Israel Police

The Israel Police is presented less as a fully depicted institution than through local officers and the actions of Chief Inspector Prosper Almaliah. Its role touches two conflicts: the effort to establish Boaz’s commune at the Zikhron property and a later dispute over Ilana’s departure with Yifat. In both, police authority enters a story where family ties, money, and personal persuasion already shape events.

Local Policing and Boaz’s Commune

When Alexander Gideon instructs Manfred Zakheim to help Boaz establish a commune on his father’s abandoned land, Zakheim says he travelled to Zikhron, pleaded, paid, and pacified the local police. The account presents police cooperation as one practical hurdle in carrying out the plan. It does not specify what the officers were asked to do or describe any formal agreement; the emphasis is on Zakheim’s personal intervention and his management of local resistance.

The Sommo Family Dispute

In 1976, after Ilana took Yifat to stay with Boaz at an abandoned building between Zikhron Yaakov and Binyamina, Michel Sommo’s relatives considered making a formal complaint that she had taken the child without his consent. Chief Inspector Almaliah recounts that Michel refused to issue such a complaint, despite his distress, leaving Almaliah unable to proceed on that basis. He also says that Michel’s brother and cousins contemplated taking matters into their own hands, and that he persuaded them against a rash step.

Almaliah’s Intervention

Writing to Janine, Almaliah asks her and Bruno to speak with Michel, Ilana, and Boaz before the dispute becomes a public scandal. He offers to join them in plain clothes after returning from official business in Eilat, and directs Janine to leave a message for him at Tel Aviv District Headquarters under his name and rank, Chief Inspector Almaliah. His appeal combines his police position with personal relationships: he emphasizes that Janine and Bruno know the family and presents conversation as the immediate means of preventing further escalation.

Institutional Role and Limits

The episodes give the Israel Police a circumscribed presence. In Zikhron, police are described as a local obstacle that Zakheim managed through personal intervention; in the family dispute, Almaliah’s authority is constrained by Michel’s refusal to make a formal complaint. The contrast places institutional procedure alongside informal networks rather than depicting the police as an all-powerful force. The institution’s narrative significance lies in this boundary: it can be enlisted, approached, or held back, but the family’s decisions determine whether a private conflict becomes a formal police matter.