‘A diversion on the main thrust of news’

SUZANNE BELLING

PHOTOGRAPH: JENNA KAUFMAN

Fedler’s cartoon which appeared in The Star newspaper drew no ire from the Jewish Community.

While being upset about the Charlie Hebdo attack and the killing of its staff and two policemen, Fedler told Jewish Report, “I feel more upset about the [five] killed in the kosher grocery store – they were innocent people.

He added: “I am not that kind of cartoonist,” – to poke fun at religion.

If one were, however, to draw a cartoon of Moses holding up iPhones (tablets), “Jews are not going to storm in with machine-guns”.

Cartoonists, in Fedler’s opinion, “have no political significance; we are merely a diversion on the main thrust of the news” and had no bearing on the doorstep of history.

“I do what I do because change is possible,” but the shapers of history would be the leaders, the people featured in the cartoons, not the cartoons themselves.”

Leaders like Robert Mugabe had brought about change – “he is still in power and will still be in power after he is dead”. Julius Malema too – “heaven forbid” – could have a bearing on history.

He quoted playwrigh David Mamet:  “the world needs something and we (the Jews) are the approved target of hatred”.

“But then, it states in the Torah that in every generation an Amalek would rise to destroy us.”

Referring to Paris, Fedler said: “It was a horrible, horrible event, but that is the world in which we live.”

Fedler has written a book “Out of Line – A Memoir” which will be on sale from the middle of February.