How the \u201cJewish American Princess\u201d became America\u2019s most complex Jewish stereotype
This was interesting enough up until I got to the part where she talks about moving to my hometown and describes
200 Jewish families, led into hostile territory by jobs at the nearby Merck corporate campus. In school, I could count the other Jews on one hand
And like, ???
I mean I know she\u2019s kind of leaning into the self-absorbed executive-wife-class stereotype here
(and at that she\u2019s missing the tax refugees from the New Jersey pharmaceutical and telecom industries)
but one of the big institutions in our town was a farm school that was founded in 1896 to train Jews for a new world where they could be smallhold farmers
(using their advanced education, they tended to become farm-sector merchants, civil servants, and professors instead)
I mean, southeastern PA always had an ecumenical Quaker vibe, been Jews around since colonial days. I admit it\u2019s not at all the town she came from where no one she knew celebrated Christmas, but I think I\u2019ve been in classes where I\u2019d go past two hands. I\u2019ve hung out and smoked pot in a treehouse at what I\u2019m guessing is the sleepaway camp she mentions \u2013 Camp Galil, it\u2019s been there since the 1940s.
I dunno, I guess uh, I remember feeling like the local Jewish community was pretty well-established and learning some now-an-authority-on-Jewish-American-identity part of it had understood itself as some sort of tentative outpost in hostile territory was kinda weird
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