Drawing the Message
12/06/2012 16:24
Little has changed just ahead of the 40th anniversary of the debut of Dry Bones.
PHOTO: COURTESY
EVER SINCE the Protestant reformation in Germany, when Martin
Luther discovered he could reach out to the illiterate classes through simple
woodcutting and metal engravings, political cartoons have become a real means
of communicating with the public.
Later, Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon, which depicts a snake whose
severed parts represent the Colonies, would become widely acknowledged as the
first political cartoon in America.
The reason political cartoons are popular is that they are fun to read and
often offer a fresh, sometimes humorous, perspective on current events.
Many newspapers around the world employ the skills of a political cartoonist
and The Jerusalem Post is no
different.
For years, the Post has run the popular “Dry Bones” series by cartoonist Yaakov
Kirschen which next month celebrates its 40th anniversary.
Kirschen named his works “Dry Bones” after the 2,600-year-old writings by the
biblical Prophet Ezekiel, who refers to having seen thousands of dry bones in a
vision, and prophesies the rebirth of the Jewish State.
The Dry Bones Project aims, through research and analysis, to create an
educational outreach program that will advance popular understanding, and to
correct willful rewriting of history.
The project intends to do this by means of cartoons, cartoon history books and
other works, and through educational lectures.
In an interview with Kirschen in Asian Jewish Life magazine, Erica Lyons
writes, “‘Dry Bones’ has been a Jewish household favorite since it first
appeared in 1973. It has been reprinted, or quoted in a myriad of publications
including the New York Times, Time
magazine, the Los Angeles Times, CBS, AP andForbes.
Kirschen’s graphic art has, for decades, provided an insightful, pictorial
commentary on many of the most significant events of the day.: Collectively,
the “Dry Bones” collection reads more like an academic treatise than a comic
strip, offering distinct graphic perspectives and snapshots in time.
Earlier this year, the Israeli Cartoon Museum awarded its Golden Pencil Award
to Kirschen in recognition of his lifetime achievements.
The museum’s curator, Liat Margalit said, “The reality of life in Israel led
Zionist Kirschen to lovingly comment on the many absurdities he found in the
reborn Jewish State. In many ways, ‘Dry Bones’ is Kirschen’s ongoing occupation
with the relationship between vision and reality, and his attempts to live with
this duality inside him, through the protagonists of his comics strip.”
Shuldig (“guilty” in Yiddish) is Kirschen’s alter ego.
He is a regular Israeli, an idealistic Zionist, and an incorrigible optimist.
Doobie – Shuldig’s dog – is a cynical realist, always balancing out Shuldig’s
unbridled and sugary optimism. A few other cartoon regulars populate the
political comic strip: King Solomon represents Israel’s government and is the
medium through which Kirschen mocks Israeli leadership flaws. Man Drinking
Coffee reacts to the latest news while sipping a cup of coffee at a café. The
Two Guys’ discussions represent the views of the Israeli public.
Through this minimal group of simple characters, Kirschen has managed to put
together a profoundly satirical view of life in Israel and beyond, in his
internationally syndicated cartoon. He is followed by eager fans who also enjoy
his award-winning blog (DryBonesBlog.com), launched in 2005.
KIRSCHEN WAS born in Brooklyn in 1938. After graduating from Queens College in
1961, he began working as a freelance gag cartoonist.
In 1968, while still living in the US, Kirschen began to experiment with the
use of humorous cartoons to deliver political messages. His work at the time
was Zionist and anti-Vietnam War.
In 1971, he made aliya with his wife and three daughters. He changed his name
(originally Jerry) to Yaakov, and two years later began drawing his political
and humorous daily comic strip for The Jerusalem Post.
For the past 40 years, “Dry Bones” has continued to offer profound satire and
witty commentary on everyday Israeli news and international events.
In 1993, his graphic novel, Trees, The Green Testament was published. In it,
the trees of the world tell the story of the Jewish people, ecology,
environmental destruction, reforestation, and Zionism. A front-page story in
the Wall Street Journal reported on the surprising popularity of the book and
its establishment as an underground cult favorite.
In 2009, Kirschen was made a visiting fellow and artist-in-residence at Yale
University’s Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of anti-Semitism and
Racism, where he was asked to study the relationship between anti-Semitism and
political cartoons.
In 2011, he founded the “Dry Bones Project” (Dry- BonesProject.com) and began
to work on a series of graphic novels about Israel’s 3,500 year-old history as
the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. The initial works will be
published in Chinese for distribution in China.
I MEET with Kirschen at his home in Herzliya Pituah where we sat and discussed
his early beginnings, his time at the Post and the project he is currently
involved with.
“Back in the day there were two types of cartoons,” Kirschen says. “There were
editorial cartoons and comic strips. An editorial cartoon was always a box and
a comic strip was never political, though there were people who pushed the
envelope.
“I did two things in America. I was a computer expert and I was a cartoonist.
The idea of computers being related to entertainment, or cartoons being
structured to have an effect... [it] seemed to me that the two [went] together,
but to the rest of the world the two were separate.
“When I made aliya, I thought I’d come here and I’d be in the computer
business. But when I saw the insanity of [Israeli] society, as an American I
said, ‘what’s missing is a comic strip for people to laugh [at] and enjoy. Or
maybe it needs to be an editorial cartoon.’ “I said, ‘What if I make it a comic
strip that is an editorial cartoon? Well, how would I do that? If I took the
thing and I cut it in half, then the overall shape would be an editorial
cartoon, but it would read like a comic strip!’ “And I came to The
Jerusalem Post with it, and there was a guy named Ted Lurie and he was the
editor-in-chief.
The cartoon worked its way to Lurie, who really didn’t like it and really did
not understand it.
“And I knew that since the editor who took the cartoon from me said, ‘we don’t
have cartoons. This stuff you’re doing is wonderful, but the editor-in-chief
sees us as being the New York Times of the Middle East. But this is
so good, I’m going to pass it on to him, but hey, kid, forget it – it’s not
gonna happen.’ “Within a week, I’m called in by Lurie and he’s going to run the
cartoon. So I said, ‘Good!' So we can start next week?’ He said, ‘No, no no.
Right now, we’re in the middle of December. You know what? Let’s start January
1. I’ll tell you why, I don’t understand this cartoon at all, but people here
tell me they like it.
“‘I’m willing to put it in the paper. If, after a couple of weeks, it doesn’t
get a following, I’m going to dump it. If however, it gets a following, and
you’re here a couple of years, you’ll always be able to tell people, “I started
on January 1, 1973.’ “And I thought, ‘What an idiot!’ And for the last 40
years, when people ask, when did it start? I say, ‘January 1, 1973!’ Years
later, I was talking to the editor to whom I passed on the cartoon, and I said,
‘Well you see, Ted Lurie really was resilient!’ And he asked, ‘Did no one ever
tell you why he really took the cartoon?’ “He had a [visit from a] delegation
of prominent newspaper editors from America. They were here as a group and came
to the Post, and after showing them around, he took them to lunch. And Lurie
asked them, ‘What do you think of my paper?’ And one of them said, ‘How come
you don’t have your own cartoonist?’ “He came back from that lunch to find the
‘Dry Bones’ cartoon on his desk – which means that my grandmother could have
sold the cartoon at that point! And it has continued for 40 years. And along
the way, I’ve commented on all sorts of stuff going on. So that’s the story.
“AFTER MANY years,” Kirschen continues, “I was asked by an organization at Yale
to be a scholar/artist-inresidence to study anti-Semitic cartoons.
They felt the idea of an interdisciplinary study involving a cartoonist may add
perspective.
“Being a pushy, Jewish, Israeli cartoonist, I said, ‘What do I have to do? Do I
need to move here?’ They said, ‘No, but you need to write a paper.’ I figured,
‘What the heck, why not? I could do that.’ ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘first I
should collect anti-Semitic cartoons.’ “So I began to collect them and I made a
discovery. And the last thing I expected was to actually discover something.
And what I discovered has to do with memetics. The thing that gets stuck in
your head and is passed on to other people is called a meme.
“A meme is a viral belief. A cultural virus. Anti-Semitism is a cultural virus.
It is a virus that affects society. The idea of a virus is that it reproduces
itself in different hosts. Biological viruses infect people, computer viruses
infect our digital systems and dangerous cultural viruses infect our societies.
“What is it we political cartoonists do? Some of my colleagues will say we try
to illuminate the truth, fight injustice and fight for a better society,” he
says.
An exhibit at Hofstra University Museum in New York launched in October titled
“Political Slant: Editorial Cartoons,” displays political cartoons by a number
of prominent American cartoonists.
In a recent interview with New York Times,
cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia
Daily News said, “Political cartoons do not really change people’s minds, but
they’re important to grease the wheels of public discourse, and to give people
a different way to imagine an issue.”
Kirschen appears to take a similar stance. “What we really do is we put ideas
in people’s heads – I just admit to it. In any case, that makes me a master of
memetics, since I’m trying to infect people all the time with my ideas!”
KIRSCHEN SAYS there is a definitive way to identify anti-Semitic cartoons. “You
can’t ask, ‘Is a cartoon anti-Semitic or not?’ and then say, ‘Well, it’s like
pornography – you can’t define it, but you know it when you see it.’ Nonsense!
I have totally analyzed this whole thing.”
Through his research, Kirschen pinpoints three families of viral memes
(anti-Semitic image codes found in contemporary political cartoons):
dehumanization, stereotyping and moral inversion.
“I think the cartoonist is infected,” he explains.
“The cartoonist may not know he is infected. The person who did this may be
infected with that idea.
“And altogether there are about 34 images of anti- Semitism that depict Jews,
and those particular images are burnt into your head. Once you see a graphic of
a Jew with horns, you never forget it. The Nazis made heavy use of cartoons to
spread their message of Jew-hatred.”
Dehumanization says, “What are Jews?” According to the cartoons that fit into
this category, Jews are demonic, baby-killing, satanic, blood-drinking vermin.
“There are 17 categories I discovered in the dehumanizing family,” Kirschen
says.
“Stereotyping says, ‘What do Jews do? Jews are rich, ugly, money-grubbing and
powerful. They secretly control the banks, the media and the world.’” Kirschen
explains moral inversion. “The Holocaust happened and a new family grew up –
moral inversion. Moral inversion says, ‘Sure the Nazis did terrible things to
the Jews, and now the Jews are doing the same damn thing. You look at Gaza,
that’s one big concentration camp.
“‘Just because they had to deal with Nazis doesn’t give them the right to act
like Nazis also... Israel is an apartheid state.’ “All of these are in the
family of moral inversion.
And though everybody is running around trying to argue that Israel has so many
Nobel prize winners, Israel has many medical advances – that doesn’t stop
people from claiming Jews are demonic Nazi victimizers. So the argument goes.
Unless you see that it’s a virus.
“And you can’t argue with a virus. You have to somehow confront the virus.
“And when I went around giving speeches, and I would show these presentations,
the annoying thing was, at the end people would say, ‘Okay, so what are we
supposed to do?’ What are you asking me for? I discovered there’s a virus! And
they would say, ‘No! You’re the cartoonist! You figured it out, you’ve got to
do something about it!’ “If you’re Louis Pasteur, it’s not enough to discover
the virus – you’ve got to come up with the vaccine and do something about it.
“So, No. 1, I stopped giving the speeches – I really did. Because every time I
would show it [the presentation], people would say, ‘Now what? This is really
depressing! And you don’t have an answer? The whole world will be affected and
that’s the end of us!’ “So I stopped giving speeches, but I kept thinking about
it. And then I realized that the moral inversion strain had now really
blossomed and it now could be called the ‘Nakba strain.’ “The ‘Nakba strain’
says, ‘Jews may be smart, they may be victimized, they may have been messed
around by the Holocaust, but in 1948 they came here and they seized the land of
the indigenous people, the Palestinians, and they set up a Western colonial
state on the land of the indigenous Palestinians, and now they won’t even give
back part of the land to have some degree of freedom.’ “This is believed
wherever the ‘Nakba strain’ has spread. We have moved from Holocaust denial to
history denial. It means that 3,500 years of pre-1948 history have been erased.
Therefore, the vaccine is to bring back the knowledge of those 3,500 years. So
if somebody says ‘Nakba,’ I say, ‘What are you talking about? We were messed
over by the Romans before we were messed over by the Arabs. We were messed over
by the Macedonian Greeks. You guys are latecomers. We’ve been here a long
time!’ “But people don’t have that knowledge. And then I began to analyze this
and I discovered that our view of the whole world is North and South America,
Europe and the Middle East – maybe some of Africa. But we don’t think of Asia.
“So I said, ‘Gee, since I speak in cartoons, and the Chinese and Japanese are
really into cartoons, what if I do something about showing the 3,500 years of
pre-1948 history?’ So I did something and I did it in Chinese.”
HERE, KIRSCHEN pulls out an illustrated book he made for Chinese children. He
sees an opportunity to educate China about Israel’s pre-1948, 3,500 year
history through a series of free, online, digital Chinese-language graphic
books. Each work will tie the history of China to the history of Israel,
emphasizing the concept of the Jews and the Chinese as two ancient
civilizations that have survived centuries of attack by barbarian forces and
foreign empires.
According to Kirschen, governments, NGOs and other “rewriters of history”
attempt to erase the history of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.
China’s 1.3 billion people have not yet been infected with this denial of
Jewish history.
Kirschen hopes his initiative, aptly named “Project3500,” will educate and
advance civic responsibility by countering the rewriting of history by
governments and non-governmental organizations, their funders, and associated
frameworks.
In the interview with Erica Lyons in the Asian Jewish Life magazine, Kirschen
explains, “My work at Yale, investigating anti-Semitism in political cartoons,
brought me face to face with the fact that the Chinese were non-Jews who had
not been infected with the behavioral virus that we call ‘anti-Semitism.’
Unlike European nations, they haven’t been tainted by anti-Semitism.”
He cites the absence of preconceived prejudices in China against the
Jewish/Israeli story and openness to further exploration and a general
curiosity to understand this ‘Start-up Nation.’ To Kirschen, China’s next
generation is ripe for this introduction to the history of Israel and Jewish
people and his project affords a layer of protections against one of the great
dangers Israel/Jews face, the rampant “willful rewriting of history.” Each
“Project3500” trip is a new educational opportunity and a way to reach this new
audience.
He says, “There is an obvious and natural economic fit between our two
nations... but as bearers of ancient wisdoms our two nations, Israel and China,
have a responsibility to do more – to bring civilization and stability to a
chaotic world.
“My message, the message of Project3500, is about the importance of our
civilization, and if I do it right, the works should be exciting, fun, and a
turn-on for a new generation.”
Aside from Project3500, one of Kirschen’s long-standing goals has been to
create a Passover Haggada. And now, through his Kickstarter online project, he
hopes to raise enough money to realize his dream.
The type of success and recognition he has achieved would make any man proud.
But he is not ready to stop. He continues to publish a weekly cartoon in The
Jerusalem Post in the belief that he can help people see reality from a
different perspective.
He truly hopes to change perceptions on a grand scale. No bones about it,
Kirschen has made his mark.