When a prominent Iranian newspaper started calling for the creation of Holocaust cartoons in retaliation for the widespread publication of offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Amitai Sandy was saddened. "It's not impressive to laugh at other people's sorrows," he tells Gelf over email. So the 29-year old graphic artist from Tel Aviv started a cartoon contest of his own, this time based on comic submissions from Jews around the world. "[The Iranians] don't have the balls to do an anti-Arab cartoon," he says, but he hopes that his fellow Jews are willing to draw anti-Semitic cartoons to steal the newspaper's thunder.

Amitai Sandy

"We'll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!" Sandy wrote on the contest's website. "No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!" The contest ends on March 5, when Sandy plans to display the winners in an exhibition in his hometown. (He will also publish the entries on the web.) In the meantime, his contest has become a viral phenomenon, attracting Jews and goyim alike as a light-hearted respite from the increasingly depressing and violent fallout of the cartoon controversy.

This is not to say that Sandy's call for co-opting anti-Semitism hasn't pissed anyone off. "Yeah, about one to thirty is someone who thinks it's in bad taste," he says of the emails he's gotten, but he feels like those who are offended aren't looking at the big picture. "Let's put it this way," Sandy says. "Almost all emails we got so far are from Jews saying something like: 'Thank you guys, you made me proud to be a Jew. We fight fire with humor. We don't go out and burn embassies, books or people.'"

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