ayellowbirds:

dr-archeville:

blackphoenix1977:

chaoswolf1982:

ayellowbirds:

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

why-i-love-comics:

Kate Kane had specific hanukkah gelt made with the Batwoman symbol and Star of David

Batman Annual #1 – “Stag” (2017)
written by Steve Orlando
art by Riley Rossmo & Ivan Plascencia

I LOVE KATE SO MUCH OKAY OH MY GOSH 😀

SHE IS A GIFT ❤

the only thing that would make this better would be if they actually acknowledged that Bruce is Jewish.

He is? News to me.

I believe that he’s Jewish on his mother’s side? I’m not sure.

Yes.  A flashback in Batwoman vol.02:no.25 (January 2014) confirmed the familial relationship between Kate Kane and Bruce Wayne (son of Martha Wayne, born Martha Kane) as being cousins.  (Kate’s father Jacob & Bruce’s mother Martha were siblings.)  Since the Kanes which Kate belongs to have been established as Jewish, and since Jewishness is matrilineal, this means Bruce Wayne is Jewish.

According to this 2005-07 article, most depictions of Batman/Bruce imply he was probably raised Catholic or Episcopalian.  Even if this is the case, though, my understanding is that he’d still be considered Jewish.

It’s also established that things are… awkward, between the Kanes and the Waynes. At least back during the wonky timeline established in 2010′s The Return of Bruce Wayne (specifically, issue #5), the Kanes were convinced of the absolute worst about Thomas Wayne. The last decade or so has seen a lot of stories where accusations of terrible crimes and corruption are made against the late Waynes—as well as poor Alfred, having been their employee and close companion—and it’s often ambiguous whether or not there’s any truth to them. Especially since we’re talking about multiple writers with radically different plans for Bruce. In any case, the issue i mentioned above saw a time-lost amnesiac Bruce investigating his own parents’ murder. While he’s unknowingly speaking to his grandparents, we see this:

The cloud of insects harassing zayde Roddy and bubbe Betsy are emphatically identified as wasps, but this is Grant Morrison writing, and the cocky schmuck isn’t the type to resist a “WASPs” pun. 

Fast-forwarding to the issue Doc mentions, we see that Bruce is still somewhat connected to his mother’s side of the family… but it’s only via a funeral that he seems to meet up with them.

If anything, the living Kanes seem to know Alfred better than Bruce, and their interactions with him seem fond and familiar.

Whereas we get this painfully formal and stilted “Cousin Bette” from Bruce. It seems like depressing formal functions like funerals are the only places Bruce sees any of his family.

The Kanes are distant from Bruce, and even in their more tender interactions with him, he’s linked to tragedy. A reminder of people who were lost. You’d think having had living relatives to visit with would have meant less time alone for Bruce after his parents died, but it’s made clear in that time-travel story that, even in tragedy, they aren’t comfortable having him around.

All in all, it seems a lot like Bruce is kept out of his Jewish heritage because that side of the family saw his father as something of a shegetz. Being Martha’s son means he’s in the tribe, but Thomas being his dad—and it’s often emphasized that Bruce looks so much like Thomas—means that he’s ostracized. There’s all kinds of suppositions i could make about the hows and whys, the exotified coding of Bruce as foreign in spite of his whiteness, even amidst the goyish-passing Kanes, the insularity and paranoia of Gothamites. And Bruce’s convictions about what he needs to be, what Gotham needs… well, that doesn’t help bring him in, does it? 

All that said, i could write a whole huge tangent on the presentation of the Kanes as assimilated. Don’t let me ever write a real Batman story, because it’ll just be about Ashkenazic-American and Anglo-Sephardic heritage and the tensions between different Jewish ethnicities and early Tri-State Area culture clashes. Probably some stupid nods to the connection between “Gotham” as a mythical city of fools, and the Wise Men of Chelm.