by Sam Pollak, Judaic Studies Director

Last session our community had the amazing opportunity to learn from Jordan B. Gorfinkle, the Jewish Cartoonist. Gorf, as he calls himself, was the editor of the Batman franchise for the better part of a decade, and he currently writes Everything’s Relative, a weekly cartoon that appears in newspapers around the country and incorporates Jewish values in its content. For more information on Gorf, see www.jewishcartoon.com. 

Gorf has came to GUCI a few weeks ago to help us conclude our session studying Jewish Character and Characters. We had been learning about middot (Jewish virtues) as represented by figures from the Hebrew Bible and throughout Jewish history, so the idea of creating cartoons of people representing Jewish values fit perfectly into our summer!

Over the course of two days, each and every one of our campers got the chance to learn how to script a cartoon, how to sketch the pictures and write the dialogue, and how to ink their creations so they look like professional cartoons. Everyone took home an original one- or four-panel cartoon that incorporates one of our middot (virtues) from the summer.

Gorf curated and ordered our original cartoons to create the first ever GUCI comic book: Midot Comics. This collection of cartoons spans over 80 pages, and is an amazing testament to the creativity and deep thinking of our campers and staff.

To view the final product and download the book to print for your family, please click the link below. Hope you enjoy GUCI’s original comic book! 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/16115bkc0heaimx/Midot%20Comics%20-%20GUCI%202014.pdf