TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. What can a writer do to be helpful during wartime? That's a question my guest, the internationally acclaimed Israeli writer Etgar Keret, asked himself after the Hamas invasion of Israel one year ago this week. What he did was read to adults and to children who lived in the kibbutzim that were attacked. He went to the front lines to see what he could do to help Israeli soldiers, but he doesn't support the war or the Netanyahu government or Hamas or Hezbollah.
He sees the humanity on both sides and has joined demonstrations in support of a deal that would release the hostages and end the fighting. He describes himself as a left-wing liberal and an agnostic. His parents were Holocaust survivors. His sister is ultra-Orthodox and previously lived in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. His brother is far-left. Etgar Keret lives in Tel Aviv, which has recently come under missile attack from Hezbollah. During one recent missile attack, he left the bomb shelter prematurely. And on his way home, he was outside with no shelter, sitting on a rock, watching Israeli missile shields intercept Hezbollah rockets. Keret has written many op-eds over the past 35 years about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he has continued to write and speak about it during this war.
In the U.S., he's best known for his short stories and personal essays. In the public radio world, he's also known for his contributions to "This American Life" and for readings of his stories on "Selected Shorts." His latest collection of short stories, "Autocorrect," will be published in English next May. He also now has a weekly newsletter on Substack called "Alphabet Soup." Keret is a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He's won multiple awards in Israel and internationally, including the prime minister's award for literature and the chevalier medallion from France's Order of Arts and Letters. Next week, we'll hear from Palestinian writer and poet, Mosab Abu Toha. My interview with Etgar Keret was recorded yesterday morning.
Etgar Keret, welcome back to FRESH AIR. You've written that in the past, during wars, that you didn't feel like those wars were an existential threat to Israel. But lately, you've been feeling like the Netanyahu government is making decisions that are an existential threat to Israel. But I'm wondering if, during this war, that you feel - since Israel is now fighting Hamas on one border and Hezbollah on another border, Iran and Israel have fired rockets at each other, Syria is becoming involved - if you feel like at this point that maybe is an existential threat to Israel.
ETGAR KERET: You know, I think that many of the wars that Israel fought were existential in their nature. But with me, maybe because I've been through so many of them, I really trust the strength of the people and our ability to defend ourselves, which has been proven in the past, you know? But what I also know is if you learn Jewish history, then you see that Israel is the third attempt to have a Jewish state. And the two first ones failed because of a - kind of a civil war between religious fundamentalist Jews and more moderate Jews. And, you know, this had ended in the burning of the temple twice. This ended in exiles. And in both cases, the Jewish state didn't last even one century.
So I think that looking back at our history, we can see what is the real existential threat to this country. And again, you know, with me, I must say, you know, there are wars - people dying in them. I hope I won't die, but this is something that I can take. But to see myself in the future living in a country that I feel that is discriminating, that is unfair on a racial or a gender ground, this is something that threatens me much more.
GROSS: I want to ask you about something that happened to you recently. You were coming out of a yoga class. Was it in, like, a suburb of Tel Aviv or in Tel Aviv-Jaffa?
KERET: Yes.
GROSS: A suburb?
KERET: In a suburb.
GROSS: Yeah. So you come out, and the streets are empty, and the siren is going off, meaning that you need to get to a shelter. Can you describe what the shelter looked like and what it felt like to be there?
KERET: Yes. So the shelter was really, really full. Many people are with themselves, you know, and they're stressed and talk to their loved ones who are being - in another shelter under another attack. But I want to say that in most rocket attacks, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, which is usually doing nothing. You know, it's basically sitting down in the stairwell and waiting for 10 minutes. But I'm saying that I feel that when I go through this here, this isn't my main experience, you know?
I think that when you really feel yourself kind of disconnected from a government that refuses or pushes off negotiations over freeing, you know, people that were kidnapped from their bed just for better leverage, you know, in combat or in their aspiration for a total victory, then basically I feel that your sense of displacement or disconnection to reality is so strong that those attacks are just something in the background. They stop being the main thing, you know?
GROSS: Have you thought about leaving Israel? And I'm asking that because you don't support the government. You don't support the war. Your safety is threatened. I know you love your country, but you don't love what your government is getting your country into.
KERET: Well, you know, I think that when you talk about the term country, you can talk about many different things. I think that, you know, I have an extremely strong connection, not to Israel, but I would say to the place in which I live. In all my life, I moved between four apartments. I think that the two furthest one, the distance between them was two miles. I like to tell my students that I'm exactly like Immanuel Kant, only without the brains, you know?
GROSS: (Laughter).
KERET: All my life, I go in the same roads. I sit in the same cafes. And I must say that my connection is very local and sensual or sensuous - I don't know which one is the correct one - but I feel that my connection to this place is the connection to the language, to the people, to the mentality, to the culture, to the beach that I visit every day, to the street cats that I know by name, you know? And for me, this would mean that living anywhere but Israel would mean that I'd be living in exile.
This still doesn't mean that when I stay awake at my bed at night and close my eyes that I always see myself living my entire life in Israel because I think that if there would be one thing that would drive me away from my country would be the idea that I live in a place that allows things that I'm totally against, you know, that breaches everything that I believe in. So in these circumstances, I would have to leave.
Again, it's not that I would leave the flag behind. I would leave the place that I'm connected to and that I'm rooted to. And my parents were Holocaust survivors, and they always explained to me the importance of being from a place, of knowing the tree that was planted the day that you were born. This was something that they didn't have. This was something that they had left behind, and it was very important for them, A, that I'll have it and, B, that I'll understand how important and crucial it is.
GROSS: If this isn't too personal, does your wife feel the same way about wanting to stay?
KERET: I think that we never talked about anything pragmatic, so I would say that it's not as if - that she has any ideas, you know, to pack her bags and leave the country. But I think that both of us feel some kind of confusion. I think that, you know, many of the activities that they take part in - they're confusing. It's like, let's say when I demonstrate to end the war, actually that's simple. But when I demonstrate for freeing the kidnapped people in Gaza, then you have this kind of slogan that you're chanting, and you say, (non-English language spoken), all of them now. And you chant that, and when you...
GROSS: Release all of the hostages now.
KERET: Release all the hostages now. And when I hear that, I ask myself, what exactly am I doing? Who am I ordering? Am I yelling it to Sinwar? Am I yelling it to Netanyahu? Am I telling anyone something that they don't know? Am I praying to God, you know, maybe saying now in the end is instead of saying, amen? What exactly is the experience that I'm going through? Am I doing something pragmatic or am I praying? You know? And I think that my wife and I many times feel lost in our lives, you know, in the sense that you live in a place that is totally normal and totally crazy?
GROSS: We need to take a short break here. So let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Israeli writer Etgar Keret. He's speaking to us from Tel Aviv. And we'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE HADEN'S "EL CIEGO (THE BLIND)")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Israeli writer Etgar Keret, who's known for his collections of short stories, his personal essays and his op-eds. And his latest book, "Autocorrect," will be published in English next May.
KERET: If I may, can I tell you the strange things that happened to me a few weeks ago?
GROSS: Sure, please.
KERET: I was speaking at a reading event in the southern part of Tel Aviv in a very beautiful house. And when I finished the event, they told me that to leave the building, I had to go through a bar. They had a bar in the ground floor. And when I stepped into the bar, in a minute, I was shocked because it was as if like I reached New York. It was really, like, the most hip music and beautiful lights and people drinking and beautiful, young people all laughing and dancing basically, when I was upstairs, we were talking about the war. We were talking about the tax. We were talking about everything.
And then it felt like, I don't know, as if I moved in time and space to a place that was completely different. And somehow, like, I had this kind of feeling. I was trying to get out of these place as quickly as I could. But when I was at the door, somebody put a hand on my shoulder and I turned around and I see this really, really handsome guy and he was a waiter or bartender there. And he said to me, hey. Are you Etgar Keret? And I said, yes. And he said, can I speak to you for a moment? And I said, sure, and we stepped outside.
And this guy, as it looked to me a minute ago, like a hipster, cool, smiley, you know, everything, started telling me how he just came back a week before that from something like 130 days in Gaza. And he told me that when he was in Gaza, they're not allowed to use the cellphones because the enemy can pinpoint the reception. So everybody is really, really bored.
And he said that after a few weeks, they brought them a box of books, and that he got out of this pile a copy of one of my books. And he said I started reading it, and then I told myself, man, there's something important here, you know, read this seriously because this is how he used to be. And this is how you're going to be. And the way that you feel now shut with no emotion or anything is going to pass. You know? And he said, I read it every day like you read a prayer, like you read the Bible, not because it was something that I was experiencing but to remind myself like somebody who wants to go overseas, that there is something beyond this scorched earth that I see around me, that there is something beyond the oxygenless air that I'm breathing right now.
And there was something so powerful in this experience because just a minute ago, I saw this guy, you know, dancing with some alcoholic drink in his hand, and a minute after that, you know, he's telling you about four hellish months that he'd been through and about the fact that he's going to reserve duty in a few weeks again and that he dreads it. So so you really don't know what is real, you know, the party, history, what happened in the past, was going to happen next time when he's going to go into Lebanon. It's really - you have this disorienting effect. You almost feel like seasick.
GROSS: So this man who had been a soldier in Gaza, the fact that he read your book over and over, almost like a prayer - did that make you feel like writing fiction actually had a value during times like this?
KERET: Yes, I think - you know, I think that in times like this, there are things that are much more necessary. You know, people are hurt. People are hungry. I really don't think that maybe stories are crucial, but at the same time, I really feel that we need to be reminded of our humanity. And if I may say so, I feel that we're living in an age where everything that's happening on Earth is our business. We're involved in everything that is happening on Earth. But doing so, we don't really want to invest the time and the commitment that usually comes with activism. And the result is something that can be really very superficial.
You know, in the end, when you change your Facebook to the flag of Ukraine, for example, then, you know, you do it because people are suffering in Ukraine. But what's going to happen is that three weeks from now, you're going to do a barbecue and then you're going to change it to the picture from your barbecue, or you're going to change it to the flag of Palestine, or you're going to change it to the place of Israel. But the people in Ukraine - they're still in the shelters. They're still being bombed.
So when you change your Facebook picture to the flag of Ukraine, you're not being part of history. You're taking a selfie with history, and then you keep on going. And this is something that is also very confusing about this reality. You know, if I can take a local example, that - then when people got kidnapped, then very quickly, they started selling those dog tags. The dog tags basically are a sign of support for the kidnapped people in Gaza. And many people started working with those dog tags. You know, Benjamin Netanyahu showed his own dog tag. This happened almost a year ago. Now, many of the people who put those dog tags - they don't wear them anymore. While the people who are kidnapped in Gaza, they are still in Gaza.
So the question is - and I'm not judging anyone - what does it say about the action in itself?
KERET: You know, when you put a dog tag in the army, it means that you never take it off. When you shower, when you sleep, it's always with you. So what does it mean when you say, I'm tying my fate with the fate of others, but three weeks later, you say, maybe I wear something else. Does it make it a fashion declaration? I don't know what it makes it, but there is something about in this reality, that it just keeps kind of playing with us, offering us all kinds of options like those Instagram clips that pop up in front of our eyes. And we keep kind of picking among those options. But we never ask ourselves, is this what we want? Is this our own decision, or is it just something that was handed over to us?
GROSS: You know, I liked your expression that some of these actions are taking a selfie with history or a selfie with reality. I think that's a very interesting way of putting it. So you had asked before, who were you talking to at protests when you chant, you know, all of them now, you know, release all of the hostages now? Are you talking to the leaders of Hamas? Are you talking to Netanyahu and Israel's government? You know, who are you talking to and what's the point? It's not like this is an idea that never occurred to them. Oh, maybe we should think of releasing the hostages and ending this war.
But I'm wondering if you think that part of the reason that you participate in protests is also to send a message to people outside of Israel that there are Israelis who oppose the war and who don't agree with the Netanyahu government, either on domestic policy or on the way they're handling this war. I ask that in part because I think that a lot of people in America and in other parts of the world, equate all Israelis with the Netanyahu government and the way the war is being handled? And that has, I think, increased the rise of anti-Israeli sentiment directed at all Israelis and also helped increase antisemitism.
And you know, the protests are a way of sending a message to the rest of the world, not all Israelis agree with Netanyahu or with the war. Do you think that's part of the reason why you protest?
KERET: Well, I must say that, you know, that when you go to a protest, it's really - I don't know - like going to a synagogue or a church. Everyone comes there with their own story. And I must say that the story that I tell myself is that I'm coming for the families, the loved ones that are being kidnapped in Gaza to show them that I care. And that I know that some of the people who were kidnapped and were released said they did listen to the radio or watch TV from time to time in Gaza.
So hopefully that - when those people will watch TV there or listen to the radio, they know that people are missing them, that people keep on living their life but that we are thinking about them and that we care about them and that they are on the top of our priority because the thought that - you know, that a year after civilians, women, children, elderly people were kidnapped from their home, you know, to a place that is seven minute's drive, you know, because they live on either side of the border and that our government, you know, in this year, didn't put in from the first moment in top priority the idea that - you know, that there is a contract between civilians and the country. And the contact is that if you're kidnapped, then your country does whatever it can to get you back as fast as it can.
And, you know, in the Jewish religion, the greatest mitzvah is (speaking Hebrew). Nothing is seen more highly than the mitzvah of bringing prisoners back to the community. This is something in our religion. This is something in our identity. This is something that any normal state would have in mind. And yet right now, you know, a year after those people were kidnapped, not only the families are still demonstrating, but while they're demonstrating, they can have people criticizing them or cursing them or calling them a political force while those people just want to see their parents or their children or their siblings or their partner back home.
And this is something that I must say that if I ask myself going a year back, what surprised me? This is the thing that surprised me. The idea is that there could be one person in this country who would think that there's something more important than bringing those people back home.
GROSS: We need to take another short break here. So let me reintroduce you. My guest is Israeli writer Etgar Keret. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHILIPPE BADEN POWELL'S "PROLOGUE")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Etgar Keret, one of Israel's most popular writers, who is internationally acclaimed for his short stories, graphic novels, personal essays and op-eds. He lives in Tel Aviv, which has recently come under missile attack from Hezbollah. His latest collection of short stories, "Autocorrect," will be published in English next May. Next week - probably Tuesday - our guest will be Palestinian writer Mosab Abu Toha. My interview with Etgar Keret was recorded yesterday morning.
Since we've talked about protests in Israel, I'm wondering your reaction to protests in America against the war and the protests that have been described as pro-Palestinian.
KERET: Well, first of all, I want to say something about this term pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. I once wrote an op-ed to The New York Times saying how I hate this term, because when somebody says to you that he's pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, it's like an honest disclosure that no matter what argument you bring, he's not going to change their mind or she's not going to change her mind. But talking about the demonstration, I must say that I was in Yale and in the University of Maryland just a few weeks ago and that I came there dreading my event, thinking, you know, that people will call me a baby killer and will not let me finish a sentence.
And I must say that, you know, I met some people that agreed with my opinion, some people who did not. But let's say that the reflection that I got through the social media of some idea of intolerance was something that I didn't personally meet. I'm sure that it existed and that it exists. I'm just asking myself, like so many other phenomena, to what extent it exists. I can easily imagine people demonstrating against the war in the U.S. having opinions that are not very different from my own opinion.
You know, I think that when you see the bombings in Gaza, when you see the conditions that people have to live in, of course you want the war to end, you know, it's a natural thing. If you're chanting that you would want all Jews to die or if you say that the 7 of October is something that should be repeated, it's totally different thing. So I think that there is something about social media that always puts in our face something that is very extreme. I really cannot tell you the proportion between the legitimate demonstrations against Israel and the antisemitic one.
GROSS: You object to the use of the word genocide in terms of what Israel is doing in this war, but you do want to use the word war crimes. Can you just talk briefly about the language of those two things - genocide versus war crime?
KERET: Yes. I think that, you know - with the discussion about the genocide in Gaza, I personally think that there are many, many conducts that are being done that I cannot advocate or support, that when I look at the numbers and you see such a huge number of casualties among civilians and one cannot say there must be many situations where things can be done otherwise. When you hear people in government saying that the humanitarian support should not be brought to Gaza because the kidnapped people cannot see the Red Cross, then, you know, all those kind of things, they send a shiver down any person's spine. I think that there is something, really, in this monstrous situation that kind of bring something very animalistic in all sides of this.
But I'm saying that, having said that, the moment that you are saying, OK, so repent - admit that you want to commit a genocide. You know, I'm saying if you follow the numbers in the past 30 or 40 years, you know, the Palestinian population keeps increasing. And if we're trying to commit a genocide, then we're not doing a very good job of that. But genocide is an end goal. It means that the end goal of it is to kill all the Palestinians. I really don't see that, and I don't feel that. But at the same time, this does not mean that the way that this war is conducted in Gaza is something that I can automatically say, yeah, this is - all the solutions were moral or there were no way around action taken.
GROSS: So after Hamas invaded Israel and massacred people there and kidnapped others on October 7, you wanted to do something. You wanted to take some kind of meaningful and helpful action. What did you think you would be suited to do as a writer?
KERET: Well, the truth is that everybody needed help. And I think that the things that people needed the most were drivers, and I don't drive. I always thought it was kind of, like, cute that I don't drive, but since the 7 of October, I feel really bad about that. And the other things that people needed were people to cook meals, and I'm also a very bad cook. So I think that in the beginning, I felt really, really frustrated basically understanding that those things that I neglected were actually important survival traits that I didn't have.
And after that, my wife and I - we basically started going to communities of survivors from the kibbutz in the Otef. And we would read to them, you know, when they wanted us to read to them. And we would read to the children when some children were interested in that, or we would just do yoga with the kids or, you know, do whatever we can to create some kind of diversion or create a different kind of system.
GROSS: You also went to the frontline. What was the frontline, and what was happening there?
KERET: I had a phone call from a bereaved father who was telling me that he's actually bringing books to the front line, you know, to writers. And there was something about this initiative that immediately touched me because I think that, you know, the thing that maybe people at war need the most is to be reminded of the word outside and of their humanity, you know, and of the complexity of life. So I think that, you know, a book is the best thing I would want to put in any soldier's hand. And he said, you know, if I have any spare books that I can give him for his initiative. And the other thing is he says that, you know, maybe you want to come with me, and maybe there would be people there that would want to hear stories that you could read to them.
And it was a very strange and emotional experience because the father who had driven me had lost his son 10 years before that in the Philadelphi tier. And you felt that it was very, very important for him to get to the soldiers that were a little bit like children for him. And we were there, you know, in the mud. And the moment before I started reading my first stories, the commander gave me ear plugs. And I said to him why? And he said, because we're going to start shooting artillery soon, so you better keep them in your ears so you won't be deaf.
So basically, it was a strange experience because my audience had those ear plugs, too. And I've been shouting in the middle of a lot of noise, trying I don't know for how long to tell stories that would usually take me four minutes to tell. And in a strange way, it felt human. You know, we were just people sitting together and trying to listen to a story and not soldiers fighting a war.
GROSS: A very different experience from your typical reading because you've done readings around the world. So what are you able to do now? Are you still asking yourself the same question that you asked yourself on October 8 after the attack, like, what can you do now to help Israelis who have suffered or have loved ones who have, you know, been killed or suffered?
KERET: I think that, you know, there is something about these years that also teaches you a lot of humility. You learn that, you know, that there's very little that you can do, that you're not omnipotent, and that you stick with the little things that kind of make sense to you, you know, like, there is the amputated soldiers that we work together on his writing, and he even asked me to write story with them together and we wrote a story together. But I think all the things that I do they don't feel crucial or important or full of pathos, but they're all kind of tiny attempts to humanize the world around us.
A few weeks before I published my latest book "Autocorrect" in Israel, I got a WhatsApp message from somebody I didn't know. He wrote to me that his ex-wife is having a birthday next Sunday, and that she's really, really depressed since the beginning of the war. And he said, you're her favorite author. So how about we'll hide in the bushes outside her apartment building, and when she goes out of the building, we'll jump and surprise her. And of course, the first thing I asked was if he has a restraining order, you know, because he did say that she was his ex-wife. And he said, no, no, no, you don't understand. We're on very good terms. And the first thing I said - I said, listen. I'm 57 years old. I'm too old to jump out of bushes, you know, I'm sorry. But a few minutes after that, I said, I don't know, maybe you can do something.
And then I looked at my stories before I was sending the latest version to the publisher and the printers, and I saw that there was a character - there was a divorced wife. And I thought, wow, I can change the character's name to the name of this guy's ex-wife. And I did and I sent him the stories after changing, and I said, you know, next Sunday, when you jump out of the bushes, tell her that when the books comes out, she's a character in one of the stories. And he did that and he said that he was very happy about it, and ideas that, you know, that stories or things in this realm of fiction can make people feel a little better then, it gives you a feeling as if you're useful - you know, not very useful, but a little useful.
GROSS: A lot of strangers have been asking you for help or from advice. What are some of the asks that you've gotten? And have you been able to do anything to help?
KERET: Well, I think that the things that people had asked me to do were kind of all over the place, you know, from...
GROSS: From jumping out of the bush. Yeah.
KERET: Or, for example, before the invasion to Gaza, I got a WhatsApp message from an officer that sent me the details of his ex-girlfriend. They ended badly, and he asked me that if he dies in Gaza, that I'll call her and tell her that he was sorry for everything, you know, because I was her favorite writer, so for sure she would take a call from me.
Or I got a request through Instagram from a woman that her husband was in Gaza and that in the short talks that they had, she asked him what dish he wanted her to prepare for him when he comes back and he says, He said, I don't want to eat anything. Just write me a story about a crocodile. And she said, I don't know what got into him. I don't know how to write stories. I'm taking care of a baby and our business. You write to him a story about the crocodile. And it sounded very convincing, and I wrote to him a very short story about the crocodile. And I said, OK, like, it's a good thing that what I'm doing is useful for someone.
GROSS: Had you ever thought before of writing a story about a crocodile?
KERET: No, no. And I never before thought about writing a story together with a 19-year-old amputated kid. You know, I think that there was something about the functions of stories that had changed because before the war for me, stories were way were some kind of a shrine, some kind of a path to great truces that I wanted to spread around the world. But in times of war, everything has a function. You know, you can use a napkin to bandage a wound or you can use - I don't know - a plate as a shield. Everything has a function. And I guess in war, stories have a function, too, you know? And so if you can bandage somebody with not-so-good stories and that's what you do.
GROSS: Let me reintroduce you again. If you're just joining us, my guest is Israeli writer Etgar Keret. We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOAN JEANRENAUD'S "DERVISH")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Israeli writer Etgar Keret, who's known for his collections of short stories, his personal essays, and his Op-Eds. I spoke to him yesterday. He was in Tel Aviv when we spoke.
When we spoke in 2006 during a war between Israel and Lebanon, your son was 7 months old. So that means he's now...
KERET: A little bit over 18.
GROSS: So that's military age. Is he in the military now?
KERET: He's going to get drafted next month.
GROSS: How do you feel about that since you don't support Israel and the way it's been handling the war?
KERET: Well, I don't know. I must say that this is a very difficult topic for me.
GROSS: I understand.
KERET: So I think that, you know, for a parent, the scariest thing is that their child would be in danger. You know, there are many fairy tales, like - I don't know - "Sleeping Beauty" and stories like that about this kind of primal fear. And in Israel, parents - when their child turns 18, they sent him to the army. It's like, you know, this fear is inherent even before the child was born. And I must say this is very, very difficult at any country and at any war. And, of course, it's much more difficult when the people who are leading this country and who are leading this war are people that I don't identify with, their opinions, that I think that are sending us in a bloody path that we can at this moment avoid. But there's no way around it, you know? That's the reality.
GROSS: Your sister is ultraorthodox and used to live in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Your brother you describe as being, you know, very left-wing. Your parents were Holocaust survivors, and they were more right-wing, right? And you describe yourself as a left-wing liberal. Do you think the, like, diversity of beliefs and opinions in your family is kind of representative of Israel?
KERET: I think that there was something in the ecosystem of my family that we had diverse opinions, as you have in all of Israel. But we also had this strong love among us. And my father would always say that for him, the most important thing is that we try to be good people. And he said politics is usually all about tactics or strategy. But as long as your purpose is to create a better world, then take whatever path you want. You know, pray for a better world. Demonstrate for a better world.
You know, if one of you thinks that Israel should not give some parts, then go for it. If another thinks that there must be a Palestinian state, then you should go for it, too, because in the bottom line, we are kind of human beings with all kinds of ideas. And we're trying to communicate those ideas among us while hoping for a different word.
So the worst that could come up with is that you would say to somebody, you're making a mistake, you know? I would never say to my brother or to my father or to my sister, you're evil, you're mean, you want to destroy the word. We would just argue about pragmatic issues, you know, what would be the right thing to do. But also, I want to say that there is something about politics that - I think that a lot of people try to deal with politics as if politics is something that is rational. The way that I see it - and it may sound simplistic - but I think that when you look at political opinions, most of the right-wing opinions, there is deep emotion in them. And that emotion is fear. You know, when you're really much afraid, you want to be hard line. You want to be aggressive.
And when I look at the left, I think that what's the kernel of the left politics is some feeling of guilt, this idea we were not fair to other people. We gave them the short end of the stick. We should apologize for that. Now, I'm saying that, you know, this is something that is a totally internal characteristic. So when I look at my sister, when I look at my father and our politics are different, it's like we have different taste in music. You know, sometimes it feels that it's something that I can't convince another person to see things my way. But still, the fact that we don't agree about some facts, that doesn't mean that I hate him.
GROSS: We need to take a short break here. So let me reintroduce you, and then we'll be right back. If you're just joining us, my guest is Israeli writer Etgar Keret. He's speaking to us from Tel Aviv, and we'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Israeli writer Etgar Keret, who's known for his collections of short stories, his personal essays and his op-eds. And his latest book, "Autocorrect," will be published in English next May.
Your parents were from Poland. They were Holocaust survivors. How did they get to Israel?
KERET: Both my parents got to Israel on boats before '48, so it was illegal for them to come. So they were illegal immigrants to Israel.
GROSS: And they were able to become legal immigrants?
KERET: Oh, yeah. The idea was that it was impossible for them to go through the borders legally. But the moment that they got to Israel, they were just there.
GROSS: Being immigrants, did they ever feel like Israel was their real home? Or did they feel like their home was what they left behind in Poland?
KERET: I think that both of them had so much pain and suffering associated with the war, and they had lost so much - my mother had lost her entire family and my father had lost his sister - that the only thing that they really wanted was to have a chance for some kind of a fresh start, this idea of starting something from anew and building some kind of an identity that would not be as stressed and as fearful and as painful as the one that they had left behind. I think that the most important thing for them was that they will be in a safe place, this idea that there won't be any more pogroms. There won't be people knocking at the doors or pulling them out, you know, as the stories of the pogroms that had followed them and that they kind of lived through.
And I couldn't help thinking, you know, after the 7 of October, how in this place that they always saw as some kind of a safe haven for Jews, you know, then maybe the greatest pogrom, you know, of centuries had taken place. And this had led me also to this kind of feeling that whenever they would talk about Jews in Eastern Europe, then you would talk about this idea that the interests of the government or of the czar or of whoever was in charge was not the same as the interests of the Jewish community. So you were living there, but you really didn't feel that you were fully represented. You felt a little bit more kind of a captive. So I think that these two sensations are kind of bringing the diaspora back to Israel right now.
GROSS: You wrote a piece about your mother, who died five years ago, and that a lot of your friends are grateful that their parents aren't alive to see and perhaps to be a victim of what's happened ever since Hamas invaded Israel a year ago. But you wish your mother was alive because you think it would be very helpful to you to have her there and to have her advice. Do you think that having survived the Holocaust and found shelter in Israel would have affected how she experienced this time and how you experienced this time?
KERET: I think that what I learned from my parents, especially from my mother, was the importance of controlling your own story - how important it is that when you live inside a reality, you don't let people define you, you know, as a victim, as a victor or kind of constrain you to a story that doesn't represent what you feel.
I remember that when I was a child, she once took me to a child pediatrician, and in the waiting room, there were not enough chairs. And the mother waiting there basically elbowed her little son, saying to him, get up. Give her a seat. She's a Holocaust survivor. And my mother was kind of surprised when the kid got up and said, please, lady, have my seat. And then she asked him, but why are you giving me this seat? And he said, because you're a Holocaust survivor. And my mother said to him, and what do you think it means that I'm a Holocaust survivor? So the child said, I think that it means that you suffered a lot and that you were humiliated and that you were a victim and that the most little thing I can do is to give you my seat to compensate for that.
And my mother said to him, you know, you're a smart child, and this is a very interesting answer, but I want to offer you a different answer to what it means that I'm a Holocaust survivor. She said, I think what it means is that if your mother, you and me would stand here in the waiting room for hours, with no water and no food, you two are going to collapse first, so I think you better hold on to your seat. And as a child, I remember that I saw the power of owning your reality, of not kind of sliding to the intended corner, of not doing the actions that the social media expects you to do but basically just saying, this is my life. This is my story, and I'm going to tell you the way that I want to tell it.
GROSS: Sorry to have to end, but our time is literally running out.
KERET: Of course.
GROSS: And I want to take a few seconds to thank you very much and to wish you well during this war and safety to you and your family.
KERET: Thank you. Thank you very much.
GROSS: Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer living in Tel Aviv, where he spoke to us from. His latest book, "Autocorrect," will be published next May. His newsletter, "Alphabet Soup," is on Substack. Our interview was recorded yesterday morning. Next week - probably Tuesday - we'll hear from Palestinian writer Mosab Abu Toha.
If you'd like to catch up on FRESH AIR interviews you missed, like this week's interviews with Jeremy Strong, songwriter, performer and producer Pharrell Williams and Will Ferrell with his former "SNL" writing partner, Harper Steele, who came out as a trans woman, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations for what to watch, read and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org/freshair.
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GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUILLERMO KLEIN'S "MELODIA DE ARRABAL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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