In three recent “shorts,” the Israeli cartoonist Shay Charka turns his gaze to Europe and the Ashkenazi Jewish past. Michael Weingrad, who has translated the pieces into English, introduces the artist and his work:

Shay Charka is one of Israel’s most talented comic-book artists and political cartoonists. Dara Horn . . . called From Foe to Friend, Charka’s pictorial versions of stories by the Nobel prize-winning author S.Y. Agnon, “miraculous” and “so breathtaking that I almost thought I dreamed it.” Born in 1967, Charka has published twenty graphic novels and cartoon collections, his work drawing playfully and profoundly on Jewish sources such as the Bible and Talmud. His Jewdyssey, a graphic-novel retelling of Homer’s “Odyssey” as a Holocaust story, has recently been prepared in English translation. He is the political cartoonist for the Israeli paper Makor Rishon, where his deft and brilliant visual commentary on current events is relished by thousands.

Weingrad’s translations can be read here, here, and here. Below, a panel of Charka’s retelling of a classic ḥasidic story.

In a sense, the most successful negotiation with Hamas was the recent agreement securing the release of Edan Alexander, the last living hostage with a U.S. passport. Unlike those previously handed over, he wasn’t exchanged for Palestinian prisoners, and there was no cease-fire. Dan Diker explains what Hamas got out of the deal:

Alexander’s unconditional release [was] designed to legitimize Hamas further as a viable negotiator and to keep Hamas in power, particularly at a moment when Israel is expanding its military campaign to conquer Gaza and eliminate Hamas as a military, political, and civil power. Israel has no other option than defeating Hamas. Hamas’s “humanitarian” move encourages American pressure on Israel to end its counterterrorism war in service of advancing additional U.S. efforts to release hostages over time, legitimizing Hamas while it rearms, resupplies, and reestablishes it military power and control.

In fact, Hamas-affiliated media have claimed credit for successful negotiations with the U.S., branding the release of Edan Alexander as the “Edan deal,” portraying Hamas as a rising international player, sidelining Israel from direct talks with DC, and declaring this a “new phase in the conflict.”

Fortunately, however, Washington has not coerced Jerusalem into ceasing the war since Alexander’s return. Nor, Diker observes, did the deal drive a wedge between the two allies, despite much speculation about the possibility.