While discussing the latter half of J.T. Waldman's "Megillat Esther" in class this week, someone mentioned that they read that there is a theory that Esther and Mordecai are Ishtar and Marduk in a retelling of the ancient Babylonian myth (they weren't saying they believed it, just that they had read about it). I was interested to hear that because I'm always fascinated by such ideas. The reason why I am fascinated is because people will come up with all sorts of excuses not to believe something. The people coming up with these theories would rather create these ideas instead of examining the truth of the Bible on its own merits. As a born again Christian, I believe the Bible to be God's Word. I find such theories as the Esther/Isthtar one to be offensive to people who believe in the truth of the Hebrew Bible as well as people that believe in the truth of the New Testament. The reason I find these ideas offensive is because they are attempts to deny the truth of the Bible by grasping at straws.

My comments are not meant to offend anyone in anyway. I've just noticed that there are many ways in which some people avoid examining the truth of the Bible, whether talking about the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament or both.

Rachel and Leah: Fulfilling God's Purposes in Spite of Themselves

Overall I have not been overly impressed with J.T. Waldman's "Megillat Esther." My main issue is that I do not like his artistic style very much. It's too cluttered for my taste. That being said, Waldman's work has some interesting and unique components. Putting a book of the Bible into graphic novel form is not an original idea but Waldman executes it with some unique elements. He has interludes and little side plots in the book. My favorite is the Rachel/Leah dispute going on, in which their competitive nature shines. Waldman did this, presumably, because Esther and Mordecai are descended from Rachel and Jacob, while Haman, the bad guy, is descended from Jacob's brother Esau. Waldman has them arguing (seemingly just to argue). For instance, on page 106-107 Rachel and Leah are hidden amongst the plants on the bottom of the two pages arguing. Esther is important because she saves the Judaic people from genocide by risking her life to ask the king to spare them. To me, this little side story of Rachel and Leah in the story is great because it reminds the reader of their descendants. Esther, who was vital to her people's survival, was descended from Rachel, while from Leah came the Davidic line, of which Jesus Christ was a part. So, both sisters helped fulfill God's plan for the world in spite of their bitterness towards one another and selfishness. To me personally this is also a great example of how God uses people to fulfill His purposes despite people's failures and shortcomings.

The Israeli Role in the Sabra and Shatila Massacre

Following the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, the Lebanese Christian Phalangist party leader, the party retaliated by murdering Palestinian refuges in Beirut at the Sabra and Shatila refuge camps. Based on the discussion in class, the film "Waltz with Bashir" itself and my own research, there is the question of what exactly Israel's invovlement was. Undeniably, they were at least enablers to an extent by allowing the Phalangists into the camps and setting off flares in the dark so the Phalangists could carry out their "work". Although the intent of the Phalangists was supposedly just to find the PLO terrorists allegedly responsible for Bashir's death, they murdered for sure several hundred people and possibly up to three thousand. Why they decided to kill children, for instance, is beyond comprehension. Perhaps it could be argued that they were just following orders, but my question is, who gave these orders, or did they somehow misunderstand their orders?

And the Israeli involvement is hugely disturbing as well. The fact that Ariel Sharon is considered at least indirectly responsible for the massacre and then managed to make such a successful political career comeback is bizarre and unsettling. I guess I just don't understand how all of this was allowed to happen; I'm not blaming any one person in particular because I don't pretend to have all the facts. Apparently no one does. It reminds me of the Holocaust - how that happened boggles my mind as well. As was brought up in class discussion, there is the claim that people involved were just following orders. I think that's a ridiculous excuse for murdering innocent human beings. The entire situation with the massacre is disgusting and upsetting. It could easily happen again to anyone, anywhere.

Animation vs Actual Footage - The Contrast in "Waltz with Bashir"

This week in our class, we watched the film "Waltz with Bashir." This was a very interesting film to watch for many reasons. The form of animation is unique and fresh. The story was very interesting and the animation allowed it to be told in a certain way. The film presented very disturbing situations that occured during the Israeli-Lebanon War of 1982. The massacre of Palestinian refuges by the Christian Phalangists was very disturbing, although this is the intended reaction I'm sure. One important aspect of the final minutes of the film is that there is a switch from animation to actual footage of the aftermath of the murders, when Palestinian women are walking around the area of Beirut that held the refuge camps and they are crying and wailing. I think this was a brilliant choice on the part of the filmmakers because it forces the viewer to recognize that these were actual events, not just a cartoon. With animation it is all too easy to convince oneself that one is simply watching a movie, but to see footage of the actual event, or in this case, the direct aftermath, prevents the viewer from walking away without having an emotional reaction of some sort.

For me personally, the reaction was one of shock and dismay. One of the characters in the film talks about walking through the camps right after the massacre stopped and seeing a little curly haired girl in the rubble; only her head and a hand visible. This reminds him of his own little girl. The dead child is shown animated and then when you see live action the little girl is shown. I was saddened when they had this scene in animation but seeing the real little girl, knowing this actually happened to a child, is absolutely horrifying. The viewer cannot escape from it because it is real. While there is always a level of distaste when showing corpses on film, I feel it is an important way to reach people emotionally and force them to acknowledge the horrors of violence. For this reason I feel the filmmakers made the right choice when they decided to end the film with footage of what had happened.

A Talking Feline

Reading Joann Sfar's "The Rabbi's Cat" is interesting because the cat is narrating the story. I thought having a cat narrate the story was a creative idea and it makes for a unique perspective on what happens throughout the book. This cat does many fascinating things and has interesting thoughts. For a portion of the book the cat gains the ability to speak. I enjoy this aspect of the book because I've always wished my cats could speak English. Knowing what is going on in their little heads would be quite amusing, although they are so naughty in general that knowing what they are thinking could cause me aggravation at times. However, communicating with them through language would be an interesting experience. I wonder if Sfar's idea to make the cat speak came from his desire to have his cat speak to him.

In class it was mentioned that the cat is able to speak after eating a parrot and people wondered if this is a reference to The Fall in the Garden of Eden and the knowledge humans gained from eating the fruit they were forbidden by God to eat. I hadn't considered that idea while I read the book but I think it has merit. Sfar may very well have intended the reader to interpret the situation that way. If so it's interesting because a cat has no business speaking any more than people should be disobedient to God, but the cat ate the bird because of its selfish reasons just like people go their own way out of selfishness.

Different Geography, Different Customs

Reading this week's reading "The Rabbi's Cat" by Joann Sfar was interesting because it opened my eyes to the fact that there are different Jewish cultures in a sense. The rabbi and his daughter are North African Jews. I never considered North Africa as a place where Jews live or lived. The differences between North African Jews and French Jews become somewhat obvious in the last section of the book when the rabbi travels with his daughter and her husband to Paris to stay with the son-in-law's family. The rabbi becomes angry on page 106 when he discovers that the son-in-law's family is not very religious. He refuses to stay in their house, saying "I just can't do that" (106). Later on after he comes around he comes to the family's house and speaks to the son-in-law's father, who is really not very religious. In fact, this man finds it odd that his son became a rabbi even though he had raised him to be non-religious (139). The differences between the two families are interesting to me because it seems that the French family is more secular and urbanized while the North African family is more religious.

The book also mentions two different types of Jews. On page 51 the rabbi is asked a question by a man with a hypothetical question concerning etiquette on different food customs. The Askenazim and Sephardim are the two groups mentioned. According to what we learned in class, Sephardi are Mediterranean Jews (technically the term should only apply to Jews of Spanish descent but it's used more broadly) and the Askenazim are European Jews. I thought this was interesting because I had never thought before about different Jewish groups based on geography and it's also interesting that they have some different customs relating to food and such because I tend to think more of similarities than differences about groups of people.

A Survivor's Habits

I've noticed repeatedly throughout the second half of Art Spiegelman's "Maus" that Vladek, Art's Holocaust surviving father, exhibits rather odd behaviors as a result of his experiences. For instance, on page 112 Vladek draws a diagram of the bunker in which he and Anja had hidden in one of the ghettos, saying "such things it's good to know exactly how was it - just in case." I interpreted this to mean that Vladek desired that his son have an idea how to create a bunker in case of some type of desperate situation, such as a war. Vladek probably realized that what had happened to him could happen again.

On page 118, Vladek and Art are walking along as Vladek shares part of his story and picks up telephone wire, telling his son that "it's good for tying things," to which Art replies "you always pick up trash! Can't you just buy wire?" Vladek says in reply "Why always you want to buy when you can find?" This exchange reveals Vladek's desire to save money by picking up discarded objects instead of buying things new, and also we learn from this discussion that this is not an isolated incident because Art's comment tells us Vladek has done this before. On page 134 Art's stepmother Mala says that Vladek has quite a bit of money in the bank and yet is very cheap. On page 133 she says that when they married and she needed some new clothes he tried to give her his first wife's clothes. Mala feels that his stinginess is not a result of being a Holocaust survivor because "all our friends went through the camps. Nobody is like him!" I think that Vladek's desire to spend as little money as possible resulted from a fear that perhaps there would be another war and he had discovered in WWII in hiding and in the ghetto that having savings meant the difference between life and death - money meant food and sometimes a hiding place. I think he picks up things off the street because he learned to get by with very little during the war and desires also to save as much money as he is able.

"Maus": Disturbing Revelations

Art Spiegelman's "Maus" brings up many troubling aspects of WWII, namely that of Jewish people in Europe. It does so in the form of a graphic novel. The drawings add a unique component to the story because often books recounting Holocaust survivor experiences are in novel form with few if any photographs. The drawings create a visual (obviously). There are many points in the first half of the story which I found troubling. One such part is on page 121 when Vladek (Art Spiegelman's father) discovers that cake is to be had in the ghetto if one can pay the 75 zlotys for a slice. The man who sells the cake goes around collecting the ingredients from houses of people who have been sent to Auschwitz. Vladek buys some of the cake for himself and Anja, his wife. I found this situation troubling because while I understand that selling the cake helps people survive, it seems disturbing that they are making money off of the misfortunes of others. Furthermore, I was disturbed that Vladek didn't seem to think about the ethics of the situation, although we can't know for sure because he may never have told Art about any emotions he had about it and we are reading the story which has been filtered through Art.

Another part of the book I found disturbing was on page 110 when some children in the ghetto were going to be taken to Auschwitz and were unable to stop crying because they were afraid. The Nazi response was to murder these children by bashing them against a wall. This scene is upsetting for many reasons, not least of which is how sad was the fate of these innocent victims. But I found the scene troubling for another reason: I wondered to myself how many of these soldiers who were murdering these children had children themselves in Germany or had much younger siblings or nieces and nephews. I have always been dismayed by the ease with which the Nazis were made to believe that Jewish people were less than human and therefore killing them was perfectly acceptable. When a child is crying and screaming from fear, killing him or her, especially in such a cruel fashion, seems like the opposite of what should be the natural response - to attempt to calm the child.

In both of the above situations, the response of people to what has happened is strange to me. The latter example is much more disturbing than the former, but they both have their negative aspects.

The Silver Scorpion - Muslim Superhero

Earlier this week, I found a newspaper article about a new comic book superhero  coming out - a Muslim boy. But even more interesting is that this boy is in a wheelchair. The idea for this superhero came from a group of disabled young Syrians and Americans who met in Damascus last month. The article states "The superhero's appearance hasn't been finalized, but an early sketch shows a Muslim boy who lost his legs in a landmine accident and later becomes the Silver Scorpion after discovering he has the power to control metal with his mind." He will use his  "power to flight for social inclusion, equity and justice." I think this comic book hero is an interesting idea, because I have never heard of a Muslim superhero before. And the idea to have a superhero with a disability is wonderful; I hope this will have a positive effect on how people with various disabilities are perceived. I'm interested to see how a Muslim superhero will be perceived by Americans. I'm curious about how many countries this comic book will be distributed in. The article mentions that the company hopes to release the first issue in November, and the comic book will be published in Arabic and English. The ability to control metal with his mind should provide opportunities for many intriguing storylines. I'm interested to see what other characters are brought into the comic book; the article does not mention sidekicks or villains or any other characters besides the boy himself. It's not even clear from the article if he has a name yet (his real name, not his Silver Scorpion moniker). I think Silver Scorpion is an excellent superhero name, although it reminds me of the Silver Surfer. "New Muslim comic book superhero on the way" by Edith M. Lederer is the article.

Comic Books Exploring Important Social and Historical Issues

As I continue to learn about the history of comic books, I'm becoming more and more aware of how comic books have been used to deal with social and historical issues. For instance, in his book "From Krakow to Krypton" Arie Kaplan discusses Superman "as social crusader" (85). He notes the comment by George Reeves about the Superman TV show in the 1950s that "We even try, in our scripts, to give gentle messages of tolerance and to stress that a man's color and race and religious beliefs should be respected" (85). I was surprised to read this, simply because I don't generally think of 1950s America as a time of tolerance. This was before the Civil Rights movement and before ideas about general diversity were widely received. I did notice in his comment that he refers to tolerance for " a man's" race and beliefs, not including women. While not probably intentional it was interesting to me because it reflects a time of male privilege in America - he says nothing about women and doesn't use a term like "human's" or "person's." However, his comment does reveal an emphasis on tolerance in a time when tolerance for other beliefs and equality for people of different backgrounds, racial or otherwise, was not widely considered.

Another issue that comic books tackle is the Holocaust. I was really surprised to learn about this. The X-Men villain Magneto is a Holocaust survivor. Another X-Men character, Kitty Pryde, is the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. This information about these characters came out in the 1970s, which was a time in which Americans began to be more conscious of the Holocaust. I found it fascinating that comic books dealt with issues of tolerance in the 1950s and Holocaust memory in the 1970s. Frankly, I never thought of comic books as discussing important issues until I started this course.

What's in a name?

In my last post, "Superman as Metaphor," I briefly discussed how some Jewish actors changed their names in Hollywood. I feel that this topic merits further discussion. Jewish actors changed their names because having a Jewish-sounding name could hinder their careers. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism made some people feel they needed to hide their ethnic background. When I read this in Kaplan's book, I immediately thought of the film "Gentleman's Agreement." This is a 1947 movie starring Gregory Peck and John Garfield and discusses anti-Semitism. In the bonus features on the dvd my mom has, there's a little documentary on various aspects of the film and the story it tells. Sadly, no Hollywood studio wanted to have anything to do with the production of this film because they tried to avoid touchy subjects in their films (they didn't want to rock the boat by discussing anti-Semitism). Finally the film was made. One of the actors in the film, John Garfield, was Jewish - his birth name was Jacob Garfinkle, but he changed it. Having seen this bonus feature in "Gentleman's Agreement" that discussed various Jewish actors changing their names, I was not at all surprised when I read about the name changing in Kaplan's book.

Understanding this portion of "the Jewish experience" (15) makes me also understand why the creators of Superman chose a very "American," boring name for him - Clark Kent. This name has no ethnic identity; it's blah. Frankly, I think that it's unfortunate that many Jewish actors changed their names. Personally, I think Jacob Garfinkle is much more interesting than John Garfield.

Superman as Metaphor

Arie Kaplan's book "From Krakow to Krypton" discusses the role many Jewish individuals played in the comic book industry from its inception. I discovered as I read the first section ("The Golden Age") that the history of comic books is quite fascinating. I must confess I never thought comic books or their history were something that would be interesting, but I have been pleasantly surprised. In fact, I think I would enjoy reading some of the early comic books that are discussed in this section.

Kaplan discusses many aspects of the early comic book industry in this section of his book, including the creation of Superman and how Superman has "recently been seen by pop culture scholars as the ultimate metaphor for the Jewish experience" (13). There are several reasons for this. One is that there is a similiarity between the extermination of people on Superman's home planet and the Holocaust (14). Another is that Superman's real name is Kal-El which approximately translates to "All that God is" in Hebrew (15). A third reason is that the name Superman uses to hide his true identity is Clark Kent, which is an average sounding American name, devoid of any ethnic identity. This third reason is a lens through which to view the Jewish experience because some Jewish people did change their names to hide or downplay their Jewish heritage (anti-Semitism was a problem for Jewish people, including in the area of employment). The example Kaplan mentions is that of Hollywood actors altering their names (15) . I believe the idea of Superman being used to think about the Jewish experience has some merit. However, I feel that it's a stretch to an extent for a few reasons. For starters, the Holocaust had not yet taken place when Superman was first created. Secondly, what exactly is "the Jewish experience"? While there are many aspects of historical life that can be used (and Kaplan does) to discuss this, I do not think it is fair to use such a blanket term. "The Jewish experience" would not have been the same for everyone, and using broad general terms such as that always make me nervous because some important things will be overlooked.

Sam's Mistress

"Cookalein" is a story in Will Eisner's graphic novel "A Contract With God." This story follows the characters in a Jewish neighborhood in New York and their summer vacations. Some characters go out into the country on vacation while others stay in the city. In one family, the wife and children go out to the country and Sam, the husband and father remains in the city. While his family is out of town, Sam spends time with his mistress, Kathleen. In the scene where Sam and Kathleen are together, Kathleen is portrayed wearing a cross necklace and nothing else. I believe Eisner meant the wearing of the cross to convey to the reader that Kathleen is not Jewish. Obviously Eisner felt it was important for the reader to understand that Kathleen is not Jewish.

In spite of what Eisner meant in having Kathleen wear a cross, I read more into it. As a born-again Christian, it had another dimension to me, even if that is not what Eisner intended. Based on her actions (Kathleen is having an affair with a married man and wants him to leave his wife for her) I question whether Kathleen is a Christian even though she is wearing a Christian symbol. I view her as someone who was perhaps raised Christian or "nominally" Christian but never made her faith her own. I wish Eisner had developed her character more because I'm curious about Kathleen's beliefs in light of her actions. I'm not suggesting anyone judge Kathleen's actions; I just wonder about her. Although she has a very small part in the story, she was the most interesting to me.

Interpretation

For our most recent class, we read "A Contract With God." For each of the stories there are many points of interest. However, I am going to focus here on the story from which the book takes it's name. At the end of the story a little boy named Shloime Khreks finds the stone on which Frimme Hersh had documented his contract with God so many years earlier; Shloime signed his name under Frimme's, "thereby entering a contract with God" (Eisner 61). Some of my classmates were debating how the final page is meant to be interpreted in light of the drawing Eisner has done. Some people felt that because of the lamppost with the very bright light illuminating the picture the point is that the boy will not make the same mistakes as Frimme and his contract with God will end positively. Others believed that the dark shadow covering Shloime's face (continuing from the previous page after he discovers the contract with God stone) is meant to state that he will succumb to similiar problems. My intepretation of the picture is that the bright light represents Shloime's excitement at entering the contract with God. He idealizes what this will mean in his life as Frimme Hersh did in his youth. While Eisner never actually states what Shloime thinks the contract will mean, I believe the reader is meant to assume that he has a similiar understanding to that of young Frimme. What Shloime believes to be a positive way of living will eventually fall apart when at some point he perceives God as not holding up His end of the contract. I like how different people can interpret elements of Eisner's story in different ways.

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