Summer in the Street of the Prophets [The Palace of Shattered Vessels, vol. 1]

The Palace of Shattered Vessels is a monumental life work, which David Shahar spent thirty years writing. Shahar confronts the meaning of time, with his childhood memories of Jerusalem during the British mandate in the 1930s providing his point of departure. Life in all its abundance, memory, and the quest for truth are the themes in this haunting and mystical novel. The young narrator is fascinated by the figure of Gabriel Luria, a descendant of a 16th century mystic and thus a symbol of all that Israel has been and will become.

The “shattered vessels” of the narrator’s house have concrete meaning for him when he draws water from the well and senses that the water and the spilling of the water symbolize the the flux and flow of history. The reader is introduced through the narrator’s eyes to the intimate life of the Luria family and to the people in this community who touch upon this life – the pharmacist, the librarian, the shopkeeper, the teacher. Shahar portrays Jerusalem and its inhabitants in a way that reveals both their sacred and their profane purposes, both the social and the religious crosscurrents of this ancient city.