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Was the ‘Yiddish Sherlock Holmes’ the first Jewish superhero?
In 1908, around 30 years before Batman was first billed as the World’s Greatest Detective, and 15 after Sherlock Holmes solved his final case, another sleuth made his bombastic debut, rescuing a rabbi’s kidnapped granddaughter.
This hero distinguished himself in a major way. As the back blurb of his adventures insisted, “Max Spitzkopf IS A JEW — and he has always taken every opportunity to stand up FOR JEWS.”
The adventures of Spitzkopf, the nattily-dressed, pistol-brandishing Viennese gentleman, renowned throughout Austria-Hungary for his gumshoeing, were published in 32-page pulp pamphlets across the Yiddish-reading world. In his memoir, Isaac Bashevis Singer, vividly recalled devouring these stories as a child, and he was far from alone. Yet for all their popularity, copies of the original volumes, like Batman’s first appearance in Detective Comics #27, are exceedingly rare.
In 2017, Mikhl Yashinsky was a fellow at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, when it received the first five stories in a bound volume from a donor. They were in rough shape, their cheap paper crumbling. Yashinksy set out to translate them.
“He was really a kind of Jewish superhero,” said Yashinsky, whose full translation of the 15 Spitzkopf stories, written by Jonas Kreppel, is out now. (He received the other 10 from the Yale Judaica Library, one of the only institutions in the world to have the complete collection.)
The cases Spitzkopf and his capable Watsonian assistant, Fuchs, take on reflect the early 20th Century conditions of Jews in Galicia.
Spitzkopf uncovers a blood libel plot — and thwarts a Passover pogrom. He frees a young Jewish woman from sexual slavery in Constantinople. While Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, which were translated to Yiddish, certainly had a literary edge on these mysteries, Spitzkopf was an avenger for his people. And whereas these Jewish cause célèbres rarely had a happy outcome, Kreppel, the author, always served up poetic justice. The writer was so sensitive to his readers, no doubt affected by the prejudice and violence he ripped from the headlines, he didn’t leave them in suspense, revealing the villains’ machinations early on.
While Spitzkopf is described in the translation’s subtitle as the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes, Yashinksy said the stories themselves are scanty when it comes to the character’s Yiddishkeit. The text itself calls him the “Viennese Sherlock,” and he appears to be a well-assimilated Austrian citizen, written in a distinctly German-inflected Yiddish. He is just the kind of person his creator aspired to be.
Kreppel, born into a Hasidic family in Drohobycz, Galicia, was a prolific writer on many subjects in four languages (Yiddish, German, Hebrew and Polish). He edited Jüdische Korrespondenz, a newspaper of German-Jewish concerns, wrote a still-used reference text on German Jewry, Juden und Judentum von heute (Jews and Judaism of Today) and countless political tracts. (He also published one-off, sensationalist adventure stories with titles like My Son-in-Law the Murderer.)
Initially poised for a rabbinical career, Kreppel settled in Vienna and eventually served the Austrian government as a press officer and advisor to the foreign consulate. Ever the patriot, and a defender of his fellow Jews, he was an early critic and victim of Nazism. The Nazis sent him to Dachau in 1938 and murdered him in Buchenwald on July 21, 1940.
Yashinsky translates the Spitzkopf stories with a flair reminiscent of gangster flicks. He also cites inspiration from his maternal grandparents, voice actors Elizabeth and Rubin Weiss, who performed a variety of roles on radio serials like The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon.
“They played those villains and damsels in distress,” said Yashinsky, himself an actor, who recorded a brief selection of the Spitzkopf stories for the current exhibition at the Yiddish Book Center.
The crooks Spitzkopf tracks down speak of “cheesing it” when they wish to make themselves scarce. Antisemitic Poles speak in heavy dialects of the loathed Żydzi they plan to blame for the death of a child before Passover.
The Yiddish literati of the early 20th Century looked askance at Kreppel’s stories, deriding them as “shund,” originally a term for waste left after butchering animals. Yashinksy read that Yoel Teitelbaum, founder of the Satmar Hasidim, was scandalized that his words were “distributed far and wide as though they were Holy Writ.” Yashinsky believes they have value.
“To me, it’s important to take seriously the popular culture of the day,” Yashinsky said. “They’re stories of heroism and of sticking up for the persecuted and defending them. So I think that’s relevant in any time, and especially in ours.”
Perhaps it’s wish fulfillment, like the claims on every booklet that Max Spitzkopf was a man who “LIVES AND BREATHES.”
He didn’t do either, but those who read of his exploits likely felt better believing the lie.
The post Was the ‘Yiddish Sherlock Holmes’ the first Jewish superhero? appeared first on The Forward.
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Vance downplays ‘little skirmishes’ as Israel bombs in Gaza and Hamas fails to return hostages
(JTA) — Israel carried out a bombing campaign in Gaza on Tuesday in response to what it said was violations of the two-week-old ceasefire by Hamas.
Hamas, meanwhile, rejected the claim that it was behind an attack on Israeli soldiers and said Israel’s bombing was the ceasefire violation.
The two developments, plus Hamas’ continued holding of 13 hostages’ remains, represented the biggest threats yet to the U.S. brokered ceasefire in the two-year-long Gaza war. But U.S. Vice President JD Vance said he remained unconcerned.
“The ceasefire is holding,” Vance told reporters in Washington. “That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there.”
Vance traveled to Israel last week as part of a U.S. pressure campaign to preserve the truce and set the region on a path toward a deeper peace. Both Israel and Hamas have tested the terms of the ceasefire.
Hamas has not released the remains of all of hostages as required by the ceasefire and on Monday night returned remains belonging to a murdered Israeli whose body had previously been returned to Israel. Video footage from Gaza appeared to show Hamas placing the remains underground before retrieving them to hand to the Red Cross for transport to Israel — a charade that the Red Cross denounced as “unacceptable” in a statement.
Hamas said it would halt the planned release of another hostage’s remains on Tuesday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he ordered “immediate and powerful strikes in Gaza” following a meeting of his security advisors.
The strikes followed an attack on Israeli soldiers in Rafah, a portion of Gaza that remains under Israeli military control.
“The attack on IDF soldiers in Gaza today by the Hamas terror organization crosses a glaring red line to which the IDF will respond with great force,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “Hamas will pay many times over for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement to return the fallen hostages.”
Hamas said it did not carry out the attack and that the airstrikes, which it said killed at least nine people in Gaza, represented a violation of the ceasefire. But it said it remained committed to the truce, which has so far allowed it to reassert control within Gaza. A second phase, required once all hostages are released, calls for Hamas’ disarmament.
Vance said he understood that an Israeli soldier had been attacked. “We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president’s peace is going to hold despite that,” he said.
The post Vance downplays ‘little skirmishes’ as Israel bombs in Gaza and Hamas fails to return hostages appeared first on The Forward.
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Vance downplays ‘little skirmishes’ as Israel bombs in Gaza and Hamas fails to return hostages
Israel carried out a bombing campaign in Gaza on Tuesday in response to what it said was violations of the two-week-old ceasefire by Hamas.
Hamas, meanwhile, rejected the claim that it was behind an attack on Israeli soldiers and said Israel’s bombing was the ceasefire violation.
The two developments, plus Hamas’ continued holding of 13 hostages’ remains, represented the biggest threats yet to the U.S. brokered ceasefire in the two-year-long Gaza war. But U.S. Vice President JD Vance said he remained unconcerned.
“The ceasefire is holding,” Vance told reporters in Washington. “That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there.”
Vance traveled to Israel last week as part of a U.S. pressure campaign to preserve the truce and set the region on a path toward a deeper peace. Both Israel and Hamas have tested the terms of the ceasefire.
Hamas has not released the remains of all of hostages as required by the ceasefire and on Monday night returned remains belonging to a murdered Israeli whose body had previously been returned to Israel. Video footage from Gaza appeared to show Hamas placing the remains underground before retrieving them to hand to the Red Cross for transport to Israel — a charade that the Red Cross denounced as “unacceptable” in a statement.
Hamas said it would halt the planned release of another hostage’s remains on Tuesday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he ordered “immediate and powerful strikes in Gaza” following a meeting of his security advisors.
The strikes followed an attack on Israeli soldiers in Rafah, a portion of Gaza that remains under Israeli military control.
“The attack on IDF soldiers in Gaza today by the Hamas terror organization crosses a glaring red line to which the IDF will respond with great force,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “Hamas will pay many times over for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement to return the fallen hostages.”
Hamas said it did not carry out the attack and that the airstrikes, which it said killed at least nine people in Gaza, represented a violation of the ceasefire. But it said it remained committed to the truce, which has so far allowed it to reassert control within Gaza. A second phase, required once all hostages are released, calls for Hamas’ disarmament.
Vance said he understood that an Israeli soldier had been attacked. “We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president’s peace is going to hold despite that,” he said.
—
The post Vance downplays ‘little skirmishes’ as Israel bombs in Gaza and Hamas fails to return hostages appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Harvard Demands Dismissal of Latest Antisemitism Lawsuit
A Jewish student at Harvard University harassed by anti-Israel protesters. Photo: Screenshot
Harvard University on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss an antisemitism lawsuit which alleges that administrative officials violated civil rights law when they declined to impose meaningful disciplinary sanctions on two students who allegedly assaulted a Jewish student during a protest held to rally anti-Israel activists just days after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israeli communities.
According to The Harvard Crimson, the university’s lawyers contended that the Jewish student, Yoav Segev, has not backed his claim with evidence and that his grievance is founded not in any legally recognizable harm but a disagreement regarding policy.
“Mr. Segev’s allegation, then, is not that Harvard failed to take action, but simply that he disagrees with the actions taken after the investigation,” the university’s lawyers wrote in a filing submitted on Monday, adding that the school believes Segev’s contention that Harvard “conspired” to deny him justice cannot be substantiated.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Segev endured a mobbing of pro-Hamas activists led by Ibrahim Bharmal and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, who stalked him across Harvard Yard before encircling him and screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as he struggled to break free from the mass of bodies which surrounded him. Video of the incident, widely viewed online at the time, showed the crush of people shoving keffiyehs — traditional headdresses worn by men in the Middle East that in some circles have come to symbolize Palestinian nationalism — in the face of the student, whom they had identified as Jewish.
Nearly two years after the assault, Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo have not only avoided hate crime charges but also even amassed new accolades and distinctions — according to multiple reports.
After being charged with assault and battery, the two men were ordered in April by Boston Municipal Court Judge Stephen McClenon to attend “pre-trial diversion” anger management courses and perform 80 hours of community service each, a decision which did not require their apologizing to Segev even though Assistant District Attorney Ursula Knight described what they did as “hands on assault and battery.”
Harvard neither disciplined Bharmal nor removed him from the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, a coveted post once held by former US President Barack Obama. As of last year, he was awarded a law clerkship with the Public Defender for the District of Columbia, a government-funded agency which provides free legal counsel to “individuals … who are charged with committing serious criminal acts.” Bharmal also reaped a $65,000 fellowship from Harvard Law School to work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamic group whose leaders have defended the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s atrocities against Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.
As for Tettey-Tamaklo, he walked away from Harvard Divinity School with honors, according to The Free Press, as the 2024 Class Committee for Harvard voted him class marshal, a role in which he led the graduation procession through Harvard Yard alongside the institution’s most accomplished scholars and faculty. Harvard did, however, terminate his serving as a proctor for freshmen students.
The US campus antisemitism crisis has kept Harvard University in the headlines.
Earlier this month it disclosed a $113 million budget deficit caused by the Trump administration’s confiscation of much of its federal contracts and grants as punishment for, among other alleged misdeeds, its admitted failure to combat antisemitism on its campus.
According to Harvard’s “Financial Report: Fiscal Year 2025,” the university’s spending exceeded the $6.7 billion it amassed from donations, taxpayer support, tuition, and other income sources, such as endowment funds earmarked for operational expenses. Harvard also suffered a steep deficit in non-restricted donor funds, $212 million, a possible indication that philanthropists now hesitate to write America’s oldest university a blank check due to its inveterate generating of negative publicity — prompted by such episodes as the institution’s botching the appointment of its first Black president by conferring the honor to a plagiarist and its failing repeatedly to quell antisemitic discrimination and harassment.
“Even by the standards of our centuries-long history, fiscal year 2025 was extraordinarily challenging, with political and economic disruption affecting many sectors, including higher education,” Harvard president Alan Garber said in a statement. “We continue to adapt to uncertainty and threats to sources of revenue that have sustained our work for many years. We have intensified our efforts to expand our sources of funding.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.