Abstract
The following paper considers how integrating Holocaust graphic novels that prominently feature non-Jewish characters can be effective in introducing Jewish students to new perspectives on contemporary understandings of the Holocaust. Drawing on the results of recent studies about rising anti-Semitism and Jews' concerns for their safety, feelings of insularity are understandably becoming more pervasive within the Jewish community. The author argues that in order to combat the negative aspects of this entrenchment, Jewish students need to be introduced to thoughtful and complex narratives that relate to historical anti-Semitic incidents which also model ways of building relationships between the disparate communities in the present. While very different from each other, Rutu Modan's The Property and Nora Krug's Belonging present these types of sophisticated engagements with the past and present and their textual and visual statements are assessed for the ways that they can help reframe Jewish understandings of the legacies of the Holocaust and for building contemporary Jewish-non-Jewish relationships.
Recommended Citation
Reingold, Matt
(2019)
"Bridging the Divide through Graphic Novels: Teaching non-Jews’ Holocaust Narratives to Jewish Students,"
SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education: Vol. 2:
Iss.
4, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sane/vol2/iss4/3
Included in
Comparative Literature Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons, Illustration Commons, Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Religion Commons, Visual Studies Commons