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Film review
Supermensch to the rescue
by Diane Levenberg
The movie Superman has just
enough exciting effects and lacks
just enough of a plot so that while
viewing it I could happily think
about all sorts of other things—
where I was last year on
Washington’s birthday, what a
wonderful journalist John
McPhee is and if there could be a
superman hoping he would fly to
Israel to eradicate the effects of
Palestine Liberation Organization
chief Yasir Arafat kissing Iran's
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Then suddenly, after about a
half hour of viewing this, one of the
most expensive films ever made, I
realized that it is a very bad but also
a very Jewish movie. In fact, in
some ways, Superman is a
metaphor of the Jewish people.
Superman is conceived many
thousands of years ago. His father
wants to save him—so Superman
alone is chosen to come to earth.
His mother says he will be
different, an outcast, isolated. His
father says he will be powerful,
more advanced, omniscient. His
mother says he will be alone. His
father, looking significantly at a
piece of sparkling kryptonite (urim
v’tumim?- sparkling, oracular-
like gems which the chief Temple
priests had in their breast plates)
says profoundly, “He will never be
alone."
Superman’s space ship arrives
on earth in 1948—the same year
that the United Nations voted that
the ship of the State of Israel be
finally allowed to land. Superbaby
is discovered by two Midwestern
farmers who have always wanted a
child. He learns American values
from them while living on their
farm. The Jews, too, have had their
humble agricultural beginnings.
So has the land of Israel. At the age
of 18, his adoptive father tells him
that from the day they discovered
his secret powers, he has realized
that this boy must be here for a
reason. Like the Jews, he is chosen.
But for what?
His adoptive father dies and
Superman begins to wander. “1
must go north," he tells his mother.
On the way (after 40 days?) he
throws a piece of green kryptonite
into the air and his original father
appears. It's an American million
dollar technological version of
Moses at the burning bush. He is
told why he was sent to earth and
he is also given his mission—his
personal Torah. He must never tell
Russians target of missionaries
NEW YORK (JTA)—Increasing evidence of attempts to
proselytize recently arrived Soviet Jewish immigrants in the
metropolitan area was reported by the Task Force on Missionary
Activity of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New
York. Dr. Seymour Lachman, Task Force chairman, said “ads
have appeared in local Russian-language publications offering
services to new immigrants, without indicating the fact that the
sponsoring organizations appear to be Christian missionary
groups."
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a lie, he must never interfere with
earth's history, and he must always
do good.
After 12 years of study, he comes
to New York and begins his life in
the humble guise of Clark Kent.
The Jews, too, learned that they
must live out their history by
working in all sorts of humble
ways. He is laughed at, scorned by
the woman he loves (Lois Lane)
and is told by his boss to learn to be
more aggressive—a very brief,
though metaphorical version of
Jewish history. The wandering Jew
was scoffed at, scorned by the
inhabitants of the countries he had
learned to love, and was constantly
told by members of the
surrounding nations to learn to be
more “with it”—more brave, more
loose, more of a carousing happy-
go-lucky pal.
Superman tells Lois Lane that
he is here, on earth, to fight for
“truth, justice and the American
way.” Well, the Jews, it could be
said, are here on earth to offer the
world a system of truth, justice and
an ethical way of life.
Good as he is, however,
powerful as he is, however.
Superman cannot bring dying
earthlings back to life. Nor can the
Jews save humanity from its
anguish or themselves from their
own suffering. Still, they try. And
Superman, trying to be more than
exactly superman, breaks one of
his father’s commandments. In a
typically Jewish gesture of trying
to revert to an Edenic era, he
reverses time to revive Lois Lane,
his true love. As the movie ends, he,
with a super scream of pain, flies
into space, and not heeding his
father’s words, spins the earth
around so that he is standing with
Lois hours before her death by
earthquake. He saves her; she lives,
hoping for the day when he will
stand by her for good.
And here, of course, with
Superman the sinner, the movie
might have started. But the film
does not intend to create in
Superman the theme of the
suffering hero—the theme of the
suffering Jew. It wants to revive
the American dream of its 1950s
Messiah, and developing the story
line from here might have been too
real—too painful. Unfortunately,
however, this is when the film of
Jewish history is really unreeled.
For no earthly reason, we fell in
love with the wrong gods, we
embraced the wrong cultures, we
adored the wrong values. We
danced around the golden calf, we
railed at Moses, we cooked the
quail, we uncritically accepted the
enlightenment, and here we are-
watching Superman, thinking
about the course of Jewish history,
sadly waiting for our own Messiah,
and thanking God he is not
Superman.
Eileen Reuben
announces
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Page 9 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE August 24, 1979