Immature Jews

I noticed in Jonathan Franzen’s novel, Freedom, that many of characters had some form of Jewish ancestry.  Richard, Jonathan, and Patty (along with her children) all had Jewish roots.  To me this seemed to be a disproportionally large amount of Jews, especially because Richard, Patty, and Jonathan were not related and did not connect through their shared Judaism.  After some reflection, I noticed that the Jews in the novel shared the common trait of lacking maturity.

Walter noticed Richard’s Jewfro their first night of college, his most obvious identifier of being Jewish, and later that night Richard says misogynistic comments about girls (140).  His misogyny, which had came from the relative absence of his Jewish father, defines him throughout the novel.  This causes him to never be able to develop a strong, long-term relationship with another woman, so he never is able to marry and move on to his next stage in life.  Patty’s mom is also mentioned to have been Jewish, thus making Patty half-Jewish.  Patty also never had a close relationship with her mom, a slight rejection of her Judaism.  Patty’s immaturity is seen through how she never is capable of getting over Richard throughout the course of Freedom.  Both of their perpetual childish attitudes prevent them from moving on with their lives.

By having a Jewish mother, Joey is also technically Jewish.  Jonathan even exclaims that Joey “could immigrate to Israel right now, no questions asked” (268).  Jonathan himself is a full-blooded Jew, and it is interesting to compare the maturity of Joey and Jonathan in relation to their Judaism.  Joey discusses his views with Jonathan’s dad, who likes him a lot for his curiosity for his religion.  Jonathan later freaks out on Joey because he was jealous.  Joey, in turn, thinks that Jonathan needed to “fucking grow up already” (289).  Joey is less Jewish than Jonathan is and he happens to be more mature in dealing with bad situations.

I do not believe Franzen intentionally meant for his Jewish characters to be less mature than the other people in the novel.  However, their Judaism seemed to catalyze the exposure of their immaturity.