March 17, 2005 Web Wire Editor's Note Print E-mail
Written by Daniel Estrin   

A Laughing Matter: Good Clean Anti-Semitic Fun
The joke-making, Haman-bashing lollapalooza of Purim is behind us, and April Fools Day is inching closer. What better way to celebrate the season of mockery than some good, clean Anti-Semitic fun?

In the wake of the Danish Mohammed cartoon brouhaha, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri announced a call for submissions to its Holocaust denial cartoon contest. In a time warp back to kindergarten, the paper decided to respond to the offensive cartoons by raising (er, lowering) the bar and calling for even more offensive cartoons. So far, over 200 entries have poured in from all parts of the globe.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a young Israeli comic book publisher named Amitai Sandy has teamed up with some friends to host their own Jew-bashing, Holocaust-denying cartoon contest. But here’s the kicker: only Jewish cartoonists can enter.

Sandy’s logic? “We'll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published,” he wrote in a press release.

The move is a stroke of genius, and reflects the wisdom that Jews have learned after thousands of years of practice: the most satisfying way to show up the enemy who mocks you is to mock yourself—and to do a better job at it. And they’re not messing around here: Jewish cartoon luminary Art Spiegelman (of MAUS fame) is on the panel of judges, and the winning cartoons will be displayed in a Tel Aviv art museum.

The contest deadline has already passed, but you can check out the entries on the contest's website. When I began viewing a slideshow of the images, I was looking forward to a good laugh. But not all of the cartoons are good clean fun: ironically, some don’t look any different than despicable anti-Semitic propaganda circulated in many Arab newspapers today. Quite a few of the entries, like this one, are nothing more than reproductions of the hideous Jewish male with outrageous sidelocks greedily holding the globe in the palm of his hand. Just because the drawing was penned by a Jew doesn’t decrease the despicable image the cartoon propagates. If I were running the Iranian newspaper contest, I’d give this cartoon an honorable mention.

Many cartoonists, however, did understand the point of the contest, and their entries are comedic masterpieces. Who can’t relish this glimpse into an Elders of Zion cocktail party, probably taking place in West Palm Beach, FL? Or this lineup of Jewish suspects? What makes these winners in my eyes is the fact that artistically, they reproduce the stock image of the stereotypical Jew, but shrewdly expose the absurdity of such a histrionic depiction. And, besides, a nu? here and there never fails to crack me up.

This issue of the Web Wire, though, is no laughing matter. We’ve got some serious entries: a news brief about our favorite Texas Jewboy running for Governor, a rumination on Hebrew and Swahili classes at Harvard, an alternative response to kashrut, and a travelogue from skullcapped Jewish hippies in the heart of America. Maybe we’ll syndicate this Web Wire to Hamshahri.

Happy Reading and Shabbat Shalom,

Daniel
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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.
 
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