At last I have the sequel to Joann Sfar’s graphic novel, The Rabbi’s Cat. In his sequel, Sfar once again places his readers and his talking cat in the heart of the Jewish community in 1930’s Algeria. The cast of characters includes the rabbi, his footloose and mystical cousin Malka of the Lions, a suspected golem who turns out to be a (temporarily comatose) Russian painter, a Catholic priest, an Arab prince, a former slave who doesn’t know where she comes from, and a wandering sheik.

If that sounds heterogeneous, the languages are equally diverse. Malka of the Lions is a legendary storyteller, one who sings in Hebrew, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, Berber, Spanish, and Aramaic. Happily, the rabbi’s cat speaks multiple languages as well, and can facilitate the love affair between the Russian painter and his French-speaking African bride. The cat’s skills as a translator also come in handy when the characters travel across the continent in search of an African Jerusalem, ultimately encountering a large community of Ethiopian Jews and a new understanding of themselves.

The first volume of The Rabbi’s Cat focused on the traits that make us human, the traits that cause the increasingly human-acting cat to experience compassion, to grieve for the past and feel anxiety for the future. By contrast, Sfar’s sequel examines the ways in which human beings are separated from each other and from their common humanity—through racism, anti-Semitism, dogmatism, and other forms of prejudice. There’s sadness here, and an ominous sense that the world is becoming more cruel. In one beautifully written scene, the rabbi scolds his students for neglecting their studies and their faith and for worrying about self-defense instead. But the cat, watching them struggle to protect themselves, looks on with compassion, understanding, and regret:

I love you because you’re vulnerable. I love you because there has to be someone who loves you.

You’re going to learn war. You’ll become stronger and stronger.

And those who don’t like you will be ever greater in number.

You won’t be any better off.

And if you go into the desert searching for the grave of Malka of the Lions, I’m not sure you’ll find it.

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