Kal is similar to the Hebrew words for “voice” and “vessel.”ģ) The alien superbaby was not just a Jew, but also a very special one. On Krypton, Superman went by the name Kal-El as in Isra-el and the prophets Samu-el and Dani-el. It was a place and time where weaklings - especially Jewish ones, who were more likely to get sand kicked in their faces by the bully down the block if not Adolf Hitler - dreamed that someday the world would see them for the superheroes they really were.Ģ) If only we’d been paying attention, we’d have seen Siegel dropping hints of his hero’s ethnicity when Superman dropped down from a faraway planet. Jerry also says he wrote about the world he grew up in: a Cleveland neighborhood that was 70% Jewish, where theaters and newspapers were in Yiddish as well as in English, and there were two dozen Orthodox synagogues to choose from but only one option, Weinberger’s, to buy your favorite pulp fiction.
1) Superman’s creator, Jerry Siegel, acknowledges in an unpublished memoir that he was strongly influenced by anti-Semitism he saw and felt, and that Samson was a role model for Superman.
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