Judas: A Voice of Dissent

Before reading Judas, a novel published in 2014 by the Israeli author Amos Oz, I had a very limited understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite the fact that it is a political and social trauma that affects the lives of millions of people, the conflict seems to receive very little attention in the British media, aside from when it can be used to support a political agenda. For example, I had previously heard political opponents of Jeremy Corbyn criticise him for endorsing the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which works to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine. This supposedly demonstrated his anti-Semitic sentiments, therefore rendering him unfit to be the leader of one of Britain’s forefront political parties. It seemed strange to me, however, to equate criticism of a country’s political policies to a religious hatred of its dominant religion. Yet, Judaism is not just Israel’s dominant religion. The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel explicitly states the right of the Jewish people to create their own homeland, thereby making Judaism the foundation upon which Israel justifies its existence. In light of this, Judas explores how the religious conflict between Jewish Israelis and Muslim Palestinians has extended into a political conflict which questions each side’s right to existence.

Set at the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960, Judas describes itself from the outset as the story of ‘a religious question that remains unresolved’. It is written from the point of view of a sensitive university student named Shmuel Ash, who is forced by his financial situation to abandon his studies at university in Jerusalem. Instead, he takes a position as a companion to Gershom Wald, an old man who has largely lost his faith in humanity as a result of witnessing the violence between Arab and Israeli communities throughout his life. Wald encourages Shmuel to discuss questions of religion, nationhood and, perhaps most pertinently, the validity of the state of Israel. Also living in the house is Atalia Abravanel, the widowed daughter-in-law of Wald, who presents another opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Atalia tells Shmuel that she believes that ‘the very presence of the Jews in the Land of Israel is based on injustice’. Shmuel is therefore presented with differing political views, causing him to question his indoctrination by the dominant ideology in Israel. 

The novel looks back to the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, in which Atalia’s husband was sadistically killed in battle by Arab soldiers. Atalia makes Shmuel, and by extension the reader, consider the motivations that led to her husband’s death; in particular, his self-assurance that he was carrying out the will of God, and his belief that his faith would protect him. Thus, Judas compels us to consider the inherently evil nature of man, and the hypocrisies of religions that claim to be a force for good, and yet have been the cause of horrific bloodshed for thousands of years.

Judas also brings into question the way in which Israel has historically employed the Jewish faith to enforce adherence to its political and social policies by casting its political opponents as religious ‘traitors’. To this end, Oz calls upon the archetypal figure of the traitor: Judas Iscariot, the man who is known throughout the world as the betrayer of God himself. Controversially, the novel chooses to describe Judas as ‘the founder of the Christian religion’ - a man who believed in Jesus’s divinity so much that he arranged the Crucifixion. By coming down from the Cross, Judas thought, Jesus could prove his divinity to the world and from then on be revered as the Son of God. After Jesus’s death, Judas was so distraught that he left Jerusalem and hung himself. Despite his firm belief in Christianity, his name was so tainted by its proponents, that it became synonymous with betrayal. The novel draws comparisons between Judas and Shealtiel Abravanel, the father of Atalia: a fictional figure who opposed the creation of the Jewish state. He believed that establishing Israel by force would only result in more bloodshed, and yet still thought of himself as a ‘true’ Zionist. The novel thus demonstrates how both these figures believe that they are morally and politically correct, but are still made into figures of hatred and betrayal by the prevailing political consensus. By linking the two figures, Oz demonstrates how religion, and the idea of religious betrayal, can be a powerful tool used to create hatred by the political elite. 

 Through his choice of a figure who also represents Christian hatred of Jews, Oz demonstrates how the historic legacy of the oppression of Jewish people continues to affect Israel’s interactions with the West, and how Israel has come to benefit from this in its interactions with its Arab neighbours. Oz highlights this through the character of Shmuel, who argues that it is only natural that the Jewish people, who have been the victims of oppression in Europe for hundreds of years, are able to justify their use of violence against other religions. Shmuel initially endorses the Israeli belief in using military force against their Arab neighbours in order to assert Israel’s right to existence, but the events of the novel encourage him to reconsider this. Judas thus interrogates the concept of Zionism and its justifications. Though the proponents of Zionism argue that Jewish people deserve their own homeland after the trauma of their religious persecution in Europe, in the twenty-first century it has led to the oppression of millions of people of another religion. Oz demonstrates how both Israelis and Palestinians feel an ancestral claim to their land, with neither willing to accept the rights of the other. Throughout his life, Oz held Israeli leadership accountable for not reaching a deal with the Palestinians, and criticised what he saw as ‘tribal’ solidarity amongst Israeli people who refused to question the actions of their government. Thus, he encourages both Israelis and people of other nationalities to consider the position of the Palestinian people.

When Oz died in 2018 after a battle with cancer, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was quick to describe him as one of the greatest authors Israel has produced, who had ‘deftly and emotionally expressed important aspects of the Israeli experience’. Netanyahu’s commemoration of Oz demonstrated his desire to ignore their political differences in favour of viewing him as a fellow Israeli. Oz, however, may have seen Netanyahu as a modern-day example of the political fanaticism he criticised throughout his life - the same fanaticism that has arguably led to the religiously justified violence committed by Israel in order to preserve its power.  Indeed, Judas demonstrates Oz’s concern with the figure of the fanatic, who is so convinced that they have been given divine justification for their actions that they are blind to the realities of others. The novel explores this through the character of Gershom Wald: the disillusioned antagonist. He argues that he does not believe in world reform, not because the world is perfect as it is, but because ‘whoever comes along to reform it soon sinks in rivers of blood’. Judas demonstrates the dangers of listening to fanatical figures, who excuse violence as a result of their firm belief in their own righteousness. Oz seemed to believe that figures such as David Ben-Gurion, the founder of Israel, and successors of his such as Netanyahu, are guilty of having a messianic complex. By writing Judas, Oz perhaps wants to expose how certain elements of human nature can lead people to acquire a messianic complex, and how an entire people can almost completely accept their beliefs without questioning them. Characters such as Shealtiel Abravanel and his daughter Atalia, therefore provide a much needed dissenting viewpoint to mainstream political ideas.

An incredibly talented writer, Oz’s voice has come to be seen as increasingly anachronistic in an Israel that has all but rejected the two-state solution. This solution would create a homeland for both Israelis and Palestinians in the contested territories, thereby potentially ending the conflict in the region. His work demonstrates his commitment to empathy, and his belief that one’s enemy is also, and always, a human being; it demonstrates the dangers of blindly following political orthodoxy. Thus, the continued violence and poverty that blights the region to this day, proves that Oz must continue to be read, and read with the openness to consider both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian debate.