Nice Jewish boy
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The Nice Jewish boy is a stereotype of Jewish masculinity which circulates within the American Jewish community, as well as in mainstream American culture which has been influenced by the Jewish minority. In Israel and the parts of the Diaspora which have received heavy exposure to the American media that deploy the representation, the stereotype has gained popular recognition to a lesser extent.
[edit] Background
The qualities ascribed to the nice Jewish boy are derived from the Ashkenazic ideal of edelkeit (lit., "nobility" in Yiddish). According to Daniel Boyarin's Unheroic Conduct (University of California Press, 1997), edelkeit embraces the studiousness, gentleness and sensitivity said to distinguish the Talmudic scholar and make him an attractive marriage partner (23). In the relatively secular environment of America, the nice Jewish boy is less likely to concentrate on religious study but still faces high expectations to achieve educational and professional success and to behave scrupulously towards his family, community, and the wider world. These qualities are perhaps peppered with a quirkiness or gaucherie that may be endearing to others.
[edit] Place in Jewish and American culture
The stereotype unavoidably runs into conflict with the hegemonic models of masculinity found in some strains of American culture which exalt rugged individualism, emotional restraint, and physical aggression. The shegetz (non-Jewish guy) who embodies these traits may excite a combination of both admiration and contempt from American Jews torn between the imperatives of maintaining Jewish cultural tradition and of assimilating to the dominant values of the majority. Juxtaposed with the brutish but nevertheless confident sheygetz, the nice Jewish boy comes to stand for neurotic wimpishness and emasculation. He is especially vulnerable to domination and manipulation by women; these women include the possessive Jewish mother who raises the boy (or rather, keeps him in perpetual childhood) as well as the JAP whose consumption he slaves to bankroll. The nice Jewish boy, tired of these Jewish "villainesses", reacts (usually in secret) by fetishizing the blonde, blue-eyed girl, who may also prey on him for reasons of her own, attracted to his money and his disinclination to drink or resort to physical violence.
The resistance that a Jewish male may launch against this emasculating image in his quest to become a regular guy occupies an almost mythical place in Jewish American literature. Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of Commentary, made the following comment about Norman Mailer's literary and "extracurricular" activities
"He spent his entire life trying to extirpate what he himself called the 'nice Jewish boy' from his soul, which is one of the reasons he has done so many outrageous things and gotten into trouble, including with the police. It's part of trying to overcome that life-long terror of being a sissy."[1].
For Philip Roth's semi-autobiographical avatar Alex Portnoy, neither the nice Jewish boy nor his more aggressively masculine counterparts (the churlish Jewboy, the "all-American" ice hockey player) prove to be acceptable identities to attain. The ceaseless floundering between the two fuels Portnoy's Complaint [2].
