- For about 200 years since the Romantic period in Europe, Western literature has lacked a representative writer or poet, the way Jews had in the comparable period. Along with the Jewish national rebirth, Israeli writers and poets received the role of biblical prophets in the sense of "watchmen of the house of Israel," warning the people about dangers and addressing their deep-seated existential and spiritual questions.
Amos Oz was never the leader of any political movement, but he influenced our re-emerging history more than many of the political leaders who have risen to power here. Without demanding it, his literary, nonfiction, and intellectual work entailed a kind of demand for leadership. Leadership in the historic sense of the prophet who faced the king.
For more than a generation, Oz shaped, refined and formulated the ideology of centrist and leftist Zionism. In his books, articles, speeches and conversations – including those he held with the upper echelons of Israeli leaders – he wrote entire chapters of our reviving history. Many of the directions toward which he pushed did not appeal to a large sector of the people, but that is the fate of a true intellectual who is unafraid of entanglement in spiritual and ideological wars.
Unlike a great many of those who followed him, Oz never abandoned his serious work on lasting Jewish literature. He never stopped being astonished as the wonder of the Jewish people's existence and its resurrection, as well as the current existential complications. That is the essence of his books, and they will stay with us as we move on.
- From the perspective of more than a generation, it can be said that Amos Oz never despaired of us. He was not only an apocalyptic prophet, he was also someone who defended Israel in the world. Among ourselves, he tortured us plenty of times, but when facing the world he appeared as an ardent Zionist. Here's a story: During the First Lebanon War in 1982, Oz was in Sweden, not one of the more Zionist countries in Europe. He was interviewed on Swedish television one evening at 9 p.m., when viewership was at its peak. The interviewer asked him: At a time like this, when your fellow people are engaged in killing, aren't you ashamed to be Jewish? Oz answered: I have news for you – Israel is not and will not be a Christian country, no matter how hard that is for you to live with. We don't turn the other cheek.
The next day, he was invited to the office of then-Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme, who chided him, saying: How could you say that killing doesn't go against Judaism – what about the Ten Commandments? Oz replied: Mr. Prime Minister, there is no such commandment in the Bible. Palme went and fetched a translated Bible, and pointed to a passage saying "Thou shalt not kill." Oz replied: That's your translation, but that's not what the original says; the original Hebrew says "Thou shalt not commit murder." There is no etymological relation between murdering and killing. For us, killing is not only permitted, it is a commandment: "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first."
Palme was even more shocked. He closed the Bible and asked Oz whether he was sure his version of the Bible was the correct one.
- Amos Oz was the figure with whom we argued when we were adolescents at the yeshiva high school in Pardes Hanna in the 1980s. "Where are your writers?" he asked the settlers in Ofra, and essentially the entire Zionist Right he interviewed. His slim book of essays, "In the Land of Israel," was like the thrust of a sword, and we were deeply hurt by it. Later he made a speech at a Peace Now rally in Tel Aviv, in which he spoke of a "small cult that emerged from the cellars of history," which the Right interpreted as referring to it, and was profoundly offended and simultaneously motivated to act. We read his books like pages of the Talmud; they made us sharper and they made us make excuses and, mostly, they spurred us to action. Not political action; we had enough of that. Oz pushed us toward spiritual and intellectual action as a response.
Toward the end of his life, I met him at his home in Tel Aviv. Suspicion quickly faded and was replaced by a lively, exciting conversation. Clear, sharp, a man of lively conversation, quick to debate, he never went easy on the people he was talking to, and he also listened. Mainly, I was struck by his endless curiosity. We spoke a lot longer than the original time set for the meeting, and then met again and corresponded. I admit: I fell in love with him.
In his important book "Judas" (2014), one of his heroes says, "Dreamers are people who are always late."
May his memory be a blessing.
