David Corenswet, the actor who plays the role in the new 2025 Superman movie, is—at least on his father’s side. Numerous articles in Jewish publications are claiming that, finally, we have a Superman who is played by a member of the tribe.

Rachel Brosnahan, the movie’s Lois Lane, is not Jewish, though she credits the Jewish milieu of her upbringing for allowing her to inhabit other Jewish roles. Skyler Gisondo, who portrays Jimmy Olsen, is Jewish (despite the Italian name) through three grandparents, and grew up in a Jewish community.

The creators of Superman were Jewish boys from Cleveland.

Have things come full circle? The creators of the 1938 Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were Jewish boys from Cleveland. There has been a slew of books on Superman’s Jewishness to give food for thought the size of a pastrami sandwich from Katz’s Deli.

Superman (or Kal-El, his birth name) was saved by being sent in a rocket from his home planet to be raised on Earth. Wasn’t Moses also saved by being sent down the Nile in a basket and raised in Egypt?

That makes Superman an immigrant. Aren’t American Jews immigrants too?

And the name Kal-El—isn’t “El” a name in the Hebrew Bible for God?

Superman grows up and fights for truth and justice (and, in the 1950s TV show, for “the American way” as well). Didn’t Moses grow up to lead Israel out of bondage and into freedom?

However, Superman is not entirely accepted because he is an alien. But as Clark Kent, he fits right into society with everyone else. Aren’t Jews accepted when they assimilate and resented when they don’t?¹

The Jews-and-Superman connection seems so obvious. Yet apparently it was not always there. In his fascinating book, Re-Constructing the Man of Steel, Martin Lund writes, “One of the first sources to claim a Jewish-comics connection was comics writer Jules Feiffer’s 1965 essay, The Great Comic Book Heroes.”² The Jewish connection has been forged stronger and stronger ever since. Lund credits Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) with having an outsize place in the Jews-and-comics story.³

Indeed, following Chabon, the dam broke, and books were published right and left on the subject. We now had Up, Up, and Oy Vey! How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero by Rabbi Simcha Weinstein (2006). A year later, Danny Fingeroth came out with Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. Yet another year, and Arie Kaplan gave us From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books.

As if that were not enough, Harry Brod contemplated Superman is Jewish? How Comic Book Superheroes Came to Serve Truth, Justice, and the Jewish-American Way (2013). In 2021, Roy Schwartz asked—ahem—Is Superman Circumcised?: The Complete Jewish History of the World’s Greatest Hero.

It seems so apparent that Superman has numerous Jewish connections, yet Martin Lund argues that all these Jewish ideas surrounding Superman are reading modern Jewish concerns back into Siegel and Shuster’s creation. For the Cleveland boys, Superman was more a New Deal hero than anything else—when he wasn’t fighting Nazis. You’ll have to read Lund’s book for yourself to see the evidence he marshals to make his case.

Superman has also been read as a Jesus-figure.

Lund argues that this means that Jews can’t complain when Christian readings are given to Superman, since the Jewish readings were never there in the beginning. Yes, that’s right! Superman has been read not only as a Jewish icon, but also as a Jesus-figure—even by Jews. Lund says that there is actually …

much textual evidence to support a Christologization of Superman long before … the release of the undeniably Christologizing Superman Returns, directed by Jewish American Bryan Singer. Christological framing has been prominent in works by comic book creators, film- and TV-makers, and Christian theologians for a long time.

Wait, how can Superman be connected to Jesus? One writer cataloged fully eleven parallels,⁴ including reading Kal-El as the Hebrew “voice of God,” whereas Jesus is described as the “Word of God.” It goes on from there.

A stretch? Maybe. Then again…

in the 1978 Superman blockbuster, script doctor Tom Mankiewicz, himself of Jewish descent, intentionally cast Superman’s origins in Christological terms: “I tried to have [actor Marlon] Brando symbolize God in that long speech when he sends Clark down to Earth. ‘I have sent them you, my only son.’ If that’s not God sending Christ to Earth, it’s as close as you can get without offending the churchgoing public.”⁵

Holy religious wars, Batman! Who’s right? Could it be that everyone is? Reading Superman as a Jesus-figure does not necessarily have to be non-Jewish. Jesus himself was a Jew, of course, and when he is portrayed in the Bible as a redeemer and savior, those are themselves Jewish tropes that connect clearly back to Moses.

Can Superman be Jewish and also be a Jesus figure? The idea of a Jewish messiah places Superman right at the intersection of Jewishness and Jesus—both are (Jewish) savior figures who come to Earth and fight, each in his own style, for truth, justice and … the Jewish way? What do you think?

Endnotes

1. See, for instance, Jason Flatt, “What Makes the New ‘Superman’ Movie So Jewish?,” Hey Alma, July 11, 2025, https://www.heyalma.com/what-makes-the-new-superman-movie-so-jewish/

2. Martin Lund, Re-Constructing the Man of Steel: Superman 1938–1941, Jewish American History, and the Invention of the Jewish-Comics Connection (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 21.

3. Lund, 22, Kindle edition.

4. Austin Gentry, “Superman Parallels Jesus in 11 Ways,” https://www.austingentry.com/superman-parallels-jesus-in-11-ways/. The article is undated, so it’s not clear which “new Superman movie” the author has in mind.

5. Lund, 76, Kindle edition, quoting Jake Rossen, Superman vs. Hollywood: How Fiendish Producers, Devious Directors, and Warring Writers Grounded an American Icon, 72, who is apparently quoting Mankiewicz.