Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

RoboCop’s Jewish!

When news leaked that actor Andrew Garfield had been chosen to take on the role of Spider-Man, Jewish media responded with headlines like “‘Spider-Man’ is Jewish!”

But for some reason, Joel Kinnaman, AKA the new “RoboCop,” hasn’t enjoyed the same kind of exposure. Released last weekend, the reboot of the 1987 action classic made $25 million in its first 3 days.

Yanir Dekel sat down with the Swedish born actor a few days before “RoboCop“‘s release to talk about his role, his Jewish identity and his unique life story that spans America and Europe.

“When I’m in Sweden I feel like I have something that is not Swedish,” Kinnaman admitted. “And when I’m here I feel I have something that’s not American. I’d say I feel still more Swedish then American because I grew up there, but at the same time when I grew up I went to a public school that had English speaking classes, and when we played football in the breaks it was us against the Swedes.”

Joel’s father, Steve Kinnaman, is an American who left the United States in the 1950s. He immigrated to Sweden, where he met Joel’s mom, who is Jewish.

“The Jewish community in Sweden is an old community,” Joel says. “My family came from Ukraine in 1850. They’re very integrated, so it’s a silent presence. “

As for anti-Semitism? “We have a fascist party in our government, they’re very anti-Muslim, I don’t think that the Jewish community is affected by that. They wanna kick out all the immigrants. That is something that we’re dealing with in Sweden right now.”

Check out the full one-on-one interview below:

Photo credit: Getty Images.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.