Stepfather-son relationship between Michel Sommo and Boaz Gideon

Michel Sommo’s relationship with his stepson, Boaz Gideon, is neither a simple bond of authority nor a settled reconciliation. Michel repeatedly protects and supports Boaz, but often couples help with expectations about religion, conduct, and the direction of his life. Boaz values what Michel has done for him while objecting to the control he believes comes with it. Their letters trace a gradual change: Michel begins to recognize Boaz’s efforts and concern for others, even as fundamental differences remain.

A bond forged through rescue and responsibility

Michel’s parental role is complicated by Boaz’s uncertain biological paternity and by Boaz’s insistence on his maternal family name. In an appeal to Alexander Gideon, Ilana offers to sign a statement identifying Boaz as the son of anyone Alexander chooses if he will help the boy. She describes Boaz as estranged from the household and reports the hostile names he uses for Michel and others. Michel’s position is therefore not secured by an uncomplicated claim of biological fatherhood; it develops through the responsibilities he assumes toward Boaz.

Those responsibilities have concrete consequences. Michel helps save Boaz from reform school, but the arrangement is conditional: Boaz must go to Kiryat Arba. There he can work in an optical workshop, though he dislikes the religious instruction and the social environment. In his letter to Michel, Boaz acknowledges that Michel has repeatedly helped him out of trouble, including after conflicts at Telamim Agricultural High School, with Abraham Abudarham, and with police in Sharm el-Sheikh. Yet he regards the help as entangled with Michel’s attempts to direct his life, leaving him feeling that assistance creates a debt he is expected to repay through obedience.

Money, limits, and competing ideas of care

Michel’s support extends beyond placements and interventions. He tells Boaz that money held for him belongs equally to Boaz, Ilana, and Yifat, but that Boaz’s share will remain in his care until Boaz is twenty-one. He also sends Boaz six hundred pounds, separate from that protected inheritance. To Michel, managing the money is part of his responsibility as a parent; to Boaz, control over it is another way Michel claims authority over him and his mother.

The disagreement is not simply whether Michel cares. Boaz says he respects the favors Michel has done, but argues that care becomes domination when Michel assumes that everyone should live as he does. He objects particularly to being placed in a religious community that does not suit his beliefs, and challenges Michel’s power over the family’s money. Michel, meanwhile, praises Boaz’s work in the optical department and his night-guard service while sharply criticizing his neglect of religious study and his recurring trouble. His mixture of approval, rebuke, and financial responsibility makes their bond both sustaining and contentious.

Correspondence and a widening recognition

The letters allow each man to state what face-to-face authority obscures. Michel answers Boaz’s complaints by insisting that he has done more than duty required, while also urging him to choose his own course rather than pretend he is physically bound to stay. That apparent permission is edged with warnings: Michel fears Boaz will leave Kiryat Arba only to repeat earlier mistakes, and refuses to release the inheritance early. His language presents care as a combination of freedom, admonition, and stewardship, although Boaz experiences the admonition as another effort to run his life.

A later letter from Zikhron broadens the conflict beyond Boaz’s own circumstances. He asks Michel to let Ilana and Yifat come stay with him, proposing that they rest from the pressures of Jerusalem and work around the house and garden. He describes a clean room, a developing household, and a willingness to accommodate Ilana’s religious practices. The invitation shows Boaz thinking about his mother and sister, not only about his own escape from Michel’s arrangements. It also directly challenges what he sees as Michel’s tendency to shape other people to his own convictions.

Michel’s reply marks a limited but important shift. He acknowledges that Boaz’s proposal moved him, interpreting it as evidence that Boaz has begun to care for his neighbor rather than merely cause suffering. He does not agree that Ilana and Yifat should immediately become Boaz’s guests: he believes Boaz must first demonstrate greater self-improvement. Even so, he responds with substantial monthly support, conditioned on Boaz learning to read and write and making an effort to observe the Sabbath more fully. The exchange preserves Michel’s characteristic conditions while showing that he can recognize an impulse in Boaz that he values.

Shared family life and an unfinished reconciliation

The relationship is not confined to arguments over rules and money. Michel succeeds in bringing Boaz to visit the family in Jerusalem. During the visit, Michel and his much taller stepson compete for Yifat’s attention; after the Sabbath, Michel prepares a meal and arranges for the neighbors’ son to look after her so the adults can go to the cinema. Small domestic scenes, including Michel climbing onto Boaz’s shoulders to change a light bulb, give their rapprochement a physical, everyday form. They do not erase the conflict, but they show the two inhabiting family life together rather than meeting only as guardian and rebellious dependent.

By 1976, Michel can entertain the possibility that Boaz’s chosen path—as a farmer and stargazer—may be worth pursuing, even though it is not the future Michel once hoped to guide him toward. He continues to criticize Boaz and to frame support in moral and religious terms, but his response also allows that Boaz should do his best on his own terms. Their relationship remains unresolved: Boaz resists Michel’s authority, and Michel does not abandon his convictions. Its development lies instead in a growing capacity to see care in forms each man had previously read as defiance or control.