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At New York Comic Con, creators and fans celebrate Jewish identity
(New York Jewish Week) — A panel on Jewish themes at this year’s New York Comic Con was planned and scheduled well ahead of Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel last Saturday, but its convenor said the traumatic week since made it more important than ever to highlight Jewish joy.
“This is a tough moment to be discussing this, but there’s this moment, this tough space between horror and atrocity and humor and incorporation of memory … that can coexist with joy,” said Miriam Eve Mora, the director of academic and public programs at Manhattan’s Center for Jewish History, who organized Thursday’s panel on “Jewish Identity in Comics Outside the Holocaust.”
“If you focus exclusively on trauma,” she said, “then you miss out on so much Jewish life.”
New York Comic Con, which began Thursday and runs through Sunday, draws thousands of lovers of comic books — and the movies and television shows based on them.
Amid appearances at the Javits Center by celebrities like Ewan McGregor and Chris Evans, there are panel discussions on myriad topics.
For Mora’s panel, some 200 fans heard Jewish authors’ varying views on what makes a Jewish comic. The panel featured Jewish comic creators Alisa Kwitney, Danny Fingeroth, Fabrice Sapolsky, Jordan Gorfinkel and Roy Schwartz.
Jews largely built the comic books business: In the early 20th century, with most publishing and advertising houses reluctant to hire Jews, many found themselves working in the upstart comics industry. In the late 1930s, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, creators of Superman, were among the Jews who ushered in what’s known as the “Golden Age” of comics, and many Jewish-created superheroes followed.
Ahead of Thursday’s event, Mora told New York Jewish Week she wanted to give a more secular audience exposure to this history, and to highlight Jewish comics that were not about the Holocaust. Focusing on the Holocaust, she said, has become a “shorthand” for authors trying to make Jewish characters and storylines.
“I think the goal should be that people who are and are not Jewish, who are creators, can more accurately and casually and freely include Jewish characters from diverse backgrounds,” said Mora, who is the co-creator of the Jewish Comics Experience, a current exhibit at CJH. “We cannot be defined by one type of Jew or one image of Jew, because Jews are a tremendous multiverse in and of itself.”
Mora’s panel is the only one of the four-day convention about Judaism. Last year’s New York Comic Con had no panels dedicated to Jewish topics, though at least two — including a panel that had run successfully in previous years — were rejected.
It is not known whether the inclusion of “Jewish Identity in Comics Outside the Holocaust” in this year’s lineup was a response to last year’s outcry from Jewish fans. Representatives from New York Comic Con did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
At New York Comic Con, Jewish comic creators, from left, Jordan Gorfinkel, Danny Fingeroth, Fabrice Sapolsky, Alisa Kwitney and Roy Schwartz, discuss “Jewish Identity in Comics Outside the Holocaust” on Oct. 12, 2023.(Elizabeth Karpen)
During the panel discussion, comics creator and publisher Sapolsky said that, as a child growing up in Paris, he noticed that many of the authors of his favorite comics had Jewish last names.
“For me, all American comics were Jewish,” said Sapolsky, who is co-creator with Mora of “JewCE!”, a comics convention being held next month at the Center for Jewish History “promoting diverse Jewish narratives in comics.”
For Fingeroth, who is best known for his work editing the Spider-Man comics and his biography of Stan Lee, perhaps the best known Jewish comics creator, a Jewish comic can’t be easily defined. “It’s like pornography,” he joked. “I don’t have a definition, but I know it when I see it.”
Gorfinkel, known for editing the Batman comics franchise and creating the “Passover Haggadah Graphic Novel,” added that, in addition to creating Jewish characters, Jewish comic creators have a responsibility to infuse their work with tikkun olam — the Jewish tenet to repair the world. “A comic’s got to make the world a better place because Judaism is about being a light unto the nations,” he said. “My feeling is, if we have the honor to be able to share our work with multitudes, then we also have a responsibility to put in some kind of ethics or morals.”
Schwartz, the author of “Is Superman Circumcised? The Complete Jewish History of the World’s Greatest Hero,” pushed forward what he calls his “Jewish Bechdel test”: To be considered a “Jewish comic,” a comic must meet two of three criteria — be written by a Jew, have Jewish themes and include Jewish characters.
He added that, recently, he’s noticed that Jewish comic book authors are creating more explicitly Jewish characters. “They’re comfortable in their own skin,” Schwartz said. “And they don’t feel the urge, the necessity, to put on a secret identity on top of that.”
Today, said Mora, there are more comics than ever telling diverse Jewish stories, noting that many of them come from independent publishing houses and outside the superhero genre.
Sapolsky, for example, recently released “Intertwined: The Last Jewish Daughter of Kaifeng,” which centers on the experiences of a Chinese Jewish woman. Sapolsky’s FairSquare Comics, an independent publisher that aims to promote diversity, will soon release “Hyphen,” a slice-of-life collection including the stories of Jews of color, transgender Jews and other diverse Jewish populations.
Mora underscored the importance of these new comics that portray Jews from across the world, of all races and ethnicities, who practice their Judaism differently. “The more of these that break into the mainstream, the less readers are going to think they know what a Jew looks like,” she said. “And that’s so important for accurate representation.”
Stan Lee, shown in 1991, was perhaps the best known of the Jewish writers and artists who helped create the comic book industry. (Gerald Martineau/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Schwartz, who was born and raised in Israel, hoped there will eventually be a positive Israeli comic book character that could be “accepted by everybody” — a remark that drew cheers from the audience.
Mora had told the crowd that the panelists had decided not to discuss the events of the Middle East during the hour-long session. Still, Hamas’ recent attack on Israel hung over the crowd.
Sam, who declined to give her last name, said she was drawn to the Jewish identity panel in light of the recent violence in Israel, which is now reverberating around the world. She told New York Jewish Week that she wanted to learn more about Jewish comics and how to support Jewish creators because she has Jewish ancestry, but isn’t involved in the Jewish community.
“I feel like I don’t know enough about Jewish culture,” Sam said. “I usually go to a diversity in comics panel and this seemed right to go to this year.”
During the panel, Kwitney, an author of Jewish romance comics and a former editor at DC Comics, said she feels that comics have not properly addressed the issues facing young American Jews — particularly rising antisemitism. “What’s missing is some of what is challenging about being Jewish today,” she said. “I think about the dilemma that a lot of young people are facing on college campuses. To have a character who’s Jewish and in their 20s and not have them face any of the dilemmas where there is anti-Zionism and antisemitism, that’s hard to grapple with.”
Alyssa, an audience member who declined to give her last name, told New York Jewish Week that the panel bridged the gap between her love of comics and her Jewish identity. “Comics have a Jewish origin, but the stories always felt very Christian-centric,” she said. “It’s exciting to see more comics for Jews, written by Jews.”
Gorfinkel, who is an observant Jew, said that he’s always associated Jewish joy with comic books. As a kid, he would stock up on comics to read on Shabbat; it was the highlight of his week. He loved reading comics under the table while his family prayed and he believes that he learned his Jewish values from them.
“I actually learned morality from DC Comics, where the heroes were good and the villains were evil and we always vanquished evil,” he said. “I didn’t learn it from the Bible, I learned it from superheroes. But, hey, superheroes are based on the Bible, so I guess in a way it comes full circle.”
Gorfinkel is currently working on a graphic adaptation of the Torah, the five books of the Hebrew Bible. “I’m using the storytelling that Jewish people from the 1930s and 1940s established and carry through to today to bring out what’s incredible about Judaism and the Jewish faith,” he said. “We make Judaism our superpower.”
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Trump Proposes Resettlement of Gazans as Netanyahu Visits White House
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site” and saying residents have “no alternative” as he held critical talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
“[The Palestinians] have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. “I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”
Trump repeated his call for Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states in the region to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war there between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which ruled the enclave before the war and remains the dominant faction.
Arab leaders have adamantly rejected Trump’s proposal. However, Trump argued on Tuesday that Palestinians would benefit from leaving Gaza and expressed astonishment at the notion that they would want to remain.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land. We’ll get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable,” Trump said.
Referring to Gaza as a “pure demolition site,” the president said he doesn’t “know how they [Palestinians] could want to stay” when asked about the reaction of Palestinian and Arab leaders to his proposal.
“If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, there’s plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” Trump continued. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had decades and decades of death.”
However, Trump clarified that he does “not necessarily” support Israel permanently annexing and resettling Gaza.
Trump later made similar remarks with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, suggesting that Palestinians should leave Gaza for good “in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed.”
“They are not going to want to go back to Gaza,” he said.
Trump did not offer any specifics about how a resettlement process could be implemented.
The post-war future of Palestinians in Gaza has loomed as a major point of contention within both the United States and Israel. The former Biden administration emphatically rejected the notion of relocating Gaza civilians, demanding a humanitarian aid “surge” into the beleaguered enclave.
Trump has previously hinted at support for relocating Gaza civilians. Last month, the president said he would like to “just clean out” Gaza and resettle residents in Jordan or Egypt.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, defended Trump’s comments in a Tuesday press conference, arguing that Gaza will remain uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
“When the president talks about ‘cleaning it out,’ he talks about making it habitable,” Witkoff said. “It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous.
Trump’s comments were immediately met with backlash, with some observers accusing him of supporting an ethnic cleansing plan. However, proponents of the proposal argue that it could offer Palestinians a better future and would mitigate the threat posed by Hamas.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages back to Gaza while perpetrating widespread sexual violence in what was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one of the agreement, Hamas will, over six weeks, free a total of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, and in exchange, Israel will release over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorist activity. Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza will stop as negotiators work on agreeing to a second phase of the agreement, which is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining hostages held in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
The ceasefire and the future of Gaza were expected to be key topics of conversation between Trump and Netanyahu, along with the possibility of Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations and Iran’s nuclear program.
Riyadh has indicated that any normalization agreement with Israel would need to include an end to the Gaza war and the pathway to the formation of a Palestinian state.
However, perhaps the most strategically important subject will be Iran, particularly how to contain its nuclear program and combat its support for terrorist proxies across the Middle East. In recent weeks, many analysts have raised questions over whether Trump would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which both Washington and Jerusalem fear are meant to ultimately develop nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu on Tuesday was the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration last month.
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Trump Reimposes ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran, Aims to Drive Oil Exports to Zero
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signed the presidential memorandum reimposing Washington’s tough policy on Iran that was practiced throughout his first term.
As he signed the memo, Trump described it as very tough and said he was torn on whether to make the move. He said he was open to a deal with Iran and expressed a willingness to talk to the Iranian leader.
“With me, it’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. Asked how close Tehran is to a weapon, Trump said: “They’re too close.”
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has accused former President Joe Biden of failing to rigorously enforce oil-export sanctions, which Trump says emboldened Tehran by allowing it to sell oil to fund a nuclear weapons program and armed militias in the Middle East.
Iran is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December. Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump‘s memo, among other things, orders the US Treasury secretary to impose “maximum economic pressure” on Iran, including sanctions and enforcement mechanisms on those violating existing sanctions.
It also directs the Treasury and State Department to implement a campaign aimed at “driving Iran‘s oil exports to zero.” US oil prices pared losses on Tuesday on the news that Trump planned to sign the memo, which offset some weakness from the tariff drama between Washington and Beijing.
Tehran’s oil exports brought in $53 billion in 2023 and $54 billion a year earlier, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates. Output during 2024 was running at its highest level since 2018, based on OPEC data.
Trump had driven Iran‘s oil exports to near-zero during part of his first term after re-imposing sanctions. They rose under Biden’s tenure as Iran succeeded in evading sanctions.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency believes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other OPEC members have spare capacity to make up for any lost exports from Iran, also an OPEC member.
PUSH FOR SANCTIONS SNAPBACK
China does not recognize US sanctions and Chinese firms buy the most Iranian oil. China and Iran have also built a trading system that uses mostly Chinese yuan and a network of middlemen, avoiding the dollar and exposure to US regulators.
Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy, said the Trump administration could enforce the 2024 Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) law to curtail some Iranian barrels.
SHIP, which the Biden administration did not enforce strictly, allows measures on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of sanctions. Book said a move last month by the Shandong Port Group to ban US-sanctioned tankers from calling into its ports in the eastern Chinese province signals the impact SHIP could have.
Trump also directed his UN ambassador to work with allies to “complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran,” under a 2015 deal between Iran and key world powers that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
The US quit the agreement in 2018, during Trump‘s first term, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the deal. The Trump administration had also tried to trigger a snapback of sanctions under the deal in 2020, but the move was dismissed by the UN Security Council.
Britain, France, and Germany told the United Nations Security Council in December that they are ready — if necessary — to trigger a snapback of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 when a 2015 UN resolution expires. The resolution enshrines Iran‘s deal with Britain, Germany, France, the United States, Russia, and China that lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Iran‘s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, has said that invoking the “snap-back” of sanctions on Tehran would be “unlawful and counterproductive.”
European and Iranian diplomats met in November and January to discuss if they could work to defuse regional tensions, including over Tehran’s nuclear program, before Trump returned.
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Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and continued a halt to funding for the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.
The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been critical of UNRWA, accusing it of anti-Israel incitement and its staff of being “involved in terrorist activities against Israel.”
During Trump‘s first term in office, from 2017-2021, he also cut off funding for UNRWA, questioning its value, saying that Palestinians needed to agree to renew peace talks with Israel, and calling for unspecified reforms.
The first Trump administration also quit the 47-member Human Rights Council halfway through a three-year term over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform. The US is not currently a member of the Geneva-based body. Under former President Joe Biden, the US served a 2022-2024 term.
A council working group is due to review the US human rights record later this year, a process all countries undergo every few years. While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and criticism can raise global pressure on governments to change course.
Since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization and from the Paris climate agreement — also steps he took during his first term in office.
The US was UNRWA’s biggest donor — providing $300 million-$400 million a year — but Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza.
The US Congress then formally suspended contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025.
The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon — killed in September by Israel — was also found to have had a UNRWA job.
An Israeli ban went into effect on Jan. 30 that prohibits UNRWA from operating on its territory or communicating with Israeli authorities. UNRWA has said operations in Gaza and West Bank will also suffer.
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