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A graphic novel of the Purim story, from a Batman comics editor
(JTA) — In 1996, Jordan Gorfinkel launched two series of comics that get at the two sides to his personality and career.
One was “Birds of Prey” — which has since been the basis for several television and film adaptations — that he created while overseeing the Batman franchise as an editor at DC Comics. (Another claim to fame during his tenure from 1991-99 was the creation of “Batman: No Man’s Land,” which served as inspiration for the 2012 Christopher Nolan blockbuster “Dark Knight Rises.”)
The other that he launched 1996 was “Jewish Cartoon,” an ongoing series of comics that poke fun and celebrate aspects of Jewish life and religious observance. To date, he has followed a cast of characters in this series for over 1,000 cartoons.
Gorfinkel’s newest project combines those two passions into a graphic novel version of the Purim story, usually read in what’s called a Megillah scroll. Gorfinkel said “The Koren Tanakh Graphic Novel Esther,” which is illustrated by Yael Nathan, is a “Batman-style” adaptation.
It’s not his first collaboration with the Jewish publisher — three years ago, he published a graphic novel haggadah with the Israeli artist Erez Zadok.
He and Nathan spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about their latest creation and what’s next in the Jewish graphic novel world.
JTA: What does the book provide beyond the normal Megillah story text?
Gorfinkel: The Koren Esther graphic novel is 100% kosher to bring to your Megillah reading because alongside the sequential art pages is the full, unabridged Hebrew text. The mitzvah is to listen to the Megillah in Hebrew and the tradition is to read it in the language you understand. That’s why this book presents the English translation in the captions and word balloons embedded in the fabulous art by Israeli illustrator Yael Nathan in a stunning package designed by Tzipora Ginzberg.
Why a graphic novel?
Nathan: From a visual perspective, this story has everything. Emotions, action, intrigue, great characters, battles and redemption. It really allowed me to flex my storytelling muscles and try to convey complex scenes and ideas in a limited space.
Gorfinkel: Esther/Hadassah is the O.G. Wonder Woman! Ripped away from her family, her land and her people to serve in a foreign court, keeping a secret identity until the moment comes to step up and be a savior. Megillat Esther is tailor-made for a graphic novel.
Is this book just for kids? Who do you want to reach?
Gorfinkel: I want to reach everyone. With Esther and the Passover haggadah graphic novel that preceded it, readers can return to the material at every age and gain new and deeper insights out of the experience. Think of it like a good “Simpsons” episode, or Pixar movie: kids enjoy the surface meaning while teens and adults experience the same material at deeper levels. The Jewish graphic novels that I produce are child-friendly but decidedly not childish. This is because I acknowledge that Western readers presume that if a book has pictures, it has to be for kids. I’m going to need a few more books to educate the masses otherwise!
Nathan: I think this book is for everyone. The style of the characters is purposefully endearing and humorous, to help people connect to them — but what is conveyed in each panel goes much deeper than cute characters. There is a wealth of knowledge and interpretations that are not in the plain text and are portrayed visually so the reader can take them in without reading a whole page of explanations. Both those who know the meaning behind the text would find interesting references, and those who don’t will learn something new.
Jordan Gorfinkel edited the DC Batman franchise from 1991-99. (Courtesy of Gorfinkel)
What comics did you grow up with? And what do comics mean to you?
Nathan: My father was born and raised in the Philippines, the son of Jewish immigrants who fled from Germany before the second World War. So my influences are from all over the world. I grew up looking at European comics, Israeli cartoons, American golden-age comics that my father brought over from the Philippines and Japanese manga. Comics mean the freedom to tell stories from my own viewpoint with no constraints. Unlike movies — where the efforts required to film a person in a room is much less involved than filming a full space scene with aliens and battleships — in comics, the work involved is all the same. It’s just drawing. No big budgets or additional resources needed. Just imagination and storytelling skill.
Gorfinkel: I never grew up. I’m a Jewish Peter Pan (Pinchas Pan?). In my youth, however, I devoured Batman comics, of course. The basic morality tales of extroverted “good guys” vanquishing evil and consistently delivering justice for all complemented the grade school Torah education I was receiving in Jewish day schools of a variety of different denominations. We moved around a lot, and these superheroes were my comfortable and consistent companions. As I got older, I began to lean into Marvel Comics, whose anti-heroes fought internal struggles between their “yetzer hatov” (good inclination) and “yetzer harah” (evil inclination). Teenaged Gorf appreciated how these nuanced characterizations reflected the deeper layers of Torah I was learning in high school and my gap year in an Israel yeshiva. At the same time, I was, and am, a huge fan of newspaper-style four panel comic strips, quite possibly introduced to me by my zayde [grandfather], who always clipped the Sunday funnies for me. My mother continues the tradition to this day. When I was first starting my own newspaper strip, I reached out for advice and “chizuk” to my favorite artists. I received handwritten replies from nearly everyone, from Charles “Peanuts” Schulz to G.B. “Doonesbury” Trudeau. To this day, I treasure Canadian cartoonist Lynn “For Better or For Worse” Johnston as a mentor and friend.
You have done a Passover graphic novel and now a Purim graphic novel. What’s next?
Gorfinkel: Esther is intended as the lead-off for a Koren graphic novel series surveying the entire Bible. We’re just getting underway… I am also conceptualizing a nonprofit Jewish graphic novel initiative as an umbrella organization, to provide further support for the Koren work and moreover, to train and provide support for the next generation of Jewish visual storytellers who reach out to me because they want to do what I do. Jewish people created the superhero medium. Now, I am bringing the medium full circle so that superheroes and graphic novels can benefit the Jewish people. At the same time, I am traveling North America and the world as a scholar in residence and Jewish Cartoon workshop instructor, spreading my core message: Make Judaism your superpower!
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Progressive Jewish groups say ADL’s ‘Mamdani Monitor’ is ‘Islamophobic and racist’
(JTA) —
A coalition of progressive Jewish organizations is condemning the Anti-Defamation League for what it calls “Islamophobic and racist” attacks on New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
In a statement released Tuesday, the groups criticized the ADL’s creation of a “Mamdani Monitor” to track policies and personnel appointments that the ADL views as threatening Jewish security.
The signatories — including New York Jewish Agenda, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, IfNotNow, J Street NYC, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights — said the project “undermines the shared fight against antisemitism and Islamophobia in New York City.”
“Regardless of how we voted or what our views are on Israel and Palestine,” the letter reads, “we stand firmly against the Islamophobic and racist attacks from the institutions claiming to represent our communities.”
The groups said they intend to work with Mamdani, a Muslim and outspoken critic of Israel, in his pledge to combat antisemitism and all forms of hate. “Together, we can help build a city grounded in justice, dignity, and care for every New Yorker,” the statement said.
The ADL statement announcing the Mamdani Monitor made no reference to Islam. Responding to critics of the Mamdani Monitor in a video last week, the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said of Mamdani that “fierce animosity toward the Jewish state has characterized his entire time in public life” and that “he surrounded himself with people who are notorious for their antisemitism.”
Greenblatt said the ADL has launched an antisemitism tip line for Jewish New Yorkers, and will expand research of policies by and appointees to Mamdani’s administration. “If the new administration does great things to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe and to make them feel welcome, then people should know about it,” Greenblatt said in the video. “And if the new administration takes steps that endanger Jewish New Yorkers and make them feel unwelcome, then people should know about it too. That’s it. It’s pretty simple.”
At least one of the signers of the statement said the ADL is applying a double standard to Mamdani, and that the group hasn’t created a similar monitor to track antisemitic activity within the Trump administration. “We reject false accusations of antisemitism against Black, brown, and Muslim progressive champions who are fighting for a country where all of us can thrive,” Bend the Arc said in a statement on its website.
The letter provides further evidence of a split along ideological and strategic lines among Jewish organizations over how to interact with Mamdani. For groups like the ADL and the UJA-Federation of New York, for whom staunch support of Israel is a core tenet, Mamdani’s support for the boycott movement against Israel, along with his harsh criticism of the country at a time of rising antisemitism, represents a threat to Jewish New Yorkers.
Progressive groups are eager to work with Mamdani on domestic issues like affordability, a pillar of his campaign. Some of the groups who signed Tuesday’s statement, including New York Jewish Agenda and T’ruah, support Israel while advocating for peace and democracy in ways frequently critical of the Israeli government. The day after Mamdani’s victory, NYJA released a statement saying that it looked forward “to engaging the new administration on shared priorities in the months to come, including combating antisemitism and other forms of hate, tackling the affordability crisis, and ensuring that all New Yorkers feel safe in our great city.”
About a third of Jews who voted in the election supported Mamdani.
The post Progressive Jewish groups say ADL’s ‘Mamdani Monitor’ is ‘Islamophobic and racist’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Israeli Ambassador Sounds Alarm on Rising Antisemitism in Germany as Left Party Youth Wing Targets Jews as ‘Traitors’
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, has warned of a rising wave of antisemitism in the European country, particularly from left-wing groups, as the youth wing of Germany’s Left Party continues to spread anti-Israel rhetoric and harasses Zionists, labeling them “traitors.”
In a new interview with the German news outlet Berliner Morgenpost, Prosor said that the local Jewish community is living in fear amid an increasingly hostile climate, noting that it is “better not to walk down Sonnenallee in Neukölln wearing a Star of David.”
“In 2025, Jewish men and women fear attending university or riding the subway because they are visibly Jewish. That schools, community centers, and synagogues require round-the-clock police protection is not normal,” the Israeli diplomat said.
Prosor also highlighted the growing threat of left-leaning antisemitism, saying it is even more dangerous than antisemitism from the political right or from Islamist extremists.
“Left-wing antisemitism, in my view, is even more dangerous because it masks its intentions. It has long operated on the thin line between free speech and incitement,” he said.
“Across Europe, this is visible on university campuses and theaters. Many present themselves as educated, moral, and progressive — yet the line separating free speech from incitement was crossed long ago,” he continued. “Israel is demonized and delegitimized day after day, and it is Jews everywhere who ultimately suffer the consequences.”
His comments came after Germany’s Left Party youth wing last week passed an anti-Israel resolution labeling the world’s lone Jewish state a “colonial and racist state project,” sparking controversy within both the local Jewish community and the party’s senior leadership.
During the Left Youth’s 18th Federal Congress last weekend, Jewish delegates reported being harassed by fellow party members — branded “traitors” and even warned of an internal “purge.”
According to local media reports, several participants left early after colleagues allegedly threatened to show up at their hotel rooms at night.
Now, the youth group is set to vote next week on a motion falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, as well as another measure calling for support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate the Jewish state internationally as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Earlier this year, the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution — the agency responsible for monitoring extremist groups and reporting to the German Interior Ministry — designated BDS as a “proven extremist endeavor hostile to the constitution.” The agency also described the campaign’s “anti-constitutional ideology, which denies Israel’s right to exist.” That followed Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), last year classifying BDS as a “suspected extremist case” with links to “secular Palestinian extremism.”
Prosor in his interview condemned the Left Youth’s latest resolution and the harassment of Jewish members, saying “the red line has been crossed.”
“The youth wing of the Left Party is showing the true face of left-wing antisemitism, which would otherwise remain well hidden,” the Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“By justifying terror, turning a blind eye to antisemitism, and denying Israel’s right to exist, the Left Party has abandoned its moral compass and integrity. All that remains is extremism, radical ideology, and violence,” Prosor continued.
Die rote Linie ist überschritten. Die Jugend der Linkspartei offenbart das wahre Gesicht des linken Antisemitismus, der sonst gut verborgen bleibt.
Mit der Rechtfertigung von Terror, dem Ignorieren von Antisemitismus und der Leugnung des Existenzrechts Israels hat die… pic.twitter.com/mNEmdNR0dp
— Ambassador Ron Prosor (@Ron_Prosor) November 7, 2025
Amid increasing political pressure to clearly distance itself from the youth wing, senior leaders of Germany’s Left Party are now facing growing scrutiny.
While the youth group is technically independent, it relies financially on the main party.
After meeting Wednesday night, the party’s executive committee issued a statement saying there was “broad agreement that the approved motion is inconsistent with the positions of the Left Party.”
“Antisemitism and the downplaying of antisemitic positions contradict the core values of the Left,” the statement read.
“Intimidation, pressure, and exclusion have no place in a left-wing youth organization, and even less in the political culture we uphold as the Left,” it continued.
However, intimidation of dissenting voices and anti-Israel rhetoric are not new within the Left Party, following a pattern of previous antisemitic incidents within the organization.
For example, Berlin’s former Culture Senator, Klaus Lederer, and other prominent members left the organization last year following an antisemitic scandal at a party conference in Berlin.
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Progressive Jewish groups say ADL’s ‘Mamdani Monitor’ is ‘Islamophobic and racist’
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