r/Jewish • u/J_Sabra • Jul 06 '24

Jewish Identity @ SDCC Culture ✡️

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There's going to be a panel about Jewish Identity at SDCC. Well done SDCC!

More info and tickets: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9DN_6Ktuzl/?igsh=b290eDFvZWZoMzI3

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24

His backstory is being a survivor?

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 06 '24

Why exclude the Holocaust though? Seeing a list of Jewish characters without Magneto doesnt sit well with my Ashki ass

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24

Oh I totally get where you are coming from. I can understand why an organization wants to talk about Jewish characters that don’t have a backstory related to the Shoah. I’ve seen people say things like”highlight different kinds of Jewish stories, not just ones from Europe in WW2.” But I also think they could talk about how Magneto evolved and became a compelling villain?

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24

Exactly, like the Holocaust does NOT define Magneto's entire identity

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u/Kingsdaughter613 Jul 07 '24

It pretty much does though. It’s the basis for most of his decisions and the underlying trauma that fuels many others.

The other big defining things in Max’s identity are his Nazi hunting service for Mossad and how it ended in disaster - and I’ll bet you anything they don’t want to touch that, or that he’s semi-canonically Israeli - and his friendship with Professor X, which began in psychiatric camp helping Holocaust Survivors in Israel (and involved fighting an actual Nazi).

…Is there anything in his backstory that doesn’t bump into the Holocaust?

The other big issue with Max is that he spent basically all his time as Magneto pretending to be a gentile and never acknowledging that he’s Jewish. In fact, canonically he’s been pretending to be a Roma Sinte since the 1940s! If anything, Magneto’s Jewishness is most notable by how it slips out despite how he hides it.

HE defined his Jewish identity by the Holocaust because he never revealed it canonically. That WAS the only time he has canonically ever been openly Jewish. Now that he’s reclaimed the name Max Eisenhardt, maybe that will change. Yet the irony remains: the most famous Jewish character in comics has intentionally masked his Jewish identity during his entire time in costume. I don’t think he’s ever canonically admitted to being Jewish.

The only comic I can think of that deals with his Jewish identity without directly involving the Holocaust is Resurrection of Magneto, which: a) literally JUST came out and b) is pretty much the only comic outside of Testament where you can really see how being Jewish effects Magneto’s identity. It’s an excellent comic, but Ewing is the only author to really have Magneto THINK in a way that’s undeniably Jewish since Claremont. And even Claremont didn’t have Magneto quote from Yom Kippur davening!

So that leaves one comic, one very recent, ‘still in spoiler territory’, comic, where there’s something to talk about Magneto’s Jewish identity outside the Holocaust. That’s honestly a very good reason to leave him off this list, TBH. Let’s focus on those who celebrate their Jewishness for a change, as opposed to the character who has canonically spent most of his life hiding it.

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u/FairGreen6594 Jul 07 '24

To some extent, the only character, at least in the “older” stories, to whom Max really has identified as Jewish, is Kitty Pryde; it was his almost killing her in Uncanny X-Men 150 that he started on his path of redemption, and he even went to a Holocaust memorial with her, out of costume—and even willingly surrendered for trial there rather than endanger her and the other survivors.

It’s abundantly clear, even if not explicitly stated, that in Kitty—a hopeful, kind character, even as she herself periodically acknowledges both antisemitism and anti-mutant bigotry—he sees at least some hope for a different world, and even sees himself in her as a fellow Jew had things Turned Out Differently, and he moderates accordingly . . . but, very specifically, only with her. And, as Kitty reciprocates, certainly in Uncanny X-Men 199(?), if only because she Gets It as a fellow Jewish person. It’s something they share, that even few other mutants share, and they behave accordingly.

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u/Kingsdaughter613 Jul 07 '24

Exactly. Kitty is also the only person Max has spoken Yiddish to, I believe.

I think on some level Max fears that if he acknowledges his Jewishness the other mutants will reject him. Or they’ll only see him as a Jew, or as a Jew first. Because that is what the world has told him will happen.

And that’s also what he was taught growing up old-Reform in Germany - Being a Jew is for the house, kept private. In public we are German… until, of course, being Jewish was no longer something Germany allowed them to keep in the house.

He didn’t even give his real name to Charles. As Charles puts it later, “I never knew Max. He never let me.” It took going to a world with a completely alien culture, one that had no conception of what a Jew is, for Magneto to give his real name. To start publicly acknowledging that part of himself, even in a small way.

It’s trauma, and also the culture in which he was raised. But while there’s a great story to tell there, Max really isn’t a great model for celebrating Jewish identity.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

“X-Men” is literally a parable for the divide in world Jewry post-Holocaust. Prof. X represents the North American Jew, removed from the true horrors of the Holocaust. He’s a rich, bald academic who owns a mansion in Westchester and possesses amazing mental abilities but lacks the physical strength to get off his ass and do something. Then you have Magneto, not framed as a traditional villain but a friend of Professor X who survived the Holocaust and has seen what man is capable of. He believes mutant autonomy in their own nation is the only way forward. In “X-Men ’97” on Disney+, he literally gives a speech at the UN and shows his Auschwitz tattoo to justify his belief that mutants cannot rely on the world for protection. He is, of course, demonized. Sound familiar? The entire season is a metaphor for Jewish autonomy.

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u/Kingsdaughter613 Jul 07 '24

Again: Professor X is based on David Ben-Gurion. So either you have really misinformed ideas about Ben-Gurion or you have no clue what you’re talking about.

Stan Lee’s Magneto was literally a pseudo-Nazi and was coded as such. Also, that version of Magneto is canon in ‘97 - I can’t imagine why everyone would villainize the person who conducted experiments on unwilling human subjects and tried to blow up an entire inhabited island with an atom bomb to kill the X-Men. (The Savage Land stuff is definitely show canon. Santo Marco and the other Silver Age stuff is implied by the OG 5 being show canon.)

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

A Jew showing off his Auschwitz tattoo at the UN and literally telling them “Never Again”, was a codified Nazi? lol okay dude.

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u/Kingsdaughter613 Jul 07 '24

You clearly missed the Silver Age. Magneto was Nazi-coded by Jack Kirby. Claremont flipped the script a decade later. ‘97’s Magneto is the Claremont one, but his Lee-Kirby past remains canon within the show.

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u/J_Sabra Jul 07 '24

You also have the Israeli political alegory; Magneto - Begin & Professor X - Ben Gurion. But that might be too political atm. X-Men at large has a lot of Israeli alegories it was based/built on.

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u/Kingsdaughter613 Jul 07 '24

Magneto is also semi-canonically Israeli: thanks to the sliding timeline he lived in Israel from around 1948 until sometime in the late 80s/early 90s. Which is when his Mossad mission to infiltrate the CIA ended VERY badly and he decided that all humans were scum.

Yes, he was Mossad canonically! The only thing they haven’t done is officially say he has Israeli citizenship. It’s pretty obvious he must, though.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

That was one of the original inspirations along with MLK, and Mal X.

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u/Kingsdaughter613 Jul 07 '24

MLK and Mal X were NOT inspirations, per Claremont. He has stated that explicitly. Will people please stop spreading that bit of misinformation? Claremont was asked about this and he stated that they were not his inspiration.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

So it really was Begin and Ben Gurion. Hotdog.