Life

Our Comics Don’t Eat Brains

By Dan Friedman August 20, 2009

When we at the Forward run articles the world listens carefully. When we choose not to run pieces, apparently, the world jumps to attention and blogs it.

Forward columnist Eli Valley’s biting cartoons about Evangelical Zionists, Jewish Social Entrepreneurs, Abe Foxworthy (the accidental scientific melding of Abe Foxman and Jeff Foxworthy) and the moral communal context of Bernie Madoff got some media play. But when “Dawn of the Chimpanzee! (Don’t Worry Folks, It’s Only a Metaphor)” (his satire on how American Zionist education projects fantasies of Israel) failed to run, the blogosphere went crazy.

First of all Gawker ran it in their Unspiked series provoking a range of comments underneath it.

Then Tablet caught the Eli bug and blogged the Gawker publication. Former Forward staffer Marissa Brostoff, after calling for comment to no avail as we rollercoasted towards deadline, caught the mood nicely with her “So, for now, the answer to why a Jewish newspaper refused to run a comic in which Israelis are depicted as non-brain-eating primates must remain a mystery.”

Soon Jewlicious were up on the game, proudly printing the comment despite, probably judging from the comments there, largely disagreeing with everything in the cartoon. “He Mocks Us — But We Love Him”: their magnanimous title (and who wouldn’t love him?!).

And, where Jewlicious leads, Jewschool follows. Well, not necessarily, but sandwiched in between a piece on Quaker meetings and healthcare reform, comes their “Fuel For Chimpanzee Truth.”

Finally, at least for today, the diaspora satire on diasporic educational projections of Israel have wended their way over to the land of chimpanzees itself (just kidding — not even a metaphor). Haaretz posted the cartoon in their Hot Topic section as an example of cucumber season hubbub. Cucumbers and chimpanzees seems like a mixed metaphor to me, but perhaps it’s just a new reality show.

Anyway, thanks for the attention guys. I’m thinking of spiking a 5,000 word piece on the interaction between Jewish accountants in nineteenth century Latvia — can’t wait for the blogs to get hold of that!

Dan Friedman is the former executive editor and whisky correspondent of the Forward, and is the author of a book about Tears for Fears, the ’80s emo rock band.

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