Small Truths and Other Lies

This collection captures three generations of Jewish identity probing the issue of Jew as perpetual outsider. Inspired by family tales of persecuted minority life in Poland, immigrant experiences in Europe and the States and the author’s own experiences in the Israeli army, these tales capture the wanderlust, struggles and feelings Jewish family life.
Oren Shafir’s intensely personal stories have been appearing in literary magazines for the past 15 years. Inspired by fairy-tale like family stories from Poland, as well as the author’s own experiences in Israel’s first Lebanon war, these tales are bittersweet and funny.
Or as Israeli novelist Amos Aricha puts it: “His stories are designed with gentle humor and a teary eye, imbued with a love for humanity."
This goes for the war stories as well. Israeli English-speaking resident magazine, ESRA, called one tale set in the first Lebanon war “a Greek tragedy in less than four pages.”