Judas

Amos Oz has thought provoking novel, using his position as a popular novelist as his bully pulpit.
He has used his characters to express without taking sides some of his political viewpoints.

This is the story of three main characters.  Shmuel Ash, a young graduate student at university writing his thesis on the Jewish belief of Jesus Christ.  After his father loses his job and declares bankruptcy, Shmuel drops out of school.  He has also quite recently broken up with his girlfriend, who has left him to marry an old boyfriend.  In his depressed state he answers an advertisement for a companion for an elder gentleman.  He moves into the home of Gershom Ward, a brilliant but argumentative invalid.  He lives in the home of his daughter-in-law, a 40 something year old widow, Atalia Abraveanel, whose husband, Gershom son, was killed in Israel's war of independence.

These three confused and unhappy people exist together in the house for three months as slowly the barriers dissolve between them.  They come to depend on each other and though they have different views on the political situation in Israel in 1959, they begin to live in harmony.

Ash is infatuated with Atalia, who has sworn off all men, thinking they are like grown children who play at fighting and war.  As Ash and Atalia discuss the results of the conflict between Jews and Arabs as the State of Israel is becoming a reality Atalia explains her father's point of view, whcih could very well be Amos Oz's perspective on the crisis in the Middle East also.
Atalia explains that maybe it would be room two communities, the Arabs and the Jews to live side by side without the boundries of a state.  She says, "The Jews here are actually a single big refugee camp, and so are the Arabs.  And now the Arabs live day by day with the disaster of their defeat, and the Jews live night by night with the dread of their vengeance."  Oz describes this feeling of frustration, self righteousness, anger and vengeance so clearly, it seems clear the need for a two state solution to the end the conflict, even today in modern times.

In contrast with this plot line is Shmuel researching his thesis on the "Jewish Views of Jesus".
As he studies the history of the crucifixion of Jesus and the last supper, he reads about Judas Iscariot, the founder of the Christian religion.  He would orchestrate the the crucifixion.  He was the director and stage manager of the spectacle.  This plot line is also fascinating.  It makes the reader think about Christianity from a different perspective.