Andrew Garfield: ‘Spider-Man is Jewish’

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
That nice Jewish boy next door? Could be a superhero in disguise.
Turns out, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is a member of the tribe — at least, according to Andrew Garfield, who plays the famed superhero in the upcoming “Amazing Spider-Man 2.”
““Peter Parker is not a simple dude,” Garfield told Time Out. “He ums and ahs about his future because he’s neurotic. He’s Jewish. It’s a defining feature.”
Stereotype much? Garfield can get away with it — he’s one of us.
“I hope Jewish people won’t mind the cliché because my father’s Jewish. I have that in me for sure,” he said.
So, what do you think? Spider-Man creator Stan Lee (born Stanley Lieber) is definitely Jewish. And Peter Parker does live in Forest Hills (a heavily Jewish area in Queens) with Aunt May…
We’re just going to go with it. Pass the matzo, Spidey.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
