Kosher-salt-of-the-earth

As I've already mentioned, he who praises the honest country folk insults Jews, whether he means to or not, thanks to a long tradition of praising the one group being used as code for insulting the other. This tradition can be traced to Jews' historical non-ownership of land in Christendom--those who can't work the land, however wealthy, lack the privilege of being salt-of-the-earth, 'just a small-town girl,' or however you want to phrase it. Does this make all paeans to village life virtual Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Not at all. But what's worth considering is that there are two major cultural (that is, not directly wealth-based) hierarchies in the States. One is the Bourdieusian (to use a very blue-state term) hierarchy, atop which sit the arugula-eating Vassar grads. The other is the hierarchy of authenticity, of family values (because obviously no one in a city has any values), of loving the good ol' U S of A (because again, no one from an urban area ever, say, enlists in the military), and of being American and nothing but. The more one is a 'coastal elite,' the less one is an elite of the other kind. Both of these categories are elite in their own ways, and indeed, New Yorkers feel insulted when other Americans imply that we don't count, and yes, especially around this time of year.

Fine. So my question is, how do we reconcile the idea of Jew-as-cosmopolitan with the oh-so-common accusation of Jew-as-parochial?

Jewish parochialism has not a thing to do with Jewish life in rural America, or rural anywhere, for that matter. To point out, as some have, that there are Jews living in small-town U.S.A. is like reminding us of the existence of black Jews, Chinese Jews, and so on. They exist, and their stories are worth telling, but they have a fairly small impact on what's recognized--by Jews or gentiles--as Jewish culture. No, parochial Judaism is a phenomenon specific to city life, or at any rate to places with enough Jews to make being parochial a possibility. And, though I think 'parochial' is an insult best avoided, you will find among Jews, especially in large cities, something remarkably like small-town values. How is condemning intermarriage any less 'family values' than condemning condom usage? How is clinging to pastrami and one religion different from clinging to guns and a different one? (Pastrami will kill us all, but more slowly.) The only reason 'parochial' is an insult when it's about a Jew but a compliment when directed at Sarah Palin (I mean, at the name I dare not speak) is that for some reason, there are those (ahem, W-M) who think particularist Jewish interests are anti-American, but particularist Alaskan (?) interests are purest red-white-and-blue.

It's because of this phenomenon, parochial Judaism that we should see a difference between a New Yorker (of any faith, Jewish included) who fled small-town life in order to find more interesting/better-paid work or tolerance of his lifestyle, and someone who lives in his community of origin and socializes primarily with those of similar background and values, but whose 'hometown' happens to be the Upper West Side. As with all other groups, there are Jews who feel uncomfortable with small-town values (that is, with many aspects of Jewish communal life) and look elsewhere; the difference is that they (alas, we) can explore the world, as it were, without leaving home. But that doesn't change the existence of Jewish communities with their own version of small-town values. Not every Jew is Portnoy.

So, back to what was originally supposed to be the point: in politics, anti-cosmopolitanism is crass but fair game, so long as it targets only cosmopolitans-by-choice. It's acceptable for those who stayed in a small town to resent (out of pride or jealousy) those who left, and the values that caused them to leave. And, often enough, those who left return the favor. Anti-cosmopolitan that consists of blanket condemnation of city-dwellers, that condemns those who have never been to a Walmart not because they're snobs but because the store does not exist where they live and they don't have cars, is the anti-cosmopolitanism that segues into potentially offensive territory.