#jewish clark kent

[fromchaostocosmos]

Superman wears his actual costume to synagogue for Purim with a little paper mask and the skin around the eyes being covered makes them recognize him as Clark.

everyone tells Clark his costume is amazing and that is it looks so realistic where did he get it and he tells them his mom made it.

[nightwings-puphood]

"have you noticed how often [clark] goes out for bagels" no that's not suspicious jews are just like that

[groovy-lady]

I drew Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El and Krypto the Superdog celebrating Hanukkah at the Fortress of Solitude!!

[frownyalfred]

Regarding Superman and Jewish identity:

Siegel has mentioned being inspired by Samson (you've probably seen the common motif of superman breaking through the chains holding him, similar to Samson being able to break any bonds) and that the creation of superman was in large part inspired by hearing news of what was happening to his and Shuster's fellow Jews in Europe, and the helplessness they felt at the rising antisemitism (also in USA where they lived).

Of course there's the Truth and Justice catchphrase reminiscent of many Jewish principles regarding Emet (as inscribed on the Golem's forehead to give him purpose) and Tzedek(, tzedek tirdof). ('and the American Way' was a later addition by the superman radio show due to airing as the US entered the war, so the patriotism increased accordingly).

There are also explicit references to possible jewish identity of superman/clark josef kent (his middle-name josef can also be considered a reference to the Golem, whose name in the tale is Yosef); such as him attending a shabbat dinner where he mentions being 'familiar with the kiddush', and in warworld, his existence is directly equated with Moses (he goes to warworld to free the slaves - including the phaelosians who are a branch of kryptonians aka 'his people').

There is more, but I don't want to make this ask any longer - have a nice day:)

Yes! Lots of Jewish imagery and coding. Which is what makes some of Snyder's Jesus-adjacent imagery a little strange. As others have mentioned, and as you did, Clark is probably closer to a Moses figure if anything.

It's an interesting discussion about when coding vs explicit identities come out in characters. Does Clark need to be explicitly Jewish in canon in order to convey this kind of connection? Did his Jewish creators ever intend for that coding to become more or less explicit?

I don't think there's always a right answer, even though I know some folks on here feel very strongly about it. Once again -- two Jews, three opinions, etc etc.

[fruitlicense]

I’m watching Superman: The Animated Series and I love that some of the Kryptonian alphabet is just Hebrew! Not all of it - I suspect some of it is pulled from other alphabets and some of it is just shapes - but I mean. compare it to Hebrew print and cursive script and it starts looking like a pretty cool nod to Superman’s Jewish origins

[trekkele]

Chapters: 1/7 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Jewish Clark Kent, Jewish Bruce Wayne, Judaism, Community - Freeform, Original Characters as Needed - Freeform Summary:

Several vignettes about Clark and Bruce being jewish together, or next to each other, or just in general, because be the change you want to see in the world.

*fic title is just Yiddish for ‘the week’.

[yourfavecharactersarejewish]

Today’s Jewish Character of the Day: Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El from DC Comics!

Woman #1: “What a nice man!”

Woman #2: “Of course. He’s Jewish, you know!”

-bystander old ladies at Niagara Falls; Superman II (1980)

[lovelyselfshipper]

Name: Clark Kent/Superman/Kal-El.

Loved Since: December 2024.

Clark and I met at the Daily Planet where I am an editor for the newspaper and Clark is a reporter. We got along wonderfully and exchanged phone numbers during our lunch break.

[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.

[littletealights]

hi yes. i need more of the megamind/metroman dynamic with clark/lex. specifically i need this pair (who was written by “assimilating” jews) to mirror the racial school dynamic of the time. superman who looks human and is anything but and luthor who is more human than all his racist bullies put together.

[thegeekylady52]

Today is Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is also the day of Superman's debut. @comicsymathdude wrote a wonderful fic about Jewish!Superman to connect them both.

[groovy-lady]

Amortentia - Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El

Sunshine, his natural Kyrptonian musk, corn, cinnamon, lavender, garden sage, ozone, stardust, newspaper ink, cedar wood, honey, glazed apples, cardamum, smoked paprika, caraway, fresh strawberries and cream, Za’atar, ginger, and poppy seeds.

[frownyalfred]

shalom! I just want to say that I’m a big fan of your jewish batman/superman posts. I love your analysis and characterizations and it’s so nice to see someone say what I’ve been thinking for years but never really knew how to say

also, your story “glory at the seams” makes me cry every time

so, yeah, big fan. keep up the great work❣️

oh 🥹 thank you so much for reminding me of that fic. I keep forgetting that it’s totally valid to explore Clark and Bruce’s Jewish influences and I’m not bothering anyone by doing so.

I really enjoy writing details of my own upbringing into some of those fics and posts. Martha in my ghost fic with Jason is really a love letter to my own Ashkenazi Jewish grandma, if I’m being honest. I miss her 🥺

[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

[trekkele]

(pov kryptonian names anon finally look up the definition of a diminutive instead of just going off of what they think it means (⁠٥⁠↼⁠_⁠↼⁠))

it turns out that a diminutive is actually:

a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle something or someone. (wikipedia)

(what i thought the definition of a diminutive is: quite literally just shortening the word to form another word) <= wrong

so a diminutive doesn't necessarily have to be shorter than the base word, it just gotta convey the feeling of small/affection/etc

(this is mostly just a "ohh" moment for me)

(side note but you also answered a curiosity of mine about your username lol, i was guessing that 'trek' is related to star trek but i didn't know what the latter part is ^^)

also (this is just my understanding from reading the yiddish grammar wikipedia page, take with a very tiny grain of salt) but would there be a vowel shift when forming the diminutive [or iminutive (2nd degree, more affectionate diminutive), regarding -ele]? so kal -> kel'ele, for example

(this question is just both for my own curiosity and also something i thought of when i (also mistakenly) thought that the -ele suffix is pronounced similarly to -El (it's not, i know that now lol) and was wondering if there's anyway to more clearly distinguish between the pronunciation of the full name and the diminutive)

i hope my somewhat disastrous, little-of-substance linguistic rollercoaster ride was fun for you to read lol

hope your day is going well ❤️❤️❤️

Ok hang on i need to look something up - ok so on the vowel shift, not necessarily? Let me write it phonetically because im really bad at like. Explaining this i think.

So take Kal, (kahl) and then the examples i gave of Kal’nik (kahl-nih-ck) and Kal’ele (kahl-eh-leh) or (kahl-leh) and Kal’ush (kahl-uhsh). So no i dont think there is a vowel shift for diminutives. Also because shifting the vowel could/would change the meaning of the root word it wouldn’t always work. Continuing with the example Kal, in a hebrew/yiddish name would be lightweight or swift, Kel would be strength or strong, and Kol would be voice - so Kal-El as a jewish name could mean, depending on the vowel, [Kahl] swift(ness of) G-d or young god (interpreted a little broader then literal); [Kehl] strength (of) G-d; and [Koh-l] voice (of) G-d.

(Interesting enough I’ve seen Kal-El commonly translated as ‘voice of G-d’ i think that has to do with American accents.)

So a vowel shift in a diminutive could change the meaning of a name entirely, like from “little swift” (kahl’ele) to “little voice” (kohl’ele).

Yeah so i got completely carried away and have no idea where i was going with this. Idk. Hope this makes sense to anyone else👍🏽!

[alvie-pines]

being aware of superman's jewishness helps me understand him as a character so much better. people who discard that aspect of him are not only engaging in an antisemitic microaggression, but they're also creating a diminished experience for themselves—one where they have to constantly patch over the holes left by the extraction of jewish-american identity.