S/o Please help me be less judgemental to "In towners"

33055

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 3:11 pm

icebreaker wrote:

I always wonder what exactly people mean when they say OOT? Is it just Brooklyn? Or the major frum areas, Monsey, Lakewood, 5 Towns? I live on the Upper East Side and the shul I go to is MO and the people are friendly, warm, and welcoming. When I go into Brooklyn, though, I have a hard time because I feel like people are watching me. They probably aren't or maybe they are but it's just something about Brooklyn, and really, only BP, that makes me not want to return. The atmosphere is just so...serious. Everybody looks the same, dresses the same, which yeah, I suppose they would with a large Chassidish population. It just feels so stifling.

They are watching you and taking your measure at a glance. They are checking your tznius.

hotzenplotz

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 4:08 pm

I may be generalizing, but people from out of Brooklyn are offensive to put it mildly, to Brooklynites.
They are demeaning and openly jealous. They think that the maloch of agmos nefesh has skipped us, and you will find the general Jewish publications jump on the bandwagon.
They directly and indirectly badmouth Brooklyn. It is simply politically correct to throw up your jealousies, insecurities and unfulfillments onto us Brooklynites.

Although, I am terribly allergic to the ragweed in an out of town community I went for Shabbosim to enable my husband to see his brother. Of course, My nieces and brother in law never failed to let us know that we city people are animals out of the cage (when my children were quiet, and shy. They non-failingly announced that we never stopped shopping and decorating the house when we partly managed on hand me downs.

I took a close family friend out of a mental rehab center to a family wedding in Israel( which was financially and emotionally straining). Sure enough, at the Shabos Sheva Brochos the cousin sitting next to me announced that people in Brooklyn have no values whatsoever!

In reality, Brooklynites go places and are classy enough to respect the new culture/environment. We DO NOT MAKE THESE HORRENDOUS COMMENTS.
Please ... If Jews cannot have a good eye on the larger Jewish communities in galus what do we expect from the non-Jews!?!!!

amother

Jetblack

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 5:47 pm

I totally agree with hotzenplotz and I am an out of towner. I myself used to be extremely judgmental toward those from the tri-state area. I came to realize that the ONLY reason I thought of in-towners as shallow people who are only into clothing, styles and having ostentatious homes is because the people I know from NY are like that. It would be extremely unfair to believe that all people from the tri state area are like that.
As a matter of fact where I live OOT there are loads of people who live beyond their means to keep up with the joneses, and plenty of people who knock down perfectly good homes to build little mansions.
The same way in towners do not want to be generalized as people who only care about shopping, and clothing, and renovating homes etc etc. I think out of towners should not be generalized as people who are nerdy and do not care about how they look or dress and what kind or car or house they have.

amother

Tan

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 6:41 pm

When I lived in NY for school, I went to a family for Shabbos... The wife was making small talk and mentioned that when looking for shidduchim "you can't be too careful about people from out of town. How do you know they are frum or even Jewish?" And she went on and on about this.
Needless to say, I never heard comments like that in any OOT city I lived in and I didn't go back to them for a Shabbos meal again.

I have also felt like an outcast the way I was treated. I wore a winter coat that wasn't in the latest style so was told that I should get a new one to fit in. Or when I went back as a married woman I got stares for using a Graco.

Fox

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 7:01 pm

Really, NYers can't win. They love to describe the fast-pace, in-your-face nature of life in NY, where no quarter is asked and none given. Of course, that causes a bit of a problem when OOTers actually believe the stereotype.

FWIW, I see this as a generational and/or historical issue.

Thirty years ago or so, the majority of Brooklynites were very, very provincial. Most hadn't traveled beyond the Tri-State area, and many had never left Brooklyn. The real sophisticates might have gone to Miami for a brief vacation. I remember traveling to Brooklyn shortly after I was married in 1985, and repeating any of the questions we were asked about life in the Midwest would constitute loshen hora. Suffice it to say that for most of Brooklynites in 1985, the world ended, if not at the Hudson River, at least somewhere in NJ.

But in the 90s, things started changing. First of all, airline deregulation during the Reagan era made it much cheaper to fly. People started traveling more, both for business and pleasure. They saw more of the outside world and became a great deal more cosmopolitan.

Cheap airline tickets also made "OOT" not so far away. It became possible to fly to Cleveland, Chicago, Atlanta, etc., for a simcha and return the same day or early the next morning. One relative of mine claims that, depending on traffic, he can get to Chicago faster than he can get to Lakewood.

As the Internet gained traction in the early 2000s, the trend became even more pronounced. Now it was possible to "know" people all over the country and all over the world. Look how many of us have learned about different Jewish communities just through Imamother?! This simply accelerated the increasing worldliness of Jews in Brooklyn (and everywhere else).

Truthfully, attitudes have changed a great deal, and we OOTers need to let go of longstanding resentments. Yes, we've all been treated at one time or another like something to be scraped off a shoe by somebody who thinks the earth's axis runs between J and K in the low teens, but it's time to give credit where it's due. There are fewer and fewer people like that every year, and more and more people who realize that we all have something to complain about -- no matter where we live.

I'm sure there are still holdovers -- people who somehow missed the flattening of the world during the past 30 years. However, they are not only an increasingly small minority, they are a pitiable minority. However you choose to define NYC elite, they are not it. They are the equivalent of the popular girls in a small-town high school. Their swagger says more about their paucity of experience and lack of interest in the outside world than about their personal merits. If they attempt to make you feel inadequate, remind yourself that it is they who missed the boat, not you.

amother

Floralwhite

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 7:01 pm

amother wrote:

Many people are hesitant to date those from out of their town (not out of the town or in town just from a different town) if they don't have resources there to get real information about the potential spouse and have to rely on strangers.

amother

Beige

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 7:04 pm

amother wrote:

By OOT, she meant Flatbush vs Boro Park right?

A Graco, Chas V'Shalom. Wink

Fox

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 7:07 pm

amother wrote:

It's also hard when you're geographically challenged. A shidduch in my family was shterred several years ago when a family claimed that "No one ever heard of these people!" Turns out they didn't realize that Minneapolis and Indianapolis are two separate cities in two separate states. They called contacts in the wrong city. The shadchan pointed this out to them, but they dug in deeper, refusing to admit they'd made such a mistake, arguing that they shouldn't be expected to know the difference.

allthingsblue

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 7:15 pm

Fox wrote:

Disaster averted. These people sound like they're too full of themselves to make good mechutonim anyway.

Mommyg8

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 7:17 pm

I honestly think it's a cultural thing, New Yorkers in general are just ... different. I used to work in Manhattan, and people there are just rude, aggressive, and not nice, and if you're not wearing the right clothes, you're nothing. I am not talking about the Jewish part of Manhattan, but it does rub off. Also, in New York, if you want to get anything at all you have to push... and push hard.

When I moved to Lakewood so many years ago, I couldn't believe the difference in culture. Again, I am talking about the non-Jews. The cashiers smile at you and make small talk, random people on line with you will commiserate about the weather - and in general, the pace of life is just so much slower, and nicer.

I honestly think it's a New York thing.

mommy3b2c

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 7:37 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

I live in New York and Shmooze with random cashiers and people on line all the time.

amother

Scarlet

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 8:20 pm

I've lived in Brooklyn all my life. My friends tell me I'm free spirited cuz I do my thing and am cool to get a mani on ave j in a snood (no way I'm shvitzing in a wig when it's 90' out.) I never worry what ppl think of me. Perhaps that's why I never understood the stereotype. Then my daughter started going to school. She's in a mainstream popular Flatbush school with a good reputation.
The friendliest moms reply if I say hello. The majority avoid eye contact and either don't hear me or r ignoring me when I speak to them. Afternoon pickup is literally a bunch of moms standing silently. If there is a conversation happening I can be sure it's between people who know each other outside of school.
Women pass the crossing guard and security every single day with out saying hello. Even worse are the light lipped strained smiles.
The preschool principal is just rude. She actually cut me off mid sentence by saying "good, I'm glad we had this conversation" and turned away! On another occasion she suggested I find a new therapist for my daughter -" someone younger, u want someone who's with it.."
My neighbor told me her daughter and friends aren't thrilled with their teacher "truth is she's older overweight and doesn't dress well"
My Yeshiva experience with my son has been so wonderful I wasn't expecting this. I've been living in Brooklyn all my life and have encountered the occasional self absorbed judgemental or condescending person, but I had no idea this is what mainstream Flatbush is like. I am so sad for my daughter.

thunderstorm

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 8:44 pm

I did not read the thread , just the OPs post. I'm sorry you had this experience. I'm sure you have been very hurt by this and rightfully so. What's weird is that I remember that OOT girls were the "cool" and "popular" girls. Both in camp, highschool and seminary. They were always looked up at and everyone would vie for their attention.
It seems like you were surrounded by insensitive people and it had nothing to do with in town or out of town.
In regard to the adults. I find that if you don't fit into a box nowadays you are just not part of the in crowd, whether you are from out of town or from in town. I grew up in Brooklyn and live in Monsey. I'm not your typical run of the mill gal, so I'm perceived as "weird" or "different", but I take it as a compliment. Sometimes when we feel insecure about ourselves we tend to assume what other people are thinking of us . It's not that they are necessarily thinking that of you.

amother

Aubergine

Sun, Sep 17 2017, 11:53 pm

All I will say is this: no girl from Detroit or Atlanta would fail to include her city and state if she includes her home address on her shidduch resume. Girls from those "intown" places do it all the time. Like we're supposed to know that the East 19th Street she lives on is in Crooklyn? I'm guessing she's from Schnooklyn, at any rate.
. The house numbers in Manhattan don't go that high, and if she were from Pittsburgh or LA she would have said so. There's probably an East 19th Street in half the cities in the US but those in town girls, bless their little hearts, as far as theyre concerned there's only one and it's in THEIR town and to heck with anyone who doesn't know it.