Gut Shabbes

The Jewish Review of Books mourns the passing of Harvey Pekar whose comics—with Tara Seibel’s gorgeous illustration—graced our first two issues.

Harvey was just in the office last week to pick up the new issue, and seemed in good contrarian form, wryly outraged by half a dozen news items. His last comic for us, “Gut Shabbes,” was a characteristically self-deprecating little story of the tension between secular and religious Jews. In its last panel, Harvey stares out at the reader in a mock Jack Benny pose (he was sure that we’d get the allusion). Click here to see Harvey’s “Crumb’s Genesis: A Graphic Review” from Spring 2010.

Pekar

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Suggested Reading

The Martyr of Reason

Jerome E. Copulsky

On Saturday evening, December 31, 1785, the eminent Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn left his house to deliver a manuscript. He had finished it on Friday afternoon but, as an observant Jew, Mendelssohn waited until the Sabbath concluded to bring it to his publisher. He died a few days later on January 4, 1786, at the age of 56.