Jews – Snip, Burn, Solder Blog

“I had a little dreidel …” ♬♫♪ (Sketch of the Week for Week 51 of 2025)

Last week was Chanukah, which means I had dreidels lying around, hence this sketch from life. If anything demonstrates my progress over the last two years of sketching, this is it:

In real life, a dreidel is a roughly rectilinear solid that’s basically a modified cube, each side of which is bears a roughly rectilinear character, inscribed squarely on that face. The whole thing has radial symmetry along a central vertical access (or else it wouldn’t spin).

In a drawing, there isn’t a single 90º, nor a single non-angled line. Drawing it accurately to life means making everything about it wrong on the paper. Two years ago that simple fact made me batshit insane; my stupid eyes saw 90º angles all sorts of places where they were not actually visible, and even when I convinced my eye to see what it saw instead of what it knew, my traitorous hands kept drawing the 90s they knew to be true in life, rather than the 85s and 95s and 142s the eyes could see from where they were sitting.

This time? None of that sturm und drang. I spun a dreidel, I saw a dreidel, it fell, and I drew:

A pencil sketch of a dreidel showing gimmel ג; you win all!

Tonight I’m told is Erev Kristmas. May it be a joyous one to those who observe, and a peaceful Nittel Nacht for the rest of us.

Just frontin’. I fucking know it’s Xmas; I’m a half-a-Jew by birth. I’m just bustin’ your balls.

please don’t hurt us

L’Shana Tova, mofos! (Sketches of the Week for Week 37 of 2025)

Rosh Hashanah is fast approaching, so last week’s sketches were all High Holiday themed, as that’s what’s in my head right now.

My son felt strongly that this lil Jew rocking out on an apple was the best sketch of the week; he loved those groovy arms:

A tiny chasidic Jew rocking out in a big ole apple

I, on the other hand, preferred this lil Honikmensch, ready to rock you with a big ole honey-smack:

A tiny chasidic Jew wielding a big, loaded honey-jar dipper

Meanwhile, my daughter (who just her her her bat mitzvah this past summer) felt strongly that this mighty little fella was the sketch of the week:

Tiny little chasidic Jew about to throw a big ole apple at you, mofo!

One way or the other, may your coming year be good and sweet 🍏🍎🍯 (regardless of whether or not you observe; all you goyim deserve good years just as much as anyone else).

Your introduction to the Crypto-Jews of the American Southwest

Some readers are thrown by a reference in my latest story to the protagonist, home inspector and minor-TV celebrity Sadie Espinoza, who describes getting bullied in high school, noting that:

Jewish Espinozas weren’t remotely “wetbacks.” They weren’t even “immigrants”: they’d been in New Mexico—where her dad and his brother grew up—since before it was “New Mexico.” The only thing calling her “wetback” did was make it clear how stupid those girls were, like a house cat strutting around thinking it caught a snake when all it had was a shitty old lizard tail.

Some folks are confused because they had an American public school primary education east of the Mississippi (as I did), and thus don’t know that Santa Fe is the oldest state capitol in the US, having been establish 150 years before the country was founded.

A much greater portion of readers are confused because they think of all Jews as European shtetl folk who came here in the late 19th and early 20th C (as mine did), and thus know nothing about the extremely long history of Jews in the New World (short version: we’ve always been here, and you’ve never liked us).

Anyway, if you’re curious about any of this, the graphic novel El Illuminado is a good introduction to Crypto-Jews and the impact the Inquisition had on world Jewry. Maybe more importantly, it’s really fair in how it illustrates the divisions and discomforts within and among Jews of different traditions/colors/descents, as well as the way that even established, assimilated, respected, modern, “White” Jews often find themselves alienated no matter where they try to stand or sit.

Offered Without Additional Commentary

We’ve Always Been Here, and You’ve Never Liked Us: Exploring Michigan’s First Jewish Burial Ground

It’s my town’s bicentennial year, and the local library graciously granted me the opportunity to write about The Old Jewish Burial Ground here—which was, in fact, the first Jewish cemetery in the state, despite being a fair distance from the Detroit Metro Area (which is where most Michigan Jews have lived).

SPOILER ALERT: the old Jewish burial ground is mostly underneath a big university building that was built in the 1930s, long after that first Jewish community had mysteriously left entirely of their own free will and not for any unpleasant or embarrassing reasons.

An advertisement with the headline "OPPOSITION TO JEWS," which ran in every issue of the Michigan Argus newspaper (Ann Arbor, MI) from fall 1851 through spring 1852. — *An advertisement that ran in the local Ann Arbor newspaper (spring 1852)*

Kudos to the library, who agreed to go forward on this endeavor, even though the working title I pitched it under was “We’ve Always Been Here, and You’ve Never Liked Us.”

A sign displayed by anti-Jewish protestors outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI (spring 2024) — *A sign displayed by anti-Jewish protestors outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI (summer 2024)*

Antisemitism in Ann Arbor, MI (July 7, 2024)

I’m mostly posting this for archival/documentary purposes. But I’m also posting this because I think that the “Is anti-Zionism antisemitic?” argument is stupid; you can go to these protests and demonstrations yourself, or look at comprehensive coverage, and decide for yourself if what you see is primarily motivated by a love of the Palestinian people or a loathing of Jews.

I captured all of these video at the weekly protest held outside Beth Israel Congregation each Saturday, during morning Shabbat services. This protest has been held mostly weekly for the last couple decades, and has been mostly the same throughout that period. The pictures show all of the signs that were on display that day. Some have been the same for years (I’ve lived less than one mile from this site for 20+ years), others are relatively new. I think only “Jews Bomb Hospitals” and possibly “Jews Bomb Churches” are new since the pogrom of October 7 and intensified bombings of Gaza. The entire video of my stroll past the demonstration is included at the bottom, for those curious.

a man holding a sign reading "No More Wars for Israel" outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI

I never spoke a word to these men, nor was I wearing anything inflammatory. I had on a plain black shirt and this hat, which I wear basically everywhere:

A fairly beat-down green brimmed baseball cap with four buttons on it. The buttons show: 1) a "love" hand in rainbow colors, 2) the text "BLACK LIVES MATTER", 3) a peace symbol, and 4) a stylized Jewish star and the text "Secret Jewish Space Lasers Corps: Mazel Tough"

I wouldn’t rule out that these two protestors knew I was a Jew: the “Jewish Space Lasers” button on my hat is pretty legible (folks have complimented me on it) and, besides, I’m active in Jewish communal life here, and it’s just not that big of a community.

I mention this because near the beginning of the video you can hear the mustachioed protestor begin by talking about dead Palestinians (reasonable, at a nominally pro-Palestine demo) and then abruptly switching gears to talk about the “fact” that gas chambers never existed. I don’t know why he jumped topics like that, although I’d been warned that these two men (who both wear GoPros) would try to goad me into a fight. A portion of their signs are clearly intended to offend, and especially to offend Jews–like the families with small children who were arriving to attend religious services as I arrived.

I can’t shake the feeling that there is something vaguely antisemitic about this situation . . .🪄🐇👿

Holy Moses! The “suave devil look” for magicians (goatee, tuxedo, etc.) was invented by a Jewish magician named “Herrmann” (which I think is German for “Mr. Man”—which just so feels like a name assigned by a census taker who was fed up with weird Yiddish shtetl names he couldn’t spell) who performed for Lincoln!

New York Times: “How a 1933 Book About Jews in Magic Was Rescued From Oblivion” (🎁 gift link)

In fact, Herrmann (shown in the picture at the top, courtesy of his Wikipedia entry) is so synonymous with the look that if you prompt an A.I. with “create a poster for an 1800s stage magician. The magician needs a goatee” it gives you a picture of this otherwise obscure 19th Century French stage magician:

A.I.l generated image from the prompt “create a poster for an 1800s stage magician. The magician needs a goatee.” The result is a stereotypical "suave devil" stage magician--and happens to be a nearly spot-on portrait of 19th C Jewish magician Alexander Herrmann

“Who’s Coming to Hurt Us?”[UPDATE] ✡︎

An interesting take on some recent research:

“Who Are the Least and Most Antisemitic Americans by Ideology?”

“The upshot is that the least antisemitic Americans are mainstream liberals and conservatives. The most antisemitic are the extreme left, the extreme right, as one of the theories noted above suggests, but also low information voters, who skew survey results by often self-identifying as “moderate.””

In other words, modern Jew-hate in America isn’t a right-wing thing (as most progressives insists), nor a horseshoe (as often seems to be the case on the ground, as a Jew), but instead a “W,” where the Left and Right peaks correspond to strongly ideological folks blaming Jews for this or that social ill (e.g., Jews are both the all-controlling capitalist puppet-masters AND the socialist-communist shadow agents driving the Great Replacement), and the middle peak is composed of average/moderate/centrist folks who mistrust the “mainstream” media, don’t identify as anything, and get their news from increasingly biased and ignorant spheres.

Hence:

Oy. 😕

(For those wondering about the image that leads this post, my schpiel on this shorthand.)

October 7 and the “Pumpkin Spice Latte Problem”

The thing that I most connect with in this comic is that the Jews look like ghosts. I identify with that, as I’ve often felt like a ghost here in my Homeland. I guess the big change for me since October 7 is that before I felt like a ghost passing largely unnoticed or unacknowledged. That was sometimes annoying, but usually fine. Or, at least, I was used to it, which made it seem fine if I didn’t think about it too much.

Now I feel like some portion of the population has noticed us and decided we need to be exorcised and banished, while another portion has noticed us and wants us to summarize 3000 years of history in seven words or less and then explain what the hell is up with a bunch of other ghosts in some other country who we don’t even know, while a third portion have noticed us and insist we aren’t ghosts at all—just pale “regular” people who should get over whatever unpleasantness happened in the 1930s and 40s in Europe, or last October, or last week, or last night, or tomorrow, because it’s all the distant past and in our heads and maybe didn’t even happen or certainly isn’t or wasn’t or won’t be as bad as we say it was/is/will be.

But the biggest portion look at me and say “You’re a ghost? I had no idea you were a ghost!”

‘cause I don’t look like a stereotypical ghost.

But I am a ghost.

I’ve been a ghost this entire time.

A panel from the comic/essay "Hauntings: Looking Back at Fall 2023" by Abby Horowitz. The image shows two adults (rendered as black-and-white outlines) looking at three children in military-esque Halloween costumes. The caption reads: "We began a loop around the parking lot, trying to look like we belonged. We couldn' t escape our sense of dislocation, though; the shadow of war followed us the whole time."

One adult says "AM I BEING RIDICULOUS IF THIS MAKES ME REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE?"

The other adult answers "UM I'M PRETTY SURE THAT'S THE MILITARY
UNIFORM OF SYRIA..."

A thought-bubble above the children reads "JEEZ THESE JEWS ARE SENSITIVE."

https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/hauntings-looking-back-at-fall-2023

A Holiday Tip for Gentile Schoolteachers with Jewish Students🎅🏿🕎

This is always a fraught time of year for grade-school music teachers: they wanna sing Xmas songs, most of the kids wanna sing Xmas songs. But they know that the constant wintertime Othering grinds away at the Jewish kids. (It’s even worse when teachers try to “include” you be singing the “Dreidel Song”; that song is crap, and we know it. The Xmas songs are way better.)

Back during the pandemic I eavesdropped on the most brilliant piece of classroom third-rail navigation I’ve ever seen in my life, and I wanna share it here again, for any that need help (esp. in what’s become an extremely fraught year for Jewish kids in America).

This was early in the pandemic, when our community was pretty locked down (my kids didn’t have in-person school for 400+ days). My daughter was then a third grader, and I was sitting nearby during her Zoom music class (we’ll leave for another day any discussion of the crime against humanity that was “grade-school Zoom music class”).

A few slides into the lesson, the teacher show a picture of an unremarkable middle-aged White dude, “Mitchell Parish.”

Who the heck is Mitchell Parish? Well, he was born in Lithuania, and brought here by his parents, who were Jews (my daughter immediately perked up; Jews! Like us!) looking for a better life. Mitchell Parish was a popular songwriter in New York in the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s—and he wrote the lyrics to …

*advance to next slide*

… “Sleigh Ride”!

*kids sing “Sleigh Ride”*

*EVERYONE IS A WINNER!*

My daughter felt seen, gentiles got their Christmas carol, and no one had to sing the goddamned “Dreidel Song.”

So there’s the trick to getting to sing Christmas carols in public school in what has been the worst year for Jews since 1945:

Start out with a brief bio of the Jews who wrote your Xmas song

You could do a whole Winter Concert—featuring “Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and “Run, Run Rudolph”—on just a single bio slide: All four of those classics were written by the same Jew (the inimitable Johnny Marks, whose Jewish brother-in-law was the guy who created Rudolph to begin with).

(SPOILER ALERT 🚨: A ll your favorite Xmas songs were written by Jews; you’re welcome).