Judas Hardcover – November 8, 2016

As always with Amos Oz, beautiful writing, interesting ideas, some of which challenge many of our standard ideas. The concept is interesting; a Jew writing his doctoral thesis about the Jewish concept of Judas. It's also about conflicting ideas during the founding of Israel and what exactly the Zionist dream encompassed. On top of all that is the amazing writing. I know Jerusalem well and Oz captures the feel of winter in that city. I felt as if I was there. I highly recommend this book.

Amos Oz is one of the greatest writers alive today, if not THE greatest living writer. So everything he writes is worth reading, and "Judas" is no exception. He carries on the family tradition (his great-uncle was the renowned scholar Joseph Klausner) of trying to puzzle out, from a modern Jewish perspective, the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. But that is only one of the strands in this story. Oz was born Amos Klausner in 1939. His mother, whom he adored, was a transplant from eastern Europe who could not adapt to the new and very challenging environment of what was then Mandate Palestine. She sank deeper and deeper into despair and killed herself when he was 12 years old. His father was academic and emotionally remote. Young Amos at 15 left home for a kibbutz and changed his name to Oz, which in Hebrew means "strength." It was a time when young Jews in Israel took up Hebrew surnames, leaving the western surnames and wishing not separate themselves culturally from a Europe that had betrayed them. But the family genius is alive and well in Amos Oz, and his book "Judas" is, like everything else he writes, not only worth reading, but a "must read" for any intelligent person. The story has many layers and the reader must bring something to it; nonetheless, the book is more than worth the effort.

When I first began reading this novel, I was annoyed at the central character, Shmuel.But through marvelous story telling, his character grows on the reader.In many ways, the novel is a very interior work. Plot is spare (I'm fine with that). Characters are very well drawn (I am thrilled about that). And dialogue goes on for pages (very interesting, however) because that is part of the point of the book.The setting is Israel in the mid-1950s, after its creation as a state and the 1948 war. The question of the validity, urgency, and justification desirability as a separate nation state has been debated and settled, and then defended by military action. Some knowledge of that setting is essential to understanding the themes of the novel.Judas, of course, refers to the disciple of Jesus who betrayed him, leading to the crucifixion. Shmuel is a student wrestling with a thesis--the essential premise is that Judas was the first Christian, believing in Jesus Christ even when Jesus had no intention of being anything but a Jew. But Shmuel's studies stall. He is somewhat estranged from his parents, is very close to friendless, so he answers an ad. The ad is for a companion for an elderly man.Shmuel answers the ad and is introduced to Gershom Wald, who is an invalid aged man in need of company. In turn he meets Wald's daughter-in-law, Atalia Abravanel. As the story unfolds, we learn of Atalia's history--she had married Wald's son who was then killed in the 1948 war.Shmuel's duties are to spend several hours a day with Wald, converse with him, give him porridge, and feed the goldfish. The rest of his time is his own.As these conversations between Shmuel and Wald unfold, we learn many aspects of the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel, of interaction with the Arab population that inhabited Palestine, and the politics of establishing Israel. Atalia's father Shealtiel Abravanel opposed establishing Israel as a separate Jewish state. He argued to a single country shared by Jews and Palestinians.One can glean some of the seeds to today's present conflict over whether to have a one state or two separate states.There are several narrative techniques that I enjoyed--one is that the novel is a journey--for Shmuel. And it is a discourse on the merits of modern day Jewish/Arab relations. It is also a coming of age story for Shmuel. AND it is a bit of a romance story. By the end of the novel, I was sorry to have to say goodbye to Shmuel.OK-- because this novel is so richly layered, so informative, and so engaging, I highly recommend it. It may feel like it's slow going at the outset, but stay with it.

This is a book about treachery. There are 2 parallel stories. In one, the story of Judas’ culpability is discussed, with the typical view of “betrayer of Jesus” contrasted against the “true follower of Jesus” view. The other story is that of 3 characters: Shmuel— the central character — the woman Ataliya who he’s in love with and her father-in-law, living in a house in Jerusalem. Here, too, the theme of betrayal plays out along personal and political dimensions. All of the stories play out against the backdrop of Jerusalem, depicted as a war-torn city, where walking along a street makes one open to sniper attack. Holding the narratives together is the clear, incisive language of Amos Oz that illuminates that, paradoxically, illuminates the pained silence of some its characters while giving life to the volubility of others — a volubility that hides the truth more often than displaying it.

Stylistically, Judas is claustraphobically heavy carefully wrought with its repetitive phrasing, descriptions of routine and recurrence to bring the reader into the cave-like prison where the battle of ideas struggle like wrestlers locked in implacable combat. In some ways the novel seemed to be a micro-mirror of Mann's Magic Mountain--the wide open space of Davos shrunken to a dark shuttered place. While Hans Castorp goes to visit the tubercular Joachim and is witness to the ongoing arguments between Settembrini and Naphta and is beguiled by Clavdia, the asthmatic Schmuel is caught up in an equally impassioned argument on the the unsolvable interlock of the Israeli-Arab situation. Oz's passionate preference for the two-state solution--now seemingoly impossible-- is clear. But I recall that Castorp leaves Davos presumably to join the army at the outset of World War 1, and what will be Shmuel's future and fate is unknowable. I think this is not only Oz's masterpiece but a major literary achievement of our time.

A bleak, anguished credo from Israel's greatest living writer. It outlines his disillusionment with the Zionist dream, the despair of the other Israelis who, like him, have lost faith in the possibility of peace between the Arabs and the Jews in the tiny area between the Jordan river and the sea. The book is largely a polemic, although the dramatis personae are skilfully drawn and the writing is, as can be expected, gorgeous. I was deeply moved and not a little saddened by the denouement, and Shmuel Ash will stay with me a long while.

The story is set in Jerusalem over the winter of 1959-60. In keeping with the bleak, changeable weather the book is dark and atmospheric. Amos Oz captures the feel of the austere and divided city during that period. The book focuses on the relationship between three complicated individuals, all of them damaged to a greater or lesser extent. The main character, a university drop-out called Shmuel, had embarked on a dissertation on 'Jewish Views of Jesus' with a special interest in the character of Judas. His, or perhaps Amos Oz's, deliberations on the biblical story of Judas are interwoven into the story. Juxtaposing this against issues surrounding the formation of the State of Israel, Oz contemplates the wider question of 'what is betrayal?' I hasten to add that this book is not excessively 'heavy' and intellectual. Lying at the heart of the story is a developing sexual attraction between Shmuel and the beautiful Atalia, twenty years his elder. As one would expect from Amos Oz, this is a beautifully crafted book and I highly recommend it.

Compelling writing, small novel of big ideas, beautiful prose. Title bit misleading - I expected the book to be a historical novel on the Judas/Jesus relationship - though reading the title does make sense as one of the themes is treason and one of the final chapters is a reimagining of Judas s final days. First novel by Oz I ever read, won't be the last one.

Slow starter but utterly absorbing and so finely nuanced around unknowable depths of people's stories/ characters and judgements made in history. Brilliant - passages I re-read.

A wonderful book. Amos Oz is one of my favourite writers and this book doesn't disappoint at all.The story is immersed in an unusual, timeless atmosphere and the writing gently accompanies a quiet but rewarding read.