How do comics make old stories new?
How do they give expression to contemporary hopes and traumas?
What is entailed in making books for children about serious historical subjects?

Join us for a lively discussion of the new graphic novel Judessey, a groundbreaking Holocaust story told through dialogue with Homer's Odyssey, with the book's author-illustrator Shay Charka and its translator, Professor Michael Weingrad, of Portland State University.

In the first segment we will learn about Charka's acclaimed work, with spontaneous sketches from the artist as we go.

In the second segment meet graphic novelists Gilad Seliktar and Miriam Vilner, whose very different artistic styles and visions will expand our sense of life in Israel and human experience in our moment.

Galit Dahan Carlibach, novelist and children's author, joins us for both segments. Michael Weingrad serves as moderator.

Shay Charka is the author of Judessey, originally published in Hebrew. Professor Michael Weingrad has translated the book and the new English language publication is scheduled for release May 2024.

"Judessey depicts the journey of Leon, a Jewish professor from Poland who finds himself in the midst of World War II, who strives to find his way home while battling the monsters of Europe. An epic tale of a Jewish partisan whose family is taken away by the Nazis, this graphic novella shares a new way of engaging with the Holocaust. Judessey expresses the biggest trauma of our time through dialogue with the Odyssey, which has inspired so many human journeys." - Post Hill Press

The Seventh Annual Levy Event is presented by the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at Portland State University with the support of the Lawrence Levy and Pamela Lindholm-Levy Judaic Studies Programming Fund.

Cosponsors: PSU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, PSU Comic Studies Program