(no subject)

[beatrice_otter]

On Tumblr, someone pointed out that given Howard Stark's now-canon background (where he grew up and his parents' occupations), he is almost certainly Jewish passing as Gentile.  And that, you know, this gives extra oomph to him helping Jarvis get Anna (his Jewish wife) out of danger and to England and later America.  (And I want to read that story, and I hope someone is writing it!)

But you know what other story I want to read?  The one where it's a Jewish holiday and Steve absentmindedly mentions it to Tony ("Happy Chanukah!" or appropriate greeting for whichever holiday it is) and Tony is baffled because he's not Jewish (not anything, really, pretty much raised atheist), and Steve is Catholic (or Episcopalian, I've seen an interesting meta on what it would mean if Steve was an Irish Protestant, but whatever he is, definitely Christian.)

So then Steve is all, wait, but Howard was Jewish, and he didn't show it, but then things were a lot worse for Jews in those days, I thought you would be public with your religion/ethnicity!

And Tony is all, no, nope, nuh-uh, no Jewish background in the family that I know of.

And Steve goes, then how/why did Howard know Yiddish?  Because a lot of the scientists on Project Rebirth were Jews, so Yiddish was spoken around the labs, and Steve never heard Howard speak it but he definitely understood what the others were saying when they were cursing people out or arguing or joking around in Yiddish, so.

And Tony's mind is blown, and he goes on an incredibly tacky orgy of self-discovery to "find his Jewish roots."

Comments

[domarzione]

I don't see how Tony could ever not know that Howard was born Jewish and, since he probably failed to convert to anything else, remained Jewish until he died. This is a non-starter point for me. He knew Howard was a secular Jew, he knew Maria was (presumably) not, and that by the laws of Judaism, Tony himself was not considered Jewish. He doesn't care.

I don't see Tony ever being interested in faith-qua-faith at all, to be honest. He's a strong disbeliever in the occult in general. He's not going to be curious about the God and laws of his forefathers because it's all hocus-pocus. It's not a matter of being "geeky" or not; geeks are as unique as everyone else and not everyone is required to follow the stereotypes. Tony is a builder and a pragmatist and a futurist and he doesn't like to consider the past at all. He's not interested in his own or in his father's or in the magic building blocks of religion. He could not care less about shatnez or its origins -- that's for the social sciences and their storytelling.

Also, his prime motivating factor in almost every single thing he's ever done is to disavow everything Howard did and stood for, to stand on his own merits (or lack thereof) and be his own man. Going looking at religion, let alone his father's religion, is not something I see as following on that path because the whole animating factor of a religion is submission (to laws, to gods, to the more learned, etc.).

This is not to discount your experiences or say that they don't matter. They're yours and thus they do. But I don't see Tony as interested in that kind of self-examination. YMMV.