Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem

Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem enters the story as a hoped-for destination for treatment of Alexander Gideon’s advanced cancer and as a practical focus of others’ attempts to care for him. Its role is consequential but unresolved: Zakheim and Michel Sommo both propose bringing Gideon there, while Gideon decides to remain with Boaz at the family home.

Treatment Context

Gideon reports that he has had kidney cancer for a year and undergone two operations. By the time he writes to Sommo, the growth has spread through his abdomen, and doctors in New York have judged further surgery pointless. The hospital is named in the account of his deteriorating condition, though the narrative does not establish a completed course of treatment there.

Earlier, Gideon had written from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York that he was going there for a week of radiotherapy. He asked Zakheim to arrange a quiet private clinic with facilities for chemotherapy, anticipating further care in Israel after treatment. These plans place Hadassah within a wider search for medical care rather than depicting it as a cure or a confirmed outcome.

Plans to Bring Gideon to Jerusalem

When Gideon is staying at his childhood home with Boaz, Zakheim plans to take him by car to Jerusalem for radiotherapy at Hadassah Hospital. Zakheim intends to make the journey serve another purpose as well: returning Ilana and Yifat to Michel Sommo. Gideon rejects the plan and decides to stay with Boaz, preferring the life he has chosen at the house to a return to Jerusalem for treatment.

Michel offers a different route to the hospital. After learning of Gideon’s grave condition and asking forgiveness for his earlier insults, he invites Gideon to stay with the Sommo family and come at once to Hadassah Hospital. He also says that Boaz should accompany and care for his father. Michel contacts a relative who works in the hospital’s oncology department and arranges to seek special treatment for Gideon. The offer combines practical medical access with a proposed family reconciliation.

Institutional Role and Unresolved Outcome

The hospital’s place in the narrative is defined by plans, referrals, and contested decisions. Zakheim’s proposed transfer and Michel’s invitation both frame Jerusalem as a place where treatment might be obtained, but they also entail choices about where Gideon will live and who will care for him. Gideon’s refusal of Zakheim’s plan makes clear that access to treatment does not settle those questions.

Although the account names Hadassah Hospital as the intended site of radiotherapy and oncology care, it does not show Gideon arriving there or receiving either treatment. Instead, its final emphasis falls on the care he receives at home from Ilana and Boaz. The hospital therefore remains an important but unrealized possibility: a medical destination around which the family’s efforts, loyalties, and disagreements briefly gather.