The new Spider-Man film, No Way Home, became the best-performing movie on its opening day since the onset of the global pandemic, earning $121.5 million (the second highest of all-time). The film is on its way to becoming the only film in 2021 to reach $1 billion in worldwide revenue. This is more proof of Spider-Man’s tremendous popularity. But not everyone knows that one of the most sympathetic superheroes is perhaps a Jew. Yes, Peter Parker is probably a good Jewish boy from Queens.
The comic book industry, like many industries in the United States, was greatly influenced by the labor force of young immigrants who were hungry for food, money, and success. In the case of the comics industry, a significant portion of these immigrants were Jews who sought a professional path in writing and illustration, but the more institutionalized workplaces, such as newspapers and magazines, were often closed to them.
The comic book industry was considered inferior and therefore open to Jews, who took the opportunity to create a disproportionate share of the world’s most beloved comic book characters: Superman (Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel), Batman (Bob Kane, originally Kahn), Captain America (Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, originally Jacob Kurtzberg), and, of course, the godfather of geeks all over the world, Stan Lee (originally Stanley Lieber). Lee, along with his associates, created many characters that entered the Marvel pantheon: Fantastic Four, X-Men and Spider-Man.
The fact that the comics industry was full of Jews led to many influences of Jewish identity, whether conscious or not, on the characters and stories. From Superman, whose story is similar to that of Moses growing up as an Egyptian (Krypton’s last offspring arriving in a spaceship to another country under a false identity), to Magneto, the villain of the X-Men series, a Holocaust survivor from Auschwitz who is torn between his hatred of human beings and his love for his people, which goes from Jews to mutants.
Superheroes were an expression of the ultimate dream of assimilation. Jewish children, perceived as weak and on the margins of society, could put on a mask and become powerful, all-American heroes who save the world. Like the superheroes, the Jewish creators also had to change their names and identities in order to be accepted into society. Through the comics, they managed to create a space for themselves where they could fulfill their personal dreams, but also the dreams of young children, Jews and non-Jews, all over the United States and the world. This was the dream of moving from the fringes of society to the center-stage, while remaining true to one’s values and making a significant contribution to the whole world.
In the case of Spider-Man, it’s hard not to see in him the alter-ego of his creator, Stan Lee. On the surface, Peter Parker is another generic representation of a white Protestant teenager. But an in-depth look reveals his clear Jewish coding. Many details in Peter’s biography also establish his Jewish identity. Peter grew up an orphan without parents (like many Jewish immigrants who fled the pogroms or the Holocaust) and was raised by his uncle and aunt, Ben and May, both of whom have “Old World”-style names. Unlike Superman’s Clark Kent, who was only a nerd as a disguise, Parker was a true nerd who suffered from social exclusion at school.
He seems to be ostracized for no apparent reason, suggesting the anti-Semitic motives of the central bully who is harassing him, Flash Thompson, who is always portrayed in the comics as the ultimate white American. In addition, Peter comes from the Forest Hills neighborhood in Queens, a demonstrably Jewish neighborhood (about 50% of the population, and an absolute majority of the “white” population in the neighborhood).
The executive producer of the 2002 Spider-Man film, Avi Arad (born in Ramat Gan), claimed that Parker’s family “are practically shtetl Jews living in Queens.” Michael Chabon (a Jewish-American writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize), who wrote the Spider Man 2 movie released in 2004, describes Spider-Man as a crypto-Jew in his biographical background and character.
In addition to his recognizable superpowers, Spider-Man is also endowed with another superpower that is often associated with New York Jews: a sharp and cynical sense of humor. Danny Fingeroth, one of the top scholars of Jewish identity in comics, claims that Spider-Man is a kind of “Seinfeld with webbing.”
But perhaps Spider-Man’s most Jewish characteristic is guilt. Superman was motivated by justice, and Batman vengeance. Both were great and almost inhuman characters. But Peter Parker is a human being like us. Spider-Man, unlike superheroes who came before him, was an ordinary boy who struggled with failed relationships, school problems, social exclusion, and economic hardship.
Spiderman’s origin story is that after receiving his powers, he decides to use them for financial gain, and one night he allows a criminal to escape instead of stopping him. The same criminal eventually kills his uncle, Uncle Ben.
This event changes the world of Spider-Man, who decides to dedicate his life to fighting crime. The last panel in Spider-Man’s first comic ends with the sentence: “With great power comes great responsibility.” In the 2002 cinematic version, this sentence was said to Peter Parker (Spider-Man) by Uncle Ben himself before his death.
Sam Raimi (also Jewish), the director of the 2002 film Spider-Man, agrees with the claim.
“Spider-Man is a character that spends his life trying to pay down his guilt,” he said. “The only difference is that it’s caused by his uncle, not his mother. That’s a real classically Jewish quality – to be very aware of your sins in this life and try to make amends for them in this life.”
Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man, claimed that he never intended for Spider-Man to be explicitly Jewish, but he received inspiration for the superhero from the biblical character of King David, noting that he instilled in his characters Jewish values: “To me, you can wrap all of Judaism up in one sentence, and that is, ‘Do not do unto others [what you would not have them do unto you]’ All I tried to do in my stories was show that there’s some innate goodness in the human condition.”
Another ‘good Jew’ who was involved in the Spider-Man films is Andrew Garfield who played Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man film series. In interviews leading up to the second film in the series, which was released in 2014, he stated that in his opinion, Spider-Man is a Jew, and as a Jew himself, he plays Spider-Man according to his Jewish identity.
“He ums and ahs about his future because he’s neurotic,” Garfield said. “He’s Jewish. It’s a defining feature."
Another expression of Spider-Man’s Jewish identity comes covertly in the successful 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The film has several versions of Spider-Man that come from parallel worlds. One version is Peter B. Parker. We meet Peter B. Parker after one of Parker’s (very white looking with blond hair) versions is killed. We learn that this Parker is divorced from his wife, and during a flashback we see Parker breaking a glass at their wedding.
Rodney Rothman, co-director of the film, noted that in his opinion this version of Parker, which is implied to be the “original” version, is probably Jewish. In another scene in the film, Peter B. Parker, voiced by Jewish actor Jake Johnson (and we know that Hollywood carefully chooses the identity of its voice actors), shows that he has a great love for bagels, a typical New York Jewish dish.
Fighting Racism
Further recent evidence of Spider-Man’s Jewish identity appeared in the Non-Stop Spider-Man comic published in August 2021. Spider-Man confronts the villain “Baron Zemo” (which was very poorly adapted in the Marvel film series). Zemo prides himself on believing in white supremacy and Nazism. He tries to lead a plot of selectively restricting a black population by distributing a highly addictive drug.
In one scene, during a fight, Zemo calls Spider-Man a “subhuman” and teases him when he tells him that it is easy to upset “people like him” because they “tie [themselves] in knots defending a false pretense of ‘equality’.” Spider-Man responds very forcefully, calling him a “racist anti-Semite.” Zemo does not explicitly call Spider-Man a Jew, and does not attack Jews at all throughout the story, instead attacking black people. But the nature of the exchange is further evidence that Spider-Man is indeed a Jew.
Without making spoilers for the new Spider-Man film, there is not too much evidence that the lovable protagonist is Jewish. However, while the (Jewish) guilt motif is significantly at the center of the plot, the keen-eyed among us will even notice a Star of David that is prominently placed in one of the ending scenes.
And yet, despite the impressive involvement of Jews in the Marvel film series, as actors (such as Scarlett Johansson and Paul Rudd) and also in their production, their films have no mention of Jewish influence. There are also major Jewish figures (such as Scarlett Witch, originally Magneto’s daughter) whose Jewish identity has been erased and has even sparked a small online protest as a result.
Marvel leads a line that prefers the continuity between the films (so that we will continue to consume them) and to create depth within each character, thus creating an international identity, easily consumed and almost unrecognizable.
Jewish identity tries to be universal, but may lose its uniqueness as a result. The lack of Jewish identity can be seen from a different angle, as Stan Lee suggested in an interview with Larry King: “You know one of the greatest things about Spider-Man’s costume? He is completely covered. So any kid could imagine he’s Spider-Man because no color of the skin shows. He could be black under that, he could be red, he could be yellow, he could belong to any race. It was done accidentally, but I think it was the best thing we did – making him so he could be anybody under that costume.”
So the magic of Spider-Man is in the ability to identify with him. He's not just a hero, he’s everyone in the world. But still, we know that with a name like ‘Spiderman,’ there is no chance that he isn’t Jewish.
This article was translated from Hebrew by Benji Sharp.
