Defying Normative Male Identities: The Transgressive Possibilities of Jewish Boyhood

Abstract

This qualitative study discovers teenage boys whose connections to Judaism and Jewish life offered them resilience and contextual opportunities for identity development. Those who have active, positive Jewish identities describe adaptations that are more independent of adolescent peer norms and freer, in terms of masculine pressures, than less Jewishly identified boys. Finding countercultural vitality in these boys’ masculine identities, reflecting their rootedness in community support, contributes to the understanding of male development on a number of levels. For the Jewish community, the study findings underscore how critically important culturally based connections can be for boys. In a world dominated by restrictive ideals for being male, a boy’s ability to consider alternatives is likely to depend on his relationships and access to other ecological resources. And for those hoping for a better world for boys, and for everyone else, these teens’ commitments convey the essential fact, that just as children cocreate childhood, boys can help to reinvent boyhood.