I must confess that I think this novel went over my head because I do not know what it is like to be Israeli . There are rich layers in this novel.we are responsible for caring for our fellow man regardless of who they are even if we don’t know who they are. The Human Resources Manager made to handle the “ situation “ of a dead employee learns about humanity and what it means to be human. In the climate today close to Jerusalem , in the Gaza Strip, we all need to but aside our differences and care for our fellow man.
Maybe I got more out of this than I thought, ( )

"A Woman in Jerusalem" is the second book I've read by this author: I read "The Lover" a while ago. I may not read another, but this is still a solid effort, and reading it made the author's preoccupations and habits a bit clearer to me. A few recurring elements: marriages in distress, a society under constant stress, and a mystery that slowly comes to obsess the novel's protagonist. In this case, it's the identity, employment status, and, in the end, the basic humanity of an Russian woman who emigrated to Israel only to die in a terrorist bombing. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the author was a fan of detective fiction: as I read, I could feel the bones of a whodunit -- as it were -- poking through the text. But, as in "The Lover, Yehoshua also writes a few dreams into the narrative: he may have wanted to remind his readers that his characters do more than just move his narrative along.

In "A Woman in Jerusalem", as in "The Lover", simple tasks stretch out into lengthy projects and easy questions slowly become complex, emotionally trying mysteries. An effort to limit the fallout of some bad publicity, leads the main character to investigate whether the titular woman was, in fact, employed the bakery that the book's main character works for. "A Woman in Jerusalem" slowly becomes a meditation on what we owe -- and what we can really know about -- the strangers that live among us. I also suspect that the curious quest that our main character has been assigned functions as way to cope with widespread and unrelenting horror by making sure that at least one problem -- the final resting place of a non-Israeli victim -- has been resolved as far as is humanly possible. It'd be easy to write an essay on this topic, or to address them directly in the text, but I was rather impressed by the fact that most of these themes are addressed through the book's plot. I'm sure that some readers may feel that this book would be improved by a slightly faster pace, but I rather enjoyed the fact that events in "A Woman in Jerusalem" unfolded at a speed that felt natural and human. Similarly, the novel's themes revealed themselves as the plot inched forward. This doesn't make for a thrilling read -- which, I suppose, is another thing that would set it apart from detective fiction -- but it's a good of example of an author knowing to show rather than tell. I may not be Yehoshua's ideal reader, but this one is still worth checking out. ( )

Un terrorista suicida se inmola en el mercado de Jerusalén. Una mujer muere. Nadie se presenta en la morgue de Monte Scopus para reclamar su cadáver.
La misión del protagonista es cargar con el cadáver, devolver a Julia a su pueblo natal. Pero, en realidad, su verdadero cometido consiste en encontrar en su interior los recursos humanos necesarios para vencer la heladora frialdad que parece extenderse sobre el mundo y sobre sí mismo.

Difficult as it is to admit, it required over 150 pages for me to recognize that only the deceased woman of the title was actually afforded a name, everyone else had a title or a relation to the protagonist. This creates an intenional level of abstraction, wich is effective to a point, but shorns away the humanity of a story which actually points back to Antigone. I don't know, I expected more. ( )

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Yehoshua-Le-Responsable-des-ressources-humaines/5...
> Le Livre de Poche (celiatas) : https://fr.calameo.com/books/0043038443afedcb9a996

> Une poignante parabole sur la mort, le terrorisme, la violence, la peur, la responsabilité des hommes face aux aveuglements et à la folie de l'Histoire.
—André Clavel, Lire