Shocked by the Revelations About Amos Oz? ‘Deal With It,’ Says His Daughter.

Galia Oz, 56, is an established author of children’s books. Her “Shakshuka” book series won prizes and was adapted for TV and for the stage. But a new book she just published for adults made her more famous than all the previous books combined. It is a book she wrote about her fraught relationship with her father, novelist Amos Oz.

The irony here is almost mesmerizing: Oz tells a story about a tyrannical, sometimes violent, oppressive father. But if that tyrant was not a famous author and great orator, her story would not be nearly as interesting as it is. Galia has become famous for metaphorically killing her father (who died three years ago). But in practice, her book is both a repudiation of him and an admission that without him, her tale would probably be cast as mundane.

It is a sad story and a sad affair. On Saturday night, Galia gave a long TV interview in which she repeated the allegations made in the book. It is easy to believe her. She feels that her parents did not truly love her. She was clearly lonely and scared. Once, she witnessed her father slap her mother. She was twenty at the time. Her mother, Nilli, does not categorically deny it. Her statement following the interview was crafted with care: “Amos was never a violent husband… We lived together for sixty years of great love.” But it does not say anything about the incident her daughter describes. Did it happen?

The attentive observer is led to believe that it did happen. But what happened matters less than the way it was perceived by the participants. The observer is led to understand that some family peculiarities and failures were interpreted differently by certain family members. One daughter sees “a routine of sadistic abuse,” while the other daughter, son and mother see something else: an occasional mishap, a family member who tends to inflate the importance of not unusual family feuds, a loving father that isn’t perfect, a troubled daughter that couldn’t get over herself.

The book, thin and purposefully dry, became the talk of the town, and not because of its brutality or dramatic narrative. It seems clear that Amos Oz did not deal with his daughter with great patience. She claims he belittled her. He thought — and said — that the music she loves is inferior to the “real music” that he adores. Once he lost his temper and poured cold coffee on her. Although these examples do not always shock, they succeed in communicating why Galia feels haunted.

Although these examples do not always shock, they succeed in communicating why Galia feels haunted.

Here is a small example: Galia was already an adult, and her book received a raving review in a small online publication, signed by a reviewer whose name she couldn’t recognize. She examined the style and realized it was her father. He wrote it and then published it under a false name. She demanded that the review be removed from the site and confronted her father. She interpreted it as abuse, and considering their troubled relations, it is easy to understand why. Yet the reader wonders if this is not also an awkward, clumsy attempt of a father to win his daughter back. The rest of the family seems to think that a lot of what Oz did in the decades since Galia cut ties with her family was just that — an attempt to win her back, to better understand why she feels the way she does.

No reader can feel what Galia feels. No reader has a right to doubt that she feels the way she does. Still, the reader is free to interpret this story with his own eyes. Some Israelis were quick to announce that Oz no longer deservers the admiration of his readers, that he should be taken off the literary and cultural pedestal. But Galia Oz asks for no such thing. “Deal with it,” she teases readers and those watching her on TV. Deal with the fact that the daughter of the great author describes him as an abusive tyrant. Deal with the fact that on at least one occasion he slapped his wife.

There are those who find it a difficult tale to deal with. When the New York Times reported the story, it referenced events in other countries as relevant to this Israeli affair. “Galia Oz’s book has disrupted Israel’s literary world and cast a shadow over her father’s legacy at a time when a new social consciousness has laid low flawed cultural figures in the United States, France and other places around the world.”

Maybe because I find most of the “new social consciousness” ridiculous and juvenile, I have no trouble dealing with the story of Oz. Or maybe it is because (like Galia) I always thought that Oz was not as great a writer as he was made to seem. Maybe because I never thought that a great novelist is also a beacon of morality and intellectual vigor. So now we know that Oz’s cloak concealed a less than exemplary family man. Now we know that he could be petty and cold and self-centered. So what? The books are the books, the author is the author. He is not the first author to have a less than exemplary family life. He is hardly the first beacon of culture whose personality is less than appealing.

Galia is annoyed when people question her motivation to write the book. They ask: why now, when he is no longer here to respond to the allegations? Why at all — why ruin the name of Oz for a generation of adoring readers? But why is it even necessary for her to explain her decision to publish? Is this not what all authors do? Is this not what her father did when he wrote his masterpiece, “A Tale of Love and Darkness”?

Oz wrote books because he felt a need to write books. His daughter wrote a book because she felt a need to write a book. And yes, the book made me and many other people a little sad. But if writing it would make Galia Oz a little less sad, I’d consider it a price worth paying.

Full disclosure: I work as the chief non-fiction editor for Kinneret-Zmora-Dvir Publishing, by which Oz’s book was published. But I had no involvement with this specific book.