Tag: jewish

Someone on my dash keeps saying that Spider-man is Jewish and that the movies are whitewashing him. Does this have a canonical basis? I’ve never heard it from anyone else.

copperbadge:

Huh! I’d like to see the post(s), I bet they have an interesting take on it. They could be basing it off Andrew Garfield’s statements that Spider-man is Jewish, which while valid are founded on inference on his part. (Mainly that he’s a neurotic, nebbishy wiseass from Queens, which is all totally true.) 

As far as I know, Peter Parker isn’t canonically stated to be Jewish in the comics; I haven’t read all of the Spider-man comics but I’ve read up through about 1979 or so, and there’s been no mention, though it could be there’s evidence for it in a later comic, my reading is not complete. He’s not included in art of Jewish superheroes that I’m aware of (like the Happy Hanukkah ads Marvel sometimes does) but then they don’t always include every Jewish person in the Marvel universe. If he were canonically stated as Jewish I would think that we would just be….IDK, culturally aware of it, the way we know Magneto and Ben Grimm and Kitty Pryde and Wiccan are – you would think that diversity would be latched onto and publicised.

Now, all that said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There’s no reason Peter couldn’t be Jewish, as far as I know; I don’t think we’ve ever seen 616 Peter Parker in a church, except possibly for his wedding to MJ, and if that was in a church it could be honoring her wishes. He does have a church funeral in Ults, but that’s Ults. He was created by a Jewish writer, and it’s not like we’ve never had to read between the lines in comics before to find diversity. For good or ill, “Jewish” is often a status that is encoded in literature rather than stated, so having to dig a little to get to a conclusion is pretty justified. 

If there is canon about Peter’s faith/heritage, hopefully the readership can pipe up about it. I don’t see any reason he can’t be Jewish and I support Jewish Spider-man headcanons, but I’m not sure one can call it whitewashing if there’s no canon about it one way or another. That’s quite semantic, though, and I wouldn’t go to the trouble of picking a fight with someone over it. Certainly a more diverse Spider-man would be a welcome breath of fresh air, and I don’t think complaints about the newest supawhite Spider-man are out of line.   

It’s not proof or anything, just a cute moment, but Spider-man does wish Clint Happy Hannukah in Hawkeye 006.:)

sixpenceee:

sixpenceee:

Sir Nicholas Winton is a humanitarian who organized a rescue operation that saved the lives of 669 Jewish Czechoslovakia children from Nazi death camps, and brought them to the safety of Great Britain between the years 1938-1939.

After the war, his efforts remained unknown. But in 1988, Winton’s wife Grete found the scrapbook from 1939 with the complete list of children’s names and photos. Sir Nicholas Winton is sitting in an audience of Jewish Czechoslovakian people who he saved 50 years before.

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This post gained more than 100,000 notes in over a day. One of the most powerful things I ever posted. 

Jewish Bucky pls

copperbadge:

Title: Day Of Atonement
Rating: PG
Summary: Bucky thinks he’s got a lot to atone for. Fortunately, there’s a holy day for that.
Notes: Thanks to arsenicjade for checking this one over for me. 😀 

When Steve was little, he didn’t comprehend or even notice that good boys from his building didn’t play with the Jewish boys one block over. When he got older he understood it, but ignored it; after all, his mom didn’t care, so why should he?

Sarah Rogers didn’t give an Irish damn what the biddies in the parish thought of her or her son, as few of them had raised much of a hand to help her when Joseph was alive, and anyone she chose to associate with didn’t give a damn either. On the few occasions someone pointed out Steve’s choice in friends, she said, with an affectionate smile, “Well, Steve’s never been good at idiot rules.”

Steve ran about for most of his childhood in short pants with Bucky Barnes (Lefty Commie Jewish ma, Lefty Commie Convert dad) and Arnie Roth (orthodox, kind-hearted father, dead mother), who lived on the border between the Jewish neighborhood and the Irish one, an invisible but very tough membrane. Arnie drifted off eventually, too scared of seeming any kind of different to play with goyim, but Bucky and Steve battled angry Irish boys in Steve’s half of the street and (less often) tough Jewish boys in Bucky’s half, and soon enough most people who knew them left them alone. Sarah kept a jar of kosher pickles and a special plate for Bucky when he visited, and while she couldn’t send food over to the Barnes family, she did look after Bucky and Becca when the Barnes parents needed to go to a rally or a protest, and the time the strikebreakers put Bucky’s dad in a bad way because he was trying to Unionize.

If Steve ate a lot more matzoh growing up than most Irish, Bucky and Becca occasionally got a meal that might not strictly speaking be entirely kosher.

“Do you remember Yom Kippur back in ‘35, the year after my mom died?” Steve asked. He tried not to ask do you remember too often, but Erev Yom Kippur was in two days, and he didn’t know if Bucky would want to remember, or to participate.

“You wanted to fast with us,” Bucky said, sitting at Sam’s kitchen bar. “Mom wouldn’t let you. She had the Rabbi in to tell you the sick didn’t have to fast.”

“He boxed my ears when I lipped off to him, too.”

“He said that you were a gentile anyway, which was punishment enough.”

“Never lipped off to the Rabbi again,” Steve said ruefully, and Bucky smiled. “It’s comin’ up, you know.”

The smile dropped off his face. “I know.”

“Sam would drive you to Temple if you wanted. We could both fast with you,” Steve ventured. Bucky hadn’t left the house since they’d brought him here.

“Don’t remember much — ” Bucky’s lips twisted. “Bet I could still make kreplach, all the times we watched Mom do it, but the prayers, the words, it’s all…”

He made a faint gesture, fingers fluttering away from his head. Lost to the Winter Soldier.

“They got me,” he said bitterly. “They didn’t put me in a camp but they got me just the same.”

“Hey, no, it’ll come back,” Steve said. “It will. If you can still make kreplach you can still pray. That kinda stuff doesn’t leave you, Buck.”

“It’s Yom Kippur. I got a lot to atone for. There’s too much — “

"I don’t believe that, and I don’t think you do either, not deep down. Anyway, your dad always said the best thing about bein’ a Jew was wholesale one-day forgiveness,” Steve said. Bucky’s mom had always swatted him for that.

Bucky looked at him, head bent, only his eyes moving. “What if I can’t remember?”

“Well, then you’ll have to go back to Hebrew school,” Steve said with a grin. “I hear the Rabbis don’t box ears anymore.”

“Bet they would if you lipped off to them, you were the worst at lipping off,” Bucky replied.

"So you’ll go? Sam and I will come if you want, at least, you know — ”

“Yeah, fine,” Bucky sighed. “I don’t know, dragging you two goyim around with me, G-d better send me patience for the pair of you…”

@actuallyclintbarton , this is relevant to your interests. 🙂

In 1941, Jews throughout the Third Reich were forced to wear a yellow Star of David. That same year, the first gassing experiments were conducted at Auschwitz and 33,771 Jews were killed by Germans and Ukrainians at Babi Yar outside Kiev. At the beginning of the war, the U.S. media rarely reported on or even knew about these horrific events, but word of Jewish suffering at the hands of Nazis trickled down to Kirby, Simon, and other Diaspora Jews in the form of wrenching letters from relatives trapped in the old country. Simon and Kirby used Captain America to strike back and boost American morale while proudly alluding to their religious faith. In a later issue, Steve Rogers watches newsreels depicting Nazi atrocities — newsreels Kirby and Simon surely must have watched as well.

Captain America’s weapon of choice was a strange one — not a machine gun, but a shield. The shield is a famous Jewish symbol, the Magen David, which means the “Shield of David.” (It’s also known as the “Star of David” because the Magen David is a hexagram.) The term “shield” in Jewish prayer denotes the closeness and protection of God. In a sad twist of fate, Captain America’s costume featured a star at the same time that Simon and Kirby’s European brethren were being forced to wear a star of a very different kind.

Simcha Weinstein, Up, Up, and Oy Vey! How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero (x)

Is the fact that Bucky is Jewish canon? Cus I never heard that, but that’s so so cool

superhumandisasters:

potofsoup:

Pretty sure it’s not canon, but it’s got quite a bit of fanon support.

I am fully on-board with the MCU Bucky being a Bucky Barnes/Arnie Roth combo character as far as backgrounds go.

Personally, I figured Buck for another primarily Irish-stock kid, albeit better off financially and less fresh from the boat than the Rogers family, but I wouldn’t be in fandom if I didn’t love different character interpretations, and Jewish Bucky is totally valid, especially if you take the Roth influence into account.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Captain America lore, to me, is how often Cap has been mythologized in his own universe. In the earliest comics, Bucky is the child companion to super-soldier Steve Rogers. Which is… kind of bizarre and creepy given the WWII context? It didn’t take long for other writers to realize this, so in later iterations — like the Waid or Brubaker runs, for example — Bucky being a kid is ret-conned, except it’s framed in a way that doesn’t invalidate the earliest Cap stories. Rather, they’re treated as sanitized versions of the “real” story, which is that Bucky was either a war photographer who befriended Steve and/or at least 16 when he was sent out to accompany Captain America as an orphan who was raised on-base to become a specialist in scouting and wet-works, who did things in the dark that an icon like Cap wasn’t allowed to do in the light. SUBTEXT.

The result is a pretty amusing comics meta, where we get to see the “real” Bucky complain about his 40’s GEE WHIZ, CAP portrayal on-screen — or rather, on-panel — and in the MCU, we get to see kids grabbing at Captain America comic books generated while Steve is on his publicity tours, which are in fact reproductions of the actual Captain America Comics #1.

image

Published in our world in 1941, and yeah, he’s totally punching Hitler. Did I say meta? IT’S ALL VERY META.

Another example of an in-universe non-ret-con is when WWII ended and Steve Rogers was floundering as a character (what to do with a Hitler-puncher when you have no Hitlers to punch?) but the Cold War was gearing up and McCarthyism was hot, so the best (??? lol) way to make him relevant was to go anti-Communism. Cap was even billed as CAPTAIN AMERICA, COMMIE-SMASHER!! before the title was altogether cancelled in the 50’s.

When Stan Lee revived him in the 60’s, he decided that the REAL Steve Rogers had been frozen since WWII, and the Anti-Commie 50’s Cap was an impostor. 

But wait, this was about Bucky.

So, in none of the non-MCU iterations was Bucky actually Steve’s BFF from childhood. As of 1982, Steve DID have a childhood bestie, though. Arnold Roth. They met as weakling kids getting their respective asses handed to them in back alleys, then Arnie was like, “Screw this, I’m going to take up boxing.” So he did. And he got buff and used his new buffness to protect the still-sickly Steve Rogers from bullies on the daily. Thus continued their Best Friends Ever relationship, to the point where Steve considered the Roths a second family, and Arnold his biffle big bro. Also, Arnie developed a girl-chasing Romeo persona during their teens. I’m sure you can all see the parallels here. 

However. The lady-killer rep was due to Arnold realizing he was gay and trying to over-compensate to hide his real desires, resulting in him eventually drifting apart from the more quiet Steve.

He later joined the Navy during WWII, and a whole bunch of other junk happened, (GAMBLING! ABDUCTION! DEATH! FRIENDSHIP!) but 616 Arnie Roth is canon Jewish and canon Steve’s larger, stronger, brunet age-mate protector. Make of it what you will.

actuallyclintbarton:

ngl I am loving the tichel looks I’ve been able to pull off this week just with two sale rack scarves from Walmart. (Did I mention I’ve been covering my hair? No? I have been. I have no idea if it will last, and it’s not required by Reform beliefs and practices, but it feels like the right thing to do and makes me feel pretty.)

Imagine how awesome it will be one day in the far far future when I can afford to order some stuff from Wrapunzel? (Their scarves are gorgeous and I very much crave the no slip band and the shaper.) Aaaaah!

Loving the colours. I know in the past I’ve been seriously tempted to use scarves like that. Not for religious reasons, but because I have major sensory DNW issues to do with flyaway hairs tickling my face. I end up scratching myself if I’m not careful, so my hair is always pulled back or tied up.

A friend of mine converted, oh, about ten years ago? And they decided to cover their hair, and they ended up weaving a bunch of their own head scarves on their lap loom. Pretty fucking awesome.