Sabra Will Be Israeli, But What Will Her Representation Be Like?

The Jewish world was collectively up in arms this week when the Jewish Chronicle (based on a trailer) reported that Sabra, the long-awaited Israeli MCU superhero, was being turned into a Russian character. Accusations of whitewashing and erasure were screamed from virtual rooftops. I noted to a friend that turning an Israeli into a European is problematic beyond typical whitewashing. The Khazar conspiracy theory claims that Ashkenazi Jews are not really from Israel. We’re just a bunch of Khazar converts. While this has been disproven over and over again through genetic testing, this Russian storyline could have reinforced this conspiracy.

This morning, news broke that two Marvel insiders confirmed that Sabra will in fact be Israeli. The filming is over. It appears that the update about Sabra not being Israeli was simply misinformation. The misinformation quickly spread, because Jews (rightly so) are on edge, as attacks and erasure of our community are coming at us at an increasingly terrifying rate. Apparently, Sabra will no longer be a Mossad agent, instead she will be a black widow. Full disclosure, I am not a comic book aficionado, and I’ve only seen a few Marvel movies with my kids.

While I was initially stoked about the Israeli superhero concept, a few months ago I learned something about Sabra that concerned me: her original comic book depiction was laden with blood libelesque messaging. In one of Sabra’s early stories, she appears to show little remorse over the death of an Arab* boy, until the Incredible Hulk educates her on human compassion.

Hulk tells Sabra, “Boy died because boy’s people and yours both want to own land! Boy died because you wouldn’t share!”

Shockingly, the Hulk is not a student of geo-politics and forgets to mention the five times that Israel did in fact offer land to the Palestinians. This does not include the time before that when British Mandate Palestine was broken into two pieces in 1946, with 70% of the land going to Jordanians and only 30% going to the Jews (who were then told to share that). Not to mention the over fifty Muslim states, twenty-three Arab ones, compared to the sole Jewish state. But sure, Jews are causing innocents to die because we don’t share.

While this was a problematic storyline from the past, would Marvel treat the Israeli character better now that it’s 2024? For other minority groups, when Marvel reimagined their superheroes for modern day audiences, they steered clear of their racist tropes. The Black Panther movie, made for modern times, avoided the magical negro trope. For Shang-Chi, the film avoided the stereotype of the power-hungry mystical Asian man. The Black Panther and Shang-Chi films display the progress so many advocacy groups (like our JITC Hollywood Bureau) are working towards. Give us whole and human characters, avoid the tired tropes. Let us feel pride and authenticity on the screen.

But what about Jews, who are usually excluded from DEI considerations? Would Sabra improve in modern times? Well, in 2022 – even before the anti-Israel hatred that rapidly grew after October 7 – it was reported that due to a backlash from the anti-Israel crowd, Marvel would handle Sabra with a new approach. How? What would a new approach look like?

I’m afraid to see what this approach will be. The new trend in Hollywood is portraying Israelis as violent and cruel. (Check out the sizzle we compiled for our Sundance panel.) What if the new approach includes even less compassion and more aggression, to placate the Jew-hating crowd that believes Israelis are bloodthirsty baby-killers? Sometimes erasure is better than vilification. This is what happened recently in the Motion Picture Academy Museum. First Jews were erased from the museum, then they added us in, and according to many who visited the exhibit, they did so with an antisemitic framing.

What would an authentic Israeli superhero character, that avoided tropes look like? A brave woman who dashes across the world when there are humanitarian crises, in order to help those who can’t help themselves – as everyday Israeli superheroes do. A woman living in a place called the state of Israel, where every race, religion, gender, sexual orientation lives in a free and democratic society. This is the guidance we are giving to studios in our JITC Hollywood Bureau Jewish fact sheet. Some of the studios are beginning to formally put our guidance into play.

Sabra doesn’t come out until 2025, so it will be a while until we’ll know for sure. In the meantime, our Hollywood Bureau will continue our advocacy and we should all continue our praying.

*An earlier version of this article pulled a quote from Times of Israel, which identified the boy as Palestinian instead of Arab. 

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