Dibs

A Chasidic rabbi in New York invoked comic-book superheroes during his Yom Kippur sermon this year. These figures who leap tall buildings in single bounds inspired him as a youth in Britain and, as his new book reveals, they have Jewish roots. Self-described “comic-book rabbi” Simcha Weinstein, the official rabbi of Pratt Institute and the Long Island College Hospital, read comics and played with Batman and Superman action figures as a tot. Later research revealed that “early comic book creators were almost all Jewish,” Weinstein explains, “and, as children of immigrants they spent their lives trying to escape a second-class mentality which had been forced upon them by an often hostile outside world. Their fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way is portrayed by the superheroes they created; such as Superman (Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster), Captain America (Jack Kirby and Joe Simon), Batman (Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson), the Green Lantern (Martin Nodell), and Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man and X-Men (Stan Lee).” His book Up, Up and Oy Vey! “contends that writer-artists of the classic comics … were influenced by their religious heritage in devising characters and plots.” Raised in a secular home, Weinstein attended film school and worked as a location scout for movies and TV. He became religious and in his twenties enrolled in a Jerusalem yeshiva. He is the founder of the downtown Brooklyn Jewish Student Foundation.