The Jewish Side of Comics

I have just been informed of a fascinating panel being held at this
year's NY Comic Convention (at the Jacob Javits Center).

I wanted to spread the word.

For the record, I will be attending this panel. So if you do go, walk up to people and ask "Hey, are you Typo Lad"?

The Jewish Side of Comics
Sun., Feb. 25, 2007
4:00-5:00 PM
Room 1E04

Moderated by Steven M. Bergson of The Jewish Comics Blog
http://jewishcomics.blogspot.com

* Rabbi Simcha Weinstein (author of Up and Oy Vey : How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero) will be talking about Biblical archetypes of superheroes.
http://www.rabbisimcha.com

* Danny Fingeroth (author of the still-forthcoming Disguised as Clark Kent : Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero) will be talking about the Jewish writers of superhero stories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Fingeroth

*Josef Rubinstein will talk about two books he's working on for Mahrwood Press : Balm in Gilead and Journeys : The Collected Edition.
http://www.myspace.com/joerubinstein
http://www.mahrwoodpress.com/

*Stan Mack will talk about a series of Jewish historical fiction graphic novels he's working on.
http://www.stanmack.com/

*Neil Kleid will talk about the cartoon memoir about his Orthodox evelopmentally disabled younger brother, titled Migdal David, to be published by Seraphic Press.
http://www.rantcomics.com/
http://www.seraphicpress.com/

Black History Month.

Today, February 1st, kicks off Black History Month.

You may recall that my inaugural post was about Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). How the thought that we needed a day (other than Tisha B'av, of course) set aside just to remember it seemed off, as growing up it was such a part of life.

Don't laugh but I feel the same way about Black History Month. A friend of mine once commented that he finds it fascinating that people view history as something that would be too diluted if "you put too much Black in it".

Black History is American history. Textbooks on American history should be thoroughly "integrated". Instead, we get chapters or separate texts. Even worse, some schools save February as the only real month they focus on Black History. Plus there's the fact that some treat it as Black Trivia month (and no, George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter. Check wikipedia if you don't believe me).

"But," you ask "What does this have to do with Judaism?"

It has everything to do with Judaism. Because being Jewish isn't something that's limited to those of Eastern-European ancestry. In fact, in the historical scheme of things, fair-skinned Jews are a recent invention.

Yet when someone pictures a Jew, they tend to picture an Ashkenazi.

When we learn about Jewish History, how much focus is spent on Sephardic history? Aside from the expulsion from Spain and the Rambam I can't think of anything we covered in class (this could just be my faulty memory, of course). Does your child know that the first shul in NY was Congregation Shearith Israel, a Sepharidc shul? That's right, there was life before the Lower East Side.


How many U.S. Jews even knew that there are African Jews? Are they taught about in school? Do you interact with them? I just found out this year that there is a Falasha shul near where I grew up in one of the boroughs of NY. That boggles my mind. How did I not know this? The only Black Jews I knew about were the "Black Hebrews".

This February, let's try to think outside the the generally Ashkenaz-centric boundries of American Jewery.

I Did Not Know This.

I was unaware that there was an actual line of Non-Glatt Kosher Meat, under a reliable Haskacha (assuming one eats non-Glatt).

Fascinating.

I Did Not Know This.

I was unaware that there was an actual line of Non-Glatt Kosher Meat, under a reliable Haskacha (assuming one eats non-Glatt).

Fascinating.