Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen, whose iconic daily cartoons were published by JNS for the last several years, died on April 14 at Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba after a lengthy illness. He was 87 years old.
After making aliyah in 1971, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Jerry Kirschen began sketching his trademark “Dry Bones” cartoons in 1973. The cartoon was internationally syndicated and published in The Jerusalem Post for 50 years, after which Kirschen moved to JNS.
“It was our privilege to run his cartoon,” said JNS CEO Alex Traiman.
The name of Kirschen’s comic strip referred to the biblical vision of the “Valley of Dry Bones,” with its main character named Shuldig, which is Yiddish for guilty or blame.
“The cartoon started on January 1, 1973,” he once explained. “I named it ‘Dry Bones,’ thinking that everyone would immediately connect the name with the ‘dry bones’ that will rise again, from the book of Ezekiel. But the question that I get asked most often is, ‘Where does the name ‘Dry Bones’ come from?’ So what I thought would be most obvious was not obvious at all.”
A member of the U.S. National Cartoonists Society and the Israeli Cartoonists Society, Kirschen won several awards and was considered a “national treasure of the Jewish people.” Among the prizes he received were the Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comics’ Golden Pencil Award and the 2014 Nefesh B’Nefesh Bonei Zion Prize for his contribution to Israeli culture and the arts.
“A proud Zionist, he had an impeccable ability to capture the mood of a nation in just one drawing,” said media personality Arsen Ostrovsky.
Kirschen is survived by his artist wife, Sali Ariel; three daughters; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. He was laid to rest on April 16 at the Pardes Haim Cemetery in Kfar Saba.
