Interview with Web Designer Magazine

Friend and Flash guru Nicolas Da Silva, creator of online comic Dread and Alive, and FlashTV, the Flash animation forum where I got my start promoting my cartoons, conducted an interview with me for the April 2010 issue of Web Designer Magazine. If you can't find the printed publication, here's a scan of the article found on page 113, in which I discuss the origin of my JewishRobot.com website and its graphic design.  Click on the image on the left to view the entire article.

JewishRobot on The Jewish Channel

Friend and The Jewish Channel correspondent, Steven I. Weiss, reports on Ahmadinejad's alleged Jewish roots, includes a clip from my "Iran to Israel" promo cartoon for Taglit-Birthright Israel.

Kanye cartoon mentioned in MTV Newsroom

My quickie cartoon, "Kanye Interrupts the U.S. Open", was mentioned in the MTV Newsroom article, "'Kanye West Interrupts': The Internet Keeps On Giving" by Kyle Anderson on September 17, 2009:

There are even mad geniuses out there plying fancier forms of craft, like the folks who mashed together Serena Williams' U.S. Open meltdown with the VMA incident.

Read the article here.

In the Tehran Bureau

My cartoon "Iran to Israel" was the topic of an article, "From Madman to Ad Man" by Marsha B. Cohen in PBS FRONTLINE's Tehran Bureau, September 6, 2009:

The star of the latest registration campaign, which opens Sept. 8, is none other than Iran's president. Unlike the usual depictions of him in the Israeli and pro-Israel press, Ahmadinejad isn't threatening to wipe Israel off the map in this video clip. On the contrary, what he really wants is a chance to go on a Birthright Israel trip.

Read the article here.

Jailbreak Interview

Quincy Moore of The Jailbreak, a blog about pop, politics, and counterculture, interviewed me on July 15, 2009.  Here is the intro:

Like all great artists and creative folk, cartoonist William Levin finds his inspiration from a series of ex-girlfriends who spark innovation and then eventually drift away in favor of a more suitable muse.

With each turn of the perpetual partner wheel, Levin learns more about his artistic process and churns out funny, irreverent, and often educational cartoons about Jewish Robots and oft-injured bike riders.

While his target demographic started out as a microcosm of the larger population (mostly Jews), his adaptability and chameleon-like penchant for recognizing trends have promised him a bright future in an animation industry that is still relatively new to the Brooklyn resident.

Levin was gracious enough to sit down with the Jailbreak for a hilarious interview in which he ponders a future in anime, reveals the actual location of Sesame Street, and explains why Futurama was an anomaly.

-Quincy

Read the complete interview here. 

Matzah Time

Time has posted an article online, So You Think You Know Matzo?, mentioning the "20 Things To Do With Matzah" video I made with Michelle Citrin. And, this Passover, our video has received over 1,000,000 views on YouTube!

Passover Videos

JTA, one of the sponsors of the Pass The Candle music video I made with Michelle Citrin for Hanukkah, was busy this week with articles and blog posts about Jewish videos for Passover. Author Amy Klein took an in depth look at the reasons behind the Jewish YouTube craze in her article, Let my people post Passover videos, where she interviewed Michelle about our Matzah Song, and followed up with a Top 10 list, 10 YouTube videos for Passover, (which I'm surprised failed to mention my Shabot 6000 "Seda' Club"), placing our "20 Things To Do With Matzah" at the #1 spot. And as a bonus, a JTA blog post, Two more Passover videos, by Ami Eden, gives a shout out to Bitter Herb.

Thanks for all the attention, JTA!

Hanukkah Around the World on ABC News Good Morning America

My Hanukkah video, Pass The Candle, featuring friend and fellow ROI participant Michelle Citrin, was announced on ABC News Good Morning America on December 22, 2008.

The video was made possible with a grant from ROI and support from The Jewish Channel and JTA.

Big in Israel

While attending the ROI120 2008 Summit in Jerusalem, I had the privilege of being interviewed for a podcast with creative partner Michelle Citrin for the JTA, in a piece titled Rosh Hashanah Girl (and Guy) Come to Israel; as well as a one-on-one interview about the origin of my Shabot 6000 comic strip with the Jerusalem Post!

The weekly comic strip, which is updated anew right before Shabbat and has nearly 200 comics in its four-year archive, debates questions on - and routinely pokes fun at - Jewish religious observances and traditions through a contemporary 21st-century lens.

"The robot and the pious Jew represent my own struggle with Jewish identity and religion," Levin said.

"It is my self-exploration with Judaism."

Read the rest of the article, The Shabbos Goy That Wouldn't, by Etgar Lefkovits, archived locally from the Arts & Culture section of the July 1, 2008 issue of The Jerusalem Post.

And hear me stammer nervously in the JTA Podcast.

Rosh Hashanah Girl Power

My friend, fellow ROI120 participant and musical collaborator, Michelle Citrin -- known in some circles as "Rosh Hashanah Girl" -- is the topic of a nice article, "Jewish 'it' girl in the US", in the Arts & Culture section of the Jerusalem Post. Hey, they even mentioned me in the article :-) Keep an ear out for her new album hitting shelves and online retail soon!

Ha!Aretz

It's been surprisingly difficult to blog from Israel this time. I'm writing from Jerusalem, having participated in the ROI120 2008 Summit with 119 other talented Jewish innovators from around the world. More on the conference and travels when I return, but in the meantime, here is a funny article from Haaretz.com about the ROI120 Technology track I was in. My favorite quote:

The online animation that computer consultant-turned-cartoonist William Levine from Brooklyn put on for the group featured a computerized 50 Cents saying Chag Sameach - followed by a lewd obscenity.

Read the rest of the article, Getting Google to work for us, by Cnaan Liphshiz.

Honorable Mention

After just a few days online, our "20 Things To Do With Matzah" Passover music video is definitely making the rounds: It was a featured Viral Video Hit on Yahoo! Video and even made it to the main Yahoo.com home page, bringing in over 120,000 views to date. And on YouTube, with about 90,000 views, the video has received the honor of being the #40 Most Viewed Music Video This Week (#49 Most Viewed in Canada, and #78 in Australia).

You can also find mention of the Matzah Song in The Jewish Daily Forward, YNet News, and CNET News.com!

Matzah MIA!

According to an article in the New York Times, there is a nationwide shortage of matzah this Passover, especially on the West Coast! Maybe it's because Michelle and I used all of it for our music video?

Also reported on News.com, where they also linked to our video, "clearly made in anticipation of a more plentiful matzah environment".

Standard News

We made our mark in 2007! "I Gotta' Love You Rosh Hashanah", the music video I produced together with Michelle "Rosh Hashanah Girl" Citrin for Taglit-birthright israel, made it on the New Jersey Jewish Standard list of Newsmakers of 2007:

Amber Lee Ettinger’s "Obama Girl," a tribute to Democratic presidential hopeful Barak Obama, was already a parody of music videos about unrequited love. But Will Levin and Michelle Citrin decided the genre needed a little Yiddishkeit. [..] As for the future, Citrin says more Jewish videos "are in the making. Expect more."

Looking forward to making more music and videos with Michelle in the new year!

Shabot in Hadassah

Shabot 6000 has been mentioned in the March 2006 issue of Hadassah Magazine! See Brief Reviews on page 66, for a short and sweet write-up in the Web Sighting section.

Special thanks to Leah Finkelshteyn for the blurb!

Shabot Down Under

Kosher Kangaroos! Throw another schnitzel on the barbie! I am pleased to announce that my Shabot 6000 comic strip will be syndicated in the new online publication, the Australia Jewish Times.

Sh'lom, mate!

The New Jew: Uncovering the Un-Movement

"The New Jew: Uncovering the Un-Movement"

Article by Richard Greenberg and Debra Nussbaum Cohen for B'nai B'rith Magazine, Fall 2005

Page 3 features a Shabot comic strip with the caption, "From the pen of cartoonist William Levin, 33 (AKA Ben Baruch)—a dose of bitingly irreverent New Jew-ish humor"

Download the PDF (no longer archived at BnaiBrith.org)

Iranian Jewish Chronicle

Article "Passover the Animation, 50 Cent Style" by Kristopher White, printed July 10, 2005, for The Iranian Jewish Chronicle

KALX Interview

William Levin is interviewed by Rebekah Kouy-Ghadosh of Berkeley KALX for the May Day (and Passover) Show, May 1, 2005

From the Oy Mendele! podcast site:

Shabot6000 creator Ben Baruch discusses how and why he draws a comic strip about an Orthodox man who builds a robot to do work for him on shabbat, only to have his techno-shabbat-goy aspirations frustrated by said robot's conversion to Judaism. Baruch also makes animations using the Shabot6000 cast, and you can hear a couple of bits from Seda Club, a pretty hilarious Passover/50 Cent spoof.

Oy, Robot

Beliefnet.com posts Liel Liebovitz's article, "Oy, Robot", reprinted from his article "An Unlikely Pairing" in The Jewish Week.