September 11 attacks

The September 11 attacks are referenced briefly as a point in time rather than depicted as a narrated event. Their significance in the novel is contextual: shortly afterward, Michal sent Judah Loeb a series of opinion columns condemning peace negotiators, marking a phase in her movement away from her earlier left-wing positions.

Reference and chronology

Judah recalls that shortly after the September 11 attacks, Michal sent him a stream of columns criticizing the peace negotiators she called the “Oslo Criminals,” including Yitzhak Rabin. The passage supplies no account of the attacks themselves, and it does not describe Judah or Michal witnessing them or responding to them directly.

Political context

The reference helps date Michal’s political trajectory. By the time Judah interviews her, he understands that she has moved far from the left-wing positions she held as a college student; the columns provide an earlier sign of that change. The novel places this turn after the attacks but does not claim they caused it, or explain what prompted her arguments. The event thus functions as a chronological hinge in Judah’s recollection, not as an independently dramatized episode.