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Before the knee jerk conservatives show up here to tell you how self-hating you are, let me state for the record that you are freaking brilliant.

Jeff thinks it's more cool to think about Jews in Austria in 1903 then about Jews in Austria in 1943.

Still, in 1903 Karl Luger was already around. Of course neither Eyges nor Elie Valley know anything about that.

Ignorance isn't brilliance, it's just ignorance.

That’s right, kids! As an infant, Bruno Bettelheim used to hang around Viennese cafés eavesdropping on conversations which he would later transcribe verbatim. These listening and memory skills would later serve him well a child psychologist.

Gee whiz, Etgar, where’d you dig up Lueger? Mebbe googling Vienna and anti-Semitism? You should probably have that jerky knee looked at.

WHAT??

There were anti-Semites in Austria before WWII?? No Way!

Eli Valley provides me with a dilemma. As an anti-semite, I enjoy his cartoons, which conform to my vision of international jewry. On the other hand, I dont like giving credit to a jew

I’m still trying to understand what your problem with the cartoon is, Etgar. Do you actually believe that Weltsch, Brod, Herzl, Buber and Kafka were busily gazing at their pupiks in 1903 like so many Jewish artists and community leaders do today, self-consciously trying to make Jewishness hip? Or do you believe that Eli Valley thinks that Herzl scrapped Zionism for photographing his nipples? Or mebbe because Buber et al. didn’t do enough to thwart Lueger [that's “ue” like an umlaut], thus leading to the rise of Hitler and your family’s exit from Austria?

Mebbe you have difficulty understanding comics, Etgar. You should prob’ly stay away from those issues of Superman and Captain America in which they fight the Nazis, they’ll only upset you. You should prob’y avoid Maus as well. The animal symbolism could set you off about how the problems of rodents in Poland were nothing compared to what real Jews in Austria went through.

Since you apparently regard reading comics a lesser endeavor than reading “real history,” Etgar, I wonder why you even bothered to click Eli’s cartoon up to a readable size. Mebbe that big chip on your shoulder fell onto your mouse?

Hey Joe, you’re not really Goebbels. Your writing style doesn’t match Goebbels’ unsigned rant against Superman in the 25 April 1940 issue of _Das schwarze Korps_. For comparison, see Randall Bytwerk’s German Propaganda Archive [http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/superman.htm]; background provided by Paul Gravett [http://www.paulgravett.com/index.php/articles/article/from_superman_to_the_rabbis_cat/].

How’s that for history?

Etgar's life is a homage to victimhood. Valley disses it with his comic strip and Jack has failed to validate it, resulting, predictably, in a temper tantrum rife with contrived outrage and adolescent vitriol. Christ, what a fucking bore. the jewish blogosphere is becoming like cable television. 120 channels and the same derivative crap is on every one.

Jack "I'm still trying to understand what your problem with the cartoon is, Etgar. Do you actually believe that Weltsch, Brod, Herzl, Buber and Kafka were busily gazing at their pupiks in 1903 like so many Jewish artists and community leaders do today, self-consciously trying to make Jewishness hip?"

Give it up Jack, i doubt you are capable of understanding anything about life in Vienna in 1903.

Btw: Neither Kafka nor Brod lived in Vienna in 1903. Max Brod still hadn't graduated from the German Charles-Ferdinand University where he met Kafka.

Satire is great but one has to know something about the subject one is satirizing.

And of course Martin Buber was trying to make Judaism popular with Jews. This is why he started a magazine and became a Zionist. He was concerned with the preservation of the Jewish people which to you seems ridiculous, I am sure.

A rabbi, a priest and a Baptist minister walk into a bar....

Oh, wait a minute, rabbis and priests don’t frequent the same bars and Baptists don’t drink. Never mind.

If Martin Buber were to grow a Jewfro and marketed silk hats emblazoned with edgy text —available through CaféPress— in order to appeal to “die Jugend,” then yes, I'd agree he was ridiculous. However, I certainly would not trust Etgar’s judgment of what is ridiculous as his sense of ridiculous is surely as atrophied as his sense of humor.

Btw, _Die Welt_ was founded in 1897 by Theodor Herzl. Buber only became editor in 1902. Fairly soon afterward Buber withdrew from mainstream Zionism because the Herzlian Zionists were too secular.

Jack "If Martin Buber were to grow a Jewfro and marketed silk hats emblazoned with edgy text —available through CaféPress— in order to appeal to “die Jugend,” then yes, I'd agree he was ridiculous. However, I certainly would not trust Etgar’s judgment of what is ridiculous as his sense of ridiculous is surely as atrophied as his sense of humor."

What a piece of nonsense this is.

Humor is lost on someone like you so I wouldn't even try it.

Yuo were wrong about both Kafka and Brod and youe quibbles about Buber are ridiculous.

Buber's invovlement with Jewish causes was lifelong.

This whole thread is ridiculous starting with the childish cartoons and ending with Jack.

"the jewish blogosphere is becoming like cable television. 120 channels and the same derivative crap is on every one."

Seconded.

"...Martin Buber was trying to make Judaism popular with Jews"

Exactly. A study in absurdity epitomized in the present day by such fractiles as;

"Jewcy"

"Heeb"

"jewlicious"

etc, etc,.....

hence the satire.

While I appreciate Mr. Valley's rapier-like wit, it would appear, to paraphrase Mr. Lincoln, that it is not equal to the dogmas of the past or the present.

Did you mean _fractals_, as in “looks the same, no matter how you slice it”? Nice. Fractal even has Jewish connections, e.g., the Mandelbrot set, and the Koch snowflake which appears to be infinite iterations of a magen David.

If you meant “fractal,” this brings up the question of how much randomness is involved in the generation of the similarity found in Jewcy, Heeb, jewlicious, et al. I’d guess not much.

"...Did you mean _fractals_, as in “looks the same, no matter how you slice it”?"

Did I mispell the word? Please excuse my carelessness. What I meant to suggest was that Martin Buber and his endeavours were the original prototype for such efforts as Heeb and Jewcy, therby making them faded mimeographs of the original concept. Much in the same way the veins on a maple leaf replicate the pattern of branches of the tree it came from or the way an old TV Tube replicates the function and design of the human eye.

"... Fractal even has Jewish connections, e.g., the Mandelbrot set, and the Koch snowflake which appears to be infinite iterations of a magen David."

I wasn't aware of that Jack. Cool.

OT Dear Mr. Valley, have you ever pondered the meaning of the name “Jacob, deceiver”? Is it a metaphor for jews (or G-d) being deceptive? I follow with interest your insights, and would like to know what you think about it. Disclaimer: honest question, I know it has antisemitic overtones, but I thought any insight would somehow dispel such uncomfortable thoughts.