Illustrating the Day-to-Day: “Young, Jewish, and Alive” through COVID-19

I made these sketches for myself, as a coping mechanism. It turns out graduating from college during a mass uprising/recession/pandemic/climate collapse/rise of global fascism is stressful. When historians look back on this moment, they’ll find stories of crisis and stories of heroes. They’ll see images of people putting their bodies on the line to fight for justice or working tirelessly to take care of each other.

I hope this comic preserves some of what the mundane, day-to-day experience of just being young and Jewish and alive right now feels like. Like the way dandelions grow even when Twitter says the world is ending. Or the challenges of managing mental health when the internet is suddenly a source of hopelessness and your only connection to friends. I want to remember the silence of another night in the same room alone, and the vivid dreams/insomnia of the first few weeks of quarantine, and getting to watch the sunrise before I fell asleep.

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I want to remember the moments on Zoom when it felt like distance wasn’t real. Lex told me that when I lit the Shabbat candles, it made my square on his computer screen brighter, so we were actually bringing light into each other’s spaces. I want to remember trying to sing with Miriam, and the lump in my throat when the audio glitched and the harmonies didn’t line up. I pushed my furniture out of the way and we danced to Robyn at virtual parties until sweat rolled down my neck.

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