Hill of Evil Counsel by Amos Oz
Translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas De Lange

About the Book
The Hill of Evil Counsel is a collection of three linked stories, all of which take place in Jerusalem during the last years of the British mandate (1946-7). The first deals with a fateful moment in the life of a family; the second with a boy who becomes the confidante of his activist neighbor; the third is a dying man’s farewell letters to his former lover. The stories are deeply grounded in their historical moment--- a moment which, according to Oz’s portrayal, is one of great hope, longing and anxiety. While the stories deal with characters living in this particular historical moment, Oz draws our attention to the ways in which their desires and actions express essential elements of the human and historical condition. Oz accomplishes this feat through reference to familiar cultural myths of war, love, and heroism, and through the use of highly lyrical language which resonates with images and phrases from the Bible and classic European literature. He also creates this mode through a careful orchestration of a symphony of characters, each behaving in his or her own way, whose actions often echo and resonate with one another’s--- leaving the reader with the impression that common existential desires, behaviors and fears pulsate within all of them. As a result, these stories are not only a critical reflection on a particular time and place but also an empathetic reflection on the human condition.

About the Author
Born in British Mandatory Palestine in 1939, Amos Klausner, later Oz, was the only child of Eastern European immigrants. As a teenager, Oz moved to Kibbutz Hulda where he completed his secondary education. After his military service, Oz returned to the Kibbutz and published his controversial first collection of short stories. Since then, Oz has written more than 18 books, including novels, books of essays, and literary criticism, and nearly 500 essays and articles in Israeli and international magazines. He continues to be one of Israel’s most prominent writers and public intellectuals, and continues to address in his writing the central political and social issues current in Israeli society today.

Historical Background
In 1917, the British army occupied Palestine and Syria. In this year, the British foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour, wrote a letter to the British Zionist Organization that affirmed that “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” During this period, the British also made promises regarding Palestine to the Arab leadership of the region. Following the war, Britain and France agreed that France would control Syria and Lebanon, and Britain would control Palestine. In 1922, the League of Nations affirmed both this political arrangement and the Balfour declaration.

Throughout the 20s and 30s, Jewish immigration to Palestine continued to increase and the Zionists began to establish the elements of a national infrastructure including a national labor organization, public health facilities, a university (Hebrew University) and a public electric company. Throughout this period tensions persisted between the Zionists and the majority Palestinian Arab population over the future of Palestine.
During the 20s and 30s, the Jewish community in Palestine was divided regarding the best political approach to achieving independence. The World Zionist Organization, led by Chaim Weitzmann, supported cooperation with the British and advocated violence only in self-defense. The Union of Zionist Revisionists, under the leadership of Vladimir Jabotinsky, would accept nothing short of full independence and advocated aggressive retaliation against Arab attacks. In 1939, following a general strike and an increase in violence led by the Arab leadership of Palestine, the British proposed a partition plan whereby Palestine would be divided into Jewish and Arab states and a British zone, thereby attempting to appease both Arab and Jewish constituencies. This plan was accepted by the Zionists but rejected by the Arab leadership. As a result, the British published the White Paper in 1939 which discarded the petition plan and announced that Palestine would become independent in ten years. The White Paper also limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 thereby insuring the continuation of an Arab majority in Palestine. In 1945, the revisionists began attacking British installations in Palestine. The British tried unsuccessfully to repress these attacks and in April 1947 gave the United Nations the authority to determine Palestine’s future. In November 1947, the UN announced the petition of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state. The stories in the Hill of Evil Counsel take place in 1946 and 1947, during the volatile period between WWII and the announcement of the UN partition plan.

Glossary and Who’s Who

Questions for Discussion

Two views of Oz’s central theme

• The scholar Nurith Gertz has stated that a conflict “between the realm of goodness, the civilized, the unsatisfactory, and the realm of evil, the wild, the destructive, the seductive” is central to Amos Oz’ fiction.
  

  How does this description relate to the stories in Hill of Evil Counsel?

• In an interview in 1978, Oz said:
  I am fundamentally a Jewish writer. But I am a Jewish writer in the sense of writing forever about the ache to have a home, and then having one, aching to go away thinking that this is not the real one. . .

  Often around 5 or 6 o’clock I see an elderly woman on the kibbutz sitting on a bench, singing to herself, and I don’t know what she sings, because it’s Polish. And I think to myself: That woman 45 years ago must have been a romantic girl with braids sitting by a stream somewhere in Poland singing a Hebrew song about Jerusalem. And everything I write is just a footnote or commentary on that scene. (After the Sound and the Fury: An Interview by Hana Wirth-Nesher. Prooftexts 2 (1982): 312).

  How do you react to this definition of a “Jewish writer?”
  How does Oz’s self-description resonate with the stories that you read?

General Questions

• The scholar, Nehama Aschkenasy has stated that Oz’s female characters embody the second of the two realms described above (the realm of evil, the wild, the destructive, the seductive).
  

  Do you agree with this description?
  How would you describe Oz’s treatment of women characters in these stories?

• The Israeli writers of the literary generation prior to Oz’s wrote literature that was strongly allied to the goals and ideals of the Zionist state. Oz, and other writers of his generation, consciously rebelled against this mode by writing literature that expressed more ambivalent and nuanced attitudes both toward the Zionist ideology and toward the relationship between that ideology and the reality of life in Israel.
  

  Do you detect a political stance in these stories?
  If so, what is it?

• The stories in this collection take place in 1946-7, the last years of the British mandate in Palestine.

  How does Oz characterize this historical moment?
  What function does Europe play in the lives and psyches of the characters?
  What role do Arabs play (both Jews and non-Jews)?

• Oz has been both praised and criticized for his use of poetic description.
  

  How would you describe Oz’s descriptions of Jerusalem?
  What role do these descriptions play in the story?
  How did you respond to them?

• In each of the stories, adults enter into conspiratorial or proprietary relationships with young boys (the Russian neighbors and Mitya with Hillel in “Hill of Evil Counsel”, Ephraim and the poet. Nehamkin with Uri in “Mr. Levi” and Dr. Nussbaum and Uri in “Longing.”
  

  Why do you think Oz repeated this plot element?
  How does it function in each of the stories?
  How does it relate to the other themes of the stories?

The Hill of Evil Counsel

• Ruth is an enigmatic character whose actions end up central to the story’s plot.
  

  How would you describe Ruth’s character?
  How did you respond to her?

• On p. 11-2, Hans Kipnis says, “I have been living in Jerusalem for three years and I continue to yearn for it as though I were still a student in Leipzig. Surely, there is a paradox here.” He ends this reflection by saying, “There are all sorts of contradictions. And the climate is not kind either.” (p.11-2)

  What do you think he means?
  How does this quotation relate to the rest of the story?

• The characters of Hans and Ruth Kipnis are sometimes referred to as “Mother” and “Father” and sometimes by their proper names.
  

  What do these shifts signify?
  How did they affect you as a reader?
  How would you characterize the end of this story? Is it a happy ending?

Mr. Levi

• In “Mr. Levi,” the central characters are all engaging in ongoing hobbies or pursuits. Uri plays war games; the poet Nehamkin builds, unbuilds and rebuilds his model of the Temple; Ephraim listens to radio signals; Eprhaim and Uri’s father play chess. Uri’s mother plays the piano.
  

  What do you make of these ongoing activities?
  Why do you think Oz chose them?
  What do they reveal about the characters and the mood of the time?

• On p. 97, the poet Nehamkin says to Uri, “From now on, my boy, we shall redouble our vigilance, you and I: the versifier and the youth shall hold the fort and guard the truth.”
  

  Do you think Nehamkin is speaking for the author here?
  Do you agree with him?

Longing

• The penultimate letter of this story describes a meeting attended by many of the characters from the first and second stories.
  

  How does this scene (and this story) relate to the others?
  How does this story affect your understanding of the characters and the earlier stories?

• In discussing the end of the story, Oz has said that when Dr. Nussbaum describes the future Jerusalem of his dreams, he is describing Vienna. (“After the Sound and the Fury,” 306).
  

  How does this association affect your understanding of the story?