About this episode

Etgar Keret discusses the impact of recent events on his writing and the challenges faced by Israeli artists.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with celebrated writer Etgar Keret. Etgar Keret, a leading voice in Israeli literature, with books published in over four dozen languages, talks about how his perception of writing has changed since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught. Using typical Keret metaphors and description, he explains the challenges of the times, how he once wrote about ethics and ideas and community, and finds that those more abstract ideas have evaporated. Keret speaks at length about the disadvantages of being an Israeli artist in the public sphere, as audiences wait to hear something they don't like. He also discusses social media in this time period and the shifts in the artist-audience relationship. Keret's Substack newsletter, Alphabet Soup, has become a more amenable space in which to share his short stories and ideas. Keret, who teaches creative writing at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, now directs a new MFA program at the Jewish Theological Seminary and he speaks about his students and his desire to make a small but important change by…

People in this episode

Host: Jessica Steinberg

Guest: Etgar Keret

Topics covered

• Israeli literature
• artist-audience relationship
• social media
• creative writing
• current events

Keywords

• Etgar Keret
• Israeli literature
• writing
• social media
• October 7
• creative writing
• artist challenges

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Jewish Theological Seminary, Alphabet Soup

Places: Israel

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