In the Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar, the Rabbi seems to struggle with religion and colonization as well, with his vulgar, talking cat is at his side. Through out the graphic novel, the Rabbi dealt with with being a Rabbi, and being the best he could be. He was a humble, and laid back person. He had been the Rabbi for 30 years, and had to take a diction, to make sure he was able to speak french, due to the fact that he lived in Algeria. The Rabbi also traveled to Paris, where he slept in a church and ate non-kosher food, all on the Sabbath day. The novel shows Algeria as a bright and cheerful place, while Paris is rainy and dark. 
The Rabbi struggled with his religion, and staying with the tradition of being a Jew, but he lived a peaceful life through it all. This text affected me personally, because growing up Catholic, made me seem sheltered to other people. Still to this day, I question my religion, and what it really means to be Catholic. I question some of the beliefs, as well as practice some of the teachings, but I am not a conservative, traditional Catholic. This text does not clash with my views of the world, because I think that people should be able to believe in whatever they want to without judgement. My views were challenged in this, when he ate the non-kosher food, because I don't think what you eat should matter, and I don't think that religion should limit what you can eat, granted during the Lenten season, you don't normally eat meat on Fridays, so I can understand for something like that, but not taking away food you eat day-to-day. I think that some type of religion or spirituality is important, because people should believe in something, but if people don't that that is their business. I wouldn't change anything about this novel, because I enjoyed reading it. The novel was fun and entertaining read, and I would definitely read something else by Joann Sfar.
You have an interesting reflection here about the nature of religious belief. The connection with the Rabbi here is good, although you need to remember to come back to the text itself after you bring in how your experience affects how you interpret the text. It would be interesting to have more commentary on the graphic where you include the panel of Kitty debating whether he is a Jewish cat or not.
ReplyDeleteI think you would be wise to delve into the reasoning behind the religious food restrictions before you pass judgment based on your own modern (and personally quite young) values. The metrics that you use are of this current "whatever I feel like and is easiest for me" mentality; which is quite a small sliver of time.
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