H EADLINES
From left: Rabbi
Lance J. Sussman
and Art Spiegelman
Screenshot by
Jesse Bernstein
quite thought I’d see fascism
rear its head in America.”
When a commenter expressed
dismay that Spiegelman’s discus-
sion was focusing too much
on politics, the cartoonist was
indignant. “Th is isn’t politics as some
kind of abstraction. Th is is
politics. Th e Holocaust was
politics. And we’re living
through politics now,” he said.

In conversation with Rabbi
Lance J. Sussman of Reform
Congregation Keneseth Israel,
Spiegelman discussed the
history of American cartooning
and the publication of “Maus.”
Mostly, he answered questions
about particular choices he’d
made in the creation of “Maus,”
covering everything from his
portrayal of Polish people as
pigs to a shadow on the cover.

Preregistered participants
then broke into two groups. One
session, led by Gary Weissman,
an adjunct professor at Gratz and
an associate professor of English
at the University of Cincinnati,
was intended for educators at the
high school and college levels.

Weissman discussed the various
ways in which “Maus” could be
used to teach students about
the interplay between literature,
history and memory.

In the other session,
Spiegelman addressed more than
40 Gratz students. He discussed
his relationship to Israel, the
diff erence between him and Elie
Wiesel, and a new project he’d
illustrated for the novelist Robert
Coover; he talked about fascism,
Plastic Man and the diff erence
between the Republican and
Democratic parties.

Th e work of Wiesel and some
other survivors, Spiegelman
said, felt “emotionally manipu-
lative” to him; additionally, he
had no intention of becoming
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM a writer who would be called
upon every time someone need
a pronouncement on a matter
of the Holocaust.

“I have no real problem with
his work,” Spiegelman said of
Wiesel. “But I certainly didn’t
want to spend the rest of my life
having to become a second gener-
ation explicator of something
that I put everything I could
know into this one 13-year-long
project, and live only in that.”
Spiegelman recommended
the work of younger cartoon-
ists, and plugged Astra
Quarterly, a new international
literary magazine edited by his
daughter, Nadja Spiegelman.

He answered many questions
regarding teaching techniques
when it came to “Maus”;
most were preceded by an
outpouring of gratitude for
Spiegelman’s work.

Spiegelman insisted that
education wasn’t on his mind
when he fi rst put pencil to paper.

“I never made ‘Maus’ to teach
anybody anything consciously.

I didn’t think the world could
learn,” he said. “I just knew this
was a story that people at that
time, which was 1972, barely
knew.” (Spiegelman drew the
fi rst “Maus” strip in 1972.)
Spiegelman tried
to situate “Maus” in the history
of American cartooning,
explaining that the genre wasn’t
usually considered to have any
literary merit for most of its
history. It was his work and that
of a few other cartoonists in the
late ’80s, he said, that fi nally
brought a more sympathetic
critical eye. ●
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
a why not
kind of person
i am
There are many pages in a long, rich life. What will you be inspired
to do next? Maybe you’ll engage with new people, spend more time
with the ones you know best. Or take time to just be. Whatever your
next chapter brings, you can open up the time and space for it here,
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...to be continued
JEWISH EXPONENT
MARCH 11, 2021
11