"Rich Boy" and Stereotypes of Jewish Identities on the Conflicted Self

Sharon Pomerantz's novel Rich Boy captures the trajectory of young Robert's life as he moves between spaces defined by different ethnic and economic landscapes and illuminates how these spacial shifts impact and mutate his identity and sense of self.  In class, we discussed the possibility that perhaps, Robert is searching for an identity without "shame," perhaps leading him to deny at times, or at least suppress, his Jewish roots.

 I found this possibility to be very intriguing, especially in light of the group presentation we watched on Monday as well.  I personally come from a town that is roughly 40% Jewish--a very high percentage and one that is growing.  Growing up, many of my friends were Jewish; I even had one friend convince me that being Jewish was more fun than being Christian, and I left her house crying and begging my mom to sign our family up to be Jewish at, ironically, the YMCA, where at the time I thought you could register for everything.  Westport never has school on Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashana, we never got homework on passover or on the Hannukah days that fell during the school year.  I attended 27 Bar and Bat Mitzvahs between seventh and eighth grade, and probably would have gone to more had they not coincided with others on the same weekend. In fact, I attended both Orthodox and conservative synagogues more than I did church between 2001 and 2002. In essence, the presence of Judaism in my childhood was dominant, but not in an overwhelming way, just in a sense that it was a basic facet of normalcy growing up.


For this reason, it took me a while to fully grasp the concept of Antisemitism.  All the Jewish girls were the cool ones.  Their Bat Mitzvahs constituted awesome parties while my confirmation was austere and without fanfare.  I could not possibly conceive why anyone would complain about their Jewish roots or how anyone in the outside world could see Jews as a scapegoat.  I think with this mindset, growing up with the notion that Judaism was "cool," it is interesting to read about Robert's complicated and often negating relationship to his Jewish roots.  Ultimately however, I think that Robert's attempt at detachment is one that, at its origins, is not intrinsically linked to Judaism or any specific factor.  Instead, I think the relationship of anyone, Robert or otherwise, to their childhood, and the shaping pressures of the past, are inevitably a universal source of anxiety, especially in relation to the formation of selfhood.  In the end, it is only when Robert can reconcile his Jewish self with an understanding of his present sense of self that he is able to find balance in his life.