The Nice Jewish boy is a stereotype

Stereotype

A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...

of Jewish masculinity

Masculinity

Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...

 which circulates within the American Jewish community

American Jews

American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...

, as well as in mainstream American culture. In Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 and the parts of the diaspora

Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....

 which have received heavy exposure to the American media

American Media

American Media, Inc., is a publisher of a number of major United States-based magazines and supermarket tabloids.-Company background:The modern American Media came into being after Generoso Pope, Jr., longtime owner of The National Enquirer, died in 1988, and his tabloids came under new ownership...

 that deploy the representation, the stereotype has gained popular recognition to a lesser extent.

Background

The qualities ascribed to the nice Jewish boy are derived from the Ashkenazic

Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...

 ideal of אײדלקײט (eydlkayt, either "nobility" or "delicateness" in Yiddish

Yiddish language

Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...

). According to Daniel Boyarin

Daniel Boyarin

Daniel Boyarin is an historian of religion. Born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, he holds dual United States and Israeli citizenship. Trained as a Talmudic scholar, in 1990 he was appointed Professor of Talmudic Culture, Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, University of California,...

's Unheroic Conduct (University of California Press, 1997), eydlkayt embraces the studiousness, gentleness and sensitivity said to distinguish the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

ic scholar and make him an attractive marriage partner (23).

Place in Jewish and American culture

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

Jewish American literature

Jewish American Literature holds an essential place in the literary history of the United States. It encompasses traditions of writing in English, primarily, as well as in other languages, the most important of which has been Yiddish...

. Norman Podhoretz

Norman Podhoretz

Norman B. Podhoretz is an American neoconservative pundit and writer for Commentary magazine.-Early life:The son of Julius and Helen Podhoretz, Jewish immigrants from the Central European region of Galicia, Podhoretz was born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn...

, the former editor of Commentary

Commentary (magazine)

Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...

, made the following comment about Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...

'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

Sissy

Sissy is a pejorative term for a boy or man who violates or does not meet the traditional male gender role. Generally, sissy implies a lack of the courage and stoicism which are thought important to the male role...

."

For Philip Roth

Philip Roth

Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...

'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

Portnoy's Complaint

Portnoy's Complaint is the American novel that turned its author Philip Roth into a major celebrity, sparking a storm of controversy over its explicit and candid treatment of sexuality, including detailed depictions of masturbation using various props including a piece of liver...

.

See also

• Jewish-American princess (JAP)
  Jewish-American princess
  Jewish-American Princess or JAP is a pejorative stereotype of a subtype of Jewish-American female. The term implies materialistic and selfish tendencies, attributed to a pampered or wealthy background.-Origins:...
  
  
• Jewish mother stereotype
  Jewish mother stereotype
  The Jewish mother or wife stereotype is a common stereotype and stock character used by Jewish comedians and authors whenever they discuss actual or fictional situations involving their mothers or other females in their lives who possess mother-like qualities...
  
  
• Judaism and gender studies
  Gender and Judaism
  Gender and Judaism is an emerging subfield at the intersection of gender studies and Jewish studies. Gender studies centers on interdisciplinary research on the phenomenon of gender. It focuses on cultural representations of gender and people's lived experience...
  
  
• Shiksa
  Shiksa
  Shiksa or shikse, is a Yiddish and Polish word that has moved into English usage, mostly in North American Jewish culture, as a term for a non-Jewish woman, initially and sometimes still pejorative but now often used satirically...
  
  
• Shegetz
  Shegetz
  Shegetz is a Yiddish word that has entered English to refer to a non-Jewish boy or young man...
  
  
• Mensch
  Mensch
  Mensch means "a person of integrity and honor". The opposite of a "mensch" is an "unmensch" . According to Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, "mensch" is "someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character...