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Friday June 30, 2006

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Super Mensch!

(ynet) | “Superman Returns” is now in theaters, and alongside the flattering reviews, it has also sparked a debate about whether the superhero isn’t actually a super-Jew.

One of the eager participants in this debate is Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, writer of “Up, Up and Oy Vey,” which explores the concept of the Jewish superhero.

According to Rabbi Weinstein, also known as the Comic Book Rabbi, behind the Man of Steel’s cape hides a “bumbling, nebbish Jew.”

“Only a Jew would think of a name like Clark Kent,” he writes. “He’s a bumbling, nebbish Jewish stereotype. He’s Woody Allen. Can’t get the girl. Can’t get the job — at the same time, he has this tremendous heritage he can’t express.”

In an article on his Web site (www.rabbisimcha.com), Weinstein explains that the superhero was invented due to rising anti-Semitism in 1930s America. When the German-American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization, marched through the hometown of young Jewish artists Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, they responded by inventing a hero in blue tights.

Arie Kaplan, a writer for Mad Magazine and the author of a series of articles dubbed “How the Jews Created the Comic Book Industry,” explains in his writings:

“Superman is a child survivor named Kal-El (in Hebrew, ‘All that is God’) from the planet Krypton, whose population, a race of brilliant scientists, is decimated. His parents send him to Earth in a tiny rocket ship, reminiscent of how baby Moses survived Pharaoh’s decree to kill all Jewish newborn sons.”

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