#Jewish Batman

[frownyalfred]

actually I think the best characterization for old/older Bruce Wayne is just Overbearing Jewish Mother.

"Where are you?" "Why aren't you back from patrol yet?" "Alfred made dinner and you're not home." "You can't go out in the base layer armor, you'll be too cold." "I told you that you weren't going to stick that landing, and now look at you." "Don't whine to me when you break your ankle." "We're doing an x-ray on your ankle and that's non-negotiable." "What did I tell you about going after muggers on lower 9th? It never ends well." "Oh, you need a pickup on lower 9th? Who could've seen this coming?" "You never check your comm when you're talking to Barbara. What if something important came through?" "Why don't you bring Barbara around more?" "Alfred made extra dinner, please invite Barbara." "No I'm not using a cane, when I start using a cane you can take me out back and shoot me." "I'm not being dramatic. What's with that tone?" "Put that down. Why are you holding that?"

[shewolf-sinclair]

batman is a very private person. duh.

brucie wayne isn’t as private. he’s actually very open, about certain things. like relationships and issues and people he supports as a public figure. but he still keeps personal things personal. the public only knows he’s jewish because he speaks about it when doing activist work against antisemitism in gotham. otherwise. you would never guess

bruce wayne isn’t usually very religious. he values his judaism but more so as a cultural background than a religion he doesn’t regularly go to synagogue, he doesn’t keep sabbath or keep kosher. BUT he absolutely sat shiva for jason. and i like to think that it was huge when jason found out after coming back. because he knows bruce stopped practicing years ago. he only practices on high holidays (and maybe passover). and he does chanukkah for the kids. so him taking the time to sit shiva for the whole week is a huge deal.

i like to think it was a huge jumping off point for them to start fixing things

[captainlordauditor]

@dickgraysonweek  Day 3: Growing up as the First Child Hero

Ma Nishtana (traditionally performed by the youngest present at a seder) gets a little strange when Robin and Shazam are both present.

[starryaugust]

jewish!Tim growing up not growing up close to his tradition and religion but then being adopted by jewish!Bruce who reintroduce him to Judaism I can't

[monowritestoomuch]

I was today years old when I learned Batman is Jewish

[capsrecedinghairline]

Just saw a clip where David Mazouz talks about how a WB exec called him “too Jewy” to play young Bruce Wayne so uhhh now I have decided that Bruce should have thick curly hair, he should have bold, broad features, he be exactly what people think of when they stereotype Jews.

And yeah, obviously there is no singular way to “look Jewish”. That’s not the point. The point is that a Jewish kid had to load his hair down with gel in order to play a canonically Jewish character. I shouldn’t have to spell out the rest for you.

The point is visibility. The point is that Jewish-American comic book innovators used the concept of superheroes’ secret identities to explore identity and assimilation. The point is that I want Bruce Wayne in a kippah and I’m not gonna shut up about it.

[scribbling-scientist]

Inspired by the discord convo that @littlegreenfag 's Post about Jewish Riddler in turn inspired

Convo and answer under the cut

[lakeofthesocknessmonster]

What do you MEAN batman isn't "canonically jewish", as far as I'm concerned he and batwoman dressed up as each other for purim

[zodarii-dae]

so the word lazarus is actually biblical in origin! it’s the name of someone who was apparently revived from the dead by jesus (pretty fitting for the pits). the hebrew version of this name is eleazar, which means god has helped.

the point of this post is that damian’s hebrew name is אלעזר (eleazar), bc i’m a jewish waynes truther.

[meirmakesstuff]

I'm so embarrassed--I've lived in the Berkshires my whole life and never heard of Ramah. Can you expound a bit on that please?

Ramah is a network of Jewish summer camps affiliated with the Conservative movement. While I didn't attend one myself, my youth group had yearly end-of-summer retreats at the Berkshires, specifically for the kids in the greater NYC region (I didn't grow up that close to the city but close enough to count), so specifying Berkshires in the Batman-Superman post was a little dig at Gotham's not-quite-NYC-ness. Likewise, Jewish groups I was with would have retreats at Camp Isabella Friedman, which is a retreat center rather than a kids' summer camp but does host some kids' retreats, particularly focused on Jewish ecological learning.

I name-checked those two specifically just because the aesthetic matched the ones in the post: Isabella Friedman's kid programs bring that crunchy ukulele vibe, while at Ramah a teen is more likely to find themself exploring taking on outwardly visible personal Jewish practices like the ones in the Batman-Superman post, mostly through exposure to fellow campers who do them. There are Ramah camps all around the US and Canada, as well as Jewish camps from other denominations and no denomination--I'm sure someone can give a more compelling suggestion for where Kansas-raised Clark might center his Jewish nostalgia.

[frownyalfred]

Actually I think it would be hilarious if DC just doubled down on accidentally ret-conning Bruce Wayne into being Jewish. Instead of trying to vaguely allude to the possibility, they should go all in on the Jewishness.

Bruce Wayne is now a real estate developer who spends half his time in Miami, he doesn’t patrol on Shabbat, and he kills but only when it’s allowed/required by pikuach nefesh. Also his Hebrew name is Baruch and his Torah portion was Exodus 2:11-13.

[shewolf-sinclair]

Damian moved in with Bruce at age like… 8? 10? either way he had been raised by LOA up till that point and knew nothing of his jewish heritage. when he moved in w B, you bet he was asking so many questions. bro speedran his torah study and was ready for his bar-mitzvah faster than any teen in history. what normallt takes 9ish years to learn in hebrew school he learned in like 3-5. and he’ll never admit it but he did it to be closer to Bruce.

of course his mitzvah was a huge gotham event. and he aced it, doing his torah portion with perfect pronunciation and grace.

[captainlordauditor]

BruDick Week 2023, Day 1: Soulmates | Weddings & Marriage | Aftercare

It’s finally @brudick-week!! I’m so excited, I’ve managed to do way more for it than I expected, and I got an excuse to draw their wedding. I tried to mix Romani (feeding each other bread and salt) and Jewish (the chuppah, both of them wearing white) wedding traditions for this one, and there’s a bunch of details here I’m super excited about, I hope someone spots them and appreciates them as much as I do.

[starryaugust]

Bruce Wayne is so jewish mother coded

[coffeefrenchandhistory]

Now I’m just throwing this out here.

But Brett Goldstein as Batman/Bruce Wayne.

[meirmakesstuff]

Okay but I see a lot of Jewish Batman and Superman takes, usually using the contrast to explore different expressions of Jewishness, but this post made me realize how rarely I see Batman proposed as frummer than Superman in any way.

Maybe that's because Bruce's canon Jewishness is a retcon, leaving him with plenty of explicitly non-Jewish canon moments to explain away, while Clark's Jewishness, fully fanon, is free of obligation to contradictions from canon.

Maybe it's because Bruce's canon Jewishness, being a retcon, opens doors to talk about the process of reconnecting with Jewishness after a generation or two of alienation, or the process of becoming ba'al tshuvah even: how is this same character that we know so well altered by a change in his Jewishness? How does that contrast with someone whose identity has been constant, whose Jewishness informed his character from the start?

Maybe it's because we do internalize the canard that country values are better values and urban billionaire Bruce must need to be stepping away from something he grew up with in order to access something wholesome, while country boy Clark, bumpkin in the big city, gives us echoes of shtetl immigrants with Yiddish accents and a wide-eyed need to apply wholesome rural values to the morally bankrupt big city (whose narrative is that? Who are we in it?).

Maybe too it's because we conceptualize the spectrum of frumkeit as being a spectrum of Jewishness, or connectedness, or piety, or commitment, and forget that what frumkeit measures is only your frumkeit. This vision of Clark lets me imagine his nostalgic memories of Camp Isabella Friedman, while this vision of Bruce lets me imagine him working through how to navigate being on the frummer end of the spectrum at Ramah in the Berkshires. I'm enjoying the presence of Jewish contrasts that don't involve being less vs. more, or established vs. new practice, or engaged in contrast with secular. They're practicing in different ways, not at different levels, and that's important.

Not to get serious on a Batman and Superman post. But you know.

bruce wayne: conservadox jew, wears talit k’tan under the batsuit, keeps rigorous kosher & two sets of dishes

clark kent: reconstructionist hippie jew, plays shabbat songs on a ukelele, regularly shows up at his old summer camp as superman to hang out with the kids