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“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

Good With Kids

One Friday night, when I got back to my moped after dropping off a delivery, I was bit by a 500,000-shekel Tibetan Mastiff. That’s the number the Mastiff’s owner told me while she drove me to urgent care in her silver Tesla. Her name was Marit and she was really nice. She also told me that her grandfather had got rich off something, and when he’d died, her mother had invested her inheritance in real estate and got even richer. And now it was Marit’s turn to get rich—or richer, time would tell. She was putting her money in all kinds of things and trying to do it wisely. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn’t, which was why she was always on edge. But it wasn’t that important because however much she lost, there’d still be enough left over.

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"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

“What About Me?“

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

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Random quote

Lev holds my hand and says, “Daddy, I'm a little nervous.” He's seven, and seven is the age when it's not considered cool to talk about fear, so the word “nervous” is used instead.

"Pastrami"

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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.

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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.

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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

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