Le Chat du Rabbin: The Woman Hidden in the Body of a Speaking Cat, Poster 21

If you were a talking male cat in colonial Algeria, would you demand your bar-mitzvah in order to become a real Jewish man? That is in fact the exact goal of the titular cat of The Rabbi’s Cat, a French comics series by... [ view full abstract ]

If you were a talking male cat in colonial Algeria, would you demand your bar-mitzvah in order to become a real Jewish man? That is in fact the exact goal of the titular cat of The Rabbi’s Cat, a French comics series by Joann Sfar. Yet the opposite may actually occur through the visuals of the narrative- while the cat never gets his bar-mitzvah, he most certainly loses his faith in Judaism and may not make much of a man. This study examines in what manners the cat of this comic ends up becoming more feminine through visual coding and his place in society after gaining the ability to speak. In addition, this presentation will examine how the women in The Rabbi’s Cat live, whether they are like Zlabya, the waitress, or the hotel manager. This work will draw primarily from the six books in the series, as well as the movie, along with comic theory work and historical evidence. It shows not only that the (human) author defines the animal protagonist, but also, that in historical fiction, the author is more important than the actual history.