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Al Jaffee, iconic Mad Magazine cartoonist who also inked Chabad comic, dies at 102
(JTA) — Perhaps the greatest influence on Al Jaffee, known to readers of Mad Magazine as the creator of the “Fold-In,” was the time he spent living in a Lithuanian shtetl as a child.
Jaffee had been born in Savannah, Georgia, but returned to his mother’s native country with her after she became disillusioned by the irreligious character of life in America. Living in her small town, Zarasai, from ages 6 to 12, he became steeped in both the Yiddish and the “anti-adultism” that would infuse his work. He also gained fluency in comics through strips mailed by father, who remained in the United States.
Jaffee died Monday in New York City at 102, nine decades after returning from Lithuania and less than three years after the iconic cartoonist retired from Mad, where he had inked the end-page feature since 1964.
The “Fold-In” defined Mad Magazine ever since Jaffee invented it as a cartoon satire of the centerfold in publications like Playboy. The feature allowed readers to interact with the pages to form multiple images — the first one depicted Elizabeth Taylor’s divorce from Eddie Fisher and, after a fold, her subsequent marriage to Richard Burton.
A generation of comedians credited Jaffee and his fellow Mad contributors — the self-described “usual gang of idiots” — with shaping their comic sensibilities. “RIP Al Jaffee. He had a profound influence on my mind when I was a kid. One of the greats,” the Jewish comedian and podcaster Marc Maron tweeted Monday.
For a swath of cartoon consumers — those associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish movement — Jaffee’s most important contribution came not in Mad’s pages but in a different publication, The Moshiach Times. There, Jaffee for decades inked a strip for children called “The Shpy,” depicting a rabbinic secret agent who battles the forces of evil. It was, he told a Chabad publication in 2020, shortly after his retirement at 99, a deeply personal endeavor.
“‘The Shpy’ wasn’t just some superhero. I couldn’t do that,” Jaffee said. “I had to draw a character I could get into.”
Jaffee was born Abraham Jaffee on March 13, 1921 in Savannah, where his father, an immigrant from Lithuania, had been recruited from New York City to run a dry-goods shop. His mother, who had immigrated from the same town as his father, never took to life in the South, where Orthodox Judaism was unfamiliar and kosher food hard to come by. When Jaffee, the oldest of four brothers, was 6, she bundled the children up and took them back to Lithuania for a visit that stretched for six years.
Jaffee’s biography characterizes his time in Zarasai as one of both deprivation and invention, in which he was forced to come up with entertainment because there was little provided for the children. After Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in nearby Germany in 1933, his father retrieved him and two of his brothers, later sending for the third. Jaffee never saw his mother again after he returned to the United States; the Jews of Zarasai were executed by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators on Aug. 26, 1941.
Back in New York, Jaffee’s artistic prowess earned him a spot in the first class of the High School of Music & Art, where he connected with classmates who would be his partners for many years to come. He would create comics for several shops before settling in as a freelancer at Mad, where his high school friend Harvey Kurtzman was the editor and where Yiddish peppered the pages even as the humor magazine reached a wide audience. While Mad was recognizably Jewish to many Jewish readers, it did not proclaim itself as such — an approach that Jaffee told an interviewer in 2016 was intentional.
“I lived through a period when Jewish people were very nervous about flaunting their Jewishness,” Jaffee said in the interview, published in the Forward, in which he explained that he still tended to think in Yiddish. “Even after the war, you were aware that there were people out there who wanted to kill you just because you were Jewish. And it’s still around.”
His side gig as the Chabad cartoonist began in 1984, after a young rabbi recruited him and other Mad contributors to add a contemporary aesthetic to a magazine with a circulation of about 10,000. Though Jaffee had a complicated relationship with Jewish observance, he signed on quickly, according to the Chabad feature about his tenure that was published in 2020.
In the story, Jaffee recalled highlights of his life in Zarasai, which had largely been described in negative terms in his earlier biography. “My brother Harry and I would spend the whole year sketching and planning what we’d do to improve the design of lanterns,” Jaffee recalled about celebrating the fall holiday of Simchat Torah. “Then when the holiday came, we’d march around the bimah [prayer platform]. It was so much fun.” He also said that he aspired to be like the Shpy, whose wispy beard resembled his own.
Jaffee announced his retirement in June 2020, months after the death of his wife of 42 years, Joyce Revenson. A previous marriage, to Ruth Ahlquist, with whom he had two children, ended in divorce. He is survived by his children, stepchildren, grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
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The post Al Jaffee, iconic Mad Magazine cartoonist who also inked Chabad comic, dies at 102 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israeli man indicted in attack on Catholic nun in Jerusalem’s Old City
(JTA) — An Israeli man was indicted on Thursday in connection to the violent assault of a Catholic nun in Jerusalem last month, after prosecutors said he targeted her over her Christian identity.
Yona Schreiber, 36, from the West Bank settlement of Peduel, was arrested last week and has since been indicted on charges of “assault causing actual injury motivated by hostility toward the public on the grounds of religion, as well as simple assault,” the state attorney’s office said in a statement.
According to the indictment, Schreiber, who is Jewish, attacked the nun just outside of the Old City in Jerusalem because he identified her as a Catholic nun. Schreiber allegedly pushed and then kicked the nun as she was lying on the ground and also attacked a passerby who attempted to intervene.
תקיפת הנזירה אתמול באזור קבר דוד בירושלים – שוטרי מרחב דוד איתרו את החשוד (36) ועצרו אותו בחשד לתקיפה ממניע גזעני >>> pic.twitter.com/agRpznR84X
— משטרת ישראל (@IL_police) April 30, 2026
The nun, a researcher at the French School of Biblical and Archeological Research, suffered bruises on her face and leg due to the attack, the state attorney’s office said.
The attack, which drew condemnation from Catholic leaders as well as faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, comes amid mounting concern over hostility toward Christian clergy and holy sites in Israel.
Cases of Jews harassing Christians have risen sharply in recent years. Last month, the IDF punished a soldier who was filmed bludgeoning a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon. This week, the IDF also announced that it would discipline a different soldier who was seen placing a cigarette into the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary in a photo posted on social media.
Israel’s attorney general asked the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, where the indictment was filed, to hold Schreiber in detention for the duration of the legal proceeding.
The assault carries a maximum prison sentence of three years, which could increase to six years if prosecutors prove the attack was motivated by religious bias.
The post Israeli man indicted in attack on Catholic nun in Jerusalem’s Old City appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’
(New York Jewish Week) — Jewish real estate mogul Steven Roth compared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “tax the rich” rhetoric this week to racial slurs and pro-Palestinian rhetoric on an earnings call for his company, Vornado Realty Trust.
“I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase, ‘from the river to the sea,’” Roth said, referring to the phrase commonly used at pro-Palestinian protests that many Jewish groups consider antisemitic.
The remark by Roth, who has long been a notable philanthropist to Jewish causes, adds to mounting tensions between New York business leaders and Mamdani over his recently announced “pied-à-terre” tax on second homes valued at more than $5 million.
During the call Tuesday, Roth also expressed support for Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, whose $238 million dollar penthouse was featured in a video by Mamdani announcing plans for the tax last month.
“We are all shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt in front of Ken’s home and single him out for ridicule,” Roth said. “The ugly, unnecessary video stunt is personal for Ken and sort of personal for me.”
Roth’s comments touched on a longstanding source of friction between Mamdani and some New York Jewish leaders, who have criticized the mayor over his views on Israel and his previous defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” another common pro-Palestinian slogan viewed by some as a call to violence against Jews.
In the wake of Mamdani’s election, some Jewish business leaders, including Dave Portnoy, the Jewish founder of Barstool Sports, said that they planned to leave the city altogether, citing the mayor’s fiscal policies and concerns about antisemitism under his leadership.
In a statement responding to Roth’s comments, Mamdani’s office said that he wanted all New Yorkers to succeed, including “business owners and entrepreneurs who create good-paying jobs and make this city the economic engine of America.”
“That does not negate the fact, however, that our tax system is fundamentally broken. It rewards extreme wealth while working people are pushed to the brink,” the statement continued. “The status quo is unsustainable and unjust. If we want this city to become a place that working people can afford, we need meaningful tax reform that includes the wealthiest New Yorkers contributing their fair share.”
The post Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Man who firebombed Boulder Israeli hostage march sentenced to life in prison
(JTA) — The man charged with carrying out a deadly firebombing attack on a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, last year was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Thursday after pleading guilty to muder and dozens of other charges.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national who was arrested at the scene of the attack on the demonstrators last June, pleaded guilty to 101 charges, including 52 counts of attempted murder and one count of murder for the death of Karen Diamond, an 82-year-old victim of the attack who later died of her wounds.
During the June attack, Soliman shouted “free Palestine” and threw two molotov cocktails at the group, Run for Their Lives, injuring over a dozen people. According to an earlier court filing, Soliman said that he had staged the attack, which prosecutors said he planned for a year, because he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”
Soliman has separately pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges, for which prosecutors could potentially seek the death penalty.
“If I went back, I would not have done this as this is not according to the teaching of Islam,” Soliman said during the sentencing hearing, adding that he wanted federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty. “What I did came out of myself and only myself.”
During his remarks, Soliman argued that he had not been driven by anti-Jewish animus. He later said that Zionism was “the enemy” and that it was his “right” to be against Israel.
Chief District Judge Nancy W. Salomone rejected Mr. Soliman’s arguments, telling him that his “choices were acts of terror, and they victimized an entire community,” according to the New York Times.
“You chose to victimize these people because they were members of the Jewish community,” she said.
In a statement read earlier in court by a prosecutor, Diamond’s sons, Andrew and Ethan Diamond, asked that Soliman not be allowed to see his family again “since he is responsible for our mother never seeing her family again,” according to the Associated Press.
They said that Diamond had suffered “indescribable pain” for over three weeks before her death, adding that “in those weeks, we learned the full meaning of the expressions ‘living hell’ and ‘fate worse than death.’”
The post Man who firebombed Boulder Israeli hostage march sentenced to life in prison appeared first on The Forward.