For Openers

Changing His Toon'

he last original
Grapejewz cartoon,
which has been
appearing in the Jewish
News since October 1997, is pub-
lished below. In future weeks,
"classic" Grapejewz cartoons will
be re-published until another car-
toon can be
selected.
With the end of
the series, car-
toonist "Mendel"
has allowed us to
reveal his identity.
He is Michael
Gilbert, a former
ALAN
Jewish Federation
HITSKY
of Metropolitan
Associate
Detroit Annual
Editor
Campaign direc-
to r.
"I've been cartooning all my
life," said Gilbert from Boston,
where he was campaign director
for three years for that city's
Jewish federation. For the past
year, he has been vice president of
development for the Jewish
Community Centers of Greater
Boston.
Jewish News Publisher Arthur
Nil. Horwitz recruited Gilbert as a
cartoonist after seeing a book of
his cartoons on fatherhood in
Gilbert's Detroit area home.
After moving to Boston, the
name Grapejewz was encouraged by
Jewish Family and Life founder and
publisher Yossi Abramowitz. The
cartoon started out with the name
Howz By You. In addition to the
Jewish News, Grapejewz occasionally
appeared in the Toronto Sun.
"I always wanted to explore the
tension between being a fully corn-
mitted Jew and living a contempo-

racy life," said Gilbert of his
Grapejewz theme.
"There's a lot of focus [in
Grapejewz] on'the synagogue as a
business, and fund-raising. That's
why I used a pseudonym — I did-
n't want Federation to get in trou-
ble if someone didn't like the car-
toon."
Gilbert is giving up Grapejewz
because of a hectic schedule. He
and his wife, Julia, are raising two
children, Rebecca, 12, and Jacob,
9; he's working full time; and he's
earning a graduate certificate in
non-profit organization manage-
ment at Northeastern University
in Boston. For the Boston JCCs,
he's fund-raising for a proposed
multi-cultural arts center in
downtown Boston.
"I really enjoyed doing
Grapejewz," Gilbert
said, "but it's
important to grow
as an artist."
The Montreal
native is "well into
writing a chil-
dren's comedy
novel" and he is
considering doing
a business-oriented
cartoon in the
future.
"It has been
a lifelong
dream of
mine to be
published in
the New
Yorker," Gilbert
said.
The Jewish
News may
have been
the first
step. ❑

ift Know
By Goldfein

© 2002

ho was the first
American Jew asked by
a president to be a
nominee to the U.S.
Supreme Court?

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Selected news

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47

) What's Eating Harry
Kirsbaum?

P. Diddy, we hardly know ye:
And we'd like to keep it that way.

wwvv.detroit.jewishnews.com/opinion

Quotables

"It is time to create an atmosphere
where hostility toward Jews is not
acceptable. Jews should not have.to
hesitate to express their Jewishness.
Problems in the Mideast are no
excuse for hooliganism in Berlin."

— Rabbi Chaim Rozwaski, one of
Berlin's chief rabbis, in response to the
rash of attacks against Jews and Jewish
sites in Germany, as quoted by JTA.

"The Jewish environment needs to be
healed. We're turned away from our
treasures, Yiddish being one of them.
That needs to be corrected."

— Boris Sandler, editor of the
Yiddish Forward, marking its 105th
anniversary, as quoted in the Forward

"I'm as hot as a knish."

— Songwriter and singer Barry
Manilow, on his resurgence in
popularity with two albums on the
.popular music charts, as quoted by the
Baltimore Jewish ,Times.

.Rig00 3'4

y??

OR

www.jewish.com

) Mideast Update

The latest news from the war-torn
Middle East.
www.jewish.com

) Settlements Still Grow

Thirty-four years after the first Israeli
settlement was established in Hebron,
the Jewish settlement network in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip continues to
grow. As of February, the settler population
was estimated at 230,000 — including
6,400 in Gaza — having approximately
doubled in the past decade.
-vvww.jewish.corn

Michael Gilbert

GRAPLIEWZ BY Mendel

RABBI, EVERYTHING THESE PAS

IS A DRAKV, TUDAISM IS A
MASTER BRAND AND ALL OF
-r- pie 5.91k1AGO6UES, 5U1oOl,s AND
A6ErJCIES ARE SOB-BRANDS

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So THE WA J t SEE Fr, WHAT

WE TEIA.)5 NEED IS A SENIOR BRAND
MANAGER. S OMEONE GJND Puw-s
PtIA- 106EV-IER. W(40 iS OUR
BRANI7 (TANAGER?

Yiddish Limericks

NO,1 Me-AM (N TERMS
OF OPERATIONS, A.)0T
STRATEG Y

"I worked seven years, day and night.
Now Rachel is nowhere in sight.
It's too late to bail,
But under the veil,"
Sensed Jacob, "the vibe* isn't right."

— Martha Jo Fleischmann

* wife (concealed beneath a wedding
veil, Rachel's sister Leah was passed
off as Jacob's betrothed)

;IN

5/3

2002

9