Star Makes Waves in Jewish Circles ?Philadelphia Inquirer? cartoon spurs fury

A cartoon that first appeared July 31 in The Philadelphia Inquirer is meeting strong criticism from many local Jewish groups, and is having repercussions as far away as Seattle, where the cartoon also appeared.

Drawn by artist Tony Auth, the editorial cartoon depicts a wire fence in the shape of a Jewish star. Enclosed in each of seven sections ? the six points of the star, as well as the center ? stand groups of Palestinian men, women and children.

According to Auth, the drawing was designed to illustrate ?that the State of Israel is building a fence that separates Palestinians and is an obstacle to peace.?

But that?s not how many people saw it.

?It was really outrageous,? declared Israeli Consul General Giora Becher. ?It was insensitive for the cartoonist to use the Jewish symbol of a Magen David, and to use it with barbed wire and some connotation of the concentration camp.?

Harold Goldman, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, said: ?To me, the Tony Auth cartoon crossed a line between what is acceptable political commentary and satire to what is clearly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel commentary.?

Nancy Baron-Baer of the regional Anti-Defamation League office added that the cartoon evoked memories of the Holocaust, ?where the fence was used to commit atrocities, equating that to the Israelis? building a fence to keep terrorists from committing atrocities.?

Further, she said, by using a ?symbol of the Jewish faith, [Auth] has put his criticism forth to say that it?s representative of all Jews, not just the State of Israel.?

ANTI-ZIONIST IS NOT ANTI-SEMITIC!!! Jesus Christ, people, you trivialize the whole issue when you try and say someone speaking against Israel hates Jews. That is not the freakin’ case.

J’s Notes is TWO!!! Yes, folks, today marks two years of providing you useless stuff you could have found anywhere else. But you didn’t. You found it here. Thank you.

Sorry the posts have been lacking lately, no excuses other than busy elsewhere. My new scheming for school could have me done by the end of this semester thanks to Spanish and Precalc internet classes through other schools. We’ll see…

Senator Tom Daschle blogs.

And this is my first test using the Google Toolbar’s ‘Blog This’ feature. Pretty handy.