Marvel’s Sabra was an Israeli superheroine – until suddenly she wasn’t

Inevitably, one’s worlds collide, no matter how disparate. My CV is — proudly — replete with Jewish this and Jewish that. I’ve been a teacher (and a student) of Jewish history and Zionism and Torah for decades, and beneath the ubiquitous “Employment” section in that resume, one can find Young Judaea, Hillel, the JCC, Federation, and multiple Jewish day schools.

It’s not because I was embarrassed about my lifelong hobby (I say hobby, you say obsession — tomato/tomahto), but I chose not to provide comparable pride of place to “Avid Comics Collector” on my resume. Thousands of books were stored lovingly in two dozen 27-inch boxes, each comic backed by cardboard and sealed in a Polypropylene or Mylar plastic bag.

Notwithstanding the stereotype most hold about the genre, what appealed to me was the messages in the storyline, embodied in the characters and small-h heroes. Most are familiar with the “With great power comes great responsibility” line from Spiderman, but a version of it appears in many, if not most, mainstream comics. Morality — which, admittedly at times, slips into moralism — is a huge aspect of the field. Marvel, DC, and the other major publishers have their characters espouse a do-the-right-thing code, even at a personal cost. They are willing to suffer the loss of a fortune; they painfully sacrifice the possibility of a normal life of love and family; they willingly take on the animus of the very society they are attempting to protect. Flawed, imperfect and annoyingly righteous, they nonetheless showcase bravery and selflessness.

So it was ironic and upsetting to read that Marvel and Disney had made the Very Corporate decision to erase (can you say, cancel?) the Israeli superheroine Sabra’s identity. She still appears (in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World), but her backstory has, shall we say, been severely edited. Ruth Bat-Seraph is maintained as Sabra’s secret identity, but in place of her affiliation with the Mossad, as in her 1980 comics debut, she is now a former member of the Soviet/Russian Black Widow spy program. Somehow, a link to a post-Ukrainian-invasion Russia is more palatable than a link to a post-October 7 Israel.

A further irony: if there was any field of mass entertainment that was disproportionately Jewish in its origins, it was comic books (along with Hollywood and television — but more on that later). Doctoral dissertations have been written on the Moses analogy inherent in Superman’s origin story (tiny rocket = ark; parents sending baby Kal-El into space = Moses being sent down the Nile), and the originators of the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, the X-Men, Captain America, Superman, and Batman were all Jews (Stan Lee — Stanley Martin Lieber — and Jack Kirby — Jacob Kurtzberg — creating Captain America was like Irving Berlin (Israel Beilin) writing “White Christmas.” The quintessential embodiment of Americana written by Jewish emigres, on musical staffs and in the comics.

I applaud the field’s inclusion of ethnic and religious minorities. Unlike some, I have zero issue with the DEI (Diversity-Equity-Inclusion) agenda, as long as it’s truly and consistently inclusive. By some backwards twist of illogic, Jews have been — out of conscious malice or benighted blindness — excluded from everyone else’s inclusion.

Marvel alone has recently given us Kamala Khan (Miss Marvel), a Pakistani-American Muslim; Maya Lopez, a Native-American character who is also deaf; Miles Gonzalo Morales, a 13-year old biracial boy who becomes the newest iteration of Spiderman (Spiderboy?); and America Chavez, a Puerto Rican who also happens to be a lesbian.

The issue isn’t solely about Jewish inclusion, per se. Kitty Pryde of the X-Men was always drawn with a Magen David (pretty tiny, but it was there) necklace, and Ben Grimm (the Fantastic Four’s Thing) and Magneto had Jewish backstories. Evidently, it’s Israelness that has become… complicated.

In the early days of television, a hugely disproportionate number of Jews could be found behind the scenes — writing, producing, directing — but it was rare (OK, impossible) to find a Jewish main character. Dick Van Dyke was originally going to be played as an explicitly Jewish character, but the unwritten axiom was “think Yiddish, act British” – and thus the quintessential WASP Rob Petrie was born. Buddy Sorrel (played by Morey Amsterdam) became the Jewish comedian second banana. Much safer.

In those days, it was the Jewish execs at The Big Three — NBC, CBS and ABC — who quite consciously shied away from depictions of their own tribe. Long before DEI was an acronym, ‘60s and ‘70s TV was pretty diverse. The leading genre of the time (detectives) gave us explicit and proud ethnic leads (Polish Banacek and Greek Kojak and Hawk, a Native American); positive and at times nuanced portrayals of people with disabilities (Ironside in a wheelchair, the blind Longstreet); a senior citizen PI (Barnaby Jones) and an unabashed obese detective in Canon. African Americans, women, Hispanics. No Jews.

Where did we show up? In interfaith relationships. Bridget loved Bernie, the Nanny fell for Maxwell Sheffield, and a sub-genre of Jewish comedians evidently could only find partners in other faith communities. Paul Reiser married Helen Hunt in “Mad About You,” and Jackie Mason (!) found love with Lynn Redgrave in “Chicken Soup.” Toss in Rhoda Morgenstern for good measure.

But this, this is different. Marvel and Disney deliberately erased a key element of Sabra’s narrative — not to advance the plot, not because it was tangential to the character, not for any reason other than cowardly caving to the volume (not the content) of street noise. By 2022, there were already “concerns” expressed that Sabra would even be included in the movie at all, irrespective of her storyline. Analogy: for many “activists,” it’s not about where the borders are or how to navigate the results of the 1967 war. It’s about 1948 and the entirety of Israel. Similarly, the anti-Sabra voices were not advocating for a different alter ego (read: no Mossad connection); they simply wanted her out of the picture (literally and figuratively). Their calls for a boycott of the film were not nuanced calls for a script rewrite.

Time for irony number four: Walt was a notorious antisemite, rivaling Henry Ford for Corporate America Jew-haters. The reigns of his eponymous company were long since turned over to a Jewish CEO, which probably caused Mickey Mouse’s creator to do a few spins six feet under. I’m not sure if Uncle Walt is getting in a few last laughs.