The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

Chapter 4 resumes Amos’s story, as he returned to Israel in 1966 after five years in the United States. He had accepted a position as an assistant professor at Hebrew University and was also now married to a woman named Barbara, who had studied alongside him at the University of Michigan. She would also teach a psychology class at Hebrew University. Barbara quickly noticed the stark cultural differences between Americans and Israelis, such as the habit many Israeli students had of shouting their disapproval in the middle of lectures if they disagreed with the lecturer. She also noticed how intermingled Israeli society was, and she and Amos experienced this together firsthand. Rather than being holed up in an ivory tower of abstract theories, here they “mixed with politicians and generals and journalists and others involved directly in running the country […] so it was impossible even for the most rarefied intellectual to insulate himself from the risks facing the entire society” (119).

These risks became glaringly apparent after just six months, when the Six-Day War broke out. Amos was thrust back into action as a paratrooper, along with his friend Amnon Rapoport, who had returned with Amos to teach at Hebrew University. Amnon struggled to make sense of this dual identity as both soldier and psychology professor. As Amnon reflects, “I am a young assistant professor. And they take me and within twenty-four hours I start killing people and become a killing machine. […] Professor and killer” (123). Amos, who was fueled by his fierce loyalty to Israel, to serve his country in any way possible, didn’t seem to struggle with this dichotomy. Eventually, Amnon also lost his excitement about working with Amos, concerned that he would be swallowed up in Amos’s shadow.

Lewis then shifts back to Danny, who was teaching at Hebrew University and also helping the Israeli Air Force to better understand the minds of its pilots. In this section, Lewis gives us a closer look into Danny’s personality, his volatility and insecurity. As one of his former students, Avi, puts it: “He was very insecure. This is part of his character” (128). As a professor, Danny was perceived as a genius, bold and unrelenting in his presentation of his material. Outside the classroom context, he was “moody in the extreme” (128), said a former colleague. Yet for all of his imperfections, Danny remained a star attraction at Hebrew University, his experiments and thought projects seemingly an endless well of intellectual creativity. As Lewis writes, “Danny’s students left every class with a sense that there was really no end to the problems in this world” (141).