"I'm Just Jewish . .

Defining Jewish Identity

in Philip Roth's Goodbye,
Columbus a n d Five Short
Stories
Patrick Silvey

ABSTRACT. Roth scholars are largely, and accurately, in agreement that in

Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories (1959) Roth uses irony to satirize
American Jewish middle-class anxiety about assimilating into the predomi
nantly gentile American culture. This article explores the method by which
Roth satirizes his Jewish characters. Specifically, the article demonstrates
that, throughout the collection, Roths caustic attitude toward many of his
characters is rooted in basic moral principles of the Jewish faith. Though
Roth critics would certainly never label Roth a moralist, his first published
collection of stories shows the writer to be critical of his Jewish characters
via a moral paradigm.
What is it then between us?
Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

At its release, Philip Roths Goodbye, Columbus was met with enthusiastic
praise by some and harsh criticism by others.1 Among those who applauded
Roths literary talents were critics Irving Howe and Alfred Kazin, as well as
successful Jewish novelist Saul Bellow. Howe, for instance, wrote that Good
bye, Columbus bristled with a literary self-confidence such as few writers two
or three decades older than Roth could command (229). Still, several of
the stories within Goodbye, Columbus have consistendy excited the anger of

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many Jewish readers who accused Roth of exploiting Jewish-American culture

in order to gain acceptance as an American author (Parrish 1). In his essay
Writing About Jews, Roth claims that one rabbi actively protested his work
to the Anti-Defamation League, asking W hat is being done to silence this
man? Medieval Jews would have known what to do with him (160). Rabbi
Theodore Lewis condemns Roths portrayal of Jewish Americans saying that
the Jewish characters in his short stories and novels [are] depraved and lecher
ous creatures. The only logical conclusion any intelligent reader could draw
from [Roths] stories or books, is that this country nay that the world
would be a much better and happier place without Jews (qtd. in Isaac 182).
Many within the Jewish community took issue with Roths portrayal o f the
Jewish cultural and religious identity, labeling him a self-hating Jew.
There is no shortage of scholarship that explores the subjects of Roths
social criticisms in Goodbye, Columbus. One early critic, for instance, writes
that the major force behind [Goodbye, Columbus is] an indictment of the Jew
ish upper-middle class (Larner 28). Likewise, Debra Shostak identifies the
underlying theme of the collection as a criticism of Jewish assimilation after
the Second World War (117). But for a richer understanding of the text as a
whole, critics would be wise to discuss not only what Roth is satirizing, but
how he is criticizing it. Certainly, the novella Goodbye, Columbus could be
categorized as an indictment of the Jewish upper-middle class, and Eli, the
Fanatic is easily a story about assimilation. Critics, like Jeremy Larner and
Shostak, who have characterized these stories as critiques of the modern Jew
ish way of life as Roth saw it, are not incorrect in their assertions. But the fact
that Roth criticizes assimilation and Jewish materialism through principles
established by traditional, even orthodox Jewish values serves to validate those
criticisms. This is especially true since Roth would later come under attack by
Jews who claim to ground their attacks at him in the principles of Judaism.
Though it cannot be denied that Goodbye, Columbus is a social indictment,
many of Roths more harsh critics have oversimplified the collection by insist
ing that Roth purposefully condemns the American Jew. In fact, the collection
reveals Roth to be a social critic who is both bemused at, and cynical of those
American Jews who have abandoned the morals of Judaism in favor o f the
more convenient morals of American individualism. Perhaps then the only
crime that Roth commits with Goodbye, Columbus is the crime o f holding
a mirror to unflattering truths. Even this accusation is a bit too simplistic,
though. Jewish scholar Samuel Osherson theorizes instead that [s]uch stories
[that appear in Goodbye, Columbus] were OK as long as they were confined to
a Jewish audience; Roths sin was that he wrote a best-seller, and showed our
[Jews] dirty laundry to the goyim (32). Thus, many Jewish critics of Roths
work might have found Goodbye, Columbus troublesome not simply for its
unflattering portrait of some American Jews, but because it was critical while
being marketed toward a largely non-Jewish audience.

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JEW ISH MATERIALISM IN GOODBYE, COLUMBUS

Neil Klugman is by no means a privileged Jewish boy. He lives with his aunt
and uncle in a Jewish neighborhood in the city of Newark. He openly admits
with neither pride nor shame that he was educated at Newark Colleges of Rut
gers University, and he works at the Newark Public Library in a respectable
position that promises early promotion to the kind of industrious, conscien
tious young man Neil appears to his immediate superiors to be (Halio 13).
For all this, Neil is right to be somewhat surprised when he rather effordessly
becomes romantically involved with Radcliffe student Brenda Patimkin and
her social climbing family. Critic Jay Halio accurately describes Brenda as
a Jewish American Princess who is rich, spoiled, and smart, if somewhat
short-sighted (14). Through her, Neil is introduced to the posh, suburban,
materialistic world of Jewish post-war prosperity.
Brendas father owns a successful business, Patimkin Sinks, and as Alan
France claims, the Patimkins struggle to distance themselves from their past,
to establish membership in the national, largely gentile, elite (84). This truth
becomes most evident when Brenda admits to Neil that her familys wealth has
allowed her to have cosmetic surgery on her nose. The dialogue of this scene
is very telling:
Im afraid o f my nose. I had it bobbed.
W hat?
I had my nose fixed.
W hat was the matter with it?
It was bumpy.

A lot?
N o, she said, I was pretty. Now Im prettier. My brothers having his fixed
in the fall. (13)

The Patimkins have already financially distanced themselves from their Jew
ish cultural baggage, but the fact that theyve fixed Brendas nose and plan
to fix Rons indicates a conscious attempt to create physical distance from
it. And yet it is not their identities as followers of Judaism that they wish to
abandon. After all, Mrs. Patimkin reveals with pride that she is Orthodox and
that her husband is a Conservative Jew (88-89). Therefore it is clear that it is
not necessarily their religious past from which the Patimkins are attempting
to distance themselves, rather it is their ethnicity and their lower-middleclass roots in Newark (France 84). Still, though Mr. and Mrs. Patimkin have
deluded themselves into believing that they are Orthodox and Conservative
Jews, they are fully aware that Brenda and Ron do not identify themselves as
religious. Mrs. Patimkin tells Neil that Brenda is nothing...[s]he was the best

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Hebrew student Ive ever seen...but then, of course, she got too big for her
britches (89). Likewise, when Neil acknowledges to Mr. Patimkin that he
knows that the term g o n if translates as thief, Mr. Patimkin replies, You
know more than my own kids. Theyre goyim, my kids, thats how much they
understand (94). W hether or not Brendas parents have done so consciously,
they have raised two very privileged, secular children. And with their no lon
ger bumpy noses, their ethnic identity has been made to be just as ambigu
ous as their religious identity.
The Patimkins preoccupation with materialism and American commodity
culture is most apparent to Neil through their consumption of food. His first
dinner with the family reveals that dieir eating habits mirror their consumerism:
When [Mr. Patimkin] attacked his saladafter drenching it in bottled French
dressingthe veins swelled under the heavy skin of his forearm. He had three
helpings of salad, Ron had four, Brenda and Julie had two, and only Mrs. Patim
kin and [Neil] had one each [...]
There was not much dinner conversation; eating was heavy and methodical
and serious, and it would be just as well to record all that was said in one swoop,
rather than indicate the sentences lost in the passing of food, the words gurgled
into mouthfuls, the syntax chopped and forgotten in heapings, spillings, and
gorgings. (21-22)

Phis dietary affluence of the Patimkins is further exposed when Neil explores
their basement. He discovers a mirrored bar that was stocked with every kind
and size of glass, ice bucket, decanter, mixer, swizzle stick, shot glass, pretzel
bowl all the bacchanalian paraphernalia, plentiful, orderly, and untouched
(41) stocked with twenty-three untouched bottles of Jack Daniels. Moreover,
Neil stumbles upon an old refrigerator heaped with fruit, shelves swelled
with it, every color, every texture. ..greengage plums, black plums, red plums,
apricots, nectarines, peaches, long horns of grapes, black, yellow, red, and
cherries. . . Oh Patimkin! Fruit grew in their refrigerator and sporting goods
dropped from their trees! (43).
The Patimkins cornucopia of fruit serves as a contrast to that of Neils
Aunt Gladys. During Neils first interactions with her in the story, he explains
that he dislikes choosing fresh fruit over canned fruit or vice versa because
whichever [he] preferred, Aunt Gladys always had an abundance of the other
jamming her refrigerator like stolen diamonds (6). In an essay comparing
assimilationism in Goodbye, Columbus and Eli, the Fanatic, Shostak pos
its that [t] he refrigerator is the emblem of success in America, the holy vessel
that demonstrates the equal importance of gathering and spending material
wealth as a means to delineating the broadly sanctioned identity in the world
(118). France also sees the refrigerators in Goodbye, Columbus as symbolic
possessions; he claims that [r]efrigerators...are important emblems of social
mobility. Neils Aunt Gladys is preoccupied with her own refrigerator; her
concern to use leftovers efficiently and avoid waste irritates Neil (84). Both

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o f these critics seem to agree th a t in this sto ry R o th is very explicitly a tte m p t

ing to m ake food a sign o f co n su m erism a n d m aterial w ealth. T h is is o f great
significance to th e sto ry as
. . in trad itio n a l Jew ish cu ltu re, th e in d iv id u als
relation to food is defin ed in term s o f th e an cie n t d ietary laws w hose fu n ctio n
is to distinguish th e Jews irreversibly from o th e r trib al g roups a n d ...to serve
as m aterial p ro o f o f th e Jew s covenant w ith th e m o n o th e istic G o d (S hostak
117). T herefore, th e P atim k in s a b u n d an ce o f fo o d w orks to place th e m at
th e great b a n q u e t o f A m erican c o m m o d ity cu ltu re (France 84). M oreover,
[i]n cen terin g several scenes a ro u n d th e a d m ira tio n a n d c o n su m p tio n o f
food, th e story dem on strates b o th th e rom ance o f p le n ty for th e Jew a tte m p t
ing to define a place in 1950s A m erican cu ltu re a n d th e d isillu sio n m en t th a t
p len ty can cause (Shostak 117). For th e P atim kins, fo o d has b eco m e less a
co n n ectio n to th e cu ltu re a n d religion o f Ju d aism a n d m o re a sym bol o f sen
sual satisfaction afforded by th e A m erican capitalist ethos.
N eils connections to A frican A m ericans th ro u g h o u t G oodbye, C o lu m
bus are a n o th e r im p o rta n t class distin g u ish er in th e story. D u rin g his first
p h o n e call w ith B rend a she asks h im to describe him self. N eil tells h er th a t
he is . . . d ark , an d , likely as a joke, B renda asks h im A re y o u a N egro?
(7). C ritic Peter R u dn y tsk y claim s th a t [t]his eq u atio n o f th e m iddle-class
Jew w ith th e black reinforces N eils sense o f social in feriority (25). N e ils
sense o f inferiority is o n ly exacerbated as h e com es to w itness first-h an d th e
opulence o f th e P atim k in hou seh o ld . N eil even a tte m p ts to h id e his low er
class status d u rin g his stay w ith th e P atim k in s by leaving his o n e sh irt w ith a
B rooks B rothers label to linger o n his b ed w hile u n p ack in g (63). Still, despite
N eils sham e fo r his social sta n d in g he finds a c o n n ectio n w ith th e sm all
colored boy (31) a t th e lib rary w h o tu rn s o u t to be a G au g u in enthusiast.
N eil adm ires th e boys in terest in th e G au g u in re p ro d u ctio n s, a n d because o f
th e b o n d he senses betw een th e tw o o f th e m , he later lies to a w h ite library
p atro n w h o w ishes to check o u t th e G au g u in b o o k , telling h im th a t its been
p u t o n h o ld (48).
N eils co n n ectio n to th e ch aracter o f C arlo ta, th e P atim kins N avaho-faced
N eg ro m aid (21), is also m ean in g fu l in term s o f h o w N eil negotiates his ow n
id en tity in co n trast to th e P atim kins. A fter N eils first e n c o u n te r w ith th e
A frican A m erican boy a t th e lib rary he goes to th e P atim k in h o m e a second
tim e. W h e n he arrives, B renda, R on, a n d M r. a n d M rs. P atim k in are w aiting
for h im so th a t th ey can leave to take R o n to th e a irp o rt w hile N eil looks
after B rendas youngest sibling, Julie. A fter th e y leave, N eil stands in th e hall
o f the house a n d th in k s to h im self th a t [he] felt like C arlo ta; no, n o t even
as com fortable as th a t (40). T h e fact th a t N eil w o u ld feel like th e P atim kins
A frican A m erican m aid m akes it clear th a t h e is very aw are th a t his social class
is likely m u ch closer to C arlotas th a n it is to th e P atim k in s.
A ll o f N eils anxieties a b o u t his social in fe rio rity b eco m e m o st p ro m in e n t
d u rin g his last in te ra c tio n w ith B ren d a. T h o u g h B ren d a d enies it, N e il

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knows that she left her diaphragm at home intentionally, knowing her
mother would likely stumble upon it. Neil also knows that Brendas interests
have never been in satisfying her parents demands of her, yet she insists to
Neil that [tjheyre still my parents. They did send me to the best schools,
didnt they? They have given me everything Ive wanted, havent they?
(134). Brendas words to Neil indicate more than an attem pt to satisfy her
parents. She is explicitly telling him that it is her social status that makes
them unsuitable for one another. H er parents sent her to an Ivy League
school and gave her everything she wanted; therefore, she and Neil are
incompatible. As France contends, Brenda must ultimately recognize that
self-interest is defined by class interests, which take primacy over romantic
inclinations (88). And though it is Neil that leaves Brenda crying in the
hotel room, Brenda has intentionally initiated the events that eventually led
to their break-up by leaving the diaphragm at home. Brenda is, in short,
done slumming it with Neil; she is ready to move on to a man who more
closely matches her social class.
After the fight, Neil wanders the streets o f Cambridge. In the window
of the Lamont Library Neil stares at his reflection and sees that I was only
that substance...those limbs, that face that I saw in front of me (135).
France claims [w]ith this image we have reached the limits o f the post-war
reification of wealth, success, status, and sexual desire. For Neil there is no
alternative to the hollowness of the 1950s commodity culture (89). Frances
contention might be valid if it had been Neil who had rejected the uppermiddle class commodity culture rather than the other way around. Shostak,
on the other hand, theorizes that [fjinding himself reflected back to himself
from the outside of that bastion of highbrow, gentile America to which he has
aspired, at last Neil recognizes the Jews excluded position, no matter his mate
rial attainments. He remains a Jew (119). Goodbye, Columbus is, after all,
a story about Jewish entry into the American commodity culture. Neil has
been rejected, but as readers we are meant to understand that this may not
be such a terrible thing. He may not have gained the status of the Patimkins
high-class American materialism, but he has retained his identity as a Jewish
outsider. Roth intentionally writes the ending of this story to be ambiguous;
whether or not Neil values his Jewish identity (or if he even should) is left
uncertain. Earlier in the story, Neil explains to Mrs. Patimkin that he is just
Jewish (88). However, this ending seems to suggest that Neil has undergone
a journey toward recognizing and understanding his identity as a Jew. W ith
this story, Roth exposes the social class distinctions that have been made
within and among the American Jewish community. More importantly, he
demonstrates that the concept of social class is necessarily unsympathetic, and
is therefore decidedly non-Jewish. In other words, social climbing Jews such
as the Patimkins would seem to have lost the sympathy that ought to define
their Jewish identity.

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JEWISH/CHRISTIAN HOSTILITY IN THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS'

Oscar Freedman is the type of endlessly inquisitive young man who is some
what wiser than the authority figures who surround him. The Conversion
of the Jews begins with Ozzie conversing with his much less thoughtful
friend Itzie Lieberman about an argument Ozzie had with his Hebrew school
Rabbi about the nature of Jesus Christ. Ozzie understands that He was a real
person, Jesus, but he wasnt like God, and we dont believe he is God, yet
when Rabbi Binder claimed that its impossible [for God to father a child]
Ozzie became confused. In his confusion he asked Binder if [God] could
make [the world] in six days, and He could pick the six days he wanted right
out of nowhere, why couldnt He let a woman have a baby without having
intercourse? The question and the conversation are both over the head of
Itzie who can only respond by saying You said intercourse, Ozz, to Binder?
(140). Still, Ozzie goes on to explain to Itzie that the Rabbi refused to answer
this question. Because of this, Ozzie must ask his mother to come to the
Hebrew school for a third time to discuss his obstinacy with the Rabbi.
That evening, Ozzie plans to tell his mother that she must again visit
Binder, but he decides to let her light the Sabbath candle first. The scene
articulates Ozzies incontrovertible connection to his faith:
[W]hen Mrs. Freedman came through the door she...w ent to the kitchen table
to light the three yellow candles, two for the Sabbath and one for Ozzies father.
W hen his mother lit the candles she would move her two arms slowly towards
her, dragging them through the air, as though persuading people whose minds
were half made up. A nd her eyes would get glassy with tears. Even when his
father was alive Ozzie remembered that her eyes had gotten glassy, so it didnt
have anything to do with his dying. It had something to do with lighting the
candles...W hen his mother lit the candles Ozzie felt there should be no noise;
even breathing, if you could manage it, should be softened. O zzie... watched his
mother dragging whatever she was dragging, and he felt his own eyes get glassy.
(142-43)

It is obvious that there is a great deal of reverence in Ozzies observance of

Jewish tradition in this scene. The somberness of this moment, though, is
juxtaposed with a moment of violence. After Mrs. Freedman finishes lighting
the candles, Ozzie tells her that she must again visit with Rabbi Binder and
[f]or the first time in their life together she hit Ozzie across the face with her
hand (143). The reverence Ozzie has for his faith is further emphasized by his
refusal to read Hebrew scripture quickly on the grounds that he could read
faster but that if he did he was sure not to understand what he was reading.
Though there is no logical reason for Ozzies escape to the school rooftop,
once there he finds himself in a position of power a position he decides to
utilize. Ozzie threatens to jum p while Binder pleads with him not to. Mrs.
Freedman arrives and joins Binder in pleading for Ozzie to come down safely.
Finally Ozzie forces everyone to kneel on the ground before making each

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person in the crowd admit that God can make a child without intercourse
(157). Next Ozzie forces evetyone to say they believed in Jesus Christ,
before he tells his mother [she] shouldnt hit [Ozzie] about God [...]You
should never hit anybody about God (158). W hen she promises never to hit
him about God he jumps to safety into the fire departments yellow net that
glowed in the evenings edge like an overgrown halo (158).
Its truthfully no wonder that Roth has been accused by many of being a
self-hating Jew (Glenn 95). O n the surface, the act o f writing a story about
a Jewish Hebrew student who forces an entire group of Jews to say they
believed in Jesus Christ would seem to warrant such an accusation. Yet crit
ics have largely overlooked this controversial element of the story. One early
reviewer criticized The Conversion of the Jews for being too pat, saying
its.. .moral, You should never hit anybody about God, is ultimately hokum
(Hyman 37). Other critics find the story problematic for its structure. Alfred
Kazin, for instance, believes that in The Conversion of the Jews Roth is too
anxious not only to dramatize the conflict but to make the issue absolutely
clear (qtd. in Halio 26). Reading this story as mere allegory, however, might
be a bit reductive. It seems to me that Halio might have a more conclusive
reading of the text overall. He claims that
in the world of the child, simplicity rules, as it does for Ozzie Feedman. Therein
also lies the humor of the story and its import: adult sophistications and their
consequences are finally no match for the single-mindedness and courage of a
litde boy, for whom the logic of Gods omnipotence and mercy overwhelms all
other considerations. (26)

In other words, Rabbi Binders dismissive claim that a God who created the
world in six days could not have a child without intercourse is unsatisfying
to Ozzie because Binders claim is based not on logic or reason but on an
awareness of longstanding Jewish/Christian hostility. As Theodore Solotaroff
claims, Ozzie is not the kind of boy to allow God to be hedged in by the
conflicts of Judaism and Christianity (27).
Moreover, the faith that Ozzie forces upon his onlookers is not unlike
the faith that has been forced upon him. After all, Ozzie is coerced to read
Hebrew scripture quickly at the cost of comprehending it. He is antagonized
for his inquisitive nature, and the questions he insists on posing all involve
Jewish privilege. He first wonders how Rabbi Binder could call the Jews
The Chosen People if the Declaration of Independence claimed all men to
be created equal (141). Next, he demands to understand why his mother
considers a plane crash to be a tragedy only when she discovers among
the list of those dead eight Jewish names (142). It seems that Ozzie has
found an inconsistency within the Jewish commandment to . . . love [ones
brother]: he is as thyself (qtd. in Jung 387). Thus, when Binder refuses to
approach the question of Jesus Christs possible divinity with logic opting
instead to allow a longstanding conflict between the Jews and the Christians

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to determine his words Ozzie decides he has had enough of the hypocrisy.
His actions throughout the second half of the story demonstrate his attempts
not only to confront that hypocrisy, but to force his Jewish onlookers to
confront it as well.
JEWISH FAVORITISM AND SOLIDARITY IN DEFENDER OF THE FAITH"
Along with The Conversion of the Jews, Defender of the Faith is one of
Roths most controversial stories collected in Goodbye, Columbus. The story
was first published in a 1959 issue of The New Yorker and was met almost
immediately with outrage by many Jewish readers (Parrish 129). In his essay
Writing About Jews, Roth quotes from several letters he received from Jew
ish readers after the story was published. One letter was sent directly to Roth:
Mr. Roth:
W ith your one story, Defender o f the Faith, you have done as much harm
as all the organized anti-Semitic organizations have done to make people believe
that all Jews are cheats, liars, connivers. Your one story makes people the gen
eral public forget all the great Jews who have lived, all the Jewish boys who
served well in the armed services, all the Jews who live honest hard lives the
world over . . . (160)

The second letter was received by The New Yorker and was then forwarded
to the writer:
Dear Sir:
[. . .] We have discussed [Defender o f the Faith] from every possible angle
and we cannot escape the conclusion that it will do irreparable damage to the
Jewish people. We feel that this story presented a distorted picture o f the average
Jewish soldier and are at a loss to understand why a magazine of your fine reputa
tion would publish such a work which lends fuel to anti-Semitism.
Cliches like this being Art will not be acceptable. (160)

Moreover, one rabbi and educator in New York City told Roth that he had
earned the gratitude.. .of all who sustain their anti-Semitism on such concep
tions of Jews as ultimately led to the murder of six million in our time (qtd.
in Jews 161-62).
The story revolves around three Jewish privates and their Jewish com
manding officer, Sergeant Nathan Marx. W hen Marx is initially confronted
by Private Sheldon Grossbart, who asks the Sergeant if he and his fellow
Jewish personnel might be allowed to attend Jewish services on Friday eve
nings rather than cleaning the barracks along with the other privates, Marx
submits to Grossbart because the request seems to be a fairly minor one and
because Grossbart makes a point to tell Marx that this is a matter of religion,
sir (165). Over time, however, as Grossbarts requests of Marx become more
frequent, it becomes clear that Grossbarts motivations are less about equality

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than they are about ethnically based preferential treatment. As Halio explains,
Playing on Marxs sense of guilt more than on any sense of solidarity he might
have with his landsmen (that is, fellow Jews), Grossbart finagles special passes
and exemptions from onerous duty for himself and two of his friends (27).
Moreover, Grossbarts fidelity to Judaism comes into question as the story
progresses. Grossbart asks Marx for a weekend pass a few weeks after Passover
so that he and his friends can visit relatives in St. Louis[...] [for] a whole
Passover dinner. W hen Marx denies Grossbart his request passes are never
given during basic training Grossbart accuses Marx of persecuting [him]
(187). Finally, Grossbart threatens to leave without the pass and Marx finally
submits to his request. W hen Grossbart returns, however, he tells Marx that
he and his friends had gone the wrong weekend and had used the pass not
to go to a Seder but to a Chinese restaurant. It has become obvious to Marx
at this point that Grossbarts requests for special treatment are based not on
an interest in following religious tradition but on his own self-interest. In this
way, Grossbart is one of those Roth characters who, in the words of Stephen
Wade, [use] Jewishness as a shield and a convenience (68).
Given the lengths Grossbart is willing to go to in order to avoid discom
fort, it is rather unsurprising when Marx learns that he has somehow gotten
exempted from being shipped to fight in the Pacific along with the other
privates. Because Nathan Marx now understands Grossbarts motivations, he
arranges to have Grossbart sent to the Pacific instead. After learning that the
safety Grossbart thought he had secured through manipulating his superiors
has been compromised by Marx, he confronts Marx and accuses him of being
an anti-Semite. Marxs actions, however, are far from anti-Semitic. As Jessica
Rabin submits, Marxs betrayal of Grossbart, ostensibly calling in a favor to
help out a Jewish kid but actually undermining Grossbarts manipulations,
seems to be an endorsement of personal integrity rather than of a single exclu
sionary category of identification (18). Marx has realized, in short, that it is
fairness, not favoritism that is the heart of equality. According to Dan Isaac, in
forcing Grossbart to fight in the Pacific
Sgt. Marx has taken an action that appears callous and even anti-Semitic, unless
understood as arising out of an honest conflict that profoundly wrestles with the
problem of how best to serve Jewish interests. The solution is one that sacrifices
the interests of one not very likeable member of the tribe to an abstract principle
of absolute justice. (189)

One early reviewer of Roth wrote of Defender of the Faith that it was the
only one of [the stories collected in Goodbye, CoLumbus\ that seems wholly
successful to me (Hyman 37). Likewise, Howe claimed that [n]either before
nor after Defender of the Faith [had] Roth written anything approaching
it in compositional rigor and moral seriousness (236). As Howe points out,
at least part of the success of this story is due to its moral complexities. Like
wise, Michael Rothberg writes of Defender that it treats moral and ethical

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dilemmas with great subdety (56). This moral and ethical subdety might
refer to Marxs last words in the text. As the privates ready themselves for war
and attempt to accept their fate, Marx claims that [b]ehind me, Grossbart
swallowed hard, accepting his. A nd then, resisting with all my will an impulse
to turn and seek pardon for my vindictiveness, I accepted my own (200). In
admitting that Marx acted vindictively he may be admitting that his actions
were less about doing what was right and more about getting even with a
man who has repeatedly taken advantage of him. Still, regardless of Marxs
motivations it is clear from the outcome of the story that Marx has received
a prophetic vision of universal justice (189). In the end, Marx has finally
refused to hand over any more of his sense of fairness and responsibility to the
seductive appeals of Jewish solidarity (Solotaroff 27).
There is one other aspect of Defender of the Faith that contributes to its
wholeness as a story. During Marxs first interaction with his commanding
officer Captain Paul Barrett, Barrett tells Marx that Id fight side by side with
a nigger if the fella proved to me he was a man. I pride myself.. .that Ive got an
open mind. Consequently, Sergeant, nobody gets special treatment here, for
the good o r the bad. All a mans got to do is prove himself.. .And I admire you.
I admire you because of the ribbons on your chest (166). Despite assurances
that Barrett has an open mind, his rhetoric here shows both Marx and the
reader that the opposite is true. A lesser writer would have made it impossible
for a reader to believe that someone as thoughtful and savvy as Marx would be
capable o f being manipulated by Grossbart for so long. However, in creating
an obviously racist (and probably anti-Semitic) man as Marxs commanding
officer, Roth has effectively [t] rapped [Marx] between two antipathies, two
grotesque distortions of attitudes toward Jewishness (Isaac 188) so much so
that it is believable that Marx would allow himself to be taken advantage of by
Grossbart. Moreover, amidst these two remarkably different attitudes toward
Judaism, Marx is forced to create an identity for himself. He sees both Gross
bart and Barrett as unattractive extremes and becomes instead the defender of
a democratic theory by which the accidents of birth give no exemption from
our common fate. He acts from a sense of justice that is, finally, humanistic in
its universality (Guttman 174). And this universal justice that Marx enacts in
the story is ultimately a form of universal sympathy.
The question remains, however, about what it is that so many Jewish readers
found unattractive in this story when it was first published. One aspect of the
story some readers might have found problematic was its treatment of Jewish tra
dition. After all, there is nothing immoral about Jewish soldiers requesting to be
allowed to attend religious services while serving in the armed forces. Moreover,
Grossbarts request to be allowed to remain kosher is not unreasonable. The con
text of the story is, of course, the end of World War Two and, therefore, Jewish
readers might be fair to criticize a story that would seem to belittle ones right to
practice the religious traditions that were threatened during the Holocaust. Still,

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as Roths text would support, the following of Jewish tradition is only important
for those who attempt to live with moral integrity and absolute universal justice
and sympathy. Michael Rothberg writes about another complaint many Jewish
readers had with the story. According to Rothberg,
[w]hat probably made the story so disturbing for some members of the Jewish
community was the supplementary, anticipatory suggestion, incarnated in Grossbart, that the emergence of consciousness of the extreme could so easily become
the occasion for sentimental, politically interested claims to ethnic solidarity. (57)

Readers were, in short, upset that Roth would anticipate Jewish favoritism
with a character such as Grossbart. Critics are right to be appalled by Grossbarts self-interest. However, the moral integrity of Marx ought to serve as an
antithesis to the lack of moral integrity of Grossbart. Moreover, Roths story is
not an indictment of Judaism as a religion. O n the contrary, Marxs universal
justice functions in the story as a defense of the faith rather than a rejection
of it. Readers who have found fault with Roths criticism o f certain Jewish
individuals would do well to look more closely at his affirmation of Marxs per
sonal integrity and his identity as the essential Jew of the story. Roth himself
summarizes his critics complaints writing that I had told the Gentiles what
apparently it would otherwise have been possible to keep secret from them:
that the perils of human nature afflict the members of our [Jewish] minor
ity (Jews 161). He goes on to defend his story claiming [t]hat I had also
informed [Gentiles] it was possible for there to be such a Jew as Nathan Marx
did not seem to bother anybody (161). In other words, Jews who have found
reason to criticize this story for the way Grossbart is represented as a Jew seem
to have overlooked the fact that Marx is a Jew as well.
ASSIMILATION IN ELI, THE FANATIC"
Like Goodbye, Columbus, Eli, the Fanatic is centered on suburban Jews
who are actively working to assimilate into American culture. For the Jews of
Woodenton, unlike Mr. and Mrs. Patimkin, assimilation is reached through
a rejection of religious identity. In the words of the title character, Woodenton is a progressive suburban community whose members, both Jewish and
Gentile, are anxious that their families live in comfort and beauty and seren
ity (261). Elis words are intentionally vague; in truth the Jewish members
of the predominantly WASPish Woodenton community have assimilated by
repress[ing their Jewishness] in order to smooth their entry into American
culture (Shostak 119). Therefore, when the openly Jewish Leo Tzuref along
with a nameless concentration camp survivor operates an Orthodox yeshiva
out of his home, many o f the towns Jewish residents become uncomfortable.
Because Eli is an attorney, he has been commissioned by the community to ask
Tzuref and his eighteen students to close the yeshiva on the grounds that it is
illegal to operate the school in a residential area. Initially, Eli is confident that

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he and the Jewish Woodenton residents are right because they are adhering to
American law he claims matter-of-factly that [the location of the yeshiva] is
a matter of zoning (251). Tzuref, however, sees that the Jews of Woodenton
use the law as an excuse to attempt to distance themselves from the Orthodox
Jews of the school. An early critic of Roth for instance claimed that, with this
story Roth means to condemn a society that turns zoning laws into subtle
instruments of persecution (Isaac 191). Thus, by asking Eli W hen is the law
that is the law not the law? (251). Tzuref attempts to appeal to Elis sense of
(Jewish) morality. Tzuref is establishing the difference between the laws of the
American legal system (of which Tzuref is in violation) and the laws o f Judaism
(of which Eli and the Jews of Woodenton are in violation).
The characterization of the Jews of Woodenton is significant in terms of
Roths very pointed condemnation of them. Ted Heller, a particularly vocal
member of the community, goes so far as to call the Orthodox Jews [gjoddam
fanatics (258). FJis letter to Tzuref is also very telling in regards to Elis con
nection to his Jewish identity:
W oodenton, as you may not know, has long been the home of well-to-do Protes
tants. It is only since the war that Jews have been able to buy property here, and
for Jews and Gentiles to live beside each other in amity. For this adjustment to
be made, both Jews and Gentiles alike have had to give up some o f their more
extreme practices in order not to threaten or offend the other. Certainly such
amity is to be desired. Perhaps if such conditions had existed in prewar Europe,
the persecution of the Jewish people, o f which you and those 18 children have
been victims, could not have been carried out with such success in fact, might
not have been carried out at all. (262)

According to Eli, the Woodenton Jews have given up their extreme practices in
order to live comfortably among non-Jews. However, the many Protestants of
Woodenton have no voice in Roths story. After all, it is the Jews who continually
assert their discomfort with the presence of the yeshiva. Therefore, the assimi
lated Jews of the town respond passionately to Tzuref and his yeshiva (ostensibly
without prompt from the Woodenton Gentiles) because in their paranoid [my
italics] and reactive suspicions, [the Woodenton Jews] consider themselves in
jeopardy, at risk of being seen as Jews (Aarons 9). Moreover, that Eli would
speculate to a group of Holocaust survivors that the Holocaust might have been
less successful or perhaps avoided altogether if European Jews had worked to
assimilate to European culture is both tactless and grossly uninformed. Halio
describes Eli as by no means heartless or insensitive (32), yet his words to
Tzuref certainly make him seem that way. Perhaps then Elis letter to Tzuref
functions to indicate how put upon Eli feels as a representative of his commu
nity. Put another way, given the nature of Elis transformation in the story, it may
be unfair to accuse him of being inconsiderate. He does, after all, feel forTzuref
and the children, [just as] he feels for his community, whose members increas
ingly pressure him to resolve the predicament they see themselves in (32).

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In his letter to Tzuref, Eli requests that [t]he religious, educational, and
social activities of the Yeshiva at Wooden to n ... be confined to the Yeshiva
grounds [and] Yeshiva personnel are welcomed in the streets and stores of
Woodenton provided they are attired in clothing usually associated with
American life in the 20th century (262). The second of Elis conditions refers
to the unnamed Orthodox Jew attired in a black hat [and] suit (261), the
traditional garb of Hasidic Jews. Tzuref sends an immediate and extremely
succinct response: The suit the gentleman wears is all hes got (263), which
instantly calls attention (both for Eli and for the reader) to the trauma caused
by the Holocaust.
Clothing, like food in Goodbye, Columbus, is associated with Jewish
identity in Eli, the Fanatic. For the Jews of Woodenton, the Hasidic Jews
black suit and hat undeniably identifies him not only as distinctively Jew
ish but as distinctively different from the other inhabitants of Woodenton.
Victoria Aarons claims that the Jews of Woodenton are to the yeshiva Jews
what the gentiles are to the Jews of W oodenton...the Woodenton yeshiva
calls to attention that there are Jews, calls attention to the Jews as a flagrant
symbol of difference (16). Shostak, on the other hand, argues that [t] he
intense discomfort the Woodenton Jews feel in the presence of [the Orthodox
Jews] who are simply attempting to be the Jewish selves they know (and were
prohibited and nearly annihilated during the lives in Europe from which
they have escaped) finds a focus in their appearance, especially their clothing
(119). Thus, the presence of the yeshiva is just as problematic to the Wooden
ton Jews as is the presence of the Hasidic refugee who is easily distinguished
by his black clothing. Both bring unwanted attention to the Jewish identities
that the towns Jews have sought to undermine for the sake o f assimilating.
Therefore, when Eli dresses himself in the Hasids black suit he is distinguish
ing himself from his fellow Woodenton Jews, who define themselves by their
accomplishments in the American economy (Halio 21).
Though critics generally praise Eli, the Fanatic as one of the better sto
ries in the collection, there are many who have criticized it. Stanley Hymen
claims that though the story reaches one high point of power and beauty...
the rest of the story is rambling and diffuse (37). Likewise, Irving and Har
riet Deer write that Elis transformation cannot be understood or accepted by
his neighbors, for it is private and also dishonest in the sense that Eli can no
more own the experiences that make orthodox dress a truthful expression of
the Greenies identity, than he can disown that part of himself which belongs
to Woodenton (qtd. in Guttman 177). These sorts of critiques seem to be
unfairly based on the storys basic limitations. Roth ends his story by claiming
that the sedative Eli receives from the hospital interns did not touch it down
where the blackness had reached (298), which indicates that what the reader
has witnessed is Elis first step toward a longer journey of spiritual enlighten
ment. This ending, in short, signifies that Elis epiphany will likely precipi-

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tate a lasting change in terms of his acceptance of his cultural (and perhaps
religious) identity. Halio, for instance, reads the story as an exposure of the
essential truth concerning the loss of values, of tradition and identity [that]
Eli Peck finally comes to recognize and, in his bizarre but necessary way, tries
to restore (35). In a broader sense, Isaac asserts that, taken as a whole, Eli,
the Fanatic explicates what Goodbye, Columbus merely implies: Ameri
can Judaism has become the willing servant of an immoral society, corrupted
by the very force it should oppose (191). The Wooden ton Jews, in short,
have lost sympathy with Tzuref and the other Holocaust survivors they
have, therefore, denied the ethical obligations of their Jewish identities just
as they have denied their ethnic identities to their WASPish neighbors and
themselves. Thus, the perception...that [Roths] fiction has compromised
the integrity of Jewish-American cultural identity (Parrish, The End of
Identity 85) is both inaccurate and off point. W ith stories such as Eli, the
Fanatic Roth is working to expose the hypocrisy inherent in claiming to be
Jewish while refusing to practice the Jewish principal of universal sympathy.
RELIGIOUS IN TEG R ITY IN GOODBYE, COLUMBUS
A ND FIVE SH O R T STORIES

The remaining stories in Goodbye, Columbus (Epstein and You Cant Tell
a Man by the Song He Sings) are not necessarily relevant to this discussion,
and therefore have not been discussed in this essay. Though both of the sto
ries could be seen as dealing with elements of Jewishness, neither of them
directly addresses the contradictory or hypocritical nature of specific Jews
which seems to be one major focus of the other stories in the collection. Still,
it would be reductive to attempt to come to any singular conclusion about
Goodbye, Columbus as a whole. Despite the fact that Roth was only twentysix when the collection was published, Goodbye, Columbus's depths and
complexities] show him . . . to be a surprisingly mature writer (Halio 36).
Generally speaking, throughout the four stories that I have discussed, Roth
seems to be working not only to expose the inconsistencies that existed within
some modern Jewish-American individuals but also to show individual Jews
struggling with their Jewish identities. Osherson writes that Judaism is often
identified with a particular set of beliefs or with specific religious observances
or with ethnic identities (bagels and lox, heres my Judaism). Yet our Jewish
identities are often expressed by what we do and the choices we make; identity
is truly provisional to our choices and behaviors in the world (240). Many
Roth scholars would deny that Roth is, in any way, a moralist in the tradi
tional sense. As Robert Greenberg argues, Roth distinguishes between artistic
and moral responsibility; and regarding his artistic work, he disavows moral
responsibility (496). Especially in terms of his later work, Roths tone is too
cynical and too reliant on comic detachment (494) to be called moralistic.
Thus, I am not making an argument that Roth should be read as a moralist in

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Goodbye, Columbus. Rather, my argument is that whether Roth is intention

ally being a moralist or not, with Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories he
was writing a collection that is consistent with the basic moral principles of
the Jewish faith. Roth does this by showing an acute awareness that some Jews
tend to view Jewish identity as a set o f traditions as well as an ethnic identity,
as opposed to a way o f acting. In Goodbye, Columbus the Patimkins iden
tify with their religious identities (though they aim to surgically remove that
identity from their children) but assimilate by means of becoming American
materialists and succumbing to the alluring nature of American social hier
archy. Jewish authority figures in The Conversion of the Jews define their
Jewishness in contrast to the Gentiles in general and to the Christians in par
ticular. Private Grossbart utilizes his Jewish identity in order to receive special
privilege in Defender o f the Faith. And in Eli, the Fanatic, Roth is con
cerned with the failure to acknowledge Jewish suffering (even by other Jews)
(Rothberg 56). Thus, by criticizing the way contemporary Jews act, Roth has,
perhaps unwittingly, aligned himself with the Old Testament prophets who
condemned Jews for their lack of sympathy.
Still, Roths criticisms are aimed not at the institution of Judaism as a whole
but at certain individuals within it who, in the aftermath of the Holocaust,
came to undermine what is most essential about Jewish identity. Osherson
writes that while he was growing up in an affluent suburban neighborhood
(outside of New York City) in the 1950s he came to associate Judaism with
smugness, insularity, and materialism (3). And though readers might easily
find fault with many Jewish characters in Goodbye, Columbus, those readers
would do well to remember those Jews who oppose and overcome them.
Though Neil Klugman is in many ways a flawed individual, he does come to
see the Patimkins as a materialistic and morally compromised Jewish family.
Oscar Freedman refuses to allow God to be defined by tension between Jews
and Christians. Nathan Marx rejects Jewish favoritism in favor of sympathetic
and universal justice. And Eli Peck comes to differentiate himself from his
fellow Woodenton Jews by making a connection not just with formerly perse
cuted Orthodox European Jews but with himself and his true Jewish identity.
And as Parrish contends, his protagonists story matters to the extent that it
reflects the transformation of the group of which he is a part (The End of
Identity 87).
In The Facts: A Novelists Autobiography, Roth writes at length about his
struggles with Jewish critics throughout his early career. In one of the most
memorable scenes in the book, he discusses his participation on a panel dis
cussion, along with Ralph Ellison and Pietro di Donato, at Yeshiva University
in 1962. After the three participants spoke, the moderator directed his first
question at Roth: Mr. Roth, would you write the same stories youve writ
ten if you were living in Nazi Germany? (127). Roth discusses his inability
to give any satisfactory answer to the moderators questions and after twenty

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minutes realizes that I was not just opposed but hated. Still, Roth claims
that he had no intention as a writer of coming to be known as controversial
and, in the beginning, had no idea that my stories would prove repugnant
to ordinary Jews (124). The fact that Roth is so consistently nonplussed by
critiques such as this one demonstrates that such readings say more about the
anxieties of the reader than they do about Roth. And as Isaac states, Roths
collection serves to pose a valid question to his readership: To what extent
can a civilization compromise its values in order to survive, and still retain its
distinct and original integrity? (192).
NOTES
1. I refer to both the book, Goodbye, Columbus and die novella, Goodbye, Colum
bus frequently throughout this article. From this point on the italicized Goodbye,
Columbus refers to the entire collection [Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories] and
the non-italicized Goodbye, Columbus refers to the title story of the collection.
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