Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

There’s No Place For The Poor In America’s Jewish Communities

Hello,

Thank you for publishing Sharon Pomerantz’s important essay about class anxiety and Jewishness. One could easily say that Judaism in its American manifestations turns us away, just as much it turns us off when many of us face financial and class barriers.

Image by Kurt Hoffman

I find this to be at the center of my own lifelong struggle with my Jewishness, and Ms. Pomerantz’s piece made me feel real physical and psychic pain as it made me relive some of my own childhood experiences. I note she recounts 1978; 1960 was bad, too, when my father died and my mother had to raise me, 4 years old, and my sister, 6. We were two blocks from a synagogue. But we couldn’t attend. We were too poor, and my mother bemoaned her pariah status as a widow. This was West Los Angeles. Everybody was Jewish. This meant I was eternally excluded from everything Jewish my classmates experienced. I was a pariah, and continue to feel this way today as a 61 year old single lesbian. Believe me, not much has changed since the 60s.

Of course, many will argue that today there are many opportunities, including adult education. It’s just not the same as living Judaism in a family situation. One grows up as an outsider. I mean, even if somebody invites you to a bat or bar mitzvah, you don’t have anything to wear or bring because you are poor. And you don’t know what’s going on. It’s horrible and scarring and drives many of us away. To this day, as you can probably discern, I’m troubled by this truly unwelcome facet of Jewish life in America. It seems to betray everything I’ve tried to learn about Jewish faith and culture independently.

I suspect Ms. Pomerantz’s piece resonates with those of us who now walk around with profound spiritual longing and nowhere to go to learn and sing and pray. It’s our tribe’s loss. It’s a shonda . Please continue to explore this topic as we watch the gulf between rich and poor widen in this country.

Yours truly,

Dena J. Schoen, Seattle, Wa

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.