Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Stubborn hope

A radical message of coexistence
by
September 2025, no. 479

The Holy and the Broken by Ittay Flescher

Harper Collins, $36.99 pb, 320 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

Stubborn hope

A radical message of coexistence
by
September 2025, no. 479

Part memoir, part manifesto, part ‘moral reckoning’, Ittay Flescher’s The Holy and the Broken opens with a tribute to Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’. Flescher names Cohen’s timeless ballad Jerusalem’s unofficial anthem, infused as it is with Biblical allegory and, at times, a kind of despair-filled nihilism. Whereas Cohen imagined the Hebrew liturgical expression as either holy or broken, depending on the inclinations of those who heard it, for Flescher, his own newly adopted home of Jerusalem is both holy and broken at the same time. It is Flescher’s fervent wish, and the mission of his book, that the city’s diverse inhabitants come together to ‘mend what is broken and build a future that honours the holy aspirations of all of us who call this land home’.

The Holy and the Broken

The Holy and the Broken

by Ittay Flescher

Harper Collins, $36.99 pb, 320 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.