Kariel Gardos

Kariel Gardos ( Hebrew קריאל גרדוש, also Gardosh , uses the pseudonym : Dosh ; * April 15, 1921 in Budapest as Karl Gardos; † February 28, 2000 in Tel Aviv ) was a political cartoonist for the Israeli daily newspapers Maariv and Jerusalem Post . His works have also appeared in book form.

Life

Dosh was born as Karl Gardos ( Goldberger ) in Budapest. He survived the Holocaust and in 1948, after studying literature at the Sorbonne in Paris , emigrated to Israel, where he changed his name to Kariel. However, he could not speak Hebrew; he said he became a caricaturist because it gave him the opportunity to communicate in a visual way. He began writing for Lechi underground magazines and was hired by the Maariv newspaper in 1953. His occasional columns for the magazine were decidedly conservative. From 1981-1983, Gardos served as a cultural attaché in the Israeli embassy in London . On February 28, 2000, Dosh died of heart failure at the age of 78. He had two children with his partner Tova Pardo.

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Srulik figure in the sculpture garden of the Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comics

Gardo's drawings were and are extremely well known and loved in Israeli society. Gardos invented the figure of Srulik , a little boy with the Kova Tembel , the typical slouch hat of the kibbutzniks. The Srulik became the symbol for the State of Israel, "just like the Marianne is the symbol of France and Uncle Sam that of the United States", as the politician and former editor of Maariv Tommy Lapid put it.

Dosh had several symbolic figures in mind, such as the Lion of Judea or the ancient wandering Jews , but then decided on the typical Sabra (native born) of the 1950s and 1960s. He is young, optimistic, good-natured and at the same time a little naive. He has curly hair and, in addition to the Kova Tembel, wears sandals and usually shorts . Shape changed little over the years, and the Srulik remained in his teens, even if he wore the Tzahal uniform at times .

The book Pardon we have won , which Gardos published together with Ephraim Kishon about the Six Day War , is of particular importance . For the fiftieth anniversary of the state and the Israeli Post Office, several stamps and postcards with the Srulik as a motif were issued in Israel in 1997/98.

The trio Lapid, Kishon and Dosh, who all worked for the Maariv, were known as the "Hungarian Mafia". Dosh won the Herzl Prize , the Nordau Prize , the Jabotinsky Prize and the Sokolow Prize in recognition of his works. Today a cartoon prize in Israel is named after him ( Dosh Prize ).

Web links

• Srulik by Dosh, the official website
• To the book Sorry, we've won
• biography
• Literature by and about Kariel Gardos in the catalog of the German National Library