OCTOBER 28 • 2021 | 13

signifiers,
” says the Israeli-born
Schwartz.
Schwartz has written for
newspapers, magazines, toy
companies, production studios
and writes about pop culture
for CNN.com. He has taught
English and writing at the City
University of New York.
His new book, Is Superman
Circumcised? The Complete Jewish
History of the World’s Greatest
Hero, is the product of six
and a half years of work and
started as his graduate school
thesis. Schwartz received a writ-
er-in-residence fellowship from
the New York Public Library
while writing the book.
The book is a journey
through comic book lore,
American history and Jewish
tradition with a keen focus
on the entirety of Superman’s
career, from 1938 to date. The
book is equal parts historical
context and thematic content,
Schwartz says.
“It’s really about the origins
of the comic book industry,
starting even before the gold-
en age of comics with Jewish
immigrants and their children
in the ’30s and ’40s, following
the development of the field
and tracing things all the way
to today,
” he states.

SUPERMAN:
IMPLICITLY JEWISH
Schwartz delves deep into the
Jewish meaning, picking up on
unexplored themes and threads
in comic book history.
“The book is written in plain
English, it’s meant to be read
for enjoyment, but it’s a scholar-
ly work from an academic press
with 41 pages of endnotes and
bibliography,
” Schwartz said.

“It’s a fun history book and a
rich, fascinating history I’m
very happy and privileged to be
able to have brought to life.
”
In the book, there’s no better
example of a superhero and its
Jewish connections than one of
the very first superheroes ever,
Superman himself. Schwartz
says Superman is the first
implicitly Jewish superhero.
“He’s Jewish as a character,
not in the comics. He’s symboli-
cally Jewish,
” Schwartz explains.
Introduced in 1938,
Superman was created by two
Jewish teens from Cleveland,
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster,
the sons of immigrants from
Eastern Europe.
Superman’s birth name is
Kal-El. The suffix “el” means “of
God” in Hebrew, with Kal-El
defined by some as “Voice of
God.
” Before his home planet
Krypton’s doom, Kal-El’s par-
ents put him in a Moses-like
basket, send-

ing him down what has been
referred to as the “Nile of inter-
galactic space” until he landed
safely on Earth.
Schwartz, like so many oth-
ers, clearly connects the dots of
how Superman’s origin story is
based on Moses.
“Baby Kal-El is sent to safety
in a small vessel to an unknown
fate, found by people not his
own and renamed by his adopt-
ed mother, that is origin story
of Moses,
” Schwartz says.
Another Jewish connection
of Superman’s was uncovered
when co-creator Jerry Siegel’s
lost memoir was discovered
in 2011. Siegel wrote that his
Superman was inspired by
Samson, the biblical judge, as
well as the Golem, as a protec-
tor of the innocent.
Kal-El, who comes over from
the “old country” of Krypton,
gets his name changed to Clark
Kent to better assimilate into
society, as many Jews did at the
time the character was created.
“That’s the beautiful thing,
because when he transforms
from Clark Kent to Superman,
he’s not just changing his per-
sonal identity, he’s also declar-
ing his ethnic background,
”
Schwartz says. “His costume
is like a tallit or another kind
of religious or cultural symbol,
that ethnic garb.
”
In following decades,
Superman’s mostly Jewish writ-
ers, artists and editors contin-

ued to borrow Jewish motifs for
their stories, basing Krypton’s
past on Genesis and Exodus.
Lockhart says another way
Judaism is linked to the comic
book industry is the dual iden-
tity of the superheroes invented
in the pre-war and WWII years.
“Often, those are stories of
people fiercely proud of their
superheroic secret identity
and at the same time, spend
their time assimilating into the
dominant culture,
” Lockhart
explains. “That is what the
assimilation project for Jewish
immigrants looks like in a lot
of ways. That type of superhe-
ro remains relevant today for
members of other cultures who
are passing one way or another
as assimilated.
”
For some, it may come as a
surprise to find out how much
of the superhero world in its
inception was Jewish. Schwartz
says Jewish creatives dominated
the profession in its beginnings,
and many of the biggest names
in the comic book world were
Jewish but changed their names
to more Americanized versions:
The man who invented the
comic book, Max Gaines, was
born Max Ginsberg. Legendary
comic book writers Stan Lee
and Jack Kirby were born
Stanley Martin Lieber and
Jacob Kurtzberg, respectively.
Superman co-creators Jerry
Siegel and Joe Shuster’s family

continued on page 14

RIGHT: Author Roy
Schwartz.

FAR RIGHT: Authors
E. Lockhart and Roy
Schwartz with Jaemi
Loeb of the JCC.

PHOTOS BY MORGAN DIEHL

Magneto

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