Is Spider-Man Jewish?

[Chris0013]

The biography confirmed what I long suspected and argued, Stan Lee did not intend Spider-Man to be Jewish and so Spider-Man as a character is not originally or inherently Jewish the way Ben Grimm absolutely was, and the way Kitty Pryde unabashedly was introduced as.

That doesn't mean of course that Jewish readers or for that matter readers of any other faith or ethnicity cannot claim Spider-Man as important to them and find value in his story applicable to their experience. That's 100% fair and valid. It's just that we can't claim Spider-Man as Jewish solely because Stan Lee grew up Jewish and see the character as a biographical reflection of one of the credited creators of Spider-Man, and certainly not the one with the greater role in shaping and defining Spider-Man.

Riesman, who is Jewish himself, argued and elaborated on this in a separate article for a website:
https://jewishcurrents.org/this-is-n...y-of-stan-lee/

Exactly. I am an atheist...and I like the faith aspect of certain characters. I think it helps define them and give them more depth. Thing's Judaism or Nightcrawler's Catholicism are important aspects of who they are as individuals.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Exactly. I am an atheist...and I like the faith aspect of certain characters. I think it helps define them and give them more depth. Thing's Judaism or Nightcrawler's Catholicism are important aspects of who they are as individuals.

It's important to note that religion played no part for any of the characters in the '60s. And Nightcrawler wasn't even invented until the mid-70s and Giant Size X-Men #1.

In the case of The Thing, they could never outright portray him as Jewish until the 2000s.

People guessed that he was Jewish because his way of speaking and background from the Lower East Side and being a guy with working-class origins and affect, while the somewhat Ashkenazi name of Ben Grimm (the surname being Austrian or German in origin) implied that he was Jewish. And Jack Kirby himself confirmed that he saw Ben Grimm as Jewish when he sent a fan a postcard with this drawing (by him) in the mid-70s, wishing them a Happy Hannukah.



People have pointed that Ben Grimm looks like the famous Golem, a figure in Jewish folklore. And of course, Ben Grimm shares a name with Jack Kirby's own father, Benjamin Kurtzberg who fled Austria to the new world to escape anti-semitism.

But ultimately, the first openly Jewish superhero was Kitty Pryde, her writer, Chris Claremont is Jewish himself and she wore a Star of David around her necklace.
https://www.cbr.com/first-jewish-superhero/

[Chris0013]

It's important to note that religion played no part for any of the characters in the '60s. And Nightcrawler wasn't even invented until the mid-70s and Giant Size X-Men #1.

In the case of The Thing, they could never outright portray him as Jewish until the 2000s.

People guessed that he was Jewish because his way of speaking and background from the Lower East Side and being a guy with working-class origins and affect, while the somewhat Ashkenazi name of Ben Grimm (the surname being Austrian or German in origin) implied that he was Jewish. And Jack Kirby himself confirmed that he saw Ben Grimm as Jewish when he sent a fan a postcard with this drawing (by him) in the mid-70s, wishing them a Happy Hannukah.



People have pointed that Ben Grimm looks like the famous Golem, a figure in Jewish folklore. And of course, Ben Grimm shares a name with Jack Kirby's own father, Benjamin Kurtzberg who fled Austria to the new world to escape anti-semitism.

But ultimately, the first openly Jewish superhero was Kitty Pryde, her writer, Chris Claremont is Jewish himself and she wore a Star of David around her necklace.
https://www.cbr.com/first-jewish-superhero/

I get that...but a lot of things were presented a little more simplistically back then.

[Prime]

Peter is Catholic.

[NC_Yankee]

Peter is Catholic.

You are correct. That is why he was at St Patrick’s.