July 24, 2007
The New Yorker’s Jewess-less City
Hey, is Art Spiegelman in the house? Or some other cartoonist of semitic spirit? Anita Kunz, artist for this week’s New Yorker cover, does not qualify, regardless of 
her religious background. Maybe she went to shul as a child, who knows? No matter — she’s from Toronto; that must be her problem. In the New Yorker she had a chance to portray the complete, vaguely disturbing range of Western fundamentalisms that clothe the female devout of NYC — including Jews. That would have constituted a satire gestalt, redolent of Brooklyn or Long Island or Queens, a visual take on Lenny Bruce, Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Breslin. Ironic, self-deprecating, cosmo, jittery, emblematic New York. Worthy of the Chosen Pilpul (of any faith).
Instead, Kunz left out the shaytl, the tikhl, the long skirt and the stifling, navy-blue jacket. Was she implying that literalist Jewish women are less cosseted than burqa’ed Muslims and habited nuns? Gevald!
And another odd thing: the half-naked “secular” girl in the picture has Upper East Side skin and hair color (as Kunz does, if you check the bio picture on her website). But really — how many WASPs go around with pierced belly buttons, no shirt, and on the subway no less? The 177 girls in Manhattan who are this pink take taxis! Anita — remember Sex in the City? This is New York: The stylishly immodest girl should be Latina. Can you please add some pigment?
And for the love of Hashem, put a fourth woman on the IRT, with a stiff wig and a Hebrew prayer book in hand. Let her sit by the long-haired Dominicana, staring ahead like the rest, but softly breathing the scent of coconut shampoo, not worrying if it clashes with milk, meat, shaytls, or winter in Toronto.
Yeah…definitely no white women are ever on the subway
What’s this obsession of yours of having the Jews represented by a cartoonist? Is it not enough that the Jews have so much already in this world that they need the attention of some doodler?
The Jews are the most successful people on the planet, hands down. So much so that in Japan Antisemitism exists when the only Jews there are a few enterprising Israelis selling trinkets to the tourists. They don’t need representation on a a weekly even though Abe Foxman would beg to differ. He feels that if a Jew is burglarizing a home and is arrested, the police are anti-Semitic.
Do the women of BP, Williamsburg, Crown Heights et al. really mean so much to you that you have became their ambassador?
Believe me–and i know–these women just want to be left alone and don’t care if they are portrayed on a magazine half of them have never even heard of. They would rather leave that to their secular sisters who have all but forgotten about what it means to live modestly, and who feel that their path in the world must be paved with the revelation of their breasts and thighs.
Debbie, I hope you’re well.
I had just finished reading Persian Brides–which is about Jewish child brides in Iran–by Dorit Rabinyan when I saw the New Yorker cover. Seems to me that Girl will be Girls, depending on what their society wants them to be. See more thoughts about this on my own blog.
Mary
P.S. I live in a half Hassidic neighborhood in Montreal. Two doors down from us a family had five girls, clustered in age around my daughter’s, and as they moved through school it was interesting to see that they studied for some of the same provincial exams (history, math, geography–the girls’ schools get provincial money and must follow a set secular curriculum in part) at the same time. Now all of them ahve several kids, and find it astsonishing and maybe a little shocking that Elin at 31 isn’t married, and is very serious about a music career.
arrived here by subway, a white woman, from Bag News Notes blog who questioned your notion that middle woman is jewish. i question that too. the entire trio makes me squirm, add an orthodox female with string of stair-step children and this jewish feminist would move to another car on the train.
When did Jimmy Breslin become Jewish?
In the New Yorker she had a chance to portray the complete, vaguely disturbing range of Western fundamentalisms that clothe the female devout of NYC — including Jews.
I guess she also had the chance to portray Joseph Stalin playing a tuba while riding an alligator. She didn’t take it.
Blog editor’s reply: Breslin became Jewish when he spent his childhood in Queens, did ballsy daily journalism in the city, hit the streets, talked to people, paid attention, and took a stand and a stand and a stand. You appear to be in NYC, so don’t worry: you, too, can be Jewish. Just leave 73rd St. and Second once in awhile, keep your eyes open, and forget the tuba and alligator: try a shofar and the N train (even Stalin could have cleaned up, busking on the subways. If he had, he would have been Jewish, too).
Bull-fucking-shit!
Growing up in Queens makes you Jewish?
Doing daily journalism makes you Jewish? even ballsy journalism?
Talking to people makes you Jewish?
Taking a stand makes you Jewish?
Wow.
And yet, you could do exactly the opposite of those things and still be Jewish. Amazing!
So Jimmy Breslin is Jewish because you like him.
So let’s count, you were wrong about what the cartoonist was attempting. You were wrong about Jimmy Breslin who was famously Catholic. And and yes you were wrong about me. I grew up in Brooklyn, riding the N train and sometimes even with my eyes open and I still think your post is nonsense
Kevin has it right. You seem to divide new york thusly: jews, muslims, “cool” mexicans, and a few deluded white people who live on the UES. You clearly understand nothing about new york. Why don’t you just blog about racial politics in el paso, where there is an easy bifurcation between anglos and mexicans? That way you won’t insult everyone by applying your simpleminded ethnic paradigm to a population that is well beyond your comprehension.
Today, everyone needs to be Jewish to succeed. Its like being a gay, after 5 years living in Toronto, I’d learned that you need to be a Gay Jew to be successful here. The whole world is a mess … the whole world is out of the mind already …