Judaic Studies

Jewish Renegades in the Arts

Idol Worship in the Yiddish Press and Other Stories

WAMC Roundtable interview with Katchor

April 10, 2011, 2pm

Ben Katchor, the graphic novelist whose acclaimed works include The Jew of New York and Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer, discusses the symbolic and accidental references embedded within works created by the Yiddish printing press.

Katchor will lead a slide-show/lecture expanding upon the theme of image worship as presented in his book, The Jew of New York. Through an examination of the use of photographic reproduction in a variety of 20th century Yiddish books and newspapers, Katchor explains how Jewish proscriptions against the establishment of idolatrous images have influenced, and been influenced by, modern printing technology.

Are the photographic images one finds in the Yiddish press of an intentionally low-quality, or have they been degraded by accident? At what point is one no longer able to “read” a photographic image, and when does one turn by necessity to its text caption?

Katchor will demonstrate how certain potentially dangerous symbols are reduced by the vagaries of the printing process to harmless signs pointing to a momentary event in the real world. He examines the possibility of finding other forms of graphic representation to excite our collective memory of persons and places.

This program was made possible by: