Black Box by Amos Oz Read Free Book Online

In 1972 he was among the founders of a group called Jewish Fellowship, most of whose members are young immigrants from America and Russia. MHS still serves on the executive committee of this organization. After the Yom Kippur War it was involved in demonstrations against the troop disengagements in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, and also in attempts to purchase land illegally from Arabs in the area around Bethlehem. MHS was twice interviewed by the police in connection with his activities for this organization (in October ’74 and again in April ’75), but he was not charged. So far as we can ascertain, MHS was not personally involved in any violent act of lawbreaking. He had a dozen letters published in the two evening newspapers in which he urged a policy of encouraging the Arab population to leave the country and the occupied territories peaceably and through financial inducements.
In conclusion we shall cite a detail that seems to us particularly significant, and that hints apparently at an important item of information we have not yet managed to track down: In December of last year (four months ago) MHS applied to the French Embassy in Tel Aviv for the restoration of his French nationality (which he had voluntarily relinquished in 1963) side by side with his Israeli nationality. His application was turned down. Immediately afterward, on the tenth of December last, he went to Paris and stayed there four days only (!). It is not clear what the purpose of his trip was or who paid for it. Not long after his return, his French nationality was indeed restored, with a speed that indicates beyond all doubt a departure from the normal procedures. We did not succeed in ascertaining what lay behind this episode.
As already stated, we consider the report now before you a partial and nonexhaustive effort, owing to the severe time limit imposed upon us by yourselves. We shall be happy to place ourselves at your disposal should you be interested in further investigation either of this or of any other matter.
    [Signed] Shlomo Zand

S. Zand Private Investigations Ltd., Tel Aviv
     
    ITEM B:
Report of Albert Maimon (private investigator) of S. Zand Private Investigations Ltd., Tel Aviv, on the case of the youth Boaz Brandstetter. Drawn up on instructions from Mr. M. Zakheim of Zakheim & di Modena, Lawyers, Jerusalem, and submitted to the client on 26.3.1976.
     
Dear Sir,
Following your instructions we put in hand a rapid search (one working day) and established that the aforementioned, son of Mrs. I. Brandstetter-Sommo of Jerusalem and unknown father, voluntarily left the Telamim Agricultural High School on 19.2.76, on account of general unsuitability and long-standing and repeated disciplinary problems, for an unknown destination. Two days later, on 21.2, he was arrested at the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv and questioned concerning dealing in stolen property (he already has two previous records for similar offenses, and has been on juvenile probation since May 1975). The following day, 22.2, he was released on the surety of Mr. Michael Sommo of Jerusalem (his mother’s husband) and apparently with some internal connivance within the police. Since then, he has been employed by a relative of Mr. Sommo in the wholesale vegetable market in Tel Aviv, apparently in contravention of the law on employment of minors. At present BB is living on the premises of the Planetarium in Ramat Aviv on the invitation of one of the people in charge, and he is described as “volunteer night watchman.” BB is not yet sixteen (born 1960), but looks much older (to go by my personal impression, I would have put him at eighteen at least: physically very big and exceptionally strong). As far as I could ascertain, he is not making any social connections at present. Of his social life at the time when he was studying at Telamim College I received contradictory assessments. There is no further significant information. Please let us know if there are any