Boaz Leaves After Attacking Abraham Abudarham

Boaz’s attack on Abraham Abudarham and subsequent disappearance turn a violent outburst into a rupture with the people trying to bring him into a family and working life. Told through letters rather than a single continuous scene, the episode is recorded from sharply different positions: Michel Sommo’s condemnation, Boaz’s brief farewell, and a kibbutz acquaintance’s more hopeful assessment. Together, they establish what happened while leaving open whether Boaz has actually reached the sea or is still somewhere in the country.

Causes and Background

The assault follows a fragile period of attempted inclusion. Two days earlier, Boaz had spent the Sabbath with Michel Sommo and his household. Michel recalls that the family had begun to feel like a family again, that Boaz’s sister was getting used to him, and that the teddy bear Boaz brought her had delighted them. The timing makes the violence especially painful for Michel: it arrives just as those gestures seemed to offer the possibility of renewed belonging.

Boaz was working for Abraham Abudarham, whom Michel describes as a kindhearted benefactor who had taken him on despite his two police records and a third record that Michel and Inspector Almaliah had managed to have closed. Michel’s account says Abraham gave Boaz a small kick after Boaz had been insolent; Boaz then struck the sixty-year-old man with a vegetable crate. The letters record both Michel’s disapproval of the kick and his conviction that it did not justify the retaliation. In his angry letter, he treats the attack as a betrayal of someone who had invested in Boaz and given him work.

What Happens

In a letter dated 2 Iyyar 5736, Michel writes after speaking with Boaz by telephone and hearing his account. His anger is not presented as an immediate loss of control: he says he delayed writing until he had heard Boaz’s version and had fought against his own baser instincts. The restraint does not soften the letter. Michel calls Boaz immature and fears that earlier episodes—hitting a teacher at Telamim and beating a night watchman—may signal a recurring pattern rather than isolated trouble.

Michel measures the new assault against the effort made to help Boaz. He recalls that the family had rescued him from an institute for juvenile delinquents, and asks whether that intervention was a mistake. He also stresses the consequences for others: Abraham has been repaid with violence, Michel and Inspector Almaliah have been disappointed, and Ilana has been ill in bed for three days. These are Michel’s accusations and interpretation of the episode, not a neutral account of everyone’s motives. His scriptural comparisons and repeated questions turn the letter into a moral reprimand as well as a record of the incident.

Disappearance and Search

Boaz’s own note, addressed to Michel and Ilana, shifts the emphasis from the quarrel to departure. He says he has apologized to Abraham, though he is unsure who ought to apologize to whom, and has left a note of thanks for Bruno and Janin Fuks before going out. He writes that by the time the letter reaches them he will be at sea, aboard a ship, and asks the family to forget him. He says he likes Yifat despite having visited only twice, admires Michel even though Michel nags, and feels sorry for Ilana because she would have been better off never having had him. The note conveys affection and self-reproach, but offers no explanation that resolves the conflict.

A letter dated 8 May 1976 reports that Boaz has disappeared from the family with whom he was staying. Its writer believes that his need to vanish may not arise from the particular Tel Aviv incident alone, but from a broader wish to distance himself from Michel, Ilana, and the rest of the family. The writer urges them to keep searching, even while expressing confidence that Boaz will be all right and will eventually find his place. That confidence rests on having seen a decent, clear-minded side of him during his years on the kibbutz, though the writer allows that his way of thinking differs from theirs.

Another appeal describes the search as urgent. After receiving news that Boaz had disappeared, its writer went to look for him; a short letter then arrived saying that Boaz was running away to work aboard a ship. Searches were arranged on Israeli and foreign ships due to leave, but there was no certainty that Boaz was at sea at all: he might still be wandering on land. His announced destination is therefore not confirmation of his whereabouts.

Consequences and Significance

The episode leaves the adults divided between punishment, responsibility, and continued care. Michel sees a young man who has repaid kindness with violence and endangered the fragile family reconciliation. Boaz’s note, by contrast, acknowledges particular ties even as it tries to sever them. The kibbutz correspondent resists reducing him to his latest offense, distinguishing repeated trouble from an incapacity for decency or genuine harm.

The letters also make the separation itself the unresolved consequence of the assault. Boaz leaves no settled account of where he is going, and the search cannot establish whether his shipboard plan has become reality. His departure thus extends the conflict beyond the blow to Abraham: the family must respond to both the injury he caused and the possibility that he has disappeared from their reach. The narrative’s competing letters preserve that uncertainty rather than supplying a final resolution.