Of all the Jewish superheroes, Magneto is my favorite one. My favorite part about him is his Jewish backstory and how it made him the mutant X-Men he is.

Magneto, or his real name, Erik Lehnsherr, was born in the 1920’s in Nuremberg, Germany. As a child, he survived the Nuremberg laws, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1944, at Auschwitz, Erik separated metal bars while his parents were being separated from him. A Nazi officer saw this and brought him into his office. He told Erik to move a coin, and when he couldn’t, the Nazi officer shot his mother. Distraught, Erik’s mutant power manifested, causing every metal thing in the office to be destroyed.  

Because of his experience, the hatred against mutants reminds him of how the Nazis treated the Jews. He fears that humans will eventually exterminate mutants, just as the Nazis tried to do to the Jews. Despite his friend, Charles Xavier, trying for more peaceful tactics with the humans, Magneto believes that peaceful co-existence with a majority that hates you will lead to destruction. Therefore, he believes that the only way to protect mutants is through separation between mutants and humans, or absolute dominance over humans. His trauma leads him to not trust government policies and to have a tendency to fight against them. In fact, he uses tactics that the Nazis used on the Jews, on others. For example, genetic discrimination.  

So what is a mutant, and why are they so discriminated against? Well, a mutant is someone whose DNA is different from others. In the normal world, an example of this is Heterochromia. But, in the superhero world, the change in the DNA gives people powers. As much as people like superheroes, mutants tend to scare people more because they tend to be more dangerous. Imagine if your sibling had a mutant gene that allowed them to shoot lasers. That would be scary. Therefore, since mutants are the minority and they threaten people, people claim that they tend to cause many problems when they are simply existing. Does this sound familiar? If you are thinking that this is similar to how Jews are typically treated, then you are absolutely right. Mutants were inspired by minority groups that get ostracized for usually no reason, and one group is the Jews. 

Though Magneto may not be the greatest hero in the X-Men universe, as he is typically described as a villain, his backstory and his Judaism draw me towards him as my favorite X-Men.