Have I Got a Cartoon for You: The Moment Magazine Book of Jewish Cartoons, edited by Bob Mankoff, 2019: Moment Books, 86 pages, $19.95.
SAN DIEGO – Thirty graphic artists are featured in this delightful 86-page book of cartoons on Jewish topics, that starts with the Bible, moves on to Jewish-Christian relations, Jewish holidays, Shabbat, Kashrut, the differences among Jewish denominations, kvetching, and bubbes/ yentas.
There are other topics too, but you get the drift.
One cartoon by David Borchart, picturing the Akedah, has Abraham, with knife in hand, standing over Isaac. He is looking up to God and asking, “Must I sacrifice family for career?”
Paul Noth pictures a boy with yarmulke sitting on the lap of a department store Santa. The boy tells the Santa, “First of all this conversation never happened.”
A bearded man wearing a robe and carrying a walking stick tells a doorman at a fancy apartment house, “The Kitmans in 12-B. Tell them Elijah is here for the Seder.” That one was by Mort Gerberg.
In a cartoon by Zachary Kanin, a whale lying on the shore tells a human passerby: “I’m not beached. I just don’t swim on Saturdays.”
David Sipress pictures a man aboard an alien spaceship being brought some food by an outer space man. “I’m sorry sir,” says the waiter, “but you needed to order the kosher meal when you were abducted.”
Ken Krimstein imagines a man driving up to three gas pumps. One is marked “Reform,” another “Conservative” and the third “Orthodox.”
Bob Mankoff, who edited this book and was a former cartoon editor at the New Yorker and Esquire, has a psychiatrist asking the man lying on his couch, “Any other hobbies besides suffering?”
And Roz Chast, who wrote the introduction to this volume, likely to make you laugh out loud, pictures four bubbes on stage in a production of Waiting for Godot. “So, where’s Godot?” asks the first. “He’s always late,” kvetches the second. “Maybe something happened to him!” speculated the third. “I heard he moved to Florida,” answers the fourth.
If he did move to Florida, I’d bet it was to Boynton Beach, where this cartoon book very probably will hit the best seller list! I expect it will do well here in California too.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com