Jerusalem and the Holy Land (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

It's tough to pick the "best" guidebook for a particular destination, and the proliferation of free travel information on the web makes choosing "the one" even tougher. My wife and I always start with a copy of an EyeWitness guide for the destination: there are pictures on every page, and we find the images help us plan our trip: the guides are particularly good for architecture and art. The practical guides in the back cover currency, hotels and restaurants.

This guide to Jerusalem is a particularly good example of the DK offerings: the images, paper, text, all are up to the high standards of other books in the series.

Having written that, there is really only one page that matters in deciding whether to buy: the newer the guide the better. This book appeared first in 2000 and was my companion to Israel. It was substantially revised in 2002, and revised again in 2007. If you like the Eyewitness series and have any interest in the destination, armchair or on...Read more

As someone who has lived in Israel for almost a year, I know that every tiny thing is politicized here. So I don't really hold it against this guide that it has an obvious anti-Zionist slant. It's hesitant to mention the word Israel (note the title), but sometimes it does. It does not acknowledge that Jerusalem is in Israel, but you'd only notice that if you're paying attention. Any section that discusses the modern history of Israel is severely biased. The tone is appropriate, but the facts are presented in such a one-sided manner that relying just on this book would give you a seriously skewed perspective. There aren't many up-to-date guides to Israel, and this one is pretty good (I also like the Frommer's). So go ahead and buy this guide, but read about Israel from a couple of other sources to offset the bias. The Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict is an easy to digest overview, though it's biased in the other direction -- sadly, I don't think objectivity on this subject is...Read more

My wife and I spent a week in Israel in March 2009. The 2007 edition of "Jerusalem & The Holy Land" was extremely helpful in preparing for our seven-day tour. This guidebook is packed full of information. I was able to plan ahead on what to look for at a given site. For example, from this guide I learned that the Church of the Nativity had faded paintings on columns done by the Crusaders. I was able to actually see them. This book is very practical. The photos of Israeli currency are very helpful as most of my purchases were made in Shekels (Incidently, a 2-shekel coin has been introduced since guide's publication).

The Hebrew phrases in the book are helpful. My only suggesting would be to add a few basic Arabic phrases as one will encounter many Arab shopkeepers.

I hope to return to Israel in a few years an will again purchase a DK Eyewitness Travel book.