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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