Thread on Reddit - Feeling uncomfortable in Jewish spaces because you grew up poor?

Exactly what it sounds like. I’m in my early 40s, married with a young kid. My wife is a lapsed Catholic, I’m a lapsed Jew but I want my son to have exposure to his Jewish heritage especially in times like these.

I grew up in a family in the NYC suburbs in a place where the US-born Jewish community was very, very upper middle class. The only Jewish people I knew growing up who had problems making ends meet were Israeli or Soviet immigrants. My parents struggled with addiction and mental health stuff and we were definitely out of place in the larger community. It unfortunately left a really bad taste in my mouth around religion the way my family couldn’t afford synagogue membership and had to beg (literally beg) for a free membership each year and be humiliated by having to show strangers their taxes in order to belong to the congregation.

After my parents divorced my mom started becoming more Orthodox and started getting involved with all these kiruv organizations who would help us with bills and food but would then literally check up on us to see if we were being shomer shabbos and keeping kosher— even as a teenager it was really clear to me their help was coming with strings attached.

I’m financially better off now and able to give my family a much better life, but my experiences growing up left a bad taste in my mouth around paying for a synagogue membership and being in these spaces where it was taken for granted everyone grew up middle class or better.

Does anyone else feel like they’re in the same boat?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jewish/comments/17ot58d/feeling_uncomfortable_in_jewish_spaces_because/" Many people in my synagogue have no idea what their neighbors are struggling with""For SURE feeling what you're feeling. I'm not involved in my local Jewish community because even if I could afford to be I don't agree with the costs involved. It's ridiculous. There's a fee to be a member, outrageous fees for special activities (including religious holidays), fees for speakers, a fricken gift shop . . . I'm just over it. To me, a community is a place that wants you there and a place you want to be, no strings attached. I've never found that where I live. So my "community" is online. And just to add a little snark, every woman at the local synagogue goes to the same surgeon and has the exact same nose job. Ugh."" They say if I'm more active in the community, they'll help us. The thing is that I can't afford to be more active for financial reasons. It's crazy to me.""There were a few classmates whose parents even refused to let them come to my house because it wasn’t in the “right neighborhood” and they would have to…take the subway. I still feel a bit of impostor syndrome from the more secular community here, because so many of my Jewish friends are doctors, lawyers, working in finance…they don’t judge me for it but I can’t help but feel like I don’t quite fit in.""When I tell them I actually grew up in a low-income household, I receive blank stares. They don't like being too close to someone who has experienced it. They like to bourgeoisesplain class to me.""I was bullied in regular school by kids who threw quarters at me. They thought it was hilarious that I'd pick up their loose change and I was horrendously mocked when I said I normally never had sneakers that cost more than $20.

I came from a family that never went on vacation, shopped based on coupons, didn't own a computer/ modern tech, never let us buy school lunch, and has to say No to any invitations we had that required us to pay for something. Single income household.

Never felt discriminated against by our synagogue but there absolutely were people there who viewed us differently. Having money was important in my local community, so it wasn't a Jewish thing but a classist thing."

"there is an obsession with/glorification of education in a lot of jewish circles so there’s that too"

" They also tended to talk about poor people or people on government assistance in the abstract. When I mentioned that I grew up on section 8 housing, they were shocked"

" I dropped out of high school and started working full time at 17 and totally remember going to some Jewish community event when I was 21 and getting stared at like I had three heads when I told people I wasn't in college and was working full-time... Or when I finally went to college later in my twenties, going to Hillel at my big public university and having all the conversations be about where people were going for summer break when I was planning on working 60 hour weeks between semesters to save $$ up.

" The otherness I get from well meaning Jewish peers is unreal. I distinctly remember one time going to a Jewish outing and mentioning being close to finishing college — one asked me if it was my masters or PhD. When I said my bachelor’s, they actually scoffed and said Youre 28 — you don’t already have that?. No, some of us worked at 16 and didn’t get to go to college"