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November 01, 2007

Superman is Jewish

Yeah, you know it's true, buddy.

When I was about 13, my friend and I whiled the time away in Hebrew School with the Superman is Jewish Club, making up news stories about Clark Kentsky and the others. Then, later, I read about Siegel and Schuster writing of their own fantasies of themselves -- which proved our thesis that Superman was Jewish.

Now, we learn there's a comic book exhibit in Paris that proves it further:

A Paris exhibit on comic strips shows that Superman is Jewish.

The exhibit, at the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris, makes it clear "that Superman is Jewish," Samuel Blumenfeld and Yves-Marie Labé write in the French newspaper Le Monde. And even Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels knew it.

In comments translated in the Eurotopics online newsletter, the writers say that "When the 'Iron Man' destroyed the Atlantic wall and the Siegfried line well before D-day, ...Goebbels shouted in a meeting that 'Superman is Jewish.' What was an insult is now to be taken as something quite evident."

The Superman comic strip was created in 1932 by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Schuster, both sons of Jewish immigrants, and sold to D.C. Comics in 1938.
There's a website about the exhibit in French. Here's a Google automated translation into English.
Then the era of superheroes, related to the process of integration of the second generation of immigrants. 1938 sees rise Superman. Batman followed in 1939, and Captain America in 1940. They also embody the dreams related to the experience and the Jewish tradition, the first superheroes are meant to the American nation. They are a fantastic and reassuring response to the difficulties caused by the crisis of 1929 and the rise of Fascisms in Europe. Infatigables vigilantes ensuring law and order in the world, they defend the human species and universal values of good and justice. It was only after the Holocaust that some people will have signs specifically Jews.
The translation is pretty funny, but I think you get the gist of it.

UPDATE (11/11): Mark Newgent sent me this link to a video clip of Superman II. Listen carefully at 2:33.