Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Up, Up, and Oy Vey!

If you've read my book, you know that I spent a large portion of my childhood secretly convinced that I was Jewish. I also aspired to be a superhero, meeting with Wonder Woman and Superman at the Hall of Justice every morning to get our assignments for saving the world. (There's really no stopping a little Irish girl from Maine with lots of time and a big imagination...) Until this morning, though, I never saw the connection between these two dreams.

Then I saw a random reference to a book which is now my favorite contender for best title ever: Up, Up, and Oy Vey: How Jewish History Shaped the Comic Book Superhero.

I mean, how funny (and fabulous) is that??? I'm going to email A.J. Jacobs right now and suggest he devote his next yearlong memoir project to superhero training. After all, it's in his genes!

Then I'm going to search my family tree for one little branch of Jewishness...

4 comments:

Stacy said...

Any link between Ukraine and superpowers? I'm hopeful and so is Vasily.

Unknown said...

If you take a cue from popular Jewish culture over the past fifty years, everybody is Jewish. I grew up similarly inclined, coming into a love and respect for Jewish culture prior to becoming a Christian, and it has always stumped me that as Christians we are largely ignorant of our spiritual roots and that the church has always seemed content to keep it that way. But I'm not here to rant. To me it seems that we have lost just a little bit of our own true Spiritual heart and soul through it. I'll have to check out the book further, but with a name like Simcha Weinstein, can we be too far wrong? Nu?
You should also check out the wikipedia entry on the creators of Superman, as well as the book "And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost" by Roger Bennett and Josh Kun. (http://www.amazon.com/You-Shall-Know-Trail-Vinyl/dp/0307394670)I just bought it the other day and have been pouring over it thoroughly, enjoying every memory it evokes, reminding and continually convincing me that my own cultural upbringing has roots in Jewish soil.

Stella said...

Trish, you do know that your "superpower" is the uber awesome ability to relate God's Word to the Bible-challenged? The Bible sometimes reads to me like the world's largest word jumble and maybe I will and maybe I won't unscramble it to see the message.

I'll stand back now just in case a lighting bolt is headed my direction ... or I suddenly turn into a pillar of salt!

Grin,
Stella

LEstes65 said...

I sent you a shot of your paper back I saw in Texas this week. I left it facing outward so hopefully someone will pick one up. You were just about elbow-level in the shelving so YAY!