Subscribe to Alphabet Soup, Keret's newsletter (powered by Substack): Fiction, non-fiction, thoughts, writing tips and anything else that would make an easily influenced curious person double click.

“I’ve been looking at [Keret’s] Substack and it’s so witty and enjoyable, and he’s clearly having a wonderful time doing it, I thought, ‘maybe I could do that’” — Salman Rushdie, The Guardian

Taking the Long View

Last Thursday marked one year since the death of my father-in-law, the wonderful Israeli poet and journalist Yehonatan Geffen. This year has gone by like a week—apparently time flies when you’re bombing and being bombed. To honor the anniversary, I wanted to share with you a piece that Geffen wrote in 1977 for an Israeli newspaper, which Shira – his daughter and my partner – found in a box in his apartment. The article, which the newspaper chose to censor, was never published. It contains several references that may be obscure to American readers (and even to many young Israeli readers), but you need only to replace “Jimmy Carter” with “Joe Biden,” and “Merkava tank” with “F-35 combat aircraft,” to discover that the dire, chaotic reality we are now living through in Israel was already here 47 years ago. It seems that sensitive, discerning poets like Geffen are the canaries in the coalmine: they can sniff out the stench of toxic fundamentalism and militarism long before the rest of us can. I miss you, Yehonatan!

Read at Alphabet Soup

"Intention"

Deep in his heart, Yechiel-Nachman had made peace with his prayers going unanswered. Because prayer was the pure yearning for compassion and justice, whereas life was life: cruel, dispiriting, insulting. It was therefore only natural that two such contrasting worlds could never converge. But on October 7, 2023 – the 22nd day of Tishrei in the year 5784 – something in Yechiel-Nachman broke.

Photograph: Bumble Dee/Alamy

"Fly Already"

If Kafka Were Israeli and Wrote About Talking Goldfish

— The New York Times.

“What About Me?“

Written by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen for “Short Stories on Human Rights“ (2008).

More films

Random quote

In order to be murdered, you first have to be a person

— "Taboola Rasa"

Third Temple: Israel’s Occupation Is Coming Home

Netanyahu’s government is not here to debate—it’s here to rule, and any resistance is an intifada.

More non-fiction

Words Without Borders, 2010

I believe that there is a truth. I believe it is very difficult to articulate that truth. I try to go in that direction, but I don’t pretend I will get there.

More interviews

New York Times, 2012

For Keret, the creative impulse resides not in a conscious devotion to the classic armature of fiction (character, plot, theme, etc.) but in an allegiance to the anarchic instigations of the subconscious. His best stories display a kind of irrepressible dream logic

More reviews