ESSAY // The Activist Looks at 50
The Activist by Joe Boruchow
Heavy Handed
I censored my own art. It’s time to come out of the closet
by Joe Boruchow
EXCERPT //
I completed the black and white paper cutout The Activist on October 13, 2023, just six days after the massacre in southern Israel, where the terrorist group Hamas slaughtered, raped, and took hostage mostly peacenik liberals from the area.
While anxiously scrolling on social media the morning of October 7 to get updates on the unfolding horrors of that day, I naively expected my non-Jewish neighbors and friends—some of whom had celebrated Hanukkah with my family the year before and reveled in the novelty of the ritual latkes, menorah, and dreidel—to reach out with sympathy and a word of support.
Instead, what I saw on some of their social media accounts shocked me to my core: Posts justifying the massacre as a legitimate resistance and slandering anyone who believes in the existence of a Jewish state as evil. I tried to reach out to people I knew who were engaging with these ideas and soon realized it was pointless. Their black and white view of the conflict was immovable. Enraged, I took to my black and white medium of paper cutout to give voice to my indignation. //
For full text and images, consider reading RQ in print, on a Sunday afternoon, sun streaming through your window, coffee in hand, and nary a phone alert within sight or in earshot… just fine words, fine design, and the opportunity to make a stitch in time. // Subscribe or buy a single issue today. // Print is dead. Long live print. //