HEED THE CALL — Sunday is the day of the “big game,” and the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City’s annual Super Sunday. While you’re in the kitchen preparing those game day snacks or doing whatever it is you enjoy doing on Sunday, don’t forget to answer the phone when a Super Sunday volunteer calls to ask for your yearly pledge. You’ll feel good knowing that your pledge will help sustain and enhance Jewish life at home and around the world! Learn more by reading Co-chair Neal Schwartz’s article in the opinion section.
UNSETTLING CARTOON — On Sunday, Jan. 27, which just so happened to be International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the London Sunday Times published a cartoon that many of us found horribly offensive. According to reports published by our national/international news service JTA, the cartoon shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall on the bodies of Palestinians and using their blood as cement. It carries the caption “Israeli Elections … Will Cementing Peace Continue?”
HonestReporting called the cartoon “a blood libel on a day when the millions of victims of the Holocaust are remembered.”
“On any day, this cartoon’s imagery is an assault on the real victims of genocide, demeans their suffering and insults their memory,” said HonestReporting CEO Joe Hyams in a statement issued Sunday by the organization. “The Sunday Times should be mindful that what started as cartoons in the 1930s ultimately led to violence and unspeakable tragedy.”
Originally the Sunday Times defended the cartoon, saying it was “aimed squarely at Mr. Netanyahu and his policies, not at Israel, let alone at Jewish people.” But by Monday Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns the Sunday Times of London through a subsidiary, said the paper should apologize for printing what he called a “grotesque” cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Murdoch made his remarks Monday on Twitter about the cartoon.
“Gerald Scarfe has never reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times,” Murdoch tweeted, referring to the cartoon’s illustrator. “Nevertheless, we owe major apology for grotesque, offensive cartoon.”
Murdoch’s statement was made in response to criticism from leaders of the Jewish community in the U.K. who said the drawing was reminiscent of anti-Semitic blood libels.
Jon Benjamin, the head of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, called the cartoon “appalling” and said it was similar to the offensive images of Jews “more usually found in parts of the virulently anti-Semitic Arab press.”
Benjamin said its appearance in the broadsheet on International Holocaust Remembrance Day added insult to injury.
SPINNING TREE THEATRE PRESENTS ‘SHIPWRECKED!’ — Written by Jewish Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies, the three-actor, multi-character vaudevillian romp “Shipwrecked!” is 90 minutes of non-stop adventure-filled fun for the entire family (ages 9 and up). The New York Times says the play “Springs to life like a theatrical pop-up book!” The show runs Feb. 1 through Feb. 17 on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. It will be put on at the Paul Mesner Puppet Studio, 1006 E. Linwood Blvd. in Kansas City, Mo. Tickets may be purchased by calling 816-569-5277. More information is available on the website, www. www.spinningtreetheatre.com.
