A.B. Yehoshua’s Culture War

On the evening of May 18th, the writer A.B. Yehoshua—“Bulli” to his many friends—climbed onto a Jerusalem stage, heavy on his walker, acknowledging the cheers of an audience that had come out to pay tribute to his work. Three younger writers had just described characters and rhetorical gambits that had inspired them, quoting from among Bulli’s more than 20 novels, story collections, and plays.