Walking to Jerusalem

Book excerpt: On the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, which was also the fiftieth anniversary of the since the Six-day War and the tenth anniversary of the Blockade of Gaza, Justin Butcher—along with ten other companions (and another hundred joining him at points along the way)—walked from London to Jerusalem as an act of solidarity, penance, and hope. Weaving in history of the Holy Land as he moves across Europe, from Balfour and Christian Zionism, to colonialism and Jerusalem Syndrome, from desert spirituality to the lives of his fellow travelers, Walking to Jerusalem is a chronicle of serendipity, the hilarious, the infuriating, and, occasionally, an encounter with the Divine.