Is Superman Jewish?? It’s the question that’s on everyone’s mind this summer. And by everyone, I mean Jewish comic book nerds who see every superhero movie the day it’s released in theaters. In other words, me. But I’m not the only one who has asked this question! The following are the titles of real, published books you can buy on Amazon or your local Barnes & Nobel: Superman Is Jewish?: How Comic Book Superheroes Came to Serve Truth, Justice, and the Jewish-American Way, by Harry Brod; Up, Up, and Oy Vey! by Rabbi Simha Weinstein; Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero, by Danny Fingeroth; From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books, by Arie Kaplan; and finally, Is Superman Circumcised?: The Complete Jewish History of the World’s Greatest Hero, by Roy Schwartz (you can buy any of these titles on Amazon, I swear I’m not making this up!)
So, nu? After reading five books about Superman’s Judaism, what’s the answer? Is the MOS a MOT? The very Jewish answer is: kind of! It all depends on your perspective. So let’s break it down, Talmud-style:
First of all, are Superman’s parents Jewish? If you mean his birth parents, then obviously no – as of now, there are no known Jewish extraterrestrials. However, their Kryptonian names (Lara and Jor-El) do sound vaguely Jewish, as does Superman’s birth-name, Kal-El. El is a Hebrew name for God, and depending on how it’s spelled, Kal can be related to the Hebrew word for voice or vessel. Vessel of God certainly sounds like the name for a nice Jewish boy with the powers of a god! Now, if you’re talking about Clark Kent’s adoptive parents, Kansans Martha and Jonathan Kent, then the answer is an emphatic no. It is canonically established that they are devout Methodists, and raise Clark in their faith.
But in a meta-sense, Superman’s parents are his creators: Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Cleveland, born to Eastern European immigrants fleeing persecution, who created the most well-known character of the 20th century after becoming friends in high school. First appearing in the pages of Action Comics No. 1 in 1938, Superman was created at a time when Jews were feeling particularly vulnerable, with Hitler on the rise in Europe and antisemitism on the rise back home, where just across Lake Erie from Siegal and Shuster, Henry Ford was publishing volumes of antisemitic conspiricies in his Dearborn Independent, while Detroit’s Father Coughlin’s weekly antisemitic screeds spread across the airwaves, and less than a year later, 20,000 Americans would fill Madison Square Garden for an American Nazi rally. Like nearby Jewish baseball star Hamerin’ Hank Greenberg, Superman fought injustice with strength and grace.
But Siegal and Shuster were only the beginning of Superman’s Jewish lineage. Once the Man of Steel hit the silver screen, nearly every cinematic adaptation was either written or directed by a Jewish artist, and often both. Here’s a rundown of the many Jews responsible for Superman’s nearly 50 year reign on the big screen:
Jewish director Richard Donner, (née Richard Donald Schwartzberg), was born in the Bronx to Russian Jewish parents. His grandfather owned a Brooklyn movie theatre which helped inspire Donner’s interest in film. In 1978, Donner’s Superman: The Movie, with a script co-written by Jewish screenwriting duo David and Leslie Newman, became the gold-standard against which all future Superman films (indeed super hero films in general) would be judged. The Newmans went on to write the screenplays for Superman II and Superman III, which were also directed by a Jewish director – Richard Lester. In 1987, Jewish director Signey J. Furie took the reigns for the campy Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, completing the Christopher Reeves Superman saga.
It would be nearly twenty years before Hollywood revisited the Superman character with Superman Returns (2006), written by Jewish screenwriter Dan Harris and directed by Jewish director Bryan Singer (who was also heavily involved in the X-Men franchise). Next came Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, both written by Jewish screenwriter David S. Goyer. In his interpretation of the character, Goyer saw parallels with Jewish history. In a Jewish Journal interview, Goyer said, “This character is in a lot of ways the ultimate outsider … an immigrant — and that resonates with Jews.” One look at Superman’s creative lineage would confirm that this story of a refugee struggling to fit in in his adoptive home, while seeking the power to do good in the world, is a very Jewish story. Of course, Superman is also reminiscent of the most famous Jewish outsider, Moses, who like Kal El was placed in a basket (escape pod) by his parents, sent to a new home to save him from destruction, and grew up to be a heroic savior of his people!
Ok, so Superman’s creators are Jewish, but what about the actors who have played him on screen? Well, the role of Lex Luthor has been played by several Jewish actors – from Gene Hackman in the original Superman series, to Jon Cryer on the Supergirl television series, to Jesse Eisenberg in the most recent iteration of the Superman franchise. But when it comes to Superman himself, there have been no Jewish actors who have taken on this iconic role – until now. The title character in the new Superman film which just opened in theaters is played by Jewish actor David Corenswet, whose father’s family has Jewish roots in New Orleans going back over 100 years. In fact, Corenswet’s uncle Jay was once the president of New Orlean’s large Reform synagogue, Temple Sinai. The current Superman actor was married under a huppah, and spoke at a Zoom event organised by Jewish Pride New Orleans in 2020. So yes, Virginia, Superman is Jewish – at least as long as visionary director James Gunn is at the helm of the DC’s superhero universe.
Gunn himself is not Jewish, but his movies seek to find the humanity in the most alien of beings in the Marvel and DC universes. Gunn’s intention with his new Superman film was to bring the hero who could leap tall buildings in a single bound back down to Earth. In Corenswet’s climactic confrontation with evil tech billionaire, Lex Luthor, Superman proudly proclaims that it is his ability to learn from his (many!) mistakes that makes him more human than Lex, who never admits when he’s wrong, or tries to grow from his imperfections. Some conservative critics have complained that this new Superman movie is too “woke,” because it leans into Superman’s struggles as an immigrant, and his devotion to the protection of the most vulnerable. But for anyone who knows the true story of this character and his creators, there couldn’t be a more historically, comics-accurate, and definitively Jewish interpretation of Superman than the one I was lucky enough to see on opening night. For those of us in the Jewish community fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, it’s comforting and inspiring to have friends in high places!
Cantor Eric Schulmiller
