December 11, 2025 • 13 mins
Did you know Superman's story is deeply rooted in Jewish culture? Discover how two Jewish teenagers created an iconic hero who embodies immigrant struggles and Jewish values. This fascinating insight from Rabbi Josh Fixler connects superhero lore with real history, sparking curiosity and pride. Perfect for history buffs and comic fans alike; share this hidden story!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I am a fan of superhero movies. I know, this must come as quite a shock. I will let that sink in for a moment. Ok. But it’s true. I have seen just about every Marvel movie and TV show. I catch all the easter eggs and stay for all the end-credit scenes. I have seen all the Batmen and the Wonder Women. I cannot get enough.
(00:01):
And so, in this specific way, July is a pretty good month for me. As of this weekend there are not one, but two superhero movies smashing their way through the box office like the Incredible Hulk smashing through a brick wall. A few weeks ago, Superman flew into cinemas in his eternal pursuit of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. And this week, the Fantastic Four have landed in theaters and are ready to take on challenges both domestic and galactic. And I could not be happier.Now I have not had a chance to see the Fantastic Four yet. It came out today, so cut me a little slack. I’m going tomorrow. I’ve only seen Superman, and I promise no spoilers. But as I thought about these two films, I was struck by one similarity that has gone mostly underreported in the press. I’m not talking about the fact that they both feature a generous dose of blue spandex. I was struck by how they both feature characters who are distinctly, and uniquely Jewish. This evening, I’d like to tell you a little bit about the Jewish roots of Superman, and about the Fantastic Four’s giant, orange rock-man called The Thing. Superman has never been canonically Jewish. There are no synagogues on Krypton. But I would argue, as many have, that he has always been implicitly Jewish. Superman was created in the late 1930’s by two Jewish teenagers in Cleveland, Ohio: Jerome Segal and Joseph Shuster. And from early on, he was, let’s say, Jewish Coded. Even from his very first comic appearance, he was an alien – of course literally, but also figuratively – an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land. And not just an immigrant – a refugee. He had been sent away from his home planet when it was about to be destroyed. His parents, seeing the impending destruction, place their baby in a small space ship and send him to earth for safety. Sound familiar? A baby, in a basket, sent downstream for refuge – I wonder where those Jewish boys got that idea. Of course it’s a Moses story. Though some have also heard echoes of the Kindertransport in there too. And the name his parents had given him – Kal-El. El is the suffix you give a name if you want it to sound Jewish – Samu-El, Dani-El, Emanu-El. It’s means God. Kal-El is “voice of God” or “all that is God.” But Kal-El doesn’t have just one name. He’s an American Jew so he has a Hebrew name, but he also gets to earth and goes by Superman. But then, as was so often the case for Jews of his generation, he changed it again. Perhaps he wanted something that sounded less Jewish. Superman wasn’t enough, he need to be the all-American Kansas boy – Clark Kent.
But yet, he could not stop himself from being that Jewish kind of hero – he always needed to fight for what was right – to be a Super Mensch. He goes around metropolis doing tikkun olam. And his motto – truth, justice, and the American way – that sounds a lot like the Mishnah, which teaches that the world endures on three things (00:02):
“on truth, on justice, and on peace.”
Now, I can hear some of you saying, “rabbi, he doesn’t look Jewish.” And though I think it’s debatable whether there is any such thing as looking Jewish, it is true that Segal and Schuster went out of their way to make a broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, all-American ideal that was pretty far from the look of those two nebbish-y writers drawing fantastical stories in their bedroom. This was the fantasy, to be so fully assimilated, Americanized, that all of the vestiges of your immigrant background, your accent, your demeanor, would be hidden to everyone except to those who knew you best.
Most of the early writers of comic books were Jewish. In part because as the industry grew from that first hero, the Jews already on the inside would hire other Jews that they knew, but it’s also partially because none of these young Jewish men – mostly men – were allowed into art school or into more “respectable” drawing jobs like in advertising. Specifically because they were Jewish. So here were these Jewish boys, imagining these American heroes who lived by Jewish values and faced no discrimination. On the pages of their comic books, they sent Superman and Captain America and their ilk off to capture Nazis and punch Hitler. It was a fantasy by the powerless about how it would feel to be powerful, to be able to fight the bigots, to have the strength to punch back. They filled these early heroes with all their fears and their worries, their hopes and aspirations. And in doing so, they not only created a truly American mythology, but also infused it with something deeply and abidingly Jewish.Which brings us to another character, created about 20 years later. Comic book Superheroes were past their initial boom and were declining in popularity. An editor at Marvel Comics by the name of Martin Goodman (a Jew) tasked two of his writers with coming up with a comic book that would appeal to a new generation of readers. Their rivals at DC were having some success with the Justice League that teamed Superman up with Batman and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and the Flash, and Goodman wanted his own team of heroes to capture young minds. The writers to whom he gave this task to were Jacob Kurtzer and Stanley Leibowitz – though in the good tradition of Jews and Superheroes, they had both changed their names to the less Jewish sounding Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Together, the group they dreamed up was not so much a team as a family – the Fantastic Four. In their story, a cosmic storm has turned a group of astronauts in the stretchy Mr. Fantastic, the sometimes-invisible Sue Storm, and the Sometimes-inflammable Human Torch. And to round out the family, Benjamin Jacob Grimm, who had been transformed into an orange-rock monster, called simply The Thing.
Ben Grim seems to have come mostly out of the mind of Jack Kirby, and to have been somewhat autobiographical. Kirby had grown up in the famous lower east side Jewish neighborhood of Delancy Street. Benjamin Jacob Grimm grew up on Yancy Street. Benjamin was Jack’s father’s name, and Jacob, the name he had abandoned when he started to go by Jack.
Superman was all about assimilation, blending in, the secret alter ego. But The Thing cannot hide. He’s always jealous of his three friends, who can turn off their superhuman abilities and walk around normally in the world. But he isn’t sometimes made of rock and sometimes just plain old Ben – he’s an orange earthen-monster 24-7. And that’s not my word, by the way (00:06):
Monster. That’s how the people in the comics describe him and how he feels often about himself. And this too feels like a description of Kirby and Lee’s Jewish experience. They might have wanted to fit in, they might have changed their names, but in the world of the 1960’s they always felt a little different, in some intrinsic way. I think perhaps they moved through the world like The Thing, wondering if they stuck out like a sore thumb, if they were seen as a little monstrous. As with Superman, Kerby and Lee could not or would not make The Thing explicitly Jewish. But it was strongly implied. More than once, this lower east side rock-creature was referred to as a golem – that creature from Jewish mythology made of mud. It took until the early 2000’s for comic writers to finally bring Ben Grimm’s Jewishness to the surface. Since then, he’s smashed a glass under a chuppah and had a second bar mitzvah. As comic writer and editor Paul Kupperberg reflected, “when these characters were first created, anti-Semitism was so prevalent, even in an industry run by Jews. But now, we’ve finally reached a time where you could stop hiding and be Jews.” Almost as long as there has been Judaism, there have been people who hated Jews. Every generation has to deal with antisemitism. Superman and The Thing represent two responses to this hatred. Superman is the response that says that we can assimilate – that we can become so much a part a place that they won’t see us as any different, that they will believe we are just another Kansas farm-boy. And it’s the belief maybe that if we can do enough good, they won’t just accept us, they’ll celebrate us. And The Thing is the response that says that we never get to be accepted – they will always see us as different, and we will always feel different. And maybe we can learn to live with that or maybe even celebrate that difference. And yet, at the end of the day, we’re never sure if they see us as monsters. These past few years, as the world has awakened to resurging antisemitism, I have seen both these responses from the Jewish community. And honestly I’ve felt both of them inside myself. There have been days where I wanted to take off my kippah and hope that like Clark Kent’s glasses, this would be enough to keep people from noticing me. And there have been times where I have felt so totally other – like my experience has been fundamentally different from that of my non-Jewish neighbors. I have sat across tables from folks and wondered “How do they really see me? Do they understand the unique pain that the Jews have experienced these past few years, or do they dismiss it? Do they see me as merely an oppressor? Or maybe even a monster? So here come these two heroes. Soaring and lumbering into movie theaters and reminding me of these two extremes. Do I want to be a Jew who hides? Can I even be? But at the same time, I deal with always feeling a little bit different?
And then I think of one more Jewish hero. She doesn’t have a movie coming out this summer, sadly. But she was the very first superhero to be explicitly Jewish from introduction. 20 years after the first appearance of Benjamin Grimm, and 40 after Kal-El changed his name to Clark, a new superhero was created. This time by Chris Claremont, who modeled her after a woman he met while he was living on a kibbutz during a college break. Her name was Kitty Pryde, and she was one of the most popular members of the X-Men in the 1980s. And from the first page, from the first panel, she can be seen wearing a Magen David. I don’t think it’s an accident that her name is Pryde. It’s spelled with a Y, but we can all get the point.The opposite of hiding is not being eternally different, it’s feeling pride. Finally, a character could just be Jewish, instead of having to hint at it. And Kitty’s power is that she can walk through walls. When you have that pride, when you know who you are, then what seemed like barriers needn’t hold you back, and what seemed like curses might actually be powerful blessings.
So let us take pride in these two Jewish heroes gracing the silver screen. Let us take pride in the fact that for the first time, both heroes are played by Jewish actors. David Corenswet and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are both members of the tribe. And let us feel pride in knowing how the Jews shaped this quintessentially American art form, we helped give our neighbors a new model for standing up for Truth, Justice, and Peace. May our people and our nation never stop fighting for those enduringly Jewish ideals.Shabbat shalom.
I am a fan of superhero movies. I know, this must come as quite a shock. I will let that sink in for a moment. Ok. But it’s true. I have seen just about every Marvel movie and TV show. I catch all the easter eggs and stay for all the end-credit scenes. I have seen all the Batmen and the Wonder Women. I cannot get enough.
(00:01):
And so, in this specific way, July is a pretty good month for me. As of this weekend there are not one, but two superhero movies smashing their way through the box office like the Incredible Hulk smashing through a brick wall. A few weeks ago, Superman flew into cinemas in his eternal pursuit of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. And this week, the Fantastic Four have landed in theaters and are ready to take on challenges both domestic and galactic. And I could not be happier.Now I have not had a chance to see the Fantastic Four yet. It came out today, so cut me a little slack. I’m going tomorrow. I’ve only seen Superman, and I promise no spoilers. But as I thought about these two films, I was struck by one similarity that has gone mostly underreported in the press. I’m not talking about the fact that they both feature a generous dose of blue spandex. I was struck by how they both feature characters who are distinctly, and uniquely Jewish. This evening, I’d like to tell you a little bit about the Jewish roots of Superman, and about the Fantastic Four’s giant, orange rock-man called The Thing. Superman has never been canonically Jewish. There are no synagogues on Krypton. But I would argue, as many have, that he has always been implicitly Jewish. Superman was created in the late 1930’s by two Jewish teenagers in Cleveland, Ohio: Jerome Segal and Joseph Shuster. And from early on, he was, let’s say, Jewish Coded. Even from his very first comic appearance, he was an alien – of course literally, but also figuratively – an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land. And not just an immigrant – a refugee. He had been sent away from his home planet when it was about to be destroyed. His parents, seeing the impending destruction, place their baby in a small space ship and send him to earth for safety. Sound familiar? A baby, in a basket, sent downstream for refuge – I wonder where those Jewish boys got that idea. Of course it’s a Moses story. Though some have also heard echoes of the Kindertransport in there too. And the name his parents had given him – Kal-El. El is the suffix you give a name if you want it to sound Jewish – Samu-El, Dani-El, Emanu-El. It’s means God. Kal-El is “voice of God” or “all that is God.” But Kal-El doesn’t have just one name. He’s an American Jew so he has a Hebrew name, but he also gets to earth and goes by Superman. But then, as was so often the case for Jews of his generation, he changed it again. Perhaps he wanted something that sounded less Jewish. Superman wasn’t enough, he need to be the all-American Kansas boy – Clark Kent.
But yet, he could not stop himself from being that Jewish kind of hero – he always needed to fight for what was right – to be a Super Mensch. He goes around metropolis doing tikkun olam. And his motto – truth, justice, and the American way – that sounds a lot like the Mishnah, which teaches that the world endures on three things (00:02):
“on truth, on justice, and on peace.”
Now, I can hear some of you saying, “rabbi, he doesn’t look Jewish.” And though I think it’s debatable whether there is any such thing as looking Jewish, it is true that Segal and Schuster went out of their way to make a broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, all-American ideal that was pretty far from the look of those two nebbish-y writers drawing fantastical stories in their bedroom. This was the fantasy, to be so fully assimilated, Americanized, that all of the vestiges of your immigrant background, your accent, your demeanor, would be hidden to everyone except to those who knew you best.
Most of the early writers of comic books were Jewish. In part because as the industry grew from that first hero, the Jews already on the inside would hire other Jews that they knew, but it’s also partially because none of these young Jewish men – mostly men – were allowed into art school or into more “respectable” drawing jobs like in advertising. Specifically because they were Jewish. So here were these Jewish boys, imagining these American heroes who lived by Jewish values and faced no discrimination. On the pages of their comic books, they sent Superman and Captain America and their ilk off to capture Nazis and punch Hitler. It was a fantasy by the powerless about how it would feel to be powerful, to be able to fight the bigots, to have the strength to punch back. They filled these early heroes with all their fears and their worries, their hopes and aspirations. And in doing so, they not only created a truly American mythology, but also infused it with something deeply and abidingly Jewish.Which brings us to another character, created about 20 years later. Comic book Superheroes were past their initial boom and were declining in popularity. An editor at Marvel Comics by the name of Martin Goodman (a Jew) tasked two of his writers with coming up with a comic book that would appeal to a new generation of readers. Their rivals at DC were having some success with the Justice League that teamed Superman up with Batman and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and the Flash, and Goodman wanted his own team of heroes to capture young minds. The writers to whom he gave this task to were Jacob Kurtzer and Stanley Leibowitz – though in the good tradition of Jews and Superheroes, they had both changed their names to the less Jewish sounding Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Together, the group they dreamed up was not so much a team as a family – the Fantastic Four. In their story, a cosmic storm has turned a group of astronauts in the stretchy Mr. Fantastic, the sometimes-invisible Sue Storm, and the Sometimes-inflammable Human Torch. And to round out the family, Benjamin Jacob Grimm, who had been transformed into an orange-rock monster, called simply The Thing.
Ben Grim seems to have come mostly out of the mind of Jack Kirby, and to have been somewhat autobiographical. Kirby had grown up in the famous lower east side Jewish neighborhood of Delancy Street. Benjamin Jacob Grimm grew up on Yancy Street. Benjamin was Jack’s father’s name, and Jacob, the name he had abandoned when he started to go by Jack.
Superman was all about assimilation, blending in, the secret alter ego. But The Thing cannot hide. He’s always jealous of his three friends, who can turn off their superhuman abilities and walk around normally in the world. But he isn’t sometimes made of rock and sometimes just plain old Ben – he’s an orange earthen-monster 24-7. And that’s not my word, by the way (00:06):
Monster. That’s how the people in the comics describe him and how he feels often about himself. And this too feels like a description of Kirby and Lee’s Jewish experience. They might have wanted to fit in, they might have changed their names, but in the world of the 1960’s they always felt a little different, in some intrinsic way. I think perhaps they moved through the world like The Thing, wondering if they stuck out like a sore thumb, if they were seen as a little monstrous. As with Superman, Kerby and Lee could not or would not make The Thing explicitly Jewish. But it was strongly implied. More than once, this lower east side rock-creature was referred to as a golem – that creature from Jewish mythology made of mud. It took until the early 2000’s for comic writers to finally bring Ben Grimm’s Jewishness to the surface. Since then, he’s smashed a glass under a chuppah and had a second bar mitzvah. As comic writer and editor Paul Kupperberg reflected, “when these characters were first created, anti-Semitism was so prevalent, even in an industry run by Jews. But now, we’ve finally reached a time where you could stop hiding and be Jews.” Almost as long as there has been Judaism, there have been people who hated Jews. Every generation has to deal with antisemitism. Superman and The Thing represent two responses to this hatred. Superman is the response that says that we can assimilate – that we can become so much a part a place that they won’t see us as any different, that they will believe we are just another Kansas farm-boy. And it’s the belief maybe that if we can do enough good, they won’t just accept us, they’ll celebrate us. And The Thing is the response that says that we never get to be accepted – they will always see us as different, and we will always feel different. And maybe we can learn to live with that or maybe even celebrate that difference. And yet, at the end of the day, we’re never sure if they see us as monsters. These past few years, as the world has awakened to resurging antisemitism, I have seen both these responses from the Jewish community. And honestly I’ve felt both of them inside myself. There have been days where I wanted to take off my kippah and hope that like Clark Kent’s glasses, this would be enough to keep people from noticing me. And there have been times where I have felt so totally other – like my experience has been fundamentally different from that of my non-Jewish neighbors. I have sat across tables from folks and wondered “How do they really see me? Do they understand the unique pain that the Jews have experienced these past few years, or do they dismiss it? Do they see me as merely an oppressor? Or maybe even a monster? So here come these two heroes. Soaring and lumbering into movie theaters and reminding me of these two extremes. Do I want to be a Jew who hides? Can I even be? But at the same time, I deal with always feeling a little bit different?
And then I think of one more Jewish hero. She doesn’t have a movie coming out this summer, sadly. But she was the very first superhero to be explicitly Jewish from introduction. 20 years after the first appearance of Benjamin Grimm, and 40 after Kal-El changed his name to Clark, a new superhero was created. This time by Chris Claremont, who modeled her after a woman he met while he was living on a kibbutz during a college break. Her name was Kitty Pryde, and she was one of the most popular members of the X-Men in the 1980s. And from the first page, from the first panel, she can be seen wearing a Magen David. I don’t think it’s an accident that her name is Pryde. It’s spelled with a Y, but we can all get the point.The opposite of hiding is not being eternally different, it’s feeling pride. Finally, a character could just be Jewish, instead of having to hint at it. And Kitty’s power is that she can walk through walls. When you have that pride, when you know who you are, then what seemed like barriers needn’t hold you back, and what seemed like curses might actually be powerful blessings.
So let us take pride in these two Jewish heroes gracing the silver screen. Let us take pride in the fact that for the first time, both heroes are played by Jewish actors. David Corenswet and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are both members of the tribe. And let us feel pride in knowing how the Jews shaped this quintessentially American art form, we helped give our neighbors a new model for standing up for Truth, Justice, and Peace. May our people and our nation never stop fighting for those enduringly Jewish ideals.Shabbat shalom.
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