DKJA Student Abraham Waserstein Meets With Israeli Author Etgar Keret

    Many inquire as to why the study of Hebrew beyond weekly Hebrew school classes is valuable. In addition to the religious and traditional rationales to teach Hebrew, Donna Klein Jewish Academy goes to great lengths to demonstrate how this ancient language can equip Jewish Americans with applicable aptitudes to truly understand and interact with the modern Israeli culture of today.

    This past summer, I was selected as one of 26 North American Jews who had the privilege of becoming part of the Bronfman Youth Fellowship. In this five week summer escapade in Israel, many of the lessons I received in Hebrew class in Boca Raton, Florida, showcased their applicability to real world situations. One of the many instances in which this occurred happened in the city of Jaffa when I met the author Etgar Keret.

    Keret is one of the most renowned writers in Israel for the myriad of fictional short stories, novels, and script writes for television he has contributed to the modern Israeli culture. As a child, Keret’s mother shared fictional narratives told to her during her youth in Warsaw while his father told him bedtime stories based upon adaptations of occurrences in his life. Keret cleverly explained the distinction between typical children books and the original stories he received as the difference between ordering pizza or having a homemade meal.

    The beauty to Keret’s writing is found in his usage of humor accompanied with his literary focus on uncovering the humanity in situations that most would characterize as despicable. Finding this peculiar, I asked him how he goes about to achieve this difficult literary aim. Keret stated that he utilizes fiction in order to foster a connection between the reader and the character in order to depict the similarities between both parties. This enables the reader to understand how he or she could become said character and create an opportunity to unearth insight into the underlying causes of a character’s apparent malignant action. Keret said that by trying to understand why someone may have acted in a certain fashion and putting oneself into their shoes, human beings, “work out their weak muscle of sympathy.” Keret humorously explained his goal by saying that if aliens were to come to earth and would see all the negativity and hatred man has against man they would destroy earth, but possibly if they would read his short stories and see the ability man has to humanize the negative they would spare the world.

    In Donna Klein, we were taught one of Keret’s short stories called Lishbor Et Ha-Chazir (Breaking the Pig). Having had this exposure to Keret’s writing helped me gain greater intuition from the information he shared about himself and his writing. It was truly incredible to experience the amalgamation of Hebrew learning at my school with what Keret was delivering to us in his discourse. Keret shared with us that when he wrote Lishbor Et Ha-Chazir, he intended that the pig would represent himself, not the boy. The reason for this was in order to parallel the silence he subjected himself to in order to not trouble his holocaust surviving parents who were scarred by the horrors they experienced in Poland. When I received this wisdom from Keret, the first thing that I thought of was how incredible it would be to share this information with my school and community. The applicability of knowledge truly has no barriers and could be found in all corners of the world from the suburbs of Boca Raton to the city of Jaffa.

Abraham Waserstein