Episode 4 - Batwoman - Part 2

Funny, They Don't Look Jewish!

Detective Comics #860, 2009
“Go, Part 3”
Written by Greg Rucka
Drawn by JH Williams III
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Todd Klein
Edited by Michael Siglain
BW’s origin. She beat up some thugs in black leather
Page 6 - home, showering. 4th panel
Walking through her apartment, there’s a little end table
What’s on it?
Hanukkiyah. Shabbat candlesticks. SEFIROT
Her dad discovers her stolen weapons and tech. Offers to help train and prepare her, support her
Page 12 - Kate returns to her step-mother’s after training for two years
SURPRISE HENRY
Catherine: “We didn’t think we’d see you until the High Holy Days…”
Page 14 - Jake showing off what he’s set up for her, including a new costume
Kate: “red and black….gevurah, the pillar of severity...the colors of war.”
So what is Kabbalah?
Gevurah = din = judgment, power
Detective Comics #975, 2018
“The Trial of Batwoman”
Written by James Tynion IV
Drawn by Alvaro Martinez
Inked by Raul Fernandez
Colored by Brad Anderson
Lettered by Sal Cipriano
Edited by Chris Conroy
Flashback, we're at a funeral for Kate Kane's mother Gabi.
Jewish funeral
How do we know?
There's a rabbi in a kippa in two panels
They're taking turns shoveling dirt into the grave
A young Bruce Wayne shovels
BATMAN IS PERFORMING A MITZVAH
Mitzvah of burying the dead, ideally on the day they died, within three days of death
Rooted in Deuteronomy 21:23
Moed Katan essentially declared it the responsibility of the entire town to make sure dead is buried
Kindness that cannot be repaid
Page 26 - Kate visits her mom's grave
Grave with star of David..next to graves with crosses
Not a Jewish cemetery?
Possibly an interfaith cemetery
“I remember taking the shovel. It was so clean. So polished. Dad wanted me to go first, but I couldn't move. I felt like putting the dirt on the grave would make it all real. And it was like losing you all over again.”
Kind of the point. It does make it real

DC Bombshells #17, 2016
“Uprising Part 1: The Battle of Berlin”
Written by Marguerite Bennett
Art by Sandy Jarrell and Mirka Andolfo
Colored by Wendy Fitzpatrick and Wendy Broome
Berlin Ghetto, 1941. Prep for war
Page 2 - prep for Shabbat dinner. Challah and wine
Young girl talking with Batwoman, asking if she's scared
“it's just Shabbat dinner” “Very funny, momellah”
She talks about the brave women in Jewish history and then quotes
“May God make you like Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah.”
Yesimech elohim k'Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, veL’eah
Mentions Deborah the warrior prophet
Talks about Judith killing Holofernes
Girl reveals her name: Miriam Batzel
She was a prophet, too, and they say because of her, no women worshipped the Golden Calf on the desert.
Pirke de Rebbe Eleazar 46 - Aaron delays men by asking them to ask their wives for gold. They chide husbands, refuse to participate. As a reward, rosh chodesh
Henry, can we just read their dialogue in full?
Jewish pride - amazing
Stories - reminds me of Hasidic tale
When the Ba’al Shem saw misfortune threatening the Jews, he would go to a certain part of the forest and meditate. There, he would say a certain prayer and light a fire. And the miracle would be accomplished, the danger averted. In the next generation, the Maggid of Mezhirech would go to the same place in the forest and say, “Master of the Universe, I don’t know how to light the fire, but I can still say the prayer.” And it was enough. And still later, Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sasov would go the forest, and he would say, “I don’t know how to light the fire, and I don’t know how to say the prayer, but I know the place. And that must be sufficient.” And it was. And still later, generations later, when it fell to Rabbi Yisrael of Rizhin, sitting in his arm chair, his head in his hands, he would say, “Master of the Universe, I don’t know how to light the fire. And I don’t know how to say the prayer. And I don’t know where the place is in the forest. All I can do is tell the story.” And it was enough.
Shabbat prayers - likely over candles

Hey Alma on casting Jewish lesbian
#KeepKateJewish
The problem, he says, is that certain minority groups “are so underrepresented that a single representation comes to stand for everybody.” A Jew whose only Jewish trait is celebrating Hanukkah is, as Bial suggests, technically realistic, but the overall lack of Jewish characters leads to more anxiety about specific individual representations. This anxiety is made worse by the fact that other characters who are Jewish in the comics, such as Ray Palmer, have had their Jewishness entirely erased on television. Because Kate Kane is one of the most identifiably Jewish characters in DC Comics’ lineup, fans are more concerned about how she is portrayed

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