Boaz Leaves Home After Attacking Abudarham

Boaz Leaves Home After Attacking Abudarham follows Boaz from a violent quarrel with his employer to an abrupt departure by sea. The episode is more than an escape from consequences: Michel Sommo condemns the attack while still arranging housing and possible work or study, and then searches for Boaz when he disappears. Boaz leaves with apology and gratitude, but also with a bleak request that his family forget him.

Background and Trigger

Boaz’s departure comes after an incident at work with Abram Abudarham, who had taken him on despite his record of trouble. Michel’s account says Abudarham gave Boaz a small kick after Boaz had been insolent; Boaz answered by hitting the older man with a vegetable crate. Michel regards the response as grossly disproportionate, while acknowledging that he personally disapproves of kicking. The conflict therefore begins with provocation but turns on Boaz’s decision to answer it with violence.

Michel places the incident within a pattern rather than treating it as an isolated lapse. He recalls Boaz hitting a teacher at Telamim and beating a night watchman, and notes that Boaz had two police records and a third that Inspector Almaliah and Michel had managed to have closed. Michel also revisits the decision to rescue Boaz from an institute for juvenile delinquents, wondering whether that intervention had been a mistake. His anger is sharpened by the timing: Boaz had recently stayed with him for the Sabbath, and the household had begun to feel like a family. Boaz had brought Yifat a teddy bear, and Ilana had gained a little hope after a period of suffering. The attack threatens a fragile return to family life just as it seems to be taking hold.

Michel’s Response and Proposed Terms

Michel’s first response is a severe letter to Boaz, written after speaking with him by telephone and hearing his account. The letter condemns the assault and stresses the harm done to Abudarham, whom Michel describes as a benefactor who had invested in Boaz and employed him despite his past. Michel also names the people whose trust Boaz has disappointed: himself, Inspector Almaliah, and Ilana, who has been ill in bed for three days. His rebuke is personal as well as moral; he fears Boaz may never mature and recalls a family history that makes the possibility of repeating his father’s example especially painful.

Yet Michel does not simply withdraw support. On behalf of himself and Ilana, he makes an apology to Abudarham Boaz’s first obligation. He then permits Boaz to remain in the backyard shed of Bruno and Janine Fuchs, provided they agree, and offers to pay them rent from Boaz’s father’s reparation money. The arrangement is meant to provide shelter without treating Boaz as a beggar or the family as a welfare case. Michel also proposes study of Torah and a trade at a college in the liberated territories, while explicitly leaving the choice to Boaz. If Boaz prefers optics, Michel asks him to show the course prospectus and offers to pay; if he wants another job, Michel invites him to Jerusalem to live at home while they look for work. These alternatives make the letter a reprimand and an effort to preserve a route back into ordinary life.

Michel’s closing position is not uncomplicated forgiveness. He tells Boaz to make amends and sets a clear limit against further violence, but also admits affection for him and says he is praying for him. The combination matters: Michel’s support is conditional on changed conduct, yet the conditions are offered because he still considers Boaz part of the family. The departing boy is not expelled by a formal decision; he leaves while a place to stay and several possible futures remain open to him.

Boaz’s Farewell and Departure

Boaz later writes that he has apologized to Abram, although he is unsure who ought to apologize to whom. He has also left a note of thanks for Bruno and Janine Fuchs before going out. By the time his letter reaches Michel, he says, he will already be at sea aboard a ship. This sequence gives the departure its particular force: Boaz has complied with the immediate requests to apologize and thank his hosts, but he does not stay to take up Michel’s offers of study, optics training, a different job, or a return to the Jerusalem household.

His farewell combines attachment with withdrawal. Boaz says he likes Yifat, whom he has visited twice, and admires Michel despite his tendency to nag. He apologizes to Ilana and frames her life as better without him. He asks the family to forget him, even as his expressions of gratitude and regard show that he is not indifferent to them. The letter does not explain what work he will find aboard ship or how long he intends to remain away; it establishes only that he has chosen departure and expects to be at sea when the message arrives.

Disappearance and Search

The family’s uncertainty becomes explicit in Michel’s later letter to Alexander Gideon. Michel reports that the Fuchs family called to say Boaz had disappeared, and that he went to them immediately. A short letter from Boaz then supplied a sign of life and said that this time he was running away to work aboard a ship, after becoming involved in further trouble. The wording connects the departure to a recurring pattern of flight after conflict, while distinguishing this disappearance from the earlier incident at Abudarham’s workplace.

Michel responds by keeping his supervision in place. He uses his connections to arrange searches on Israeli and foreign ships due to leave, but admits that there is no certainty the search will find Boaz: the boy might not be at sea at all and could instead be wandering somewhere in the country. Michel therefore asks Alexander Gideon to act urgently through people close to him. He is not asking for money; in his view, the immediate need is practical intervention, particularly in light of the harm Gideon has done to Boaz and Ilana. Michel refers to a previous occasion when Ilana sought help for Boaz’s difficulties and Gideon sent money instead of acting, making this appeal a pointed demand that financial assistance not substitute for finding the boy.

The episode ends without confirmation of Boaz’s location or the outcome of the search. Its unresolved ending preserves the difference between a declared destination and a known one: Boaz says he is heading to sea, while Michel cannot rule out that he is elsewhere. The letters also hold together two competing descriptions of his departure. To Michel, it is another dangerous disappearance requiring supervision; in Boaz’s own account, it is a departure accompanied by apology, thanks, and a wish to release his family from him. That gap makes the episode a rupture without a settled severance.