Israel Through Quebecois Eyes

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Crossposted from Haaretz
Israel — its conflict and its paradoxes — has become a source of inspiration for cartoonists from all over the world, who seek to explore this hot topic through a combination of graphics and narration. In 2008, the Quebecois comic-book author Guy Delisle moved to East Jerusalem for the year, following his wife, who worked at the time for Medecin Sans Frontiere.
“We only found out we were going there a month before we moved. We thought we were going to Japan. I had no particular interest in Israel and the conflict at the time,” Delisle said in an interview with Haaretz.
It is probably this fresh look on the conflict that has made “Chroniques de Jerusalem” — the graphic novel he would eventually publish at the end of 2011 — so appealing to the French audience, where it is now becoming a best-seller.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chief