SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The beloved Israeli writer Etgar Keret says it is important to tell stories in times of war. Speaking to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED just weeks into the ongoing Gaza war back in 2023, he said art can be the hiding place for your emotions.
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ETGAR KERET: Go read a story. Go read a poem. Go write a poem. Because if you try to interact with people and bring your complexity, you know, they're going to rip you to pieces.
DETROW: Nearly two years later, Keret is finding those interactions even harder than ever. He sees people in his country talking past each other, struggling to listen. He recently wrote about an experience he had at a silent vigil for Palestinian children killed during the war. It's something he and his wife have taken part in each week for a while now. Etgar Keret joins us to talk about it. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
KERET: Hi.
DETROW: Tell me what happened.
KERET: I can tell you that every week when we go, it's the kind of a tradition that we stand with the photos of the dead Palestinian children. And people pass by, and we're silent. And it's amazing because you see a lot of different reactions. You know, it could be like, people looking at the picture while passing and crying, you know, while they're on the way to go somewhere, or people that stop and look at them. And there are other people that, you know, that can say, why are you holding this stuff? They're not real children. It's all AI. It becomes a little bit like a post in Facebook, which turns into some kind of a confession and always starts with hatred and ends with confusion and pain - like, saying, you know, you don't know what happened to me. I was in reserve duty. My nephew is in Gaza. I don't sleep at night. You know, [expletive] you, you know? But it's really like - it's not an argument. It seems like, you know, somebody really - I don't know - calling to his gods to save him.
DETROW: There's this broad-scale rather than confront a reality that we don't want to confront or that questions our point of view or anything like that, the answer is just default, well, that's not real; that's fake.
KERET: And the thing is that, you know, in Israel, the mainstream media and the TV, you know, hardly ever shows coverage from Gaza. So I think that, you know, that if you're an Israeli who kind of buys to the narrative and you watch your news, then, you know, you hear people talking about the 7 October from when you see the horrible thing being done to the kidnapped people, basically, you know, the death of those people in Gaza are not there. They're only there in the news if somebody complains about them.
DETROW: Well, let me ask you - there are so many conversations about what happens next when and if this war ever ends. And there are so many big-picture geopolitical questions. But there's also the question that you're raising of just how people can interact with each other better and talk to each other better and accept the same reality better. Do you have any sense what a first start is on a person-to-person basis on that front?
KERET: Well, I must say that, you know, the (inaudible) silent vigil, it taught me something that actually, you know - let's say, in this case, when I shut up for a minute, I hear something that I wouldn't have heard if I would argue back, you know? And I can say that, you know, that I think that for the past two years, I found myself in a situation where people were insulting me, and I was insulting them back. And I'm much better than them when it comes to insults, so I felt I was winning. But in the end, nothing happened, you know? Nothing happened. And I really feel that there was something at this vigil that I meet many people who don't have my opinion, but the fact that I look at them, and I disagree with them, and I want them to change their way, but I stopped kind of seeing them the ultimate evil - maybe it's the first step somewhere.
DETROW: I thought it was interesting that you compared all of this to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, which of course is a story about human arrogance, among other things, and the effort to build a tower to heaven and the way that God stops that project flat by making everybody speak different languages.
KERET: Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, the Tower of Babel today is our Facebook or social media feeds because what happened is that - is then we all talk about stopping war in Ukraine and all those kind of thing. And it seems as if, you know, we're getting closer. We're getting up. We're getting up. We're getting up. But we're doing it while not looking at anyone around us, just like in the Tower of Babel. You so - you want to reach the sky, but if you don't see the person next to you, then, you know, it's going to end horribly.
DETROW: Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer. His latest book is called "Autocorrect." Thank you for talking to us again.
KERET: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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