Iconic cartoonist Fedler finally publishes his memoir

SUZANNE BELLING

Caption:

Fedler and his wife Dorinne had an audience with the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in 1979. He anticipated some life-changing instruction.

Dorinne, a doctor, was told: “Attend to the healing of the soul as well as the body.”

Then, turning to Fedler, he said: “Finish your book.”

“What book?” was the response, but he realised it was story he had started many years previously.

RIGHT: David Williams (left) in conversation with cartoonist Dov Fedler at the launch of Fedler’s book, Out of Line: A Memoir. PHOTO: MICHAEL BELLING

His father had published a commentary on the Pesach Haggadah; years later his daughter, Joanne, became a published author. At that stage, the generation in the middle was missing.

It is missing no longer. Fedler’s book has now been published.

His story is intensely personal and honest, combining humour, emotion, anecdote and a history of the Johannesburg Jewish communities in Mayfair and Greenside where he grew up. It is both a memoir and a chronicle of a community of first-generation South Africans of Jewish Lithuanian stock.

His drawing talent has made him a leading cartoonist for many years; his writing talent has made him a recorder of a generation. Together they make him an entertaining, often funny, yet serious observer of the people and times in which he developed and matured.

In conversation at the launch with David Williams, host of CNBC Africa’s show Open Exchange, Fedler proved himself a master raconteur as well, mixing profundities with humour and pathos.

He wants his book to be universal. “You don’t have to be Jewish to read it.”

In describing the relatively poor community of his childhood, he said he didn’t “want people to think Jews wore gold chains and fat signet rings”.

He spoke of his parents, Solomon and Chaia, with great affection and respect, mingled with side-splitting anecdotes.

He was fascinated by the magic of his father’s printing shop, where he would be given paper offcuts for some of his early drawings. He was not allowed by his father to use the more expensive paper, kept for special jobs. “Do you think paper grows on trees?” was his father’s rhetorical question.

Fedler always knew he wanted to do something with his drawing. His father wanted him to become a dentist, “because you will be called a doctor and you won’t be called out at night”. He in fact started to study architecture, but gave that up for a successful life as a different kind of artist, observer and commentator.