Presentation of "Shoes" by Etgar Keret

Analysis of Shoes by Etgar Keret

• Primarily, the story deals with the theme of memorializing the Holocaust while moving forward with life.
• At first the boy is hesitant to play with his shoes because he feels he will be indirectly harming his grandfather.
• Yet he “forgot, just like the old man at Volhynia House said people tend to do,” and plays soccer in his shoes.
• At the end, he remembers what he has done, but decides that his grandfather would have approved.
• In a way, this boy is a microcosm of Israeli society. Like him, Israelis do not actively remember the Holocaust on a daily
basis, yet its memory does motivate certain societal constructs.
--The mandatory service in the army propagates from willingness avenge
the deaths of the Jews that died in the Holocaust
--The divides in Israeli society between Holocaust-survivor immigrants from Europe and Sabras (the pioneers of Israel). When Djerby (a Sephardic—Middle Eastern—Jew) implies that the old man is a coward, Keret is alluding to the Sabra disdain for Holocaust survivors.
--The almost superstitious Israeli grudge against Germany and gentiles of Eastern Europe. Obviously, the old man’s refusal to by anything German epitomizes this fact. The boy’s ambivalence over wearing his new shoes mirrors the Israeli ambivalence over assimilation.