This is a brilliantly written book, covers so much, informative especially for this reader who little understands the ongoing Israeli and Arab struggles. Not a book that called to me, definitely not a quick read, but immersive once picked back up, teaches much. Politics, the difference in the Jewish and Christian perceptions of Jesus, the role of Judas, all discussed nightly by Wald and Schmuel.

This book nearly broke my brain. The skill, the storytelling, the complete control. Admittedly, I did find the main character very annoying but he grew on me as the pages progressed.

I really missed out on not reading this before. It is the story of a young man who finds himself in Jerusalem during the winter of 1959/1960. An engaging and thought provoking read about the conflict between the Israelis and its neighbouring countries.

This took me a LONG time to get into. I didn’t even consider giving this a four star, until I was almost half way through. I disliked the main character, and to be honest that felt rather refreshing. The whole book wants to discuss the differences between loyalty and treason. Amos demonstrates that loyalty can be disguised as treason. Schmeul studies religion and his abandoned thesis was named Jesus in the Eyes of the Jews. Judas is seen as the first real Christian, because if Jesus wasn’t crucified then Christianity wouldn’t exist.

Amongst other topics of Israel. I felt that I learned a lot about the politics of this part of the world, and it did leave me wanting to carry out more research.

This felt very much like an essay rather than a novel, and I enjoyed that a lot.

A moving story of a young Jewish student in the early days of an independent Israel. The parallel sub-plot of his research into the role of the historical figure of the disciple Judas and his part in the death of Jesus is interesting and thought provoking. A very good read.

A young scholar loses his parents' financial support and drops out of his studies to become the live-in companion of an irascible elderly gentleman. While living there he becomes obsessed with an older woman who also lives in the house. The book looks at this odd trio but also goes back to the formation of Israel and even further to the crucifixion of Jesus - the scholar's focus is Jewish views of Jesus and how they've affected the Jewish experience through history. He posits that Judas, far from being a betrayer, was the one true Christian. Provocative, cerebral and thoughtful.

With Amos Oz’s characteristically thoughtful and wonderfully evocative writing, Judas is a novel of many layers, political, intellectual and religious. With languid prose it tells the story of a young man, Schmuel, who has been jilted by his girlfriend and has dropped out of university. He accepts a position as a live-in companion to an elderly man, Gershom Wald, in 1959 Jerusalem as a way of hiding away from life but falls in love with the lady of the house, the enigmatic widow Atalia.

There’s interwoven contemplations on Jesus from the point of view of the Jewish faith, as well as a fascinating and sympathetic exploration of the character of Judas, all within the novel’s historic background of the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Initially, I wasn’t sure about this novel - was it trying to do too many things at once, against a backdrop of Shmuel’s melancholic musings - but as I settled into its rhythm I fell under its spell. It is a contemplative and complexly woven coming-of-age story that, above all other things, makes you stop to think. And a book that makes you do that whilst enjoying the journey it takes you on is never a bad thing.

Another man booker prize lister that i personally couldn't really get into because of the chosen writing style. For me this book felt very wordy without actually saying a lot and as if the overall point was a bit lost for a number of pages to the author.
It could be the translation or the author itself that didn't work for me since a lot of people seem to love this book.
Sadly it wasn't the best for me.

I found this book really hard to get into and had a very rambling style. I suspect it is a 'Marmite' book - love it or hate it - and I'm afraid I couldn't like it very much, even though I appreciated its style. I was never really engaged, which was disappointing, as I was looking forward to reading it from the blurb. Luckily for the author, it seems I am in the minority.

I picked this book up, not knowing anything about it, simply because it had been shortlisted for 2017's Man Booker International Prize and i tend to read the shortlists for these awards, just to bring a variety of books into my reading list. Sometimes this can be a mixed bag - we cannot all agree with the judges! - but sometimes, just sometimes, it puts a gem in my hands. As it did with this phenomenal book.

Judas is a fascinating book that blends politics with religion, all wrapped up in a strange intimate drama of a student drop-out who winds up a companion for an old man to make ends meet, which ultimately comes together as an examination of what it is to be a traitor, and what it is to love and to lose.

If you think this sounds heavy, it really, really isn't. Amos Oz's writing is exact and careful, ensuring the politics is never onerous or overwrought, and that the investment in characters is bang on the money.

And so we follow Shmuel, a young lad who has dropped out of Uni in Jerusalem in the 1950s, as he can no longer afford to complete his dissertation on Jesus and the Jews. He had planned to really put forward how Jesus never meant to start a new religion - he was Jewish to the core and was only resistant to the corruption in the Pharasees. Add to that, Shmuel was also beginning to consider that, actually, Judas has been deliberately misconstrued over time, that actually he was a true believer that never betrayed Jesus (he was a wealthy man - he didn't need thirty pieces of silver) but who enabled a crucifixion as he really believed Jesus would rise again - only to kill himself when he realised Jesus died on the cross as flesh and blood.

And so this man finds himself without lodgings and income - but still with a whole lot of questions. In order to make ends meet, he accepts a position as a live-in companion to an old man, an academic, and the two men fire up a relationship based on debate and intellectual intercourse - one that deepens as the old man, Gershom, sees parallels with Judas's portrayal as a traitor and that of Abravanel in Israeli politics who had been declared a traitor by Ben-Gurion as he saw the move to set up an Israeli state, hostile to Palestinians and Arabs, as a provocation that would cause decades of insecurity and war for Israel.

I admit I know a lot about Israeli politics anyway, and a predisposition for political books, but this book is magnificent. It challenges so much but all without being heavy. The book is relatively short at 280 pages so don't think this is a weighty epic. It is a glorious drama, given an interesting angle of sexual awakening and maturity with Shmuel's infatuation with Gershom's housekeeper, I loved it. I loved it.

There were parts of this novel that I loved, others that I hated.

Not having a detailed knowledge of either Christian, Jewish or Israeli history, parts of this novel were difficult to fully understand/appreciate. Having said that though the parts of the novel about the founding of Israel where very interesting, and the main character, Shmuel Ash, was interesting and flawed.

This is a thought provoking novel, a love story and a history lesson rolled up together, and well worth reading. I think that I will have to re-read it again at some point to fully appreciate everything it is telling us.

Although I can appreciate the writing in this book I found it too discursive and slow moving to get involved and I did not finish it.

This is a fascinating book. Over the course of a Jerusalem winter, student Schmuel, disenchanted by his thesis on Jewish views of Jesus, is employed as a companion by academic Gersham Wald. This novel is about their relationship, about Schmuel's fascination for Wald's widowed daughter-in-law Atalia, and so much more. There is history, theology, philosophy and dark humour here as well as love, friendship and tragedy. The historical aspects are so interesting and parts of the narrative are absolutely compelling. Masterfully written.

If you are interested in an introspective historical fiction read that makes a philosophical analysis on Judaism and Christianity portrays Judas as the most devoted of His followers, this is the book you have been looking for.

Very rambling slow moving story and not vey inspiring characters.. I didn't ,manage to get involved in this story.

Wide ranging and ambitious in scope. Amos Oz, throws together a small, intimate group of characters sharing a house in Jerusalem of the early 1960s. All are reclusive, introspective and for various reasons living with part of themselves stuck firmly in the past. Our main protagonist is a young student who quits university ostensibly because his parents are no longer able to support him financially. The abandonment of his studies however coincides with him being painfully dumped by his girlfriend, and by the disintegration of the political group he had belonged to.
He is trying to right a thesis about how Jesus is viewed by Jews and how that has changed over time. His contemplations lead him on to consider the role of Judas in the creation of Christianity and in the forming Christian opinions about Jews generally.
Interaction with the others in the house allows Mr Oz to contemplate on the creation of Israel, the role of Ben Gurion and the disintegration of any hope of relationship with Palestine and Arab nations generally, while never revealing his own views on these big questions.
Well written and erudite the work is thought provoking and a very satisfying read. The development of the arguments over Judas, Jesus, Israel and the creation of traitors are all somewhat limited, but probably in line with the intellectual wherewithal and powers of concentration of the principle character.
I loved the book, it took me to places that I had never been and showed me things I had never seen or thought about before. Thank you

A beautifully complex and deep novel portraying a young Jewish man living in isolation with a widow and her father-in-law. The relationship between the three characters is intriguing, using dialogue to reveal the political turmoil at the founding of Israel as a state. At the same time, understanding how Jews are represented in Christianity. The house the story takes place in is almost an analogy of the separation of the Jewish community as a whole in this plot, with no friends but only suspicion of the outside and from the outside. An important novel for current times.

Shmuel Ash, financially unsupported, drops his studies to take up position as live-in conversationalist with the elderly Gershom Wald. Their conversations explore Jewish history, Israeli politics, and the experiences of both. Wald's daughter-in-law, the widowed Atalia Abramavel, is an intriguing woman with whom to share a house, and the relationship between Atalia and Shmuel forms a side story to the Jewish politics. The book is beautifully written (translated from the Hebrew), and there's no need to be an expert on Judaism, although it would probably give you a different perspective. Although it didn't win, Judas justifies its inconclusion on the Booker shortlist.

I was extremely pleased to be able to read this wonderful book. I had heard nothing but wonderful things and thankfully the book did not disappoint.
An intriguing and gripping story that had me hooked from page 1 until the very last word. It has stuck with me well as I gathered my thoughts about the book.

It is 1959 in Jerusalem. Shmuel, a university student with a large heart, weak lungs and an unruly beard, decides to give up his studies when his father’s business collapses. Shmuel couldn’t do military service. He has also just lost his girlfriend to her ex, whom she plans to marry. On top of that, his thesis about Jewish views of Jesus, had come to standstill even before his parents’ funds came to an abrupt halt.

Shmuel has come to some kind of hiatus, a threshold in which he has to decide upon a new path.

He thinks of heading off to a newly built town and becoming a night watchman when an advert seeking a companion catches his eye.

It is in the house of the so-called Arab-lover and traitor, Jehoiachin Abravanel, long since dead, that Shmuel rediscovers a love of his studies, a love that sits Jehoiachin Abravanel and Judas next to each other forcing a revision of what it means to be a traitor at all (there are echoes of the Greek scapegoat and outcast, the visionary whose views may be right but feel threatening).

Who is the old man, Gershom Wald, he has to talk to everyday? And what is his relationship to the beautiful woman of the house, Atalia?

I’m a huge fan of Amos Oz. He often explores emotion and how difficult it is to situate feelings within moral and reasoned landscapes, and he definitely does this in Judas. The history of the Jewish state, what it means to try to live with others rather than in opposition to them (Shmuel is a socialist), all return to an exploration of the beginnings of Christianity and the traitor, Judas – who did he really betray?

This won’t be a book everyone will enjoy. The characters are prone to long monologues in which they propound theories or set out historical events. And yet, the way history and religion blur so beautifully into one young man’s desire, hope, and honest self-reflection, make for very compelling reading if you are that way inclined. Probably if I knew more about the history of Israel, and Oz does seem to be making a political argument calling for a new Jewish outlook on the Israel/Palestine conflict, I would be even more gripped. These questions about how we choose to live with others, whether we should even encourage a sense of nationhood, especially a religious nation state, are deeply relevant questions and Shmuel’s rather naive, well-intentioned and short lived obsessions highlight the problems of facing these questions when young and easily distractible. Emotions, like arguments, aren’t always effective, don’t always have a resolution, but they can be acknowledged and respected. Shmuel, with his headstrong rushing gait, his good and moral intentions, his ponderous nature and his relatively isolated social life, feels like an embodiment of early Israel. But again, this is something someone less ignorant would be better able to express.

In the end it seems that allowing oneself to connect to others is the most important thing and Shmuel slowly comes to realise this need for connection as he lives with Gershom and Atalia.

I do feel somewhat unqualified to comment on Judas, but this is the beauty of fiction. In literature all those complex issues that we are forced to live through everyday, whether we choose to address them or not, can be explained and explored in the way that we live them. Different people will understand far more than me but I can still engage with Schmuel and think about the situation he is in. Judas is an important, if sometimes difficult book, whose strange characters cry out for healing affection.