I first discovered artist/satirist Miriam Libicki when I read a profile of the former IDF soldier on Zeek. Miriam 's now famous comic serial Jobnik documents her experiences in detail as a young American/Canadian women in the Israeli army. Additionally her illustrated short Towards A Hot Jew grapples with traditional cultural/ethnic Jewish stereotypes. Not only does Miriam's work tackle her own sexual coming-of-age and cultural immersion in a foreign land, but its backdrop, Israel in the early 2000s, lends itself to an equally charged and tumultuous environment.

Given all this fodder, I couldn't help but immediately drawn to Miriam Libicki which is why I had to contact her personally. The result, which can be seen below, was an email exchange which drew upon all of the subjects I mentioned above and more.

Misogynism in the Israeli Army: How prevalent in your experience?

No matter how individual soldiers treat each other, it is a misogynistic system. Women end up being seen as spoiled, less valuable, and there for their sexual uses, just because the IDF paints them into these roles.

I don’t think women who are unfit should be in combat, but when no woman is in combat unless she can rigorously and determinedly prove she is fit, and all men are in combat unless they can rigorously and determinedly prove they are unfit, I think it’s clear there is discrimination occurring. Misogyny isn’t a bad word for it, though it hurts both male and female soldiers.

Women are seen to have an “easier” time of it, their basic training being shorter, almost irrespective of what their eventual role will be. They have more choice in their hairstyles and footwear, and often have more relaxed relationships with their chain of command. But I think these facts lead to women looking like lesser soldiers than the men, and any achievements can be explained away by having fewer obstacles to overcome (allegedly) than a man.

 

I was sent a very clear message by my 2.5-week joke of a basic training: You’re secretaries, not soldiers. Among my fellow soldiers, I was never physically accosted or threatened (I had a friend they liked to put in the garbage can, to hear her scream and yell, but I gave them murderous looks instead of screaming, so they left me alone), but constant offhand remarks, usually meant in a friendly manner, let me know what my place was.

Finding love in the Israeli Army: How hard?

Well, it proved impossible to me. There were men I served with whom I consideredlove decent, caring and attractive, and they all had girlfriends whom they’d met in the army. They weren’t the majority of men, though. I think kind and mature men get snapped up pretty quickly, unless they are very physically unappealing. It sounds like another stereotype, but most of the reasonably attractive male soldiers I knew were single or had flings by choice, and my reasonably attractive female friends were single or had flings by necessity.

Your Jobnik comics deal predominantly with your personal romantic entanglements set against the national backdrop of political turmoil.

Yeah, they do. The first stories came out of my diary, where it was a no-brainer to write about boy troubles. Love angst also has the advantage of being fairly universal. But if I really want people to understand “what it was like” the political turmoil had to be in there, too. The tension, the paranoia, eventually the fatalism that was constant in the whole country is reflected in my character and her decisions. I hope that they inform each other throughout the story.

In your essay, Towards A Hot Jew you further explore stereotypes, more on a broader scale as an outsider looking in at a Jew and how this particular stereotype has evolved in North America. Do you feel a certain resentment regarding how Jews are depicted on a global scale?

Yes, I do. It’s very frustrating to feel that Jews are so visible, and often in negative ways, while comprising such a tiny and comparatively harmless percentage of world population. On the other hand, infamy is a lot like fame, and I guess fame is supposed to be what we all strive for.

How alienated did you feel as a American Canadian girl entering the Israeli Army?

sitI wasn’t a Canadian girl then. That came later. I felt pretty alienated, having Hebrew as a second language literally felt like having a viscous membrane between myself and everyone else, or like cotton in my ears. But I joined the army to be a part of Israel, and really, wearing the uniform, using the lingo, you really can’t help but feel like a part of something bigger than yourself. I liked it when people in the street would yell, “Hey, soldier!” instead of “Hey, you!” If I had to be categorized, I’d rather be soldier than religious or American or even girl.

How do you identify yourself now?

Mostly as a Jew, and as an American (at least insofar as I'm not a Canadian). I don’t say I'm Israeli, cause I don’t really feel like I deserve to, having lived now in Canada almost as long as I lived in Israel. Sometimes I am bold enough to call myself a cartoonist.

In Ceasefire, your most recent work, you end the essay by saying, "I'm so glad it's over. I'm glad I'll be coming back home as the girl who saw her family, not as the girl who's been visiting a war. I'd like to move in polite circles without being the Israeli monster who laughs and bombs children."

Why the guilt? It is inwardly drawn or outwardly reflected?

Well, both. I found that my views on the Lebanon war, besides overwhelming helplessness, didn’t fit in with either prevailing Israeli views or prevailing libera l North American views (and I'm a liberal North American most of the time). With the occupation and Intifada, how one saw it usually divided neatly along right/left lines, with more nuance in Israel and less in North America. But with this war, it seemed sometimes that everyone I esteemed in Israel was wholly for it, and everyone I esteemed in North America was wholly against it.

On the last page, there are two strong, conflicting views represented, and my guilt at not being able to embrace either. The North American view in your quote, and the Israeli view in the giant-sized bus shelter portrait of a kidnapped soldier. I don’t believe that the Lebanon invasion was a mini Iraq war, a racist, aggressive war by a western power on a third world one. I don’t believe that all the Israelis who were for the war are mini Bushes, or Bush’s puppets. But I also can’t identify, even if I try, with the view that two or three kidnapped soldiers can justify bombing hundreds of civilians out of their homes. and I know that is a sign of me never having achieved that level of Israeli-ness, and I'm not being sarcastic, to feel their gut reaction to the idea of a kidnapped soldier. I just can’t empathize with what kidnapped soldiers mean to Israelis.

If I felt righteous enough, logical enough, and empathetic enough in my views on the war, perhaps I would be able to discount both these views as wrong and not feel any internal failing. But I never feel that sure. Which is just like a Jew, or an American liberal.

Miriam Libicki will be exhibiting her work at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco April 21-22.