalem — its neighbourhoods, valleys, springs, hills, paths, archaeological remains and unexpected corners.The result is a much richer picture of the city.
🏛️ HISTORY BECOMES A WALK. One of the strongest features of the book is Slyper's ability to connect history to geography. The reader does not merely encounter names and dates. Instead, historical personalities and events are connected to actual places. Among the figures encountered are: King David, Herod the Great, Omar ibn al-Khattab, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Abraham and Anna Ticho, Teddy Kollek. Jewish, Christian and Muslim histories all form part of this geographical journey. This is particularly effective because Jerusalem's history is not something that exists only in books. It is literally under our feet. A street can represent centuries of history. A spring can tell the story of settlement. A hill can explain the development of the city. A pathway can reveal how people moved through the landscape long before the modern road network existed. Slyper understands this very well.
🌿 BEYOND THE CITY — For me, one of the book's most interesting features is its treatment of Jerusalem's surrounding countryside. The city cannot really be understood independently of the Judean hills and the desert landscape immediately beyond them.
Slyper takes readers into: 🌳 Valleys 💧 Springs 🥾 Hiking trails 🏜️ Judean Desert landscapes 🏛️ Archaeological sites 🌄 Scenic viewpoints 🏊 Outdoor swimming locations
The geographical transition can be astonishing. One can leave the built-up environment of Jerusalem and, relatively quickly, find oneself in a completely different landscape.
The book captures that extraordinary relationship between city, mountain, valley and desert.
🗺️ A GUIDE THAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY USE. Another major strength is the practical information. Slyper clearly understands that a walking guide must work in the real world, not simply look impressive on a bookshelf.
The book provides information about: 📍 Starting points 🗺️ Routes and maps ⏱️ Walking distances and times 🚍 Public transportation 🚗 Driving access 📱 Waze and Moovit destinations 🌿 Nearby attractions 🏛️ Historical sites 🏊 Swimming opportunities
The inclusion of public-transport information is particularly welcome. Not everybody wants — or needs — to organise a Jerusalem walk around a private car.
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 "FOR EVERYONE" REALLY DOES MEAN SOMETHING. The title is also significant.
This isn't a specialist mountaineering manual written exclusively for experienced hikers.
Slyper tries to make Jerusalem's landscape accessible to a broad audience.
There are walks for people who simply want to explore a neighbourhood, excursions for those wanting a more substantial hike, and destinations where walking can be combined with history, nature, museums or recreation. That makes the book particularly useful for:
Jerusalem residents, Families, Visitors returning to Jerusalem for a second or third time
Experienced hikers, History enthusiasts, Tour guides, Anyone who thinks they already know Jerusalem
📸 MAPS, PHOTOGRAPHS AND PRESENTATION. The book is also visually attractive.
Maps and photographs aren't merely decoration: they help the reader understand the routes and the landscape. The organisation of such a large quantity of information is itself an achievement. There is always a danger with a comprehensive guidebook that it becomes overwhelming.Slyper and designer Ben Herskowitz have done a good job of making a very information-rich book reasonably approachable.
⚠️ SOME LIMITATIONS. No serious review should ignore the book's weaknesses.
The most obvious is size. At 318 pages, this is a substantial volume. It contains so much information that it is not necessarily the easiest book to carry around while actually walking. A future edition could perhaps be divided into a lighter field guide and a more comprehensive reference edition.There are also some minor typographical and editorial errors.And, inevitably, some practical information can become dated. Public-transport routes, opening hours, access arrangements and trail conditions can change.
Those are limitations of almost every detailed guidebook rather than fundamental flaws in Slyper's work.
⭐ THE REAL ACHIEVEMENT. What ultimately makes In and Around Jerusalem for Everyone stand out is its philosophy. Slyper doesn't regard Jerusalem as a list of attractions to be ticked off. He treats it as a living landscape. The book asks us to slow down. To walk. To look at the landscape. To notice the relationship between the natural environment and human settlement. To understand how thousands of years of Jewish, Christian and Muslim history have left their marks on the same physical terrain.
And, perhaps most importantly, to realise that there is always another Jerusalem waiting to be discovered.
📚 FINAL ASSESSMENT. In and Around Jerusalem for Everyone is an excellent and unusually comprehensive guide to Jerusalem and its surrounding landscape. Its greatest achievement is that it transforms walking from a recreational activity into a way of understanding the city. It is simultaneously: 🚶 A walking guide 🥾 A hiking guide🏛️ A historical guide 🌿 A nature guide 🗺️ A practical travel companion 📖 And, ultimately, a portrait of Jerusalem itself. For somebody visiting Jerusalem for the first time, it provides an enormous amount of useful information.For somebody who has lived in Jerusalem for decades, it offers something perhaps even more valuable: the possibility of discovering that there are still parts of Jerusalem you have never really seen.
⭐ Highly recommended.

Dr. Stephen Darori, PhD — Political and Social Media Consultant | Left-Wing Grassroots Activist | Managing Editor, Israel Book Review.​​