Books: Studying betrayal

Amos Oz’s provocative new work, Judas, has an urgent feel to it; almost as if Oz is trying to settle some kind of score.

Oz is a deeply complicated man who has staunchly defended Israel’s right to exist and fought valiantly in two of its wars, but has been for decades one of its fiercest critics. He was among the first to call for a two-state solution back in 1967, and hasn’t really wavered in his belief that Israel has lost its moral footing while dealing with the Palestinians.

In A Tale of Love and Darkness, Oz wrote about the suicide of his mother when he was only 12, and the friction that remained between him and his right-wing father. He fled his childhood home early and joined a kibbutz, where he remained for three decades, marrying and raising a family. Kibbutz life touched him in ways he did not anticipate. He loved the intimacy and communal spirit, but was troubled by the obligations required of him that kept him from writing. His father viewed his departure as a betrayal of sorts, but we sense that Oz saw this betrayal through a different lens. It was leaving home that allowed him to both find and define himself.

Betrayal is a recurrent theme in Judas, which centers on the life of an awkward, sensitive and intelligent young man reminiscent of a young Oz. The story takes place in Jerusalem in 1959. Schmuel Ash is troubled by asthma and an enlarged heart. He walks with a funny gait; as if his legs were having trouble keeping up with his head. His girlfriend has just dumped him and his father has been forced to stop paying his college tuition due to his own financial woes, and Schmuel is left to his own devices.

He drops out of school and takes a job as a companion to an elderly man named Gershom Wald in exchange for a small salary and free room and board. His only daily obligation is to spend a few hours each evening engaged in lively debate with Wald – who loves to argue about the issues of the day. The only other person in the home is Atalia, Wald’s daughter- in-law. Atalia is a widow who lost her husband, Micha, Wald’s only son, in Israel’s War of Independence. Atalia’s father, also deceased, was Shieltiel Abravanel, who was notorious for having challenged Ben-Gurion about his unabashed nationalism for which he was forced to leave his post in the government in disgrace.

Schmuel senses the pall that hangs over Wald and Atalia, but restrains himself from pushing Wald to explain it to him.

Most of his thoughts are centered on his own life, which feels derailed and yet exhilarating.

He thinks, “You wanted deep solitude, you wanted inspiration, you wanted endless expanses of free time, and here all your wishes have been granted.

You’ve got it all... Maybe this is the place where you can return to ‘Jewish Views of Jesus’? To Judas Iscariot? Or the common underlying reasons for the failure of all revolutions? You could do some serious research, couldn’t you? Or else, you can start to write a novel...”

Before Schmuel dropped out of college, he had been working on a master’s thesis about Judas’s relationship with Jesus.

Questions plagued him and he had his own theories about what might have really happened. He believed Judas was wrongly maligned and really the most fervent believer in Jesus, which is why he hanged himself after the crucifixion.

It troubled Schmuel that Jewish religious writers throughout the ages had almost completely ignored Judas. He felt Judas had been betrayed, and wound up becoming known as the ultimate betrayer.

His nightly conversations with Wald are of intellectual wrangles of the highest order.

Schmuel frequently challenges Wald about the plight of the Arabs claiming, “Why should they love us? Why do you think the Arabs are not entitled to resist strangers who come here suddenly as if from another planet and take away their land and their soil, fields, villages and towns, the graves of their ancestors, and their children’s inheritance? We tell ourselves that we only came to this land ‘to be built and rebuilt,’ ‘to renew our days as of old,’ ‘to redeem our ancestral heritage,’ etcetera, but you tell me if there is any other people in this world who would welcome with open arms an incursion of hundreds of thousands of strangers, landing from far away with the weird claim that their holy scriptures, which they brought with them from far away, promise this whole land to them and to them alone.”

When Wald talks to Schmuel about the importance of Israeli military power, Schmuel concedes that power is important, but not as important as Wald believes.

It can stave off disaster for a while, but ultimately it cannot solve the problem of the fanatics who want to destroy Israel. It cannot bring peace or change minds and hearts.

Wald explains that he no longer believes in any sort of world reform, claiming: “Not because I consider the world is perfect as it is – certainly not, the world is crooked and grim and full of suffering – but whoever comes along to reform it soon sinks in rivers of blood.” He adds: “If I had to choose a thousand times between our age-old sufferings, yours and mine and everyone else’s, and their salvations and redemptions, or indeed all the salvations and redemptions in the world, I’d rather they left us all the pain and sorrow and kept their world reform for themselves, seeing that it always involves slaughter, crusades, jihad, or gulag, or the wars of Gog and Demagogue.”

But Schmuel is undeterred, as Oz was and still is. Schmuel believes in change. In talking. In negotiating. In compromising.

In apologizing. In hoping. In trying. Just like Oz.

Judas is a complex novel that engages the head and the heart. It forces you to think about those among us who are willing to be targeted in order to follow the mandates of their own conscience.

Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips believes betrayal has been given a bad name and is misunderstood by most of us. He redefines it as a positive and liberating force, and the way “we change our lives.” Phillips sees betrayal “as a transformational act” that most of us secretly long for. So does Oz. He has spent his life as a free man speaking out on matters of great importance to him and writing wonderful books that touch our hearts.

He does so again in this new work with startling eloquence, empathy and honesty.

Amos Oz’s latest novel is provocative, eloquent and honest.