Yaakov Kirschen’s down-to-earth needling of public figures in “Dry Bones” epitomized Jerusalem’s refusal to bow to foreign diktats
Sadly, that happened this week when the cartoonist died on April 14 at the age of 87. But the legacy he leaves behind is one that deserves to be long remembered in the annals of the Jewish state.
For Americans who cared about Israel in the decades before the Internet revolutionized the news business, few people were as influential as Kirschen, whose daily cartoons in The Jerusalem Post and the paper’s weekly international edition then provided the only English-language Israel-based news source.
Premiering in 1973, just two years after he made aliyah from the United States, “Dry Bones” soon became an institution. More than just a commentator who drew pictures, Kirschen and his humorous insights both reflected common-sense wisdom about Israel’s conflict and the frustrations of daily life in the Jewish state.