Did Marvel Forget That It Was Hanukkah?

Marvel has seemingly forgotten that it is Hanukkah, or maybe they’re just ignoring the holiday. The first night of Hanukkah was on December 18 and many companies acknowledged the holiday, usually through a quick social media post wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah. Although it’s not required, it is nice to see companies acknowledging Jewish culture and giving recognition to the many holidays that take place in December besides Christmas.

However, with Marvel specifically, one would expect them to acknowledge the holiday considering that Marvel’s creator, Stan Lee, was raised in a Jewish home. Despite this fact, Marvel has never been good at acknowledging or honoring its Jewish roots. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) tends to erase the Jewish heritage of its comic book characters while adapting them for the screen. For example, Wanda Maximoff was Jewish in the comics, but Marvel opted to write that part of her character out.

Even when MCU does make a character’s Jewish heritage canon, like in Moon Knight, they do so in the subtlest way possible. In Moon Knight, for example, Marc Specter (Oscar Isaac) is Jewish and is seen wearing a kippah, but his Jewish identity really isn’t explored further. It is just glimpsed and then swiftly lost in the remainder of the series. Even though Jewish representation in Marvel’s films and TV shows needs work, it was still kind of expected that they’d acknowledge a major Jewish holiday. After all, a simple acknowledgment of Hanukkah would be so quick and easy for them to do, but, for whatever reason, Marvel failed to do so. This didn’t stop them from posting a number of Christmas-themed holiday posts promoting shows like Hawkeye.

TikToker slams Marvel for Hanukkah snub

Following the company’s silence, TikTok user, @daniellesilverstone, posted a short video taking aim at Marvel for seemingly ignoring Hanukkah. In the video, she pointed out that on the first night of Hanukkah, Marvel made a post on its social media about the character Daredevil, who is Catholic in Marvel comics. Which is fine, but, you know, it’s not like they don’t have any Jewish characters they could’ve posted about instead. The next day, they advertised the Disney+ Marvel Christmas series, Hawkeye. In the series, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) was hinted to be Jewish, as a menorah was glimpsed in her apartment, but the show oddly refused to come out and say that she was Jewish.

The TikTok also noted that both Disney and DC acknowledged Hanukkah. So, really, it was just the multi-billion-dollar company started by Jews that didn’t acknowledge Hanukkah.

She is correct that it literally would only take Marvel two seconds to acknowledge the holiday. Given their controversial history with erasing Jewish character backgrounds, though, it sadly isn’t too surprising that they seemingly “forgot” Hanukkah.

(featured image: Marvel)