This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Eli Valley. Eli is a writer and artist his work has been published in The New Republic, The Daily Beast, The Nation, among other outlets.
We discuss Eli's latest book “Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel”, a scathing work of satire designed as an act of rebellion to galvanize the Jewish left, center the diaspora experience and reject Zionist self-hatred. Eli explains his artistic aesthetic, oftentimes referred to as “grotesque”, the anger it elicits from his critics, and some of the trouble it has gotten him into.
We talk about the bad faith outrage surrounding Ilhan Omar and how Eli found himself in a back and forth with an extremely outraged Meghan McCain, who had described a caricature satirizing her tokenization of Jewish suffering as “one of the most anti-Semitic things” she had ever seen. Eli also explores how Jewish identity is being exploited by the far right at the immediate expense of millions of Palestinians living and dying as refugees, under occupation, or under apartheid.
You can follow Eli on twitter @elivalley, and explore more of his work at elivalley.com.
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