First Person Plural: "Just a Slightly Strange Widow and Not a Genius"

Short comic strips illustrated by Ron Levin compose a "full-color grief diary" based on texts by Noga Friedman, whose husband was killed on October 7th. Despite speaking of the personal, the conjugal and the familial, it's clear from the first moment that it's relevant to many others.

Noga Friedman | First Person, Plural, illustration: Ron Levin, Yuka Books Press, 2025

First publication (in Heb.) April 30, 2025

Avileble in Eglish (forthcoming)

Noga Friedman's partner, Ido Rosenthal, was killed on October 7th in battle with Hamas terrorists at the entrance to Kibbutz Alumim. Since his death, Friedman has written on Facebook and elsewhere her thoughts regarding personal and national loss. She exposed herself and then took a step back, got angry and then made peace and then got angry again about other things, conducted with herself and before an audience countless discussions about bereavement, motherhood, love and also about heroism.

It seems to me that like many others, I read almost everything. Something about her directness, about how she's aware of exactly what's expected of her to do as a fresh widow and the desire to shatter exactly that, and no less her wit and humor - cast a spell. It hurt so much, but it was impossible not to read.

"First Person, Plural" now published by Yuka Books Press, is built from short comic strips, one or two pages long, chronologically describing episodes from the first year of mourning, starting from October 8, 2023 at 3:51 - the hour when she already knows - but the children still don't know - that their father was killed (p. 7), and up to the memorial marking a year since Ido's death. In all of them, her grief and that of her children is treated. In almost all of them, dead Ido appears as a skull with a beard, glowing yellow and floating in space.

The book is an adaptation of the raw and immediate comic strips that Friedman published on Facebook. The adaptation was done by illustrator Ron Levin, who excelled in her previous book with sensitivity, precision and depth. Levin told about the approach she received from the publisher, about the work stages and about designing Ido's character which was done manually. She wrote about the balance required between faithfulness to Friedman, to the content and to authenticity, and the ability to give the story her own interpretation and add additional layers to it.

The result is a beautiful book in its colors, which manage to express a whole range of emotions in a restrained way; in quiet design and layout that give the thoughts the entire stage to stand out and resonate with the audience; in the right pace where every page is a deepening into grief, parallel to a certain distancing from it.

One of the beautiful visual motifs in the book is the references to the body posture of grieving Noga. The first observation of her is in the introduction pages, where a row of her figures is seen lying on the floor in different states of relaxation, contraction, kneeling and defense. All these postures appear throughout the book in moments when she struggles to function and operate daily life.

On page 37, under the title "Like All Families," Ido dares to disturb Noga who's lying in fetal position on the floor, but he wants to check what's happening with the children, he's worried. She's angry that he went and put them all in this situation, but from within the grief and anger she manages to reach a new insight about herself and about the general reality: "I feel that as long as we were a happy family we were happy in our own way. And precisely now it seems to me that we're miserable in a fairly generic way, similar to the misery of all IDF widows and orphans." Below this sentence, as proof, five other anonymous widows lie beside Noga, in exactly the same state.

Below all this appears a glowing yellow speech bubble from Ido: "First of all you're right. But the fact that you're starting to argue with Tolstoy says that you really got too full of yourself" - meaning, in one page there's a complex and layered internal dialogue, anger at Ido who chose concern for the general instead of his family and genuine concern for the children, together with broader understanding about a society that has more and more IDF widows and orphans. At the end, for the punch and balance, a personal and precise sting about the arrogance and pompousness in the attempt to rise above the personal.

How is it that you, who were so alive, are so suddenly dead

In another wonderful page (p. 60) a Greek chorus joins Noga on stage and sings to her "Everything you mess up is gold!" and encourages her to write more and more of her authentic pain. When she's left alone on stage she says "Suddenly when you're not here, the world opens up to me and falls at my feet and it's very confusing because from so much sorrow I also fall at my feet - at my feet - and cry."

There's criticism of the world that wants more and more from her, but mainly self-humor about how despite being "just a slightly strange widow and not a genius" - her merchandise is in demand. The ability to imagine the stage, the chorus, the precise facial expressions accompanying all this, intensify the moment and require stopping for thought, like in many pages in the book.

In the last third of the book there's already a feeling (light and fragile, but present) of organizing toward the end of the first year, transitioning to a new stage in grief. On p. 76 titled "A Question for the Night Hour," Noga sits in the yard and raises a somewhat philosophical question toward Ido in heaven: "How is it that you, who were so alive, are so suddenly dead." It's clear to us that this question holds enormous difficulty for her: all the talking with Ido, his presence as a character in stories, the references to him - they're exactly this, the gap between what she knows and what she can't grasp.

Ido answers her with three consecutive sentences that are clichés of dealing with life and death. Noga remains silent facing these sentences and in the second-to-last frame sends him to hell, reminding of their past relationship and Ido's inability to dictate her life now.

What's so moving about this page is the dramatic positioning of Ido in heaven, shining like the moon, saying clichés and big words; and opposite him grieving Noga, who doesn't change anything in her posture throughout the conversation and makes clear to Ido who's alive and who's not, who dictates to whom.

One of the topics Friedman touched on again and again in her writing is the concept of heroism, and this is an excellent example of the complex discussion this book enables, which couldn't happen similarly elsewhere and in other hands. Ido was a Shaldag fighter whose heroism story was told in many places, including in the anthology "The Day Everything Changed" where it's told by Yonatan Poper.

In Poper's story the phrase "Ido was a hero" repeats almost every page and in several more variations. He does demonstrate how Ido was several other things too ("He was also an artist, photographer and adventurer," p. 103) but the use of traditional comic frames - intense coloring, emphasis on his physical abilities, stubbornness, and the courage he showed that day - create a character of a very specific type of hero.

In a Facebook post from 10.25, Friedman wrote: "First time today I googled your name. And I read the posts others shared about your death. And I see that you're a hero of Israel, and I see that may your name be avenged. You're taken from me again. And again. And again."

This book deals, as mentioned, with the accepted concept of heroism, and also deals with Ido's responsibility that day to his family and to the state in a way that's anything but one-dimensional. Because after all, heroism is also "to do everything needed in that moment to get through the moment" (as Friedman wrote on Facebook in October 2024, after a conversation with a massacre survivor); heroism is also to overcome loss and succeed in cooking for the children, and to return to exercising for yourself.

This is a "grief diary" written in first person that speaks mainly personal, conjugal and familial, but it's clear from the first moment that this is "first person plural." From the very writing to a broad audience, from the exposure that was customary in Friedman's writing from the beginning, the personal is political, and the resonance is wide.

This comes up when her son asks for an explanation of the word abandonment ("Bibi abandons the hostages and abandons the soldiers," p. 81) and checks whether it's considered that dad also abandoned them ("In any case mommy, you weren't abandoned. You have me, and I'm here for you"). This comes up in all the moments when speeches she gave are mentioned. She knows that his memorial is "also a public and political event" and tries again and again to fine-tune the right tone.

In the book's final pages it's evident there's a feeling of summary, even a bit of farewell: "We're growing distant. I don't know [...] if it's you becoming a shadow or me distancing from you" (p. 99), she writes. In the almost-last double-page spread (p. 102), on the right page, a graph is presented that visualizes the grief process in a linear way.

As if without noticing, without intending, the year that passed moved Noga from a state of contracting grief in fetal position on the floor, through sitting on a chair in the garden with gaze downward, to the current state - toward the end of the first year of mourning - collected and functional, when her daughter says "You returned to your height, you know?" This is such a clever illustration for describing her condition, minimalist but detailed. The positioning of the girl within it, the girl who herself needs to deal this year with grief, but here she's in the role of the mother's mirror, presenting to her what she sees.

The left spread is one there was much preparation for. Noga spoke about the fear of the memorial, about the deterrence from mass events, about the gap between private and national grief. And here, there's no choice - this day has come. Noga speaks with Ido, but before an audience, and just as it's part of her grief work - so it's also not natural.

The background is black, the human landscape at the funeral (based on a still photo from the moment of the funeral, as Ron Levin showed in the process she documented) is gray, not because it's sad or rainy, but because it's secondary. The important thing is the conversation between the two of them that will move immediately after the memorial to the space of the seashore. There, without words, there's a moment that is a moment of reconciliation.