What if I told you Superman was born of a Jewish imagination? For some, this is considered common knowledge. However, if the many publications concerning Superman’s Jewish roots have yet to reach your eyes and ears, then you might be surprised to learn this is true. The co-creators of Superman were Jewish – and one of them a Canadian Jew! Hailing from Toronto, Ontario, he was a comic artist by the name of Joe Shuster.
Now, what if I told you that I am related to this Canadian Jew who co-created Superman? With confirmation from oral family history, plus Ancestry data, my great-aunt Jan Shulman helped me delineate my direct relation. Simply put, my great-great-great-great grandparents were Shuster’s great-grandparents. To bring it closer, my great-grandfather, Frank Shulman, was Shuster’s second cousin. Thus, my relation to the co-creator of Superman is second cousin three times removed – extremely distant, but not non-existent!
In the 1920s, when Shuster was still a child, his family left Canada for Cleveland, Ohio, where he met Jerry Siegel in highschool. The two slightly reserved teens hit it off and began a science fiction fanzine while cultivating their creative synergy – a synergy that eventually culminated in the creation of an iconic fictional figure.
With rising antisemitism overseas, Siegel and Shuster were likely influenced by Nietzsche’s Ubermensch – the idea of empowering one’s self through complete perfection – which was used as fundamental Nazi propaganda after Nietzsche’s death. Accordingly, the duo initially wrote Superman as a supervillain driven by aspirations to conquer the Earth. However, they eventually applied a transformative spin of hope, and thus rose the superhero. Through turning hate into something entirely new and inspiring, they exemplified Jewish perseverance and creativity.
Jewishness is woven into Superman’s story, but it is most obvious in his name. Clark Kent, Kal-El – can you discern which is Hebrew? Indeed, it is Superman’s Kryptonian name, Kal-El (קול-אל). Kal is the root word of voice and vessel, while El means God. As “the voice of God,” or a vessel for God’s power, Superman’s responsibility is to fight for and protect the misfortuned people of the world. I would guess that Tikkun Olam – the talmudic teaching to help repair the world – was also at play in the creative process. Superman? More like Mitzvah-man.
In reconciling his alien identity with the struggles of assimilation, Superman’s journey emulates the experience of Jewish immigrants coming to North America. The alias of Clark Kent is a particularly significant parallel, as many Jewish names were either altered by the hasty hands of immigration officers, or anglicized by Jews themselves to avoid discrimination and smoothen integration into the new country. This experience is even shared by Shuster himself as the son of a Jewish immigrant whose family name was originally Shusterwicz.
Given the collaborative effort, it is difficult to say to what extent this distant relative of mine contributed to Superman’s underlying symbolism and Hebrew name. Nevertheless, as the comic artist, Shuster made one undoubtable contribution: He brought to life the vessel for this symbolism in the image of Superman as we know him today.
A quick internet search will show you Shuster’s original sketches. These sketches beg the question: Was Shuster’s creative vision prophetic? I mean really, how did he know that strong-jawed, dark-haired, proud-chested Henry Cavill would eventually arise as the perfect actor to embody his drawings in a Man of Steel (2013)?
Whether Shuster foresaw Cavill’s performance (Superman’s greatest-ever on-screen portrayal), and crafted the ideal character for Cavill to slip into, is debatable. Undebatable, though, is the very literal hand (and pen) Shuster had in creating one of the most popular superheroes ever – who is thus a significant contribution from North-American Jewry to the world of science fiction and American popular culture at large. I feel honoured to put a spotlight on Shuster’s life and contributions. I also feel pride in sharing the story of our blood-connection – a reminder of the deep interconnectedness of our small Jewish world.
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