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Dov Smiley with his Yom Kippur-themed comic book

'The Book Of Jonah'

Art student creates educational
comic book for the High Holidays.

Frances Kraft
Canadian
Jewish News
I

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56

.ptember 18 • 2014

n addition to the usual prayer
books, more than 30
North American syna-
gogues, including half a
dozen in Toronto, are add-
ing a new publication to
their High Holiday reper-
toire this year — a comic
book titled The Book of
Jonah.
The dramatically illus-
trated story — adapted
from the Haftorah reading
for the Yom Kippur ser-
vice — is the creation of
24-year-old Dov Smiley, a
third-year student at the
New Jersey-based Kubert
School of cartoon and
graphic art. His work also
appears in the recently
published Jewish Comix
Anthology (www.
jewishcomicsanthology.
corn).
Smiley was born in
Detroit and attended Hillel
Day School in Farmington Hills, where
his father had served as head of the
school. The family belonged to Adat
Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills.

A graduate of the Anne and Max
Tanenbaum Community Hebrew
Academy of Toronto and OCAD
University, where he studied drawing
and painting, Smiley
said he's been trying to
bring Jewish themes
into his artwork. He has
worked with youth at
several synagogues, most
recently Toronto's Adath
Israel Congregation.
Smiley, who describes
himself as an observant
Conservative Jew, moved
to Toronto in 2003 with
his family at age 14.
Although he was "a big
comic book reader" as a
kid, he didn't get serious
about art until his final
year of high school, he
said.
Because of his experi-
ence working with youth
groups, he knew that
informal Jewish educa-
tors have been look-
ing for new resources.
Having found support
among educators he consulted about
the Jonah comic, he says now, "What's
really cool is that I think people saw all
the value of the book:'

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