Self Loving Jew Needs Love

Self-Loving Jew is a multifaceted, years-long art project about reclaiming the self-hating Jew trope and celebrating secular, cultural Jewish identity.

Needs Love is the latest iteration of the work, a planned 10 issue graphic novel about my relationship to Judaism and my family in light of my intermarriage.

The first five chapters take place during the first Spring of the Covid Pandemic, with each spread told over one day of the Omer - a Jewish tradition of counting the days between Passover and Shavuot.

One panel comics of the day's events appear alongside full-spread recollections of my experiences.

Self-Loving Jew Needs Love #1 is a 36 page, 7.5" x 9.5", full-colour comic book that debuted at TCAF 2022.

Issue #1 tells the story of how the economic and political conditions of my childhood introduction to Judaism at home, school, and synagogue caused me to start asking big questions, including about the conflation of Zionism and Jewish liberation, ones that no adult seemed to want to answer. Issue #1 was supported by Asylum Arts.

Issue #2 continues the story about my childhood from leaving Hebrew Day School for Public School and Synagogue Sunday School through to my Bar Mitzvah. I accept having to read from the Torah on the bimah but desperately try and fail to avoid having an elaborate party thrown for me.

Self-Loving Jew Needs Love #2 is a 24 page, 7.5" x 9.5", full-colour comic book that debuted at FBDM/MCAF 2023.

Issue #3 is about my teens/early 20s. It features my account of my Birthright trip to Israel and includes themes of pain and violence in Israel and Palestine, intermarriage and queer marriage, secular and religious tensions, the construction of race, and the search for belonging. I hope this work is a small beacon of peace and peace of mind.

Self-Loving Jew Needs Love #3 is a 28 page, 7.5" x 9.5", full-colour comic book that debuted at TCAF 2024.

Self Loving Jew Needs Love is available on my shop.

	Essays Self-Loving Jew began as a series of visual essays defining a secular, cultural Jewish identity. Reclaiming the term self-hating Jew, these autobiographical comics address the shift away from traditional Jewish institutions by contemporary Jewish youth. Guilt-free, the essays are an attempt to articulate the ambivalence some Jewish Millennials and Generation Zers may feel about religious Judaism, identity and assimilation. It embraces forging personal beliefs and practices that honour the Jewish legacy, adapting them alongside other value considerations. Read the Visual Essays here. Buy the collected edition here.
	Workshops Self-Loving Jew and You workshops last from 30–90 minutes through to one week of programming, tailored to any age or skill-set. The interactive lessons include a history of comics, insight into the creation of SLJ comics and step-by-step activities for participants to create their own stories. Past workshops: Museum of Jewish Montreal, Limmud Toronto, Oraynu Congregation, Vancouver Jewish Book Festival and King David High School, pictured at left.
Installation Patterns was an original installation shown from February–June 2019 at FENTSTER Gallery, Toronto. The work was remounted as Modèles at the Museum of Jewish Montreal from January 2019–March 2020. The work next appeared in the group show I Am My Family: The Generations After the Holocaust at the Jüdisches Museum Wien in Vienna, Austria from September 2024–March 2025. The work features wallpaper banners that make visible how family, community and social context can unconsciously shape one's patterns of behaviour, being taken in by sculptural figures in various states of contemplation, sorrow and joy. For more images and information, please visit the project page.