Dry Bones (comic strip)

Dry Bones is an Israeli political cartoon strip published in the English-language newspaper The Jerusalem Post from 1973 until 2023, and then in the Jewish News Syndicate until 2025. Dry Bones is the work of Yaakov Kirschen.

Dry Bones comic strip

The name of the comic strip refers to the vision of the "Valley of Dry Bones" in the Book of Ezekiel (37:1–14).^[1] The main character of the cartoon is Shuldig - Yiddish for guilty/to blame.^[2]

Dry Bones has been reprinted and quoted by The New York Times, Time magazine, Los Angeles Times, CBS, AP and Forbes. It offers a pictorial commentary on current events in Israel and the Jewish world.^[3] Dry Bones was syndicated in North America by Cagle Cartoons.

Yaakov Kirschen

Yaakov Kirschen was born as Jerry Kirschen in Brooklyn, New York City, in 1938. He studied art at Queens College and became an artist after graduating in 1961.^[4] He originally held a job in making greeting cards, but was eventually fired due to his "jocular" behaviour. He drew cartoons for magazines such as Playboy^[5] and Cracked. In 1971, he moved to Israel with his wife and three children, changing his name to Yaakov and taking up cartooning.^[6] Kirschen did programming at IBM and two other major corporations by day, "while at the same time working as a cartoonist."^[7] In 1971 he "dragged a wife and three children" to "'return' to the land of Israel, a place that we had never even visited."^[8] In Israel, with four other computer programmers, he built an ELIZA-like Artificial Intelligence program, but with "personalities of a Jewish mother and a Jewish uncle, called Mom and Murray."^[7] He also began his Dry Bones series - the same combination of programming by day, cartoons in after hours. In November 1982, Gesher Educational Affiliates hired him to draw promotional artwork and make educational computer games aimed at Jewish youth in Israel and the United States.^[9]

After a 2019 cartoon in the New York Times depicting Benjamin Netanyahu as a guide dog leading Donald Trump (portrayed as a blind man) sparked controversy over perceived antisemitism, Kirschen criticized the cartoon, which he believed was using both anti-semitic tropes and a lack of creativity.^[10]

Kirschen has criticized the general field of political cartooning for condoning antisemitism. In an interview he gave the example of a cartoon by Dave Brown depicting Ariel Sharon as eating babies, which won several awards.^[11] Kirschen says his cartoons are designed to make people laugh, which makes them drop their guard and see things the way he does. In an interview, he defined his objective as a cartoonist as an attempt to "seduce rather than to offend."^[12] Kirschen is opposed to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and has criticized it in his cartoons. In 2015, he founded a virtual campus named the Dry Bones Academy of Cartoon Advocacy and Activism.^[13][11]

Yaakov Kirschen died in 2025 at the age of 87.^[14]

Reception and criticism

During the aftermath of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, The New York Times published an article on Israeli perception of the event, where Dry Bones was featured.^[15][16]

When terrorists attacked from Syria, we blamed the Syrians. When murderous infiltrators slipped in from Lebanon, we blamed the Lebanese. When P.L.O. killers launched raids from Jordan, we blamed the Jordanians. When fedayeen goons came in from Egypt, we blamed the Egyptians. But when we send a bloodthirsty gang into a refugee camp, we blame everyone in the world except ourselves. Whether it was omission or commission, we've got something to atone for this Yom Kippur. –Yaakov Kirschen

Dry Bones has been characterized as generally pro-Israel, and has tried to spread awareness of the persecution of Christians in Africa and Syria.^[17][18] In his obituary, Jewish News Syndicate describes Kirschen as "a proud Zionist."^[14] Thomas L. Friedman described it as the Israeli equivalent to the Doonesbury cartoon in 1985.^[7]

The comic strip was criticised in an episode of the podcast Chapo Trap House for its poor quality and overt racism, referring to it as 'Zionist Ziggy' owing to the similar simplistic style of both comics.^[19] Following Kirschen's death, Chapo revisited the comic strip, noting its long-lasting advocacy for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard as a cause célèbre.^[20]

Awards

Kirschen won the Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comics' Golden Pencil Award for his work.^[3]

Books

• Trees, the Green Testament (1993)^[11]
• The Dry Bones Haggadah (2016)^[2]
• Young and Innocent: The Way We Were (2017)^[6]