Most know that despite starring in a remake of "The Jazz Singer," Danny Thomas was Lebanese, not Jewish. "Corporal Klinger" on M*A*S*H made many references to being Lebanese, and indeed, Jamie Farr is Lebanese. And?
Stavro Jabra (February 18, 1947 – March 12, 2017) was a member of two minority groups. He was a funny Lebanese and...a political cartoonist. There aren't many political cartoonists anymore. They are an endangered species because there are fewer and fewer newspapers for their syndicated work. Also, political cartooning, going back to the infamous Herblock, is a slightly antiquated art form.
Political cartoons always seem to rely on symbolism. People don't like that. They like, as Bud Abbott used to say, "to have it in their laps. Lay it in their laps." Late night political monologues are better digested. Insulting memes are good, too. It takes quite a special political cartoonist to work with the "acid pen" and the symbolism. Stavro was such a man.
As most cartoonists do, he used only part of his name for a corner byline: STAVRO.
With the symbolic words easy to translate into any language, he was published all over the world: The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, Le Courrier International, and plenty of Lebanese newspapers. I have no idea what THIS one is all about, but it demonstrated that he wasn't merely interested in drawing swarthy fanatics.
Jabra, age 70, died of an unspecified "illness," and there doesn't seem to be much biographical detail on him. He seemed to be working pretty close to the end, as he managed to ink up some references to Donald Trump. Maybe he was one of those satirists who said, "If Trump is President, I don't want to live."
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