Conference taveng::bagels

1391.0. ""Trees" Cartoon book" by TLE::JBISHOP () Fri Mar 04 1994 18:19

    This seemed worth posting.  Has anyone read the book?
    
    		-John Bishop
    
From:	OLIMPA::sentinel "WGS/AD News Sentinel"  4-MAR-1994 04:22:29.80
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        Sentinel Delivered by WGS Advanced Development
DIGITAL INTERNAL USE ONLY AS PER INFORMATION PROVIDER LICENSE
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Headline:  An Israeli Cartoonist   Becomes a Prophet   To U.S. Christians   ---   His Book, `Trees,' Presages   The Second Coming, They   Say; He's a Bit Stumped   ----   By Amy Dockser Marcus   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal



  TEL AVIV -- Here, he is known as the wry cartoonist behind a comic book
about trees.
  But to many evangelical Christians in the U.S., he is a prophet. And
without even realizing it, he may have heralded the Second Coming of the
Messiah.
  The unwitting oracle is Ya'akov Kirschen, a Brooklyn-born Jew who is one
of Israel's leading political cartoonists -- and he is just as baffled as
anyone else about his sudden ascension to prophethood. Mr. Kirschen is
best known for his "Dry Bones" comic strip, which runs in 35 newspapers
around the world; its star is Shuldig, an Israeli-style "Ziggy" whose
faithful sidekick is a dog named Doobie.
  But three months ago, Mr. Kirschen published his first book, a serious
cartoon called "Trees . . . The Green Testament." The book, written in
English and sold primarily in the U.S., tells the story of the Jews and
Israel from the viewpoint of trees. And therein lies the cartoonist's
genesis as a prophet.
  Born-again Christians quickly seized on the book as a sign from God.
"Trees," narrated largely by a wizened old olive tree, spans Jewish
history from the Garden of Eden to Israel's creation in 1948 to a busload
of modern tourists planting saplings. The book's various scenes also
happen to illustrate -- albeit unintentionally -- several biblical signs
that evangelical Christians believe will presage the Second Coming. Among
them: Jews will return to Israel, Israel's hills will be planted with
trees, and its barren land will bloom. To the evangelical Christians, Mr.
Kirschen is a prophet because his book is spreading the word of God in
such an easy-to-read way.
  "I don't use the word prophet loosely, since it seems that in the
Christian community every Tom, Dick, and Harry is a prophet," says Pamela
Staley, an evangelical Christian activist from St. Louis. "But I believe
Ya'akov is a prophet."
  If so, he is living proof that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Mr.
Kirschen, a white-haired 55-year-old with a bohemian flair, favors
paint-splattered blue jeans and sports a smiley-face watch. Born Jerry
Kirschen in Brooklyn, N.Y., he emigrated to Israel in 1971 and shortly
afterward started his "Dry Bones" comic strip, featuring sly political
commentary on current events. He starts interviews by announcing that he
isn't sure if God exists.
  "I told one minister I'm not a believer," he says, "and, tears streaming
down his face, he said, `Isn't God wonderful? If you had been a believer,
what you wrote would be ignored. God needed a cynical unbelieving
cartoonist in order to get His message across.'"
  Still, Mr. Kirschen is happily taking his new status in stride. He has
appeared on everything from the Christian Television Network to radio
shows with names like "Interfaith Connection" and "From the Holy Land."
Christian newspapers have offered to run free ads for the book, which is
currently being sold through a toll-free number (about 7,000 of a 20,000
first printing have been sold, 5,000 of them to a Jewish organization). At
Bridges For Peace, an evangelical Christian group in Jerusalem, the
organization's international director, Clarence Wagner, says "Trees" has
made Mr. Kirschen a top draw as a speaker before Christian pilgrim groups.
He has even been asked for permission to translate the book into
Filipino.
  Mr. Kirschen decided to write "Trees" partly in reaction to his
disappointment over "Maus," Art Spiegelman's retelling of his parents'
experiences in Hitler's Europe in a cartoon in which the Jews are mice,
the Germans are cats and the Poles are pigs. Mr. Kirschen felt that "Maus"
portrayed Jews as weak and rootless. He wanted to show that Jews do indeed
have strong roots. And when he thought of roots, Mr. Kirschen just
couldn't help but think of trees.
  Once he seized on the idea of telling his story through trees, his first
step, he says, was to make himself feel like a tree. He sat in one spot
for hours one afternoon, painstakingly sketching every needle on a pine
tree near his home.
  As the day wore on, the noises, sounds, and colors around him became a
blur. "Suddenly I realized that to a tree, humans look rootless, being
blown from place to place," says Mr. Kirschen. "I realized that I had
slipped into thinking like a tree. I had become the tree."
  At first, he had planned to take a page from "Maus" and make his trees
Jewish. But once he felt at one with a tree, he knew that that concept
couldn't work. "The tree part of me said that would be carrying over what
we humans suffer from, dividing ourselves into Jews, Christians and other
categories," says Mr. Kirschen, adding, in all seriousness, "I think trees
are on a higher spiritual level."
  Nonetheless, Mr. Kirschen became convinced that the fate of Jews and
trees are inextricably intertwined. The Bible, he points out, is filled
with verses comparing Israel with various trees, and under Jewish law,
trees have rights, too. Picking fruit from a tree is forbidden until the
tree reaches a certain age. Fruit trees may not be destroyed during
warfare against a city. If the Messiah comes while trees are being
planted, Jews are instructed to let the Messiah wait. Trees even enjoy a
Jewish holiday of their own.
  In Israel, planting trees has been a key part of the Zionist drive to
reclaim land devastated by overgrazing and deforestation, as well as a way
to establish the rights of Jewish settlers. Over the years, the Jewish
National Fund, a private group that is a leader in reforestation efforts,
has planted more than 200 million trees in Israel; 20% of the money has
been donated by Christians. The fund, not surprisingly, has already
snapped up 5,000 copies of Mr. Kirschen's book, and has agreed to buy as
many as 15,000 more.
  The book is gaining some favorable attention from Jewish audiences; an
Israeli rock-and-roll artist is composing a musical version of "Trees" to
be performed in Jerusalem. Still, Mr. Kirschen's Christian fans are
proving far more avid -- so much so that he started a "Trees" newsletter
that goes primarily to activists interested in distributing the book and
keeping current on new developments. He also is working on a new version
of "Trees" that will provide Biblical and historical commentary on every
page.
  The "Trees" phenomenon has started to shake even Mr. Kirschen's
disbelief. He points out that he wrote 12 drafts of "Trees," the same
number of the Biblical tribes of Israel and of Christ's apostles. He
recently noticed that the name of Tel Aviv's Tamar cafe, where he spends
much of his time and composed most of the book, means "date tree" in
Hebrew. His regular table is located directly below a sign with the cafe's
logo -- a tree.
  Mr. Kirschen still has his doubts about whether he is the right candidate
to be delivering God's word. But his Christian fans try to reassure him by
reminding him of the tale of Balaam's talking donkey in the Book of
Numbers. "They keep telling me that if God can make an ass prophetize,"
says Mr. Kirschen, "then why not a cartoonist?"
-

    The goyim can sure be crazy...
    
    (Not that this gentleman's book isn't a very fine thing.)
    
    We've been promoting and planting trees in Israel for so many years. 
    Now they seize on this book as their prophecy.
    
    Oh well, I don't try to figure them out.
    
    Laura