The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is both an academic institution in Shmuel Ash’s story and a site caught in the political geography of divided Jerusalem. Shmuel begins a research project there on how Jewish sources understood Jesus, but leaves his studies after discovering that its central idea had already been published; later, the university’s isolated campus on Mount Scopus appears in a discussion of restricted access across the city’s dividing lines.

Shmuel’s studies and research

Shmuel studies in the university’s departments of History and Religious Studies. His master’s project, titled “Jesus in the Eyes of the Jews,” begins with an idea that excites him: examining Jesus from a Jewish perspective. He pursues it with enthusiasm, but while investigating the sources he discovers that his supposed innovation had appeared decades earlier, in a footnote to a short article by his teacher, Gustav Yom-Tov Eisenschloss.

The discovery drains the project of its promise. Shmuel eventually abandons the thesis, and in early December, as sleet begins to fall over Jerusalem, he tells Eisenschloss and his other teachers that he is leaving his studies. Eisenschloss is astonished and urges him to continue, pointing to Jewish textual traditions as fertile ground for further investigation. Shmuel’s departure is not due to the research alone: heartbreak, stalled work, and his father’s financial ruin all contribute to his decision to seek employment.

Campus amid divided Jerusalem

The university’s Mount Scopus location makes it vulnerable to the political separation of the city. In a conversation with Gershom Wald, Shmuel discusses the Jordanian government’s decision to prevent an Israeli convoy from reaching the university’s besieged campus. The restriction is presented alongside other news of the period, including antisemitic attacks in Germany, connecting the university’s isolation to a wider atmosphere of political danger and communal insecurity.

Academic and narrative significance

The university marks the point where Shmuel’s intellectual ambition meets both prior scholarship and material circumstance. His project draws him into Jewish accounts and interpretations of Jesus, but the discovery that his argument is not new helps bring his academic career to a halt. The institution therefore frames a decisive change in his life: he leaves the world of study just as the novel’s discussions of religious history and interpretation continue elsewhere, in his conversations and reading.

Its divided-campus setting also gives the university a significance beyond Shmuel’s personal story. Access to Mount Scopus depends on political conditions, so a place of research and learning becomes another reminder that Jerusalem’s institutions and everyday movements are shaped by the city’s division.