Episode 5 - KITTY PRYDE - Part 1

In this episode we cover one of the most famous Jewish super heroes, KITTY PRYDE!

BB: Origin, First Appearance,
Daughter to Carmen and Theresa Pryde, from Deerfield, IL
13-year-old girl
Kitty Pryde first appears #129 (middle of Dark Phoenix Saga), officially joins the team at the very end of #138 (Oct 1980), the epilogue to the same story.

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #129 (cover date Jan 1980)
Page 11, in the THIRD panel she appears in, Kitty is wearing a star of David

Henry: Claremont interview

Brandon:

According to tumblr fan site johnbyrnedraws, Byrne said:
Kitty, as many of you probably already know, became Jewish almost accidentally. My “model” for the character was how I pictured a young Sigourney Weaver, but down the hall in my apartment building at the time lived a friend whose sister bore a strong resemblance to Kitty. Altho she was not Jewish herself, the sister wore a Star of David on a chain around her neck, it having been given to her by her Jewish boyfriend. (The Star of David, not her neck.) Kitty somehow looked “wrong” without that necklace, so I added it to my final drawings in her first appearance. This made her Jewish, of course, since there would be no other reason for her to be wearing it in the context of the character.

Uncanny X-Men #143 (1981)
“Demon”
Written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne (co-plotters)
Penciled by John Byrne
Inked by Terry Austin
Colored by Glynis Oliver
Lettered by Rick Parker and Tom Orzechowski
Edited by Louise Jones
Page 6
Kitty uses mistletoe to kiss Peter
Trying to lighten the mood. Clearly interfaith comfortable
Page 8
“I’ve never spent Chanukah away from home before. I wonder how mom and dad are doing?”
Family holiday
Page 21 - Kitty’s parents are visiting, dad responds, “Our visit--your special Chanukah surprise--is as much a gift to us as to her.”
Publication date: March 1981
Christmas Eve 1981 corresponds to 29th Kislev
Xmas Eve 1980 = 18th of Tevet
Later, she refers to herself as a 13-year-old. Bat Mitzvah???
IS THIS A HANUKKAH STORY?
A demonic entity (the N’Garai demon) attacks the central home (TEMPLE?) of the X-Men. The scared underdog Kitty fights back, winning with her wits.
Page 20 - X-Men return, noting the mansion has “no lights”
But the X-Men return to a devastated home they need to fix, rebuild, “repurify?”
Final page - “alone, on Christmas Eve, Kitty Pryde underwent a rite of passage - a supreme test of her abilities, her intellect, her courage. Her...self. She passed.”
WAS THIS HER X-BAT MITZVAH?
Made me think of Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins (1989)
Written by Eric Kimmel, drawn by Trina Schart Hyman
Hershel of Ostropol - trickster figure

Uncanny X-Men #159 (1982)
“Night Screams”
Written by Chris Claremont
Penciled by Bill Sienkiewicz
Inked by Bob Wiacek
Colored by Glynis Oliver
Lettered by Rick Parker and Tom Orzechowski
Edited by Louise Jones
Kitty goes home to visit her family for the weekend, Storm is “mugged” in an alley - DRACULA
Was she home for Shabbos???
Page 10, Kitty talking with Storm
Storm pulls back in pain
Kitty thinks, “The lamplight flashed on my star of David -- and Ororo flinched! Aversion to sunlight, to religious artifacts, anemia, dreams -- this is ridiculous! What am I thinking?!”
Page 12
Storm goes to see Dracula
Kitty bursts into the room with a cross that doesn’t work
Dracula: “The cross has no power over such as I if the wielder does not believe in it! You are no Christian, but a Hebrew!”
HENRY - how do you feel about that term?
Lunges for her throat, but his hand starts burning
“Around my neck--my silver star of David! That’s what stopped him! Thank God!”
Love at First Bite (1979 horror comedy)
Directed by Stan Dragoti
George Hamilton as Dracula
Susan Saint James as Cindy Sondheim
Richard Benjamin as Jeffrey Rosenberg, grandson of Van Helsing, who changed his name “for professional reasons”
In a dinner scene (Cindy Sondheim, Dracula, Jeffrey Rosenberg), Rosenberg pulls out a Star of David that has NO effect
Vampires in Judaism
There’s a wealth of esoteric and midrashic material on King Solomon raising or summoning demons, including a vampire demon
Lilith, mother of demons, often vampiric
Sefer Hasidim 464
There was once a woman that was a striya and was very sick, and there were two women with her at night - one sleeping and one awake. And that same sick woman stood before her and crackled her hair and wanted to fly and wanted to suck the blood of the sleeping woman. And the one that was awake woke up the one who was asleep, and they grabbed the striya. And the one that slept, slept more and the one that was awake didn’t sleep. And since she couldn’t do harm, the striya died because she needed that which comes from the blood, to swallow the blood and the flesh”
אשה אחת היתה סטריאה והיתה חולה ביותר והיו שתי נשים בלילה עמה אחת היתה ישנה ואחת היתה ערה ואותה החולה עמדה לפניה והיתה מנפצת שערה ורצתה לפרוח ורצתה למוץ דמה של ישנה והעירה הקיצה הישנה ותפסו את החולה השטריא ואחר כן ישנה עוד והערה לא היתה ישנה עמדה השטריא והיתה מנפצת שער ראשה ורצתה לפרוח והעירה הקיצה הישנה ותפשו את החולה השטריא אם היתה מזקת להמית את אשה אחרת היתה השטריאה חיה וכיון שלא יכלה להזיק מתה השטריא כי צריכה את אשר בא מן האדם לבלוע הדם והבשר.
Batwoman was our Jewish heroine with ties to Kabbalah. Kitty, strangely, seems to be our Jewish heroine with ties to the demonic - the N’garai, Dracula, her best friend Illyana

Uncanny X-Men #199 (1985)
“The Spiral Path”
Written by Chris Claremont
Penciled by John Romita Jr.
Inked by Dan Green
Colored by Glynis Oliver
Lettered by Rick Parker and Tom Orzechowski
Edited by Ann Nocenti
Page 13
National Holocaust Memorial
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - congress voted to establish it in 1980, but it didn’t open until April 22, 1993
“We are gathered on this remembrance day to honor those who endured a horror unlike any ever experienced in human history--the systematic, institutionalized extermination of one people by another.”
International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th, when Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau) was not designated until UN General Assembly Resolution 60/7 on November 1, 2005
Want this to be Yom HaShoah (27th of Nisan, roughly May), established April 8, 1959 by the Knesset in Israel
Most likely, this is The Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust. A House joint resolution 1014 designated April 28th and 29th, 1979 as the days
Dates chosen to reflect dates on which American troops liberated Dachau
Magneto explains to Kitty that those present are survivors or relatives of survivors who go to podium and say names of relatives in hopes of reunion
Kitty gave word to participate, “I’m here for my grandfather, Samuel Prydeman. He wanted to be here, more than anything but he died, last year. He had a sister, my great-aunt Chava. She lived in Warsaw before the war. He tried to find her, but there was no record anywhere. It was like she’d been...erased -- as if she’d never been.”
Page 14
Magneto asks for a photo, since he knew a Chava with a different last name, Rosanoff. Then Ruth and David Shulman pop up, recognizing Magneto. They confirm Chava Rosanoff is the married name of Kitty’s aunt
JEWISH GEOGRAPHY!!!!
The Shulmans and Chava were in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the resistance
Chava died. Magneto saved the Shulmans
Common trend to valorize those who fought back
Kitty: “You were a hero?”
Magneto: “Hardly. In those days, heroism meant holding onto one’s humanity, while the Nazis tried their best to turn us into animals. The way to defy them--to defeat them--was to lie, to hold onto hope, no matter what. Believe me, Kitty, I was no one special. If I am a hero, then so is every other man and woman who survived.”
Interrupted by Mystique, who accuses Magneto of being as cruel as the Nazis
Page 16 - Kitty: “Let’s scram--this is like hallowed ground. We can’t fight here!”
Page 17 - Colossus bursts in, Kitty yells at him because they don’t want to wreck the memorial
Follow up - UXM #210
“The Morning After” by Claremont and JRJR & Dan Green
Page 19, mob beating up on Nightcrawler. Kitty Pryde, Illyana, Colossus show up.
Kitty: “Hey mister -- who defines what’s human?”
Mob: “It’s obvious, girl. Just open your eyes.”
Kitty: “That simple, huh? Well, a whole chunk of my family was murdered in gas chambers because the Nazis said it was just as ‘obvious’ that Jews weren’t human. And not so long ago, in this country, people felt the same about blacks. Some still do. Is that right?!”