Voloj, born in Germany to Colombian parents, is the executive director of Be’chol Lashon, an organisation dedicated to celebrating ethnic and racial diversity within the Jewish community, as well as the author of several graphic novels. His co-editor, Sapolsky, a French-American artist and writer with both Ashkenazi and Sephardic roots, is the co-creator of Spider-Man Noir and founder of FairSquare Press. Comics were their chosen format, not only because this is the form both practice in their own creative work, but because the graphic novel can be a link between prose and film. Helpfully, you have more control in a graphic novel than when making something for the screen and an infinitely more manageable budget. And, as Sapolsky said about the form, “there are no limits to it”.
Many of the stories in Hyphen are about immigration and information hidden from children, stories of trauma, the experience of being a refugee. In matching storytellers and artists, the editors tried to find Jewish artists, initially, but that wasn’t always possible, especially given tight deadlines. However, fortuitous links happened. For example, the editors knew of an Italian-African artist who wanted to work with a Black Storyteller, so paired them with Shoshanna, the trailblazing first female rabbi of Uganda’s Abayudaya community.
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