Suddenly You Find Yourself Helpless

I sat with Israeli author, Yishay Ishi Ron, at his home in Kfar Saba this past summer. To prepare, I read his novel ⁠Dog⁠, which was deft, spare, and deeply moving in Yardenne Greenspan's beautiful translation. (Yardenne joins me later this season.) Dog follows Geller, a decorated soldier who returns from Gaza, descends into heroin addiction, and ends up on the streets of Tel Aviv. Ishi wrote it before October 7. It's fiction — but Ishi calls it psychologically autobiographical, and it opens a real portal into the subjects that define his work: trauma, post-trauma, addiction, family, and what moving on can look like from the very bottom. The Hebrew edition of Dog was longlisted for the Sapir Prize. The English edition won two National Jewish Book Awards — for Book Club and Hebrew Fiction in Translation — and the National Library of Israel named it one of the most important contemporary works on post-trauma. It's now being adapted into a feature film by Eran Riklis. I highly recommend Dog and Ishi's new novel, The Girl Who Rode the White Lion, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Credits:

Host and Creator: Manya Marcus

Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick

Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman

Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman

Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar

Outro Music: "DABOOMJIGGLE - Short Version" | Out of Flux, Eyal Talmudi

Listen on ⁠YouTube⁠

Support our work ⁠here⁠! WCA Media relies on your support to bring you episodes like this one.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(93)

The Waves Are Still There

Welcome back to What Came After. This episode with guest Eden Einav comes out just days before the third anniversary of October 7th, and I think Eden is exactly the right person to spotlight as this a...

5 Okt 47min

These Days I'm Grateful

Support our work ⁠⁠here⁠⁠! WCA Media relies on your support to bring you episodes like this one. This past June, I sat down in Tel Aviv with Rita Yedid. Before October 7th, Rita's friends called her...

28 Sep 1h 1min

People Who Are Willing To Do What It Takes

Welcome back to What Came After. In this episode, Joseph Gitler welcomed me into his home—we recorded in March of 2026. Fortunately, our conversation wasn't interrupted by a missile attack but Israel...

23 Sep 42min

Your Students Carried Us

Please Support What Came After Media: Donate here. Your donations make this work possible. For months, Yoni Heilman and I kept missing each other. When I was in Israel, Yoni was serving in reserve du...

11 Aug 52min

Cancer Doesn’t Stop—Even In A War

Please Support What Came After Media: Donate here. Your donations make this work possible. On March 18th of this year, I'd been back in America for a few days after getting stuck in Israel during the...

3 Aug 53min

This Project Is A Gift

Please Support What Came After Media: Donate here. Your donations make this work possible. When I first met with our guest, Dekkel Bachar, at the end of 2025, we talked about Shesek, an initiative of ...

21 Jul 32min

You Need To Trust Both Love And Evil

Please Support What Came After Media: Donate here. Your donations make this work possible. In March, I was in Israel when war broke out with the Iranian regime. Since I couldn't leave the country, I w...

7 Jul 51min