Category: Culture

One of the things I love about Simchat Torah is that it is the perfect ending to the Fall Harvest Season. In the time of the Temple, we would gather together from across the land to Jerusalem starting just before the New Year. Here we would join with family, reunite old relationships and forge new ones with new friends. It was a cultural event that bridged spirituality with family, history and even business. During the festival season, We probe our innermost feelings, affirm our spiritual beliefs and emerge with a desire to be a better person. Simchat Torah is our last horah before we return to our regular lives and put our oaths into practice. It’s fitting that this last festival end on a high note of song and dance as we look to the future.

All of us at Israeli Defense Comics hope you are having a wonderful start to the new year. We want to wish you and your family a happy, healthy and sweet year to come!

Saturday, October 21 @ 7:30pm

Everyone at Israeli Defense Comics wants to wish you and your family a happy Passover holiday!

A Passover Note from Britain’s Former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks:

“The story of Pesach, of the Exodus from Egypt, is one of the oldest and greatest in the world. It tells of how one people, long ago, experienced oppression and were led to liberty through a long and arduous journey across the desert. It is the most dramatic story of slavery to freedom ever told, one that has become the West’s most influential source-book of liberty. “Since the Exodus,” said Heinrich Heine, the 19th century German poet, “Freedom has always been spoken with a Hebrew accent”.

We read in the maggid section of the Haggadah of Rabbi Gamliel who said that one who did not discuss the Pesach lamb, the maztah and the bitter herbs had not fulfilled their obligation of the Seder. Why these three things are clear: The Pesach lamb, a food of luxury, symbolises freedom. The bitter herbs represent slavery due to their sharp taste. The matzah combines both. It was the bread the Israelites ate in Egypt as slaves. It was also the bread they left when leaving Egypt as free people.

It is not just the symbolism, but also the order these items are spoken about in the Haggadah that is interesting. First we speak of the Pesach lamb, then the matzah and finally the bitter herbs. But this seems strange. Why do the symbols of freedom precede those of slavery? Surely slavery preceded freedom so it would be more logical to talk of the bitter herbs first? The answer, according to the Chassidic teachers, is that only to a free human people does slavery taste bitter. Had the Israelites forgotten freedom they would have grown used to slavery. The worst exile is to forget that you are in exile.

To truly be free, we must understand what it means to not be free. Yet ‘freedom’ itself has different dimensions, a point reflected in the two Hebrew words used to describe it, chofesh and cherut. Chofesh is ‘freedom from’, cherut is ‘freedom to’. Chofesh is what a slave acquires when released from slavery. He or she is free from being subject to someone else’s will. But this kind of liberty is not enough to create a free society. A world in which everyone is free to do what they like begins in anarchy and ends in tyranny. That is why chofesh is only the beginning of freedom, not its ultimate destination.

Cherut is collective freedom, a society in which my freedom respects yours. A free society is always a moral achievement. It rests on self-restraint and regard for others. The ultimate aim of Torah is to fashion a society on the foundations of justice and compassion, both of which depend on recognising the sovereignty of God and the integrity of creation. Thus we say, ‘Next year may we all be b’nei chorin,’ invoking cherut not chofesh. It means, ‘May we be free in a way that honors the freedom of all’.

The Pesach story, more than any other, remains the inexhaustible source of inspiration to all those who long for freedom. It taught that right was sovereign over might; that freedom and justice must belong to all, not some; that, under God, all human beings are equal; and that over all earthly power, the King of Kings, who hears the cry of the oppressed and who intervenes in history to liberate slaves. It took many centuries for this vision to become the shared property of liberal democracies of the West and beyond; and there is no guarantee that it will remain so. Freedom is a moral achievement, and without a constant effort of education it atrophies and must be fought for again. Nowhere more than on Pesach, though, do we see how the story of one people can become the inspiration of many; how, loyal to its faith across the centuries, the Jewish people became the guardians of a vision through which, ultimately, ‘all the peoples of the earth will be blessed’.

All of us at Israeli Defense Comics hope you are having a wonderful start to the new year. We want to with you and your family a happy, healthy and sweet year to come!

IDC is happy to participate in the third exhibition of JOMIX – Jewish Comics; Art & Derivation at the Sid Jacobson JCC at 300 Forest Dr., Greenvale, NY 11548

DATES: September 8 – December 10

OPENING RECEPTION: Sunday, Sept, 25  from 1pm-3pm

VIEWING HOURS:

Sunday: 8:00am–8:00pm 
Monday-Thursday: 6:00am–10:30pm
Friday: 6:00am-5:30pm
Saturday: 1:00-8:00pm

JOMIX Exhibition includes the artwork of Joshua H. Stulman and Al Wiesner along with over 20 other Jewish artists. The exhibition features a Shaloman cover as well as the page 7 splash from Israeli Defense Comics # 02.

Below is the Press Release for the exhibition:

“About the Exhibit:

From the invention of Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, to current the graphic novel explosion, Jews have always served an essential and indispensable role in the comics and graphic novel industry. This exhibition documents contemporary Jewish artists creating comics and comic book inspired art. The term JOMIX refers to underground independently produced “Comix” of the 60’s and 70’s, edgy and transgressive in nature. By reinvestigating traditional genres like superhero, romance, horror, science fiction and confessionals with particular Jewish subject matter, artists are free to examine complex questions of what it means to be both a Jew and an artist in the current age.

Participating artists:

Shay Charka, Howard Chaykin, Leela Corman, Jessica Deutsch, Aliza Donath, Dorit Jordan Dotan, Josh Edelglass, Zev Engelmayer, Liana Finck,  Stuart Immonen, Miriam Katin, Jack Kirby, Scott Koblish, Michael Korosty, Yonah Lavery, Miriam Libicki, Sarah Lightman, Rutu Modan, Archie Rand, Ariel Schrag, Arlen Schumer, Liat Shalom, Joel Silverstein,  Dov Smiley, Joshua Stulman, Arthur Szyk, Deborah Ugoretz, Eli Valley, Julian Voloj, David Wander, Al Wiesner, Ephraim Wuensch.

Curators: Joel Silverstein, Richard McBee, Aimee Rubensteen.

This exhibition was organized by the Jewish Art Salon.

Read the Full Press Release CLICK HERE

Happy Passover from all of us at Israeli Defense Comics!

We are currently half way complete on Israeli Defense Comics # 3 and will have our a preview of the inked pages out soon. Chag Sameach!