Jerusalem Fumes, Midrashim for an Age of Collapse

Jerusalem Fumes is a descent into sacred violence, witness, ash, and the fragile possibility of covenant after rupture.

Structured as twelve interwoven midrashim, the work revisits ancient scenes through a contemporary psychological and archetypal lens. The scapegoat, the betrayed brother, the accuser with a stone in hand, the centurion at the cross, the woman who remains at the tomb. These figures are not moral lessons. They are events. They breathe. They wound. They refuse easy resolution.

Drawing on René Girard’s anthropology of violence, James Hillman’s archetypal psychology, and Diana Fosha’s trauma-informed understanding of transformation, Jerusalem Fumes holds competing truths without verdict. It does not redeem suffering too quickly. It does not balance moral accounts. It witnesses.

The language descends rather than advances. Time folds. Ash lingers. Images appear and are not explained. Contradictory voices stand side by side without hierarchy. Meaning emerges through encounter rather than argument.

Visually and structurally, the book is conceived alongside a corresponding body of paintings produced through the Art Research Institute. Each midrash participates in a larger imaginal architecture that bridges into the forthcoming trilogy: Falling in Love with an American, The Gateway, and The Silikind Wars.

Jerusalem Fumes asks a simple and dangerous question: what becomes possible when violence is no longer justified, explained, or spiritualized, but fully seen?

It is a book about sacred fire, and what remains after the smoke.