By Jamie Spock
When you’re talking with Etgar Keret, it is so easy to forget that he’s an award winning, not to mention world-famous, author. I was thrilled to learn that he would be speaking to our group but I must admit I didn’t quite know what to expect. Whatever my expectations had been, Keret definitely surpassed them. He was so at ease walking into the room to speak to our group twenty-six people. The talk started out with Keret describing his childhood and his family. He describes them as being a “typically abnormal Israeli family”. This statement set the tone for the rest of the conversation. In almost everything that he talked about he managed to interject humor and it was abundantly clear that this is someone that definitely doesn’t take himself too seriously and I think that everyone in our group appreciated it.
The story he told that stuck with me the most was the story about how he decided he was going to become a writer. He gave his brother a story to read and he became so engrossed in reading that he almost forgot that he was walking the dog. Keret fell in love with the way that words could affect people so profoundly and in that moment he knew that he wanted to spend his life writing. He talked about writing so passionately and it was inspiring just listening to him. I think part of what was so fascinating about his talk was that he didn’t make finding his calling seem like a once in a lifetime, cinematic event. He talked about it the way it really happened, quietly and in an everyday moment.
Part of why I came on the Nachshon project was to try to discover my calling within the Jewish community and I had thought that I would discover it in some kind of grand epiphany and if that didn’t happen then I would be completely lost. Keret’s words were reassuring to me and after hearing about how he too went through setbacks and obstacles I feel much more confident in knowing that everything will fall into place. The question and answer portion of the talk was amazing. Everyone had thoughtful questions and he had equally as thoughtful answers for each one of them. What resonated with me the most was when he offered us advice about how to find what it is that we eventually want to do. He told us that we need to be able to let ourselves experiment and fail. “Most of us won’t die of hunger if we take a wrong job or spend an extra year at university”, Keret said. That advice is so contrary to what most of us have been taught about growing up and it was so refreshing to hear.
Lastly, I think that the reason this activity has impacted me so much was that Etgar Keret is so comfortable in his self-expression and I aspire to be like that. He recently published a memoir in English, naturally the rest of his writings are in Hebrew and then later translated to English, and many Israelis were angry at his decision not to publish the memoir in his mother tongue. He did this to protect his son’s privacy but many people were angry with him, even so he does not regret his decision at all. At the end of the talk, he was gracious enough to stay back with us and sign autographs and take photos. I was so excited when I found out we would be meeting with Etgar Keret and I must say that he did not disappoint. Keret’s talk was definitely one of the highlights, if not the highlight of the week.
