Florida Exhibit Showcases Jewish Artists' Role in Comic Books
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3555874,00.html

'I didn't know Superman, Batman and Captain America were created by Jews,' says director of Children's Museum in Plantation, Florida

The exhibit ZAP! POW! BAM! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1950, at My Jewish Discovery Place Children's Museum in Plantation, Florida is bringing comic book heroes back to life for a new generation of fans, the Miami Herald reported.

The report mentioned that the first superhero - Superman - was created in 1938 by two Jewish boys, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Bob Kane and Bill Finger, also Jewish, created Batman in 1939. Then came Captain America in 1940 from Jewish artists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

Museum Director Debbie Hochman was quoted by the Miami Herald as saying that the exhibit is a chance for children to learn not only about well-known comic book heroes and how they began but also about the people who drew them.

''They are heroes in their own right,'' she said.

The report said the exhibit, which originated at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, came from various private and institutional collections and is traveling throughout the United States.

'When I saw it, I fell in love with it,'' Jewish Museum Executive Director Marcia Jo Zerivitz told the Miami Herald regarding the Breman exhibit. "I didn't know these (characters) were created by Jews.''

The report said the works displayed in the exhibit are all original and explain the genesis of aforementioned cultural icons and many others, like Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman.

"Most were created during the economic and political turmoil of the 1930s and '40s. For Jews it was a way of confronting Hitler, who became the superheroes' nemesis in many comic books, as World War II and the Holocaust ravaged Europe," The Miami Herald report mentioned.

According to Hochman, ''there were a lot of artists of that era who were Jewish and doing artwork. There was a frustration that was going on with the world at that time and this was a way to express that.''

Comic books were considered vaguely disreputable and, thus, one of few professions open to Jews during a time rife with prejudice, the report said.

[snip]

Superman's Jewish Roots
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/li...cs/Superman.htm

Superman #1 was published in the summer of 1939. Across the Atlantic, in Germany, Adolph Hitler was exploiting his nation's economic and social ills by scapegoating Jews. Living in a country that had stripped them of their citizenship yet perversely obstructed their exit, German Jews resorted to desperate measures. Just as the baby Superman was sent away from Krypton to avoid the mass destruction of his people, many Jewish children were sent on the Kindertransports to seek safety with families in England.

After the attacks on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, America entered World War II, and so did Superman. In Siegel and Shuster's comic, Clark Kent tries to enlist in the Armed Forces, but he fails the routine medical examination,. Clark accidentally uses his X-ray vision to read the next room's eye chart. Distraught, he muses, "I've got the most perfect body the world has ever known, and through a sad trick of fate, the army turns me down as hopeless!" This feeling of desperation and despondency was felt across the country. As news of the Nazis' murderous Holocaust plan emerged, American Jews felt utterly powerless to help their European brethren.

Word of Superman and his ethnic undertones did not escape the enemy's notice in real life. Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, denounced Superman as a Jew. In April 1940, Das Schwarze Korps, the weekly newspaper of the Nazi S.S., attacked the comic and its Jewish writers:

"Jerry Siegel, an intellectually and physically circumcised chap who has his headquarters in New York. . . The inventive Israelite named this pleasant guy with an overdeveloped body and underdeveloped mind "Superman.."

Here were Nazis wringing their hands over a cartoon character cooked up by a couple of boys across the sea. Yet this ideologically driven rant actually touched on something vital--the importance of Shuster and Siegel's Jewish heritage.

Superman #1 begins with a brief synopsis of the hero's escape from Krypton, which draws heavily on Jewish sources. Superman's journey closely reflects the story of Moses. Like the people of Krypton who faced total annihilation, the Israelites of biblical Egypt faced the murder of their male offspring. To ensure her son's survival, Jochebed places Moses in a reed basket and sets him afloat on the Nile. Her desperate decision is clearly echoed by Superman's father, Jor-El, who launches the little rocket ship containing his son into outer space.

Moses and Superman are eventually discovered and raised in foreign cultures. Baby Moses is found by Batya, the daughter of Pharaoh, and raised in the royal palace. Superman is found by Jonathan and Martha Kent in a Midwestern cornfield and given the name Clark. From the onset, both Batya and the Kents realize that these foundling boys are extraordinary. Superman leads a double life as the stuttering, spectacle-wearing reporter whose true identity no one suspects. In the same way, for his own safety, Moses kept his Israelite roots hidden for a time.

Superman's original name on Krypton also reveals Biblical underpinnings. Superman is named Kal-El and his father Jor-El. The suffix "El" is one of the ancient names for God, used throughout the Bible. It is also found in the names of great prophets like Samuel and and Daniel and angels such as Michael and Gavriel. We may never know whether Siegel and Shuster were aware of these precise Hebrew translations; nevertheless, the name could not be more apt.

[snip]

Joseph Shuster was born in Toronto, Ontario.

Superman, part of Canada's cultural heritage.