Debbie Nathan

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.