Gideon Intervenes in Boaz’s School Disciplinary Action

Alexander Gideon’s intervention in Boaz Brandstetter’s school discipline briefly averts expulsion but does not bring Boaz back to school. The episode joins practical influence to sharply conditional financial aid: Gideon arranges for a warning instead of expulsion, while requiring the family to treat his money as a hardship gift rather than an acknowledgment of obligation. In the aftermath, Boaz leaves school, is taken into custody, and the family uses part of the payment to get him out on bail.

Background and Appeal

Gideon’s response follows a letter from Ilana Sommo dated the 5th of the month, which had reached him only the previous day after being forwarded from the United States. He says he will address only a small part of the matters she raised. His reply focuses on the threatened expulsion of her son and on financial assistance, leaving her other complaints unanswered.

The intervention is conveyed through correspondence rather than a narrated meeting. Gideon reports that he first spoke by telephone with an acquaintance in Israel; afterward, the school’s headmistress called him on her own initiative. He and the headmistress agreed that the expulsion would be canceled and Boaz’s record would carry a warning instead. The letters do not explain the original grounds for the school’s disciplinary action.

Terms of Gideon’s Intervention

Gideon presents a transfer to cadet school as an available alternative if Boaz prefers it, saying that he has reasonable grounds to think it can be arranged through his lawyer, Manfred Zakheim. The transfer remains a possibility, not a decision Boaz has made, and the subsequent account shows him leaving his existing school rather than transferring to another one.

The financial offer is set out with equally explicit conditions. Manfred Zakheim is to convey a check for $2,000 in Israeli pounds, in Michel Sommo’s name. Michel must acknowledge in writing that the sum is a gift to Ilana on account of hardship, not a precedent or an admission that Gideon owes them anything. Gideon also requires Michel to assure him that no further appeals will come from Ilana. He voices resentment at the possibility that Michel’s extended family in Paris might also seek money, and dismisses the rest of Ilana’s letter—including what he calls its lies and contradictions—without answering it. He closes by saying that he will retain the letter.

Boaz’s Departure and the Money’s Use

In a letter dated February 27, 1976, Ilana reports that the family had signed the required papers the previous week and received the money from Gideon’s lawyer. Yet the school’s decision did not keep Boaz there. After the headmistress told him he would receive a warning rather than be expelled, he picked up his kit bag and disappeared.

Michel contacted the police, who told the family that Boaz was being held in Abu Kabir on suspicion of possessing stolen goods. A friend of Michel’s brother, who held a senior position in the Tel Aviv police, spoke with Boaz’s probation officer on the family’s behalf. After complications, Boaz was released on bail.

Ilana acknowledges that the family used part of Gideon’s money for the bail, although she knows this was not what Gideon intended. She explains that they had no other funds: Michel worked as a nonqualified French teacher in a religious state school, and mortgage deductions left him with barely enough salary to feed the family. She adds that they also had a daughter, Madeleine Yifat, who was almost three. The money therefore moves from Gideon’s carefully restricted gift into an immediate response to Boaz’s legal predicament, while the school intervention itself has failed to keep him enrolled.