THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Cra ig Terkowitz
14 Friday, June 15, 1984
The gracious
courage of
Amos Oz
dren know for sure. But his courage is
• hard to dispute. We are not talking
about the courage that sends men
into pitched battle or saviors into
flaming buildings. Oz has a more
gracious courage, one that lets him
hear the voices, their whispers and
their cries.
Amos Oz is an Israeli, that coun-
try's best-known writer and, some
say, its best writer. He is also the
author of a book,In the Land oflsrael,
a series of extraordinary conversa-
tions between him and old-line
Zionists, bitter and chafing Arabs,
serenely reflective theologians,
North African Jews bristling at
being the "niggers" of their new,
European-influenced country, Gush
Ernunim settlers — "pioneers".—
who have pitched their tented set-
Israel's best-known,
and perhaps
best, writer
listens to
his countrymen
their voices,
whispers
and
cries.
Continued from Page 1
tlements on the West Bank and will
be there, they say, for the duration.
In a country where, as Oz told me
while recently , chain-smoking his
way through an interview in a Wash-
ington cafe, "everybody screams at
the top of their lungs and nobody lis-
tens," Oz journeyed through the land
as a quiet and receptive and curious
man. This was probably not an easy
task for him. As a leader of the Peace
Now movement, Oz is a public — and
a controversial -- figure. To some, he
is a raving radical, a defeatist, a new
Chamberlain, shorn of umbrella, but
carrying, nevertheless, the pale
white flag of appeasement. His voice,
even amid the clatter of a Washing-
ton restaurant, is tireless and, even
in English, a second language to him,
moving and fluent. It is difficult to
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