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Nathan Englander is a one-man demographic. Born in America into a strict orthodox community, he gave up Jewish religious practice and moved to Jerusalem to write. His first collection of stories, "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges" has been lauded by critics and his writing has invited comparisons to "Isaac Bashevis Singer, Phillip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and John Cheever."
Englander rejects the absolutist tendencies of some of the competing religious and nationalistic claims to Jerusalem. "I call it the city of the preconceived notion. Everyone has their absolutist view of this place and what it has to be. People are threatened by different viewpoints. I am just a guy living in Jerusalem because I like the city and there's got to be room for that too."
Englander discovered the city as a college student and nostalgically recalls mountain biking down dirt paths and fields through Jerusalem suburbs. He bemoans the frenetic urbanization that is forever altering a familiar landscape: bike paths are now paved highways; hills have been shorn of their peaks to accommodate new neighborhoods.
More distressing to him is the violence. Israeli commuters on those paved highways are now snipers' targets; daytrips to Englander's favorite Palestinian villages are no longer possible because of closures and reprisal shelling by Israel.
The end of the peace process is what will ultimately cause Englander to abandon the city he loves.
"If they want to turn this into the Balkans, I'm gone," he says.
Chapter One Excerpt: The Relief
of Unbearable Urges
The orders were given from Stalin's country house at Kuntsevo. He relayed them to the agent in charge with no greater emotion than for the killing of kulaks or clergy or the outspoken wives of very dear friends.
The Boldtype Interview - Nathan Englander
Salon.com - Listen to Englander read an excerpt from the title story from "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges."
Note: WBUR and Public Interactive do not endorse these sites.
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