them." Shimon Ballas' novel, Outcast Iraqi-Israeli author Shimon Ballas' novel Outcast, published in English in 2007, features an Elisha-like character. Outcast is narrated by Haroun Soussan, a Jewish convert to Islam. For Iraq, he left Judaism, embraced Islam, and fought Zionism as the nonpareil, ethnocentrist threat to his dreams. He has lost his closest friends because of politics, particularly Assad Nissim, a principled Iraqi Jew forced to depart for Israel. Despite everything Soussan believes and has done, however, what he was is not forgotten, and he feels an outcast not merely from the Jews and the West but within his homeland. Based on a historical figure, Ahmad (Nissim) Soussan's work ended up being used as anti-Jewish propaganda during the era of Saddam Hussein. Commenting on the use of Soussan's writing on Judaism by propagandists, his friend Assad Nissim likens him to Elisha Ben Abuya, or the one they called Aher, the Outcast. In Hebrew, the title of the book is V'Hu Aher, which means And He is an Other or And He is a Different One. In Edward M. Erdelac's series, Merkabah Rider Elisha is revealed to be the main antagonist of the series, a mystic driven mad by the sight of the Outer God Azathoth during his explorations of the seven heavens. His cutting of the root is a literal severance of the astral tether anchoring his soul to his own body. In Tal M. Klein's novel The Punch Escrow The story of Elisha's transformation into Aher is contrasted with the story of Job as an allegory for how the protagonist should bear with his current circumstances. A parallel is also drawn between his occupation of training artificially intelligent software agents and how asking difficult questions lead to Elisha's exile. See also Pardes (Jewish exegesis) References Its bibliography: Heinrich Graetz, Gnosticismus und Judenthum, pp. 56–71. Peretz Smolenskin, Sämmtliche Werke, ii. 267–278. Adolf Jellinek, Elischa b. Abuja, Leipzig, 1847. Isaac Hirsch Weiss, Dor Dor we-Dorshaw, ii. 140–143. M. Dubsch, in He-Halutz, v. 66–72. Carl Siegfried, Philo von Alexandrien, pp. 285–287. Wilhelm Bacher, Die Agada der Tannaïten, i. 432–436. M. D. Hoffman, Toledot Elischa b. Abuja, Vienna, 1880. Solomon Rubin, Yalkut Shelomoh, Kraków, 1896, pp. 17–28. Michael Friedländer, Der Vorchristliche Jüdische Gnosticismus, 1898, pp. 100 et seq. Samuel Baeck, Elischa b. Abuja-Acher, Frankfurt, 1891. Compare also Meïr Halevi Letteris' Hebrew drama Ben Abuja, an adaptation of Goethe's Faust, Vienna, 1865. B.