graphic novel

Immigration challenges

Adi Barokas and her husband Barak during their time in Vancouver. (photo from Adi Barokas)

I read a review in an Israeli newspaper of Adi Barokas’ Hebrew-language graphic novel, the title of which translates as The Journey to the Best Place on Earth (and Back). I also read a scathing review of that review on the JI website, written by Roni Rachmani, an Israeli who lives in Vancouver. Disturbed by several aspects of the criticism, I decided to look into the book – and its author and illustrator – myself.

When I made aliyah from Canada in 1975, I had many difficulties acclimatizing to Israel. In reading Adi’s book, it was as though she had written the book I’d always wanted to write about Israel. Her experiences in Canada, which took place three decades after mine in Israel, were decidedly similar.

Aliyah is often thought of as a lofty, spiritual ascent, but, in a practical sense, it is effectively like immigrating to any other country. In the euphoria and joy of making the huge leap, this can be overlooked.

Decades before the internet, cellphones, Skype and WhatsApp, I left my home and family, strongly motivated by Zionist ideals, conveyed to me by my parents’ Israel experience of the 1950s. I longed to live a fuller Jewish life and take part in the developing history of Am Yisrael. Wrapped in a fuzzy cloak of enthusiasm, naïve and wholly unfamiliar with Israeli society, things turned out to be very different than the utopian image I’d envisioned. However, nearly half a century later, I am still grateful to be here.

Adi and her husband Barak met in the mid-2000s. Shortly after they married, Barak was called up to serve in the Second Lebanon War. They wanted to live in a quiet, peaceful society where they could just pursue their lives and careers, so they headed to Vancouver, which is often billed as one of the best places in the world to live. Unfortunately, they met with many unexpected challenges, mostly related to cultural differences. They tried to feel like they belonged, but never overcame feeling like foreigners.

For me, the in-your-face abrasiveness for which Israelis are known was an enormous shock to my more reserved, polite system. In Vancouver, Adi found those Canadian-associated traits off-putting and two-faced.

Adi and Barak were seeking a breather, serenity and space from the intense pace of life in densely populated Israel. With excessively high expectations that everything would be just so, they came to Vancouver. But for them, too, the culture shock was huge. They were not accustomed to so many rigid rules and regulations.

Adi had never lived in such a diverse society and was excited to interact with people of many ethnicities from around the world. It took a long time to catch on to the nuances, the nonverbal cues, of how people in Vancouver socialize – what topics are off limits, for example. Coming from Israel, a very liberal place, where most people freely express their unsolicited opinions, this was challenging.

Adi and Barak found it odd that everything was so quiet and calm in Vancouver. They were used to a lively, noisy society where people mix in close proximity. In Vancouver, everywhere they went, voices were barely audible and, so, they gradually adjusted and lowered their own tone of voice, and limited their conversations to certain topics.

The couple were eager to socialize, especially with their fellow foreign colleagues, with whom they felt more affinity than with Canadians. They initiated get-togethers, extended invitations, but they found everything so formal and stilted and rarely reciprocated. The only safe subjects of conversation were about hockey or the weather, nothing the couple felt was deep or of substance. This hampered their forming close friendships. Their sense of strangeness, that they would never fit in, grew.

On the flipside, schooled in the notion of appropriate table talk in Canada, I would often feel embarrassed at subjects discussed so frankly in Israel. It felt like an infringement on private matters, mostly with regards to money and personal relationships.

In Israel, people stand far less on ceremony, tell others to drop by any time, and mean it. But, to me, these invitations seemed an empty manner of speech. In Hebrew, the word for “to drop by” (tikfetzi) and a less polite version of “buzz off” (tikfetzi li) are the same!

I was baffled when people would ask why I’d come to Israel. It’s obvious to anyone imbued with Zionist and Jewish values that aliyah is a natural step, that Israel is the place to build a future. But, instead of words of praise or encouragement, Israeli peers, if they showed any interest at all, found it amusing that anyone would leave what they assumed was the easy life, to come to what was a troubled society. There was certainly no welcome wagon, no grace period to acclimatize. There were few invitations for holidays or Shabbat. The workplace, where I was often the only non-Israeli, was an even rougher scene – I wasn’t aware of how critical having connections really is, of how offices and organizations operated.

image - The Journey to the Best Place on Earth (and Back) book cover — The Journey to the Best Place on Earth (and Back) was written and illustrated by Adi Barokas.

Across the ocean, Adi and Barak arrived with several science degrees under their belts, and had to swim the stormy seas of academic life in a B.C. university. There was some discrepancy between how they saw themselves – as conveying constructive criticism – and what some of their colleagues and acquaintances shared with them. This created awkward misunderstandings, a lack of candid communication and obstacles to their ability to settle in.

The couple had to wade through seemingly endless red tape through bureaucracy channels. They found it infuriating to jump hoops with indifferent, intransigent civil servants, who never saw them as individuals.

I can completely relate, as I have had to navigate mountains of paperwork, all in Hebrew, which, when I first arrived, was at an afternoon Hebrew school level. English was not widely spoken, and clerks lacked any service orientation – there was scarcely any eye contact. I miss even a perfunctory exchange of pleasantries, which, in Israel, is considered a waste of words. But Israel has come a long way and there is a marked improvement; as well, much can be done online. That’s not to say everyone is pleasant, but at least civil.

Barak and Adi became increasingly frustrated in Vancouver and it began to affect their mental and physical health. They became discouraged, falling into despondency, and their lives were out of their control. Under steadily increased pressure, their goals seemed to be slipping from their grasp, yet they were obligated to stick it out. They would have loved to have returned to Israel much sooner, but honoured their academic commitments, which were critical to enabling Barak to advance in his career in cancer research. Competition is fierce in academia but, eventually, Barak was offered a position at Ben-Gurion University, for which they are grateful.

Adi asked me why I stay in Israel. The answer is that, despite not knowing the ropes initially, having had to master Hebrew and the Middle Eastern mentality, the reasons for coming remain steadfast: unwavering belief in Zionist ideology and the privilege of fulfilling the mitzvah of settling in Eretz Yisrael. Still reserved and well-mannered at my core, I can and will tell someone off in Hebrew if they cut in front of me in line. And driving has forced me to become assertive.

Life in Israel has made me resilient, not automatically accepting of everything that’s dished out, and no longer complacent. My children and grandchildren have none of my social concerns and are rarely bothered by the things that irk me. They do recognize and understand that it hasn’t been a walk in the park for me. They greatly benefit from knowing English, which I spoke at home to my kids and which I also speak with my grandchildren.

Distance has impacted relationships with my relatives, who are all in Canada, and I miss them. But, in Canada, families commonly live far apart and visit only a few times a year. That’s just the norm and how I grew up, too. In Israel, we belong to a close-knit clan, with whom we celebrate holidays and other occasions; regularly helping one another is everything here.

Living in Vancouver, Adi was frustrated by the positive-thinking approach that was all the rage, but didn’t work for her. She needed to be able to share her concerns openly. She wanted practical advice, instead of being brushed off all the time, with people either trying to divert her attention or change the subject. At least the experience forced her to become more self-reliant.

Adi began to delve into other areas beyond academia, having been turned off the sciences for good. She tapped into her creative side, got her driver’s licence, went swimming, started writing. Both she and Barak took up yoga and meditation.

Adi sought therapy and finally found a therapist who was helpful, which contributed to Adi’s bouncing back from within. Time spent in nature, and developing her writing and artistic skills, offered solace.

It was during this process of self-discovery and self-care that the couple decided to start a family, and they had a son.

When an offer came for Barak to take up a post in Leicester, England, it meant once again picking up and leaving, and having to learn their way around a new place. But, it appealed to them, as Leicester was off the beaten track and the small city ambience appealed to them. As well, the move brought them closer to home. Instead of the 10-hour time difference, they were only two hours behind Israel time-wise and a five-hour flight away.

Outside Israel, Jews tend to belong to communities where they gather to share religious and cultural activities and strengthen their bond with Israel. For me, coming to Israel to live in a predominantly Jewish society was enlightening, yet it wasn’t easy to understand the many different customs. I enjoy the Jewish character and vibe of Israel in many facets of the public sphere. Life revolves largely around the Jewish calendar, especially the celebration of Shabbat and festivals. What binds us is our unique, incredible history and heritage.

Had I been better prepared, come with more defined goals, and more socialized in a Jewish environment, I might have fared better. Even when the going was rough, returning was never an option, however. I am living a meaningful life in Israel, where I have mostly resided in the Jerusalem area.

We have all witnessed Israel evolve into a modern, advanced country, making huge strides in every realm imaginable. On occasional visits to Canada, I enjoy the familiar scenery, the cold, the language and pleasantries, though a noticeably different mindset from the locals is apparent.

Immigration is a tremendous and profoundly complex undertaking. It entails much uncertainty and many twists and turns. No matter how much any immigrant plans, one never knows how things will unfold. It is an arduous process that demands full commitment with every fibre of one’s mind, body and soul. Fellow ex-pats can only offer so much support and help. The individual immigrating has to go through the process on their own terms.

Adi and Barak have since returned to Israel. Over a total of eight years away, they learned a great deal about themselves, individually and as a couple. Growing up in Israel, they naturally identified as Israelis, their Jewish identity cultural. While abroad, they realized that they were viewed by others not only as Israelis, but as Jewish, as a minority. This heightened their awareness, added a new dimension.

Time away has changed them, considerably, and they returned to a somewhat changed Israel. They have settled on a kibbutz 20 minutes from Be’er Sheva, where they and their now two children enjoy spectacular scenery in the Negev, a warm climate and a caring community. They have found their home right here, at home.

Adina Horwich was born in Israel to Canadian parents. In 1960, the family returned to Canada, first living in Halifax, then in a Montreal suburb. In 1975, at age 17, Horwich made aliyah, and has lived mostly in the Jerusalem area.

Illustrating Holocaust stories

Gilad Seliktar, left, and Rolf Kamp in Amsterdam. They are drawing the last hiding place of Nico and Rolf Kamp in Achterveld, which was liberated in April 1945 by Canadian troops. (photo from UVic)

A University of Victoria professor is orchestrating an international project that links Holocaust survivors with professional illustrators to create a series of graphic novels, thereby bringing the stories of the Shoah to new generations.

Charlotte Schallié, a Holocaust historian and the current chair of UVic’s department of Germanic and Slavic studies, is leading the initiative, which connects four survivors living in the Netherlands, Israel and Canada with accomplished graphic novelists from three continents.

The project, called Narrative Art and Visual Storytelling in Holocaust and Human Rights Education, is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Its aim is to teach about racism, antisemitism, human rights and social justice while shedding more light on one of the darkest times in human history.

UVic is partnering with several organizations in the project, including the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Many historians of the genre have argued that the rise of graphic novels as a serious medium of expression is largely due to the commercial success of Art Spiegelman’s Maus in 1986. Maus, the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize, depicts recollections of Spiegelman’s father, a Shoah survivor, with Jews portrayed as mice, Germans as cats and Poles as pigs.

Schallié told the Independent that the idea for the project came from observing the interest her 13-year-old son has in graphic novels and the appeal Maus has had among her students, who have continually selected it as one of the most poignant and memorable materials in her classes.

“Though a graphic novel, Maus could hardly be accused of treating the events of the Holocaust frivolously,” she said from her office on the campus of the University of Victoria.

As most survivors are now octogenarians and nonagenarians, the passage of time creates an ever more compelling need to tell their stories as soon as possible.

image - Barbara Yelin’s illustration of Emmie Arbel, now — Barbara Yelin’s illustration of Emmie Arbel, now. *(image from UVic)*

image - Barbara Yelin’s illustration of Emmie Arbel, then — Barbara Yelin’s illustration of Emmie Arbel, then. *(image from UVic)*

“Given the advanced age of survivors, the project takes on an immediate urgency,” said Schallié. “And what makes their participation especially meaningful is that each of them continues to be a social justice activist well into their 80s and 90s. They are role models for the integration of learning about the Shoah and broader questions of human rights protection.”

The visual nature of a graphic novel allows it to bring in elements or depict scenes that are not possible with an exclusively written work, according to Schallié. A person may describe an event in writing but leave out aspects of a scene that might add more to the sense of what it was like to be there at the time.

One of the survivors participating in the project, David Schaffer, 89, lives in Vancouver. He is paired with American-Israeli comic artist Miriam Libicki, who is also based in the city. The two met in person in early January so that Libicki could learn the story of how he survived the Holocaust as a child in Romania.

In 1941, Schaffer was forcibly sent with his family to Transnistria, on the border of present-day Moldova and Ukraine, by cattle car. There, they suffered starvation and were subjected to intolerable and inhumane living conditions.

image - One of the illustrations by Miriam Libicki, who is working with survivor David Schaffer — One of the illustrations by Miriam Libicki, who is working with survivor David Schaffer. *(image from UVic)*

“The most important thing is to share the story with the general population so they realize what happened and to avoid it happening again. It’s very simple. History has a habit of repeating itself,” said Schaffer.

Libicki, who was the Vancouver Public Library’s Writer in Residence in 2017, is the creator of jobnik!, a series of graphic comics about a summer she spent in the Israeli military. An Emily Carr University of Art + Design graduate, she also published a collection of essays on what is means to be Jewish, Toward a Hot Jew. (See jewishindependent.ca/drawing-on-identity-judaism.)

“The more stories, the better. The wiser we can be as people, the more informed we can be as citizens and the more empathy we can have for each other,” Libicki said. “Graphic novels are not just a document in the archives; they’re something people will be drawn to reading.”

image - Gilad Seliktar drew this sketch of Rolf Kamp — Gilad Seliktar drew this sketch of Rolf Kamp. *(image from UVic)*

The other illustrators are Barbara Yelin, a graphic artist living in Germany, and Gilad Seliktar, who is based in Israel. Yelin is the recipient of a number of prizes for her work, including the Max & Moritz Prize for best German-language comic artist in 2016. Seliktar has illustrated dozens of books – from publications for children to adult graphic novels – and his drawings frequently appear in leading Israeli newspapers and magazines.

Brothers Nico and Rolf Kamp in Amsterdam and Emmie Arbel in Kiryat Tiv’on, Israel, are the other three survivors who are providing their accounts of the Holocaust.

The books will be available digitally in 2022. A hard copy version of each book is planned, as well. When finished, the graphic novels will be accompanied by teachers guides and instructional material designed for schools in Canada, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.

UVic hopes to match a larger number of survivors with professional illustrators in the future. To learn more, contact Schallié at [email protected]. You can also visit the project’s website at holocaustgraphicnovels.org.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Creative, engaging memoir

Nora Krug’s Belonging offers a thoughtful and artistic exploration of identity and history. (photo by Nina Subin)

Nora Krug’s Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home (Scribner, 2018) opens with a page made to look like it’s written in pencil on yellow graph paper. The illustration of a bandage takes up half the page, which is ostensibly “From the notebook of a homesick émigré: Things German.” Entry No. 1 is about Hansaplast, a type of bandage created in 1922 that Krug associates with safety, her mother having used it, for example, to stop Krug’s knee from bleeding after a roller-skating accident at age 6. “It is the most tenacious bandage on the planet,” writes Krug, “and it hurts when you tear it off to look at your scar.”

Belonging is the written and illustrated account of what happens when Krug decides to rip off the Hansaplast and examine the scars left by the history of her family – which had only been related to her in vague terms – and her country of birth, Germany. It is a creative and engaging memoir about Krug’s efforts to define for herself and reclaim for herself the idea of Heimat, tarnished by the Nazis’ use of it in propaganda.

Heimat can refer to an actual or imagined location with which a person feels familiar or comfortable, or the place in which a person is born, the place that played a large part in shaping their character and perspective. Krug’s exploration of identity comprises archival research, interviews with family members and others, and visits to her mother’s and father’s hometowns – Karlsruhe (where Krug grew up) and Külsheim, respectively.

Alternating with the narrative of her discoveries are several notebook entries, on a range of items, from bread to binders to soap, which are both points of pride, as they are quality-made items, and metaphors. For example, Persil is “a time-tested German laundry detergent invented in 1907,” which Krug uses. However, she writes, “Some referred to the postwar testimonials written by neighbours, colleagues and friends in defence of suspected Nazi sympathizers as Persil Certificates. Persil guarantees your shirts to come out as white as snow.”

As well, Krug includes pages “From the scrapbook of a memory archivist,” which present odd and sometimes disturbing arrays of items found at flea markets on her research trips to Germany. These include Hitler Youth trading cards, a letter from the front containing a lock of hair and photographs of soldiers petting or holding various animals, mostly dogs.

But the main intrigue of the book comes from what Krug shares as she persists in her research, asking questions and scouring documents. She wants to find out all she can about her family’s involvement in the Holocaust, in particular that of her maternal grandfather, who died when Krug was 11, and her paternal uncle, who was drafted at 17 and shot and killed at age 18, before her father, a postwar baby, was born; her father was named after the brother he never knew. Despite her efforts, many of Krug’s questions remain unanswered.

At the end of Belonging, it’s not even clear if Krug – who readers find out early on married into a Jewish family – feels any less guilty or any more secure in her self and in her past. But she does manage to start the healing process on some family rifts. And she highlights a couple of steps towards healing that she witnesses in Germany. For example, of Külsheim – which had, in 1988, the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht, abandoned a proposal for a memorial plaque where the synagogue once stood, before it was burned down the night of Nov. 10, 1938 – she writes: “Plans are made to restore Külsheim’s old mikvah, and a memorial stone is erected where the synagogue used to be, ‘as a manifestation of sadness and shame,’ Külsheim’s new mayor says on the day it is installed.”

The book ends as it began, with a notebook entry. No. 8 is Uhu, “invented by a German pharmacist as the first synthetic (bone-glue-free) resin adhesive in the world, in 1932.” Despite its world-record strength, which is why Krug imports it to repair everything from the soles of her shoes to broken dishware, Uhu “cannot cover up the crack.”

Artistic telling of strike

The book 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike by the Graphic History Collective and artist David Lester is not education for education’s sake, but rather a “useful organizing tool,” according to the preface. “This comic book revisits ‘the workers’ revolt’ in Winnipeg to highlight a number of important lessons that activists can lean on and learn from today as they fight for radical social change,” notes the collective.

Lester, a Vancouver-based illustrator, musician, and graphic designer and novelist, will give the talk Getting Graphic with Labour History on June 7, 7 p.m., at the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union Lower Mainland Area office. He will also give a presentation as part of the World Peace Forum Society event 100 Years After the Winnipeg General Strike, in which Jewish community member Gary Cristall (activist and grandson of a 1919 solidarity strike activist) and others will participate on June 8, 2:30 p.m., at SFU Harbour Centre, Room 7000. In addition, he and members of the collective are participating in a few panels at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (congress2019.ca), taking place at the University of British Columbia June 1-7, and are then heading to Cumberland, B.C., for a June 23 event during the Miners Memorial Weekend.

In the Acknowledgements section of 1919, the Graphic History Collective describes itself as “a not-for-profit arts collective. For us, solidarity is not just a winning strategy in class struggle. It is our artistic methodology. In taking seriously the idea that we can accomplish more by working together, we prioritize collaboration…. As GHC members, we volunteer and share our artistic vision and share our artistic, writing and administrative skills.” The collective recognizes the many people who “contributed knowledge, labour and funding to this project. Most importantly, we recognize that this comic book would not have been completed without David Lester’s incredible talent and artistic labour.” Other GHC members who contributed are Sean Carleton, Robin Folvik, Kara Sievewright and Julia Smith; Prof. James Naylor of Brandon University’s history department wrote the book’s introduction.

“In 1919, 35,000 workers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, staged a six-week general strike between 15 May and 26 June,” the narrative begins. Lester’s two-page depiction of the strikers gathering at Portage and Main gives an idea of the vastness of the protest and the small area within which it took place. It is easy to see how people would have had nowhere to run and the panic that would have ensued when the Royal Northwest Mounted Police and the “special constables,” violently broke up the strike on “Bloody Saturday,” June 21, 1919. The police were among those who had voted to strike but were given dispensation to work by the strike committee; however, the city dismissed the whole force on June 9. The mayor, the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand (formed of business leaders and others) and the federal government opposed the strike and worked together to end it by various means, using fear of immigrants (aka racism) and eventually violence to do so.

1919 gives a history of the pivotal event from the perspective of the strike leaders, workers and their supporters. The textual narrative drops away, for the most part, in the telling of what happened on Bloody Saturday and the impact of Lester’s images builds as the day progresses, from 9:30 a.m. to 11, to 2:20 and so on. Just before 3:35 p.m., two strikers are shot, one dies on the spot, the other from gangrene. The violence continues. At 4 p.m., the special constables take control. By 6 p.m., Canadian Army Service Corps trucks – equipped with machine guns – are patroling Main Street. By the end of the day, in addition to the two strikers killed, many are wounded and 94 people are arrested. The book then describes some of what happened in the trials that followed, and the strike’s legacy.

Lester shares some of his artistic process and inspiration in the essay “The Art of Labour History,” especially the Bloody Saturday pages, and this is followed by a photo essay called “The Character of Class Struggle in Winnipeg.” The notes are useful in providing context for some of the images, and the bibliography shows the depth of research. Short bios of the contributors and a list of the Manitoba unions that supported the publication conclude the book.

“Art bears witness to the injustices of the world and, in reflecting on the pain and struggles of the past, offers hope in working together for a better present and future,” writes Lester. “Art can aid the momentum of progressive social change, and that is what keeps me going…. I am trying to capture and convey the inspiration and spirit of solidarity in class conflict. That is the art of labour history.”

Drawing on identity, Judaism

Artist and graphic novelist Miriam Libicki is currently Vancouver Public Library’s writer-in-residence. (photo from VPL)

“I think that a lot of my stuff does end up having to do with identity, through both the books I’ve published and the one I’m in the process of starting to draw right now, as well. I’m very interested in identity and I’m interested in identity as something that can change,” Miriam Libicki told the Independent in a phone interview.

Libicki is Vancouver Public Library’s writer-in-residence this fall. Her first event was Sept. 14 and her teaching sessions have been consistently full. At her finale event Dec. 7, attendees will get a preview of her new work. Libicki will also be making appearances at the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, Nov. 26 and 30.

Both of her published books – jobnik! an american girl’s adventures in the israeli army (real gone girl studios, 2008) and Toward a Hot Jew (Fantagraphics Books, 2016) – have received acclaim. The former, which was based on the diary she kept during her service in the Israel Defence Forces, was a finalist for the Gene Day Award for Canadian self-publishing. The latter, a collection of graphic essays, won the 2017 Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature in the non-fiction category.

She attributes her curiosity about identity to her upbringing. “Part of it is the idea that I grew up in a very strong and defined community, which was Modern Orthodox Judaism, in the suburbs of the U.S., and yet, I always kind of felt that we were not the platonic ideal of Modern Orthodox American Judaism,” she said. “I guess, partially, because my mother was a convert, which, in some thought, is still kind of taboo, although, in the U.S., it’s very common … and that she was not ashamed or disparaging of where she came from at all, we were still very close with everyone in her family…. She was never somebody who preached that Modern Orthodoxy was the only way to live a moral life.”

This led to some tension, said Libicki, who went to an Orthodox day school. “Also, in my teens, being very attuned to hypocrisy – as many teens are – when people are doing things so much differently than what they preach,” it was challenging. “And then, going to Israel and finding that the social categories were completely different again, that Orthodox was a certain other thing,” raised other questions, such as, “Is religion a belief or is it a social category?”

Libicki spent four years in Israel “trying to be an Israeli.” But, she said, “I was constantly judging, with my over-analytical and insecure mind, whether I was succeeding at being an Israeli or whether I was doing something wrong. And then, I ended up leaving Israel and felt very ambivalent about that…. I think that that has driven a lot of my comics.”

Now living in Coquitlam and a mother of two, Libicki said, “I’m sending my kids to school and that involves a whole other declaration of identity.”

She and her partner, Mike, have a daughter, who just started kindergarten at Vancouver Talmud Torah, and a son, who is 2. “I’ve always … wanted to send my kids to Jewish school – I’m not ambivalent about it,” she said.

Libicki’s current project – the one people will get a peek at on Dec. 7 – focuses on the exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union as it was collapsing in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She has finished the script, she said, which is about “232 pages at this point. And now I’m starting to break it down into thumbnail drawings and starting to draw the first few pages of it.”

Of those Jews who emigrated, she said, about half went to Israel and just under half came to the United States, with the rest going to Canada, Australia and elsewhere. “My town – Columbus, Ohio – which was not a huge Jewish community, although we had five synagogues and a private day school, got a big influx of families … so my little Jewish day school, which was very small, was about a third to two-fifths Russian-speaking by the time that I was in high school. When I was in kindergarten, there were no Russians and then, by the time I was in middle school, there were lots. Growing up, my community was not very diverse and it was interesting to see this whole other community fall into the middle of my community.”

Libicki conducted the initial research for this project for her master’s in creative writing, which she recently completed at the University of British Columbia. For her thesis, she said, “I went back to Columbus and I interviewed a lot of people that I went to high school with, that I’d lost touch with, most of them immigrants, kids who came in the ’90s.

“My parents had moved to Ashkelon … in a community in Israel that I thought was somewhat analogous [to Columbus] in that it’s not a big or culturally important town, but it also absorbed a lot of immigrants in a short time. I tried to find a sociologically equivalent sample of Russian immigrants in Israel, who had come at the same time and had all gone to the same high school together in Ashkelon, and I interviewed them.

“Those interviews, and other people’s flashbacks, make up a big part of the book. And then, in with that, I also have the part where I’m analyzing it and deconstructing it through different lenses, and I also have my current-day life of trying to figure out what I am and what my family is, and children are.”

While jobnik! is mainly autobiographical, Toward a Hot Jew – a collection of essays written over the space of about 10 years, starting in 2005 – is a mix of autobiography, cultural commentary and analysis. In both books, Libicki doesn’t shy away from difficult topics, and is quite candid about her feelings, sexuality and other sensitive issues.

“A lot of my favourite writers do that and a lot of my favourite cartoonists, so that’s why I felt from the beginning that I should do this. I like reading memoir, and you can tell when people are trying to let themselves off easily or inflate something or avoid talking about something,” she said. “Obviously, nobody talks about everything, but I think you can tell in some memoirs when there’s a certain topic that really is germane and it’s being avoided or it’s being glossed over versus when somebody tries to confront something with honesty and openness. Since I liked reading that stuff, that’s what I wanted to write.

“I don’t think I’ve had too many regrets about doing that. One thing is that it does help to write about people who are far in the past, although this current book, it will have scenes from my current-day life, so I’m going to have to – I’ve been avoiding, actually, showing pages to my partner, but I’m going to have to do that before submitting it to publishers.”

When Libicki was discharged from the IDF, she applied to a few art schools and universities, in Israel and the United States, as well as a non-art-related university in Seattle, which she chose because she had friends in the city. She and her now-husband, who was based in Vancouver, had mutual friends. After about a year of dating, seeing each other on weekends, he suggested she apply to art school in Vancouver.

Libicki enrolled at Emily Carr in 2003 and now teaches at her alma mater, though her main job at the moment is being VPL’s writer-in-residence. “It’s a temporary thing but it’s a full-time job,” she said.

Writers-in-residence spend about 60% of their time on their own writing, she explained, and about 40% interacting with the public, in workshops, lectures and advising people on their writing projects. She has a studio at VPL, to which she commutes from her home in Coquitlam.

As to what led her to the graphic novel form, she said, “It’s something that just kind of happened. It happened while I was in undergrad. I always read comics. I was a big fan of comics, and I was a fan of more alternative and literary comics that started to come out, essentially, in the ’90s and beyond. But I never thought I’d make comics because whenever I had an idea, I didn’t follow through, and the idea of drawing the same character over and over and over was not something I thought I could do. But, I really wanted to be an artist. I drew a lot of portraits…. I thought I might be a children’s book illustrator. So, when I went to art school, I was just thinking of doing a drawing major but then I did one comics art class.”

In that class, she said, she used one of the entries from the diary she kept while in the Israeli army – “I’d had a particularly eventful and bad week, and adapted that into a five-page comic.”

The response to that work – which grew into jobnik! – was positive. “People were curious, they said they wanted to see more of my army stories, and it seemed like a better way to talk about my experience,” she said.

During undergrad, she started doing more comics, and the title essay in Toward a Hot Jew – about “the Israeli soldier as fetish object” – was created as her senior project in art school. Not only did she want to write a research essay that people would actually read, she said, “I wanted to do something that I could use pictures … as part of my argument that I was making, add a nuance through the drawings, as well.”

Libicki said she writes “in a pretty systematic way,” starting with brainstorming, “then I’ll do an outline, then I’ll break down my outline into pages and do a map of it that way, then I’ll do a script and then I’ll do thumbnails and then I’ll move on to art.

“I guess that a lot of people who do any creative endeavour have a lot of anxiety around it and fear that, every time you start a new project, perhaps you’ve forgotten how to do this, so I try to break down my practice into as many small steps as possible, so each one will not be as scary,” she said.

And, a shorter project is something she can put together for a comicon. For example, she created The Quotable Mered – based on tweets she had written about cute things her daughter had said – specifically for VanCAF (Vancouver Comic Arts Festival), a free, annual two-day event that has taken place at the Roundhouse since 2012.

The genre – which she described as “daily journal comics or comics about a small theme” – was something she had never done before, and she wanted to try the style, as well as drawing a bit more loosely and “writing to a punchline.”

“It was an experiment, and I did learn things from it,” she said. “I might do one of those again but I just have so many things to do.”