Boaz Brandstetter

Boaz Brandstetter, also addressed as Boaz Gideon and Boaz B., is a son seeking independence from a family marked by conflict. A letter from Alexander Gideon takes that wish seriously and offers practical alternatives rather than insisting that Boaz return to a prescribed life. In a later meeting, Boaz describes the childhood distress behind his earlier violence and explains that he has changed his conduct. His movement from family turmoil toward work and a chosen life in Israel gives his independence both a personal and a political dimension.

Identity and Background

The correspondence preserves more than one form of Boaz’s name. One address identifies him as Boaz Brandstetter, in care of the Schulvass family at Kiryat Arba; another uses Boaz Gideon (Brandstetter), also in care of the Schulvass family. A later address directs mail to Gideon House in Zikhron Yaakov (South). These details place him across different family and living contexts without making his identity settle neatly into one surname: Brandstetter and Gideon both remain attached to him.

The letters also record a relationship in which independence is openly at issue. Boaz has written briefly to Alexander Gideon, and Gideon’s reply acknowledges that Boaz wants to be on his own and not be told how to live. Gideon responds by admitting that he once wanted the same freedom but lacked the strength to pursue it. The admission makes his offer more than a practical arrangement: it recognizes a desire he understands from his own past, even as he has not entirely escaped the family’s pattern of directing one another.

A Choice Between Two Lives

In a letter dated 23 July 1976 and sent from Chicago, Alexander Gideon offers Boaz two possible futures. In the American option, Gideon will buy him a ticket, arrange somewhere to stay, and find him a job, possibly in optics. Boaz could later study a subject that interests him. Any repayment from his wages would be optional and could wait; Gideon also warns that the language would be difficult at first and jokes that, in America, Boaz would not have relatives in the police. The proposal combines assistance with an explicit effort to leave the decision to Boaz.

The alternative is in Israel: a large, empty house near Zikhron Yaakov, abandoned and in poor condition. Gideon proposes that Boaz begin restoring it gradually, offering a fair monthly wage and covering building-material costs. There is also room for agriculture, and the property is not far from the sea. Boaz may invite other people to live there, but the defining condition is that he remain free to do only what he wants. The offer ties financial support to work while presenting restoration as a possible setting for self-direction, rather than as an obligation to return to family control.

The contrast between the alternatives is carefully practical. America offers a job, possible study, and a new environment, but brings the obstacle of language. The Israeli property offers physical work and the possibility of a shared household, but begins as an abandoned building requiring repair. In both cases Gideon promises material support; in both, the choice is left with Boaz. This is a notable change from the conflict between parent and child described elsewhere: here, the father’s help is framed as a means of making independence possible.

Family Conflict and a Change in Conduct

During Ilana Sommo’s visit to Boaz, his response is restrained and direct. He recognizes her, introduces her to the two young women present, and asks whether anything is wrong. When she explains herself uncertainly, Boaz does not simply accept her account; he tells her that he knows about the past between her and Gideon. His recollection locates his childhood distress in the parents’ shouting and fighting. As a child, he believed their conflict was caused by him. He also connects his mother’s repeated suicide attempts and her involvement with Gideon’s friends to his own earlier impulses to attack others. The account gives those acts a family context without making them harmless or inevitable.

Boaz describes a change in the rules by which he lives. He says that he once directed his anger outward, but is now against beating people unless they strike him first; even then, he describes his response as limited. He presents work and taking things easy as his priorities, along with concern for himself and his country. This is not a claim that the family past has been resolved. Instead, Boaz distinguishes the person he was as a boy, reacting to circumstances he did not understand, from the adult trying to set limits on his own behavior.

Political Outlook and Narrative Role

Boaz’s concern for Israel is inseparable from his rejection of its recurring violence. He objects to wars, quarrels, killing, and bombings in place of ordinary life, while also identifying himself as a Zionist. The pairing complicates any simple opposition between political commitment and a desire for peace: Boaz belongs to the country in his own account, yet condemns the violence through which its conflicts are lived. His stated preference for work and a quieter life stands against the destructive cycle he sees around him.

The records of his addresses and the encounter with Ilana place independence in concrete terms: where he can receive letters, what work he might do, whether he can choose his companions, and how he will respond to old family wounds. Boaz is neither simply rescued by Gideon’s money nor represented as having escaped the past. The offers leave the decision open, while his own account supplies the measure of change: he can name what shaped his earlier behavior and describe limits he now intends to keep.