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At a Jewish comic book festival, fans and creators take time to celebrate joy
(New York Jewish Week) — More than 400 comic book lovers flocked to Manhattan’s Center for Jewish History on Sunday for the first-ever Jewish Comics Experience, a pop culture convention that was billed as the “ultimate comics and pop culture event.”
Some 35 comics creators participated in the inaugural JewCE, including “Sin City” creator Frank Miller and underground comics legend Barbara “Willy” Mendes. Others participating were artists who specialize in depicting Torah stories, creators of Jewish superheroes, autobiographical writers who just happen to be Jewish and non-Jewish authors and artists who create Jewish content.
“It’s high time that Jewish creators are recognized for their contribution to comic culture, a culture that was for the most part created by Jewish people,” JewCE co-founder Fabrice Sapolsky told the New York Jewish Week.
Though the event was planned long before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war, the continued violence in the Middle East and its reverberating effects was resonant across the convention. In myriad panel conversations and in one-on-one discussions, the situation in Israel, increased antisemitism across the globe and the acute need for Jewish joy were frequent themes. For many creators and attendees, “showing up” and supporting the Jewish community was at the top of mind, while others noted the camaraderie among individuals who all shared a a love of Jewish culture.
According to Miriam Mora, the co-founder of JewCE and the director of programming at the Center for Jewish History, the difficult moment made a Jewish comic convention more relevant than ever. “Comics are worth paying attention to because there’s no better way to lift up our community and to fight antisemitism than to educate people about Jewish contributions, Jewish identities, Jewish stories than to celebrate them,” she said.
Indie “comix” icon Mendes, best known for the classic comic “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” agreed. “We just need people to know how wonderful we are because there’s a lot of propaganda out there that we’re terrible,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “We need to counteract that with proof that Jews are wonderful, and that’s what this is all about — and that’s why I’m so happy to be part of the convention.”
The history of Jews and comics is a long and rich one, beginning with the earliest comic book creators — nearly all Jews — to the continued presence of Jewish stories in both popular comics and more esoteric ones. For example, Marvel briefly had a Jewish Black Panther character, while, more recently, author Yehudi Mercato drew upon his Mexican-Jewish family for his middle-grade graphic memoir, “Chunky.” Meanwhile, some traditional Jewish texts have gotten the graphic novel treatment, including Mendes’ recent takes on the weekly Torah portion.
Indie comics icon Barbara “Willy” Mendes poses in front of her mural depicting Torah portions. (Elizabeth Karpen)
JewCE was created to spotlight this rich, diverse history, and the convention was born out of smaller Jewish comic cons that Sapolsky had organized in 2016 and 2018 at Congregation Kol Israel in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In 2022, Mora reached out to Sapolsky to propose the idea of a larger Jewish comic con at the Center for Jewish History. A lifelong comic book fan herself, Mora thought the center, with its central location near Union Square, was the perfect locale.
“I always regretted that I couldn’t do more Jewish comic cons and Miriam said the magic words. She said ‘let’s be creative,’” Sapolsky told New York Jewish Week.
That creativity was on full display Sunday as creators spoke at panels such as “Jewish Folklore in Comics,” “Queering Jewish Comics” and “Getting Past Ashkenormativity and Secularism in Comics.” Jewish publishers sold a variety of books and individual creators signed their work and mingled with fans. One table was run by the mother of a writer of a Holocaust education comic who couldn’t make the trip from Los Angeles.
Miriam Libicki, an artist and author, traveled many hours from her home in Vancouver to attend the inaugural event. “I knew I really would love to be part of this new con starting up,” Libicki, the author of “But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust,” told the New York Jewish Week. “All the creators are so many people that I’m huge fans of, or colleagues and just Jews in comics who have found each other.”
For some attendees, JewCE was their entry into the world of Jewish comics.
Friends Tracy Weiss and Chavi Kahn had planned to see the Yeshiva University Museum exhibit “The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries” at the center when they discovered it closed for convention day. So instead, they attended JewCE, describing it as “completely out of our comfort zones.” And yet, they were surprised at how much they learned about the Jewish origins of the comic industry.
“You could really see the theme of trying to rise above our enemies and challenges,” Kahn said. “And I think it’s particularly resonant in this moment when there are so many challenges, and the depth of this expression is really impressive.”
In addition to the convention, a concurrent exhibit at the Center for Jewish History, “The Museum and Laboratory of the Jewish Comics Experience,” will be on view through the end of the year. Curated by Mora, the “museum” portion of the exhibit consists of five mini exhibits from the five partner organizations that make up the CJH. The Leo Baeck Institute, for example, has an exhibit on how superheroes fought fascism, while the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research’s exhibit is about Yiddish cartoons — as well as a reading library made up of hundreds of Jewish comics.
The laboratory, meanwhile, is an interactive, kid-friendly exhibit that allows museum-goers to try their hand at drawing comics and even dress up to become the Jewish superhero they’ve always dreamed of.
Miriam Mora, co-founder of JewCE and the director of programming at the Center for Jewish History, inside the concurrent exhibit The Museum and Laboratory of the Jewish Comics Experience. (Courtesy the Center for Jewish History)
A preview event on Saturday evening included the first-ever JewCie Awards, designed to highlight excellence in Jewish comics. Awards were handed out to numerous creatives for categories like best diverse representation, best historical narrative and best autobiographical comic. Among the winners were Neil Kleid, Asaf Hanuka and Dani Kolman, while famed satirist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Jules Feiffer and Eisner-nominated author Trina Robbins won the respective Macher and Macherke Awards for their lifetime contributions to comics.
Chari Pere, who was nominated as Artist of the Year, told the New York Jewish Week on Sunday that she relished the opportunity to connect with Jewish peers and to find new audiences for her work.
“This is something that people were hoping about for years,” Pere said of the Jewish con. “As a Jewish cartoonist, what could be better to be among your peers and to be able to have your Hebrew-themed illustrations and ‘Shabbos Tales’ comics featured in an environment where people know what that means?”
Artist and comedian Danielle Brody began drawing cartoons during the pandemic, and only recently became a comics creator, publishing the “Don’t Fuhaggadahboudit” Haggadah in the spring and the soon-to-be-released “Hot Hanukkah Book.”
She said she loved basking in the overwhelming Jewishness that surrounded the convention. “Sometimes when you’re a creator, it feels like sometimes you’re the only person doing something and it can get lonely,” she said. “So to be in a space where everyone’s a Jewish creator, and is channeling their Judaism into art and comics and telling stories, is everything.”
Chicago-based writer Paul Axel, author of “Rotten Roots,” emphasized that it was empowering to be in a space where participants shared both a love of comics and a love of Judaism — and how it was incredibly important to keep pushing for Jewish spaces in the comics industry.
“When you go to a comic con, everybody’s a comic book fan — everyone loves some aspect of that,” he said. “To have a second layer, a deeper layer of the shared culture and ethnicity and identity and religion adds so much more to the show.”
Sapolsky said that JewCE’s first run in New York City is far from its last. The exhibit will run through the end of 2023 and those it are already in talks to take the exhibit to other cities
“For us, creating JewCE is not the end of the journey, it’s the beginning of the journey,” Sapolsky said. “We’re ready to think that this event is bigger than any of us. It’s something that has to count because Jews do count, but on top of counting, it’s also important for non-Jews to discover who we are.”
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The post At a Jewish comic book festival, fans and creators take time to celebrate joy appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Says ‘Extremely Cautious’ on Success of Nuclear Talks with US
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Iran and the United States have agreed to continue nuclear talks next week, both sides said on Saturday, though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi voiced “extreme cautious” about the success of the negotiations to resolve a decades-long standoff.
US President Donald Trump has signaled confidence in clinching a new pact with the Islamic Republic that would block Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb.
Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held a third round of the talks in Muscat through Omani mediators for around six hours, a week after a second round in Rome that both sides described as constructive.
“The negotiations are extremely serious and technical… there are still differences, both on major issues and on details,” Araqchi told Iranian state TV.
“There is seriousness and determination on both sides… However, our optimism about success of the talks remains extremely cautious.”
A senior US administration official described the talks as positive and productive, adding that both sides agreed to meet again in Europe “soon.”
“There is still much to do, but further progress was made on getting to a deal,” the official added.
Earlier Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi had said talks would continue next week, with another “high-level meeting” provisionally scheduled for May 3. Araqchi said Oman would announce the venue.
Ahead of the lead negotiators’ meeting, expert-level indirect talks took place in Muscat to design a framework for a potential nuclear deal.
“The presence of experts was beneficial … we will return to our capitals for further reviews to see how disagreements can be reduced,” Araqchi said.
An Iranian official, briefed about the talks, told Reuters earlier that the expert-level negotiations were “difficult, complicated and serious.”
The only aim of these talks, Araqchi said, was “to build confidence about the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.”
Trump, in an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said “I think we’re going to make a deal with Iran,” but he repeated a threat of military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.
Shortly after Araqchi and Witkoff began their latest indirect talks on Saturday, Iranian state media reported a massive explosion at the country’s Shahid Rajaee port near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, killing at least four people and injuring hundreds.
MAXIMUM PRESSURE
While both Tehran and Washington have said they are set on pursuing diplomacy, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
Since 2019, Iran has breached the pact’s nuclear curbs including “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week Iran would have to entirely stop enriching uranium under a deal, and import any enriched uranium it needed to fuel its sole functioning atomic energy plant, Bushehr.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment program or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks.
Moreover, European states have suggested to US negotiators that a comprehensive deal should include limits preventing Iran from acquiring or finalizing the capacity to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile, several European diplomats said.
Tehran insists its defense capabilities like its missile program are not negotiable.
An Iranian official with knowledge of the talks said on Friday that Tehran sees its missile program as a bigger obstacle in the talks.
The post Iran Says ‘Extremely Cautious’ on Success of Nuclear Talks with US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Leader Abbas Names Likely Successor in Bid to Reassure World Powers
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named close confidant Hussein al-Sheikh as his deputy and likely successor on Saturday, the Palestine Liberation Organization said, a step widely seen as needed to assuage international doubts over Palestinian leadership.
Abbas, 89, has headed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) since the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat in 2004 but he had for years resisted internal reforms including the naming of a successor.
Sheikh, born in 1960, is a veteran of Fatah, the main PLO faction which was founded by Arafat and is now headed by Abbas. He is widely viewed as a pragmatist with very close ties to Israel.
He was named PLO vice president after the organization’s executive committee approved his nomination by Abbas, the PLO said in a statement.
Reform of the PA, which exercises limited autonomy in the West Bank, has been a priority for the United States and Gulf monarchies hoping the body can play a central role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Pressure to reform has intensified since the start of the war in Gaza, where the PLO’s main Palestinian rival Hamas has battled Israel for more than 18 months, leaving the tiny, crowded territory in ruins.
The United States has promoted the idea of a reformed PA governing in Gaza after the war. Gulf monarchies, which are seen as the most likely source of funding for reconstruction in Gaza after the war, also want major reforms of the body.
CALL FOR HAMAS TO DISARM
Israel’s declared goal in Gaza is the destruction of Hamas but it has also ruled out giving the PA any role in government there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
Hamas, which follows a militant Islamist ideology, has controlled Gaza since 2007 when it defeated the PA in a brief civil war after winning an election the previous year. It also has a large presence in the West Bank.
At a meeting of the PLO’s Central Council on Wednesday and Thursday that approved the position of vice president without naming an appointee, Abbas made his clearest ever call for Hamas to completely disarm and hand its weapons – and responsibility for governing in Gaza – to the PA.
Widespread corruption, lack of progress towards an independent state and increasing Israeli military incursions in the West Bank have undermined the PA’s popularity among many Palestinians.
The body has been controlled by Fatah since it was formed in the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993 and it last held parliamentary elections in 2005.
Sheikh, who was imprisoned by Israel for his activities opposing the occupation during the period 1978-89, has worked as the PA’s main contact liaising with the Israeli government under Abbas and been his envoy on visits to world powers.
The post Palestinian Leader Abbas Names Likely Successor in Bid to Reassure World Powers first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – The third round of talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program has concluded on Saturday, US media reported.
The two sides are understood to have discussed the US lifting of sanctions on Iran, with focuses on technical and key topics including uranium enrichment.
On April 12, the US and Iran held indirect talks in Muscat, marking the first official negotiation between the two sides since the US unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The second round of indirect talks took place in Rome, Italy, on April 19.
All parties, including Oman, stated that the first two rounds of talks were friendly and constructive, but Iranian media pointed out that the first two rounds were mainly framework negotiations and had not yet touched upon the core issues of disagreement.
According to media reports, one of the key issues in the expert-level negotiations will be whether Washington will allow Iran to continue uranium enrichment within the framework of its nuclear program. In response, Araghchi made it clear that Iran’s right to uranium enrichment is non-negotiable.
The US, Israel and other Western actors including the United Nation’s nuclear agency reject Iranian claims that its uranium enrichment is strictly civilian in its goals.
The post 3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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