It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it's Super Mensch!
Always thought that being Jewish is equivalent to being superhero? Well, we might just have the proof you're looking for
Superman Returns is now on screens across the United States, and alongside the flattering reviews the movie has earned, it also sparked a debate about whether the superhero isn't actually a super-Jew.
One of the eager participants in this debate is Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, writer of "Up, Up and Oy Vey," which explores the concept of the Jewish superhero.
According to Rabbi Weinstein, also known as The Comic Book Rabbi, behind the Man of Steel's cape hides a "bumbling, nebbish Jew."
"Only a Jew would think of a name like Clark Kent," he writes. "He's a bumbling, nebbish Jewish stereotype. He's Woody Allen. Can't get the girl. Can't get the job - at the same time, he has this tremendous heritage he can't express."
In an article published at his website Weinstein explains that the superhero was invented due to the rise in anti-Semitism in 1930's USA. When the German-American Bund marched through the hometown of two Jewish young artists, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, they responded by inventing a hero in blue tights.
"From the very beginning, the Superman mythos reflected his creators’ Jewish backgrounds," Weinstein writes.
Kal-El: The comic Moses
Arie Kaplan, regular writer for Mad Magazine and the author of series of articles dubbed “How the Jews Created the Comic Book Industry,” explains in his writings:
"Superman is a child survivor named Kal-El (in Hebrew, ‘All that is God’) from the planet Krypton, whose population, a race of brilliant scientists, is decimated. His parents send him to Earth in a tiny rocket ship, reminiscent of how baby Moses survived Pharaoh’s decree to kill all Jewish newborn sons.”
Howard Jacobson, in an article printed in the London Times, called superman “the boy with the Kabbalistic name, the boy from the shtetl."
According to him, "Superman might be Jewish, but it’s only so long as no one knows he’s Jewish that he is capable of performing wonders. And you can’t get more Jewish than that.”
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