Michel-Henri Sommo

Michel-Henri Sommo is Ilana’s husband, Yifat’s father, and the stepfather who persists in caring for Boaz despite the boy’s hostility. A French teacher with ambitions beyond his modest post, he becomes a practical presence in the family’s crises: he helps Boaz find a school, a way out of police custody, and work, then slowly builds a relationship with him. His story joins ordinary acts of care to the larger disputes over money, inheritance, and political purpose.

Background and Family

Michel’s early life included migration from Algeria to Paris with his parents. In a letter to Boaz, he recalls arriving at roughly Boaz’s age, working evenings as an apprentice to an uncle who was an X-ray technician while studying at the lycée. When he wanted to buy a Larousse dictionary, that uncle refused him a loan. The memory gives Michel a personal point of comparison when he tries to speak to Boaz about work and self-reliance, though he does not present his own youth as identical to the boy’s circumstances.

As an adult, Michel teaches French at a religious state school. Ilana describes him as a nonqualified teacher whose salary, after mortgage payments, leaves little for the household. The couple also have a young daughter, Yifat. Michel’s brother is an important connection: his influence helps Boaz enter Telamim Agricultural High School, and a friend of the brother later assists Michel in arranging a private conversation with Boaz at Abu Kabir police station.

Becoming Boaz’s Stepfather

Boaz first returns to the household after years away, arriving one winter night at thirteen and a half after deciding to leave the kibbutz. When Michel tells him to change out of his wet clothes, eat, wash, and talk in the morning, Boaz rejects Michel’s authority. Michel does not answer with a threat. Instead, he tells the boy to step outside, calm down, and try entering again with better manners. Ilana then agrees that Boaz can attend agricultural school if that is what he truly wants. Michel adds that Boaz must apologize to his mother and ask and thank her properly.

The exchange does not produce instant reconciliation. Boaz’s contempt for Michel remains plain, but Michel helps secure the school place and the family pays the fees. Later, when Boaz leaves the school and is detained at Abu Kabir on suspicion of possessing stolen goods, Michel again acts rather than withdrawing. He uses family and police connections to arrange bail, then goes to the station without Ilana so that he and Boaz can speak alone.

Michel acknowledges that Boaz insults him behind his back, but turns the confrontation toward a practical question: what does Boaz want from life, and what can his mother and stepfather provide? He suggests that they stop trading insults and make a list of what Boaz wants. Boaz says he wants nothing and resents being pressed to define his future. The conversation does not resolve their differences, but Michel makes room for Boaz to speak without requiring an immediate show of affection or gratitude.

Support, Work, and Money

After Boaz’s release, Michel finds him a job at the Tel Aviv central market with a wholesale greengrocer married to one of Michel’s cousins. Boaz has requested the job, and Michel arranges it. The family uses some of Alexander Gideon’s financial contribution toward the bail, without telling Boaz where the money came from; Ilana believes Boaz would have rejected it had he known. Michel’s support is therefore both substantial and deliberately unobtrusive, while the family’s dependence on outside money remains a source of strain.

Michel and Ilana’s appeals to Alexander also reveal the scale of their financial pressures and plans. They seek funds for their mortgage, an additional room, and the future of their children, as well as money to purchase and renovate Alkalai House in the Jewish Quarter of Old Hebron. They describe the property as a Jewish holding taken during the 1929 Palestine riots and present its recovery through payment rather than violence. Michel later agrees that Ilana may write to Alexander for help, though not to include her final personal offer. These appeals place Michel’s family needs alongside a larger project of reclaiming property.

The financial assistance alters Michel’s prospects. He plans to leave teaching and his private lessons at the end of the school year to enter real estate in the territories, and he also dreams of a political career modeled on the brother he admires. The change is not simply a new occupation: Ilana observes that Alexander’s money has changed Michel’s life, enabling him to imagine a future beyond his poorly paid teaching work.

A Gradual Bond with Boaz

Michel’s joint letter with Ilana to Boaz after he misses their Passover Seder shows a different register from their early confrontations. He says he respects their agreement that Boaz may choose his own course provided he acts uprightly and earns his living through work. He welcomes reports that Boaz is doing well, then recalls his own apprenticeship and the refused loan for the dictionary. The recollection makes the letter a mixture of encouragement and personal testimony rather than a simple reprimand.

Over time Michel manages to bring Boaz back to the Jerusalem home. One weekend, the two compete for the attention of Yifat, who enjoys their rivalry. After the Sabbath, Michel prepares a meal and arranges for a neighbor’s son to look after the child so the adults can go to the cinema. Ilana notices that Michel and Boaz have become almost friends. The change is expressed through domestic gestures: Michel climbs onto Boaz’s shoulders to change a veranda light bulb, and Yifat tries to put Michel’s slippers on Boaz’s feet. Their closeness grows out of shared household life, not a formal declaration of reconciliation.

Care and Unsettled Relations

Michel’s care for Yifat is particularly visible when she becomes ill. He notices her fever before taking her to nursery, cancels a meeting with the deputy minister of defense that he had awaited for nearly two months, and takes her to a clinic. He obtains medicine, prepares food, coaxes her to drink, and stays beside her through the day. Ilana returns to find him asleep fully dressed on a mattress at the foot of Yifat’s bed. She responds with irritation and wonders whether his decision to cancel the meeting is intended to make her feel guilty; the narrative gives her suspicion, not proof of Michel’s motive.

The later correspondence presents the marriage as unsettled rather than neatly resolved. Alexander, writing to Michel, acknowledges that he has come to regard him as a good man and notes that he has learned of Michel’s qualities through Ilana and Boaz. In a later scene, Ilana cares for the seriously ill Alexander while imagining how Yifat might ask when Michel will return. This absence leaves Michel’s immediate place in the household uncertain in the available account. What remains consistent is the pattern of his character: he offers practical help, accepts the labor of care, and continues trying to make a family relationship possible even when affection is neither assured nor openly expressed.