Alef: The NEXT Conversation
Labeled Goods
The first time I realized that Jews had money was when I began attending Hebrew school at my synagogue in fifth grade. I remember staring at Lindsay Stein’s maroon wool sweatshirt that said “Fitch” in white letters and having no idea what it meant. I thought that maybe it was a bad word, since it rhymed with one.
But no, it was a brand name, Abercrombie & Fitch, of course, and it was the first time I realized there was a such thing as a “brand name.” Suddenly it seemed like everyone but me was wearing brand name clothing. I began noticing how lame my Kohl’s bootcut jeans looked next to their A&F flares. When I asked my mother to buy me these expensive lines of clothing, she laughed.
“What do you need those for?” Â she said.
“You want me to pay $90 for jeans that come with holes already in them? They’re shmatas – I don’t think so.”
That was when I started feeling inadequate.
Once the bar and bat mitzvah years approached, the differences between my background and theirs became even more apparent. I remember the after-parties: artists hired to draw caricatures of guests, photo booths where you could take a photo that would be transferred to a button that said “Jacob’s Bar Mitzvah – July 10th, 1997″ around the border, entire buildings of country clubs rented out and elaborately decorated to look like a “winter wonderland.” My bat mitzvah party was in the synagogue social hall. It was nice, but certainly humble compared to my peers’.
We’ve never been poor. My parents both have masters degrees and good jobs. We’ve never had financial assistance from the government as far as I know, not that there’s anything shameful about that. We took vacations, went out to eat every Thursday, and my parents paid for my entire college education. But we were simply always middle class, like most of my peers that attended public school with me in St. Paul, MN. And I never felt bad about that until I started my Jewish education. My peers at Hebrew school were all from the suburbs, had huge houses, their mothers all had plastic surgery–you could simply tell they just came from money.
If it were just that they were richer than me, maybe I would have gotten over it. But these girls were also snobby, cliquey, and simply not that nice. I never became good friends with any of them. I remember crying one Sunday morning on the way to the synagogue because of how much I dreaded feeling like an outsider when I was there.
I would have eventually figured out that there were people out there who were much wealthier than me. But I regret that it had to be Judaism that introduced me to it. It put a bad taste in my mouth — one that took many good Jewish experiences for me to get over. As I became older, I started life guarding at the Jewish Community Center. I volunteered with little kids for the JCC plays. The summer after 9th grade, I became a camp counselor at Jewish day camp, where I made a ton of friends and had one of the best summers of my life, and great experiences over the three summers that followed. I went on a Birthright Israel trip my senior year in college, which gave my perception of Judaism a new richness, and eventually led me to where I am now, working at an exciting Jewish organization that does follow-up for Birthright Israel alumni and their peers.
I want to excel in my career and become successful to the point where I don’t have to worry about money, where I can go out to eat whenever I want, own a nice home, and take vacations. I value money to the extent that it can help me live a comfortable lifestyle. But my views on money will always be informed by the way my parents raised me and the things they taught me – that I shouldn’t flaunt my money, that I should follow a budget and pad my savings account, and as for brand names, they can be overrated.
Read more posts from Issue #11: Money, Greed, & Guilt.
Photo by margolove, licensed under Creative Commons.
Tags: Area Codes, class, fashion, jewish, Money, st. paul, wealth
8 Responses to “Labeled Goods”
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I had very much the same experience with brand names, and it totally led me into bitterness about them to the point that, for a long time, when I bought clothes in thrift stores that happened to have a brand name on them, I’d ink it out with a black sharpie.
Now I’ve struck a good balance, but it sucks knowing it’s something kids are always going to have to deal with–feeling validated through expensive clothing…
Great essay!
Terrific piece, and good insight into an experience that is a reality growing up among our People: many in the”Tribe” have money, and there is always some segment that seems unabashed at showing and even flaunting it. I’m not sure affluent, showy Jewish youth are any better or worse than others, but I believe our relationship to affluence is maybe more complicated. We are cautious about being accused of being too money centric (The Merchant of Venice echoes…) yet take pride in our success (Jews are, for the most part, successful immigrants here). We also understand well that money is critical in doing good; RUth Messenger’s AJWS Haiti fund raising effort is a great recent example. I just hope all the good out-weighs the over-the-top Bar Mitzvah’s and expensive designer jeans….
Thank you both for your comments.
Lev – yes, the good certainly outweighs the bad. Even though I hated Hebrew school, if I hadn’t attended, maybe I wouldn’t have such a strong Jewish identity as I do today. And that would be a sad thing, because it’s something that’s really important to me now.
I had a similar experience growing up – thanks for sharing! My Bat Mitzvah was also in my synagogue’s social hall… and it was awesome!
In middle school my mom decided that Tommy Hilfiger clothing was great and started buying me a bunch of his stuff. This was back in the 90s when everything of his was super-colorful, all yellows and reds and blues mixed together on one shirt. I had this other shirt which was red and jean-colored with the classic Tommy emblem of some lion between golden wreaths of climbing ivy emblazoned on the left side.
I got so much crap from people for my Tommy clothing (some took to calling me “Tommy”). I didn’t know what I was wearing, didn’t know whether it was “designer” or whatever, since my mom was basically the one dressing me. I also can’t really say whether the kids made fun of my clothes because they looked ridiculous, because they didn’t take warmly to my wearing designer clothing, or because they were just always looking for new ways to bother me.
Needless to say, a few years passed, and suddenly by high school all the “cool kids” were wearing Tommy clothing. By then they had basically forgotten that years earlier I had been one of the first to wear that type of clothing, to start the trend, all thanks to my fashion-conscious mom.
I am Jewish. I grew up poor. That’s right a Jew without money. Especially since I grew up in a Brooklyn neighborhood where everyone was poor, I can tell you that Oscar Wilde\Sophie Tucker,Samual Johnson etc., was right, it is better to be rich.
Perhaps you cannot tell the difference between a class difference and a religious\ethnic difference, but you and the other respondents with memories of branded names are not typical; they are only representative of the people you grew up with.
I am now and have been “comfortable.” And I wouldn’t even let my own kids buy the chasari with a brand name on it, even if they wanted to use their own money. Its a question of values…or lack thereof.
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