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What does "out of town" mean?
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amother
Pewter


 

Post Thu, Nov 12 2015, 11:05 pm
I lived in Brooklyn most of my life, we moved out of town a few years ago.
I love the fact that everyone is friendly and accepting, no one judges everyone and everything. I belonged to a shul in NY but find I enjoy OOT shul more. In NY, women had nothing to do with the shul and here we're very welcome and stay for the Kiddush etc.

A few weeks ago, a local family came to shul on shabbos, kids were messy and dirty. I was watching a few people who were so nice and friendly to her, talking to the kids, not noticing or caring how they looked. I never saw this type of thing in NY, messy kids were always ostracized.
Every simcha, is a community event.
My kids do way better in smaller schools, no bullying, no brand name checking etc.

I don't think I would ever go back to living in NY, I didn't want to leave NY initially as OOT is "nebby", I've changed my tune!
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gold21




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Nov 12 2015, 11:16 pm
To me, out of town translates as: "not Brooklyn, Monsey, or Lakewood"

A neighborhood where I have found so many like-minded people and where I have made real friends (not just courteous neighbors or acquaintances), that's what out of town means to me. Where all the boys in the area play baseball/football together in the local park.

That's what getting out of brooklyn has shown me.

And you don't have to move to North Dakota to find that. Out of town doesn't have to be a million miles away from family. It just has to be a friendly neighborhood.
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Iymnok




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Nov 13 2015, 3:10 am
When in seminary and really encountering the term oot on a more regular basis I felt I had to define it. I decided that according to a New Yorker there are five countries: New York, Israel, Europe, England and Out of Town.
NJ, the mountains and Florida are 'suburbs' of NY. Australia is in Europe...

(Why is it called town? When going 'downtown' they call it going to the city.
Seattle is the 5th largest city in the country, yet it's viewed as Hicksville?)
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DrMom




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Nov 13 2015, 4:21 am
Iymnok wrote:
When in seminary and really encountering the term oot on a more regular basis I felt I had to define it. I decided that according to a New Yorker there are five countries: New York, Israel, Europe, England and Out of Town.
NJ, the mountains and Florida are 'suburbs' of NY. Australia is in Europe...

(Why is it called town? When going 'downtown' they call it going to the city.
Seattle is the 5th largest city in the country, yet it's viewed as Hicksville?)

LOL. I actually think all these Broooklynites who call anything beyond Brooklyn "out of town" are far more provincial than most residents of these so-called "out of town" areas.
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fleetwood




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Nov 13 2015, 11:08 am
And once again it is acceptable to bash Brooklyn. Lovely!
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amother
Lilac


 

Post Fri, Nov 13 2015, 11:24 am
It goes both ways... OOT are characterized as nebby, unsophisticated, country bumpkins who get up with the roosters and tend to their garden before going to their minimalistic schools that can, in no way or possibility, be as academically rigorous (secular and Judaic) and frum. It's just not conceivable!
And yes, when I went to sleep away camp, seminary, and even lived in NY for a while I heard all this from NYers. We get stigmatized in shidduchim too.... I heard repeatedly that "why date/marry someone from X? Y?" when living there- as if living OOT (or even growing up OOT but in NY now) made us a lower catagory of people...they didn't realize I was a OOTner too. shock
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gold21




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Nov 13 2015, 12:16 pm
There are "out of town" places located in the city, so they wouldn't be able to get up with their roosters... Chicago, LA, Queens, Lower East Side, etc
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shaimac1




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Nov 16 2015, 1:56 pm
I live in a OOT community called South Bend, IN. What I love about living in a small Torah community is that everyone knows each other and sincerely cares about each other. For example when someone has a baby the whole community does what it can to provide meals, help with carpool and babysitting and really help the family without the family ever asking! It means that you know the families of the kids in your children's classes and you feel apart of something. I have only lived in smaller Torah Communities, but I really love knowing people when I walk in the store or community and not the feeling I get in big communities where I know no one. If you are truly looking to leave NY find out what really is important to you and find a community that can provide that Smile.
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semandbeyond




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Jan 09 2016, 11:13 pm
We live in Richmond, VA. We moved from a larger community and I have a lot of IT friends. I can tell you that it is nothing like in-town in the sense that there are no labels, or boxes to fit into. You can do whatever you want and no one will judge you (for better or worse). There is no keeping up with the Jones or comparisons and people aren't focused on materialism (even though some people are more wealthy than others.). Everyone just does their own thing. It is a totally different mentality and is very refreshing coming from more IT.
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wiki




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Jan 16 2016, 9:12 pm
I grew up OOT and with many family members who are proud "Out of Towners" while I now live "In Town," I've come to realize that the terms can mean so many different things that they are not useful on their own, without explaining better what you mean. When people from my town refer to their "Out-of-Towniness," they might mean any of the following:

--Close-knit community values, knowing everyone in the neighborhood (however, not every OOT place is a small community, and there are close-knit communities in-town, too!)
--This goes together with the above, but people who are close to their neighbors because they are NOT near their families. When I was growing up, we all had our family friends who we shared Pesach and Purim seuda with every single year. When I moved in-town, it was surprising for me to see how unusual this is, and that where people live near relatives, holidays are not shared with friends in the same way at all.
--That sense that whether you make it to minyan/enroll your child/go to the shiur, etc. you MATTER, because you help contribute to the critical mass (again, this can also exist in town, if you find it!)
--A generally far lower concentration of adults above age 40 with formal Jewish educations.
--Far fewer cultural standards about practices that are not religious, but are simply part of the culture "in-town", from the protocols about making a simcha, phrases you say at certain moments, the concept of getting dressed up to attend a Chanukah party or Parent-teacher-conferences, etc. Many people who have never been In Town have no idea that there is all of this additional cultural material which to In-Towners is seen as simply part of being Jewish.
--Less bourgeois culture in general, fewer champagne tastes and less brand-consciousness, perhaps also less of an expectation of dolling-up young women (but there are classy people OOT too--the cool kids growing up were still the cool kids with high-end clothes and gadgets!)
--Far more awareness of gentile coworkers and neighbors--probably plenty of non-Jews on the block
--A less aggressive, pushy, or brutally honest personality (which anyway is I think only tolerated as a cultural quirk in very specific in-town communities)
--More diversity of religious ideology (yes and no--in my town, everyone was pretty much the same in their baal-teshuva soul-searchiness, yet it made them FEEL diverse!)
--More toleration and friendship with different kinds of Jews (again, this is the reputation. I can't say that it is always so true. Small communities can have far more acrimonious community politics, because the resources are so much smaller)
--A far, far higher concentration of baalei teshuva and geirim

I will add that with the Internet, the distance between in-town and out-of-town is getting smaller. People living out-of-town are far more aware of the Jewish culture in other communities than they were before. Of the under-35 set, couples out-of-town are likely to be yeshiva and seminary-educated, and have shared in more cultural experiences with in-towners than the adults a generation or two older.

Out-of-town communities still have a lot to offer, but it is overstating things to suggest that these positives really always exist out-of-town, or that they are really always lacking in-town.
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