Without the menorah, she's just nerdy; without the glasses, she's just Jewish.
Jews are, perhaps, the originators of the modern nerd stereotype. Why? Maybe their long, scholarly tradition, maybe their immigrant past (comparable to Asian and Nerdy, the Bollywood Nerd, and African migrant versions of Black and Nerdy), maybe their overbearing Education Mamas, maybe for some other weird reason. But for whatever reason, you will rarely see a stupid Jewish character on TV (unless he or she is more of a Ditzy Genius or Genius Ditz). In Real Life, many prominent doctors, lawyers, authors, scientists, and philosophers have been of Jewish descent. Nearly 20% of all Nobel Prizes have been awarded to people of Jewish descent
, which is curious as the entire Jewish population constitutes 0.2% of the total world population; meaning that their share of winners is 110 times their proportion of the world's population.
These characters often sport Nerdy Nasalness that may accompany a Brooklyn or Yiddish-inflected accent as part of the stereotype. Maybe even with Einstein Hair to go with it, if they even have hair.
Compare Asian and Nerdy, Black and Nerdy and Bollywood Nerd, other ethnic nerd stereotypes (though all three can overlap if they're religiously Jewish). Contrast Gentile Jew-Chaser, an inversion of a more prevalent ethnic stereotype. Intelligence as a character trait may lead to instances of Ambiguously Jewish, thanks to this trope. Finally, contrast Hipster, which often deals with Jewish or Ambiguously Jewish characters acting stereotypically 'cool.' Compare Nice Jewish Boy and Magical Jew.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Benny from Black Lagoon is Jewish and a computer geek.
- Leo Kakinoki in Ghost Stories is an elementary school student obsessed with the paranormal, and the English Gag Dub makes him and his family Jewish.
Comic Books
- Robin: Tim's friend Ives is plenty nerdy, playing tabletop RPGs and arguing on what counts as actual cannon from the Star Wars expanded universe and what computer operating systems are better, he is also Jewish which means Tim takes note when he spots him leaving a Catholic church (Ives was there for a cancer support group meeting).
- Gertrude Yorkes of the Runaways is both incredibly well-read and Jewish.
- Kitty Pryde from X-Men; in the comic she wears a Star of David necklace. She is a computer nerd, and in the Claremont days a general sci-fi and comic book nerd (with a particular fondness for Star Wars, so naturally the X-Men's space adventures were just awesome for her). Less so in more modern depictions, where her general nerdiness is either downplayed or outright forgotten.
- Young Avengers: In a team where every member is some degree of Ascended Fanboy, Billy Kaplan/Wiccan is still one of the biggest nerds, often quotes pop culture, and is canonically confirmed Jewish during Avengers: The Children's Crusade.
- In War of the Realms, he refers to fighting Laufey as looking more fun in The Lord of the Rings.
Fan Works
- The Seraphim from Angel of the Bat is portrayed as highly stereotypically Jewish and nerdy-looking, in strong contrast to his imposing physique and strong Boomerang Bigot tendencies later.
- In the X-Men: Evolution fanfic XXY:Evolution, where most of the characters are genderbend, Kit Pryde (male Shadowcat) is nerdy, he loves science fiction and fantasy, and loves to play D&D with his few nerdy friends from his old school. This makes him much closer to his female counterpart in her early comic book appearances. Unlike his counterpart in the show, Kit has a crush on Katrina (female Nightcrawler) almost immediately, due to her resembling a dark elf from one of his favorite fantasy stories. He's also a big Fan Boy of Spider-Mannote .
Films — Animation
- Peter B. Parker in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an Alternate Universe offshoot of the Prime Timeline Spider-Man, with the main differences being a successful marriage to Mary Jane and him being Ambiguously Jewish (whereas 616 Peter is Protestant Christian). In the sequel M.J. teases him for being unfamiliar with sports.
Films — Live-Action
- Joel Glicker (David Krumholtz) in The Addams Family Values has it all: the asthma inhaler, the round glasses, the preference for complex science books, and the vulnerability to everything. His sickliness immediately attracts Wednesday.
- Animal House:
- Subverted by Donald "Boone" Schoenstein (Peter Riegert). Though Ambiguously Jewish, he is arguably the fourth coolest guy in the Delta Tau Chi fraternity, as well as The Lancer to the supercool Eric "Otter" Stratton. (His girlfriend does think he's a loser, though.)
- When Delta is tricked into using the wrong answers to cheat on a psych test, Hoover discovers their mistake (too late) by checking with the Jewish house.
- Barry Allen/The Flash in the DC Extended Universe. In Justice League, he's socially awkward, built himself a suit to resist the high friction his Super-Speed causes, and indirectly describes himself as "Jewish".
- While Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters (and its various Spin Offs) is only Ambiguously Jewish, he's a stellar example of the trope. His actor, Harold Ramis, was a secular Jew who was religious in his youth.
- Marv Murchens (Daniel Stern) of the Home Alone movies is a double subversion. Though certainly geeky in appearance, he has a mind scarcely superior to that of a young child. However, on occasion, he will be the voice of reason and more intelligent than his partner.
- David Levinson of Independence Day, played by Jeff Goldblum. A Nice Jewish Boy and Gibbering Genius whose Establishing Character Moment is playing chess with his lovably crotchety dad, he verges on Almighty Janitor in that he has an MIT education but is happy in his cable company job in New York City. When the alien ships first appear, he's sharp enough to figure out the purpose of the signal the ships are sending out, and with dad in tow heads to Washington D.C. to warn the President of the United States of the threat. (It helps that the ex-wife he's still devoted to works as the White House Communications Director.) Later, he figures out how to bring down the shields that protect the aliens' ships, finally giving humanity a chance to stop them. Even his first name plays into this trope, as this situation is the David Versus Goliath tale from the Old Testament on a huge scale. It's worth noting that while Goldblum has played nerdy characters in many films and is himself Jewish, Levinson is the only one of those characters explicitly presented as Jewish and thus able to qualify for this trope.
- Timmy of Jaws 2. He has a Jewfro and glasses.
- Jessica Stein, from Kissing Jessica Stein, is a huge literature and grammar nerd.
- Oppenheimer: David Krumholtz ended up playing the straightest example of this with Isidor Isaac Rabi. There are many Jewish scientists in the films, including Robert Oppenheimer, but Rabi's probably the nerdiest of them, and he's also the one who's the most in touch with his Jewish heritage (speaking Yiddish etc).
- According to writer Travis Beacham, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb of Pacific Rim has Jewish ancestry but is non-practicing.
- All of the Jewish Harvard students in The Social Network. The Jewish fraternity's party is pretty lame and filled with nerdy-looking guys. Jewish guys have a preponderance of nerdy Asian girlfriends.
Literature
- The Dresden Files: Butters is a total geek and mentions in a couple of places that he is Jewish.
- Element Bots: Brenna is a young Jewish woman who adores arachnids and insects, frequently reading books about them. She recently became an inventor, with her main invention being a robotic lovebug, to help further her interests.
- In Goodbye To Berlin, Natalia Landauer is a well-read Jewish heiress who wields her book smarts like a cudgel.
- Anthony Goldstein from Harry Potter is implied to be this. Though he's a background character who barely speaks, he's a prefect from Ravenclaw (the house known for intelligence), implying that he's smart and a great student, and Word of God confirms that he's Jewish.
- Stanley Uris (from Stephen King's It) must count, what with loving birdwatching, being almost obsessively neat and smartly dressed, and growing up to become an accountant.
- Albert Kaussner from The Langoliers, a spaghetti western buff and Indiana Jones fan with a yarmulke on his head. He's also the resident Badass Normal, being the one who finally takes down the insane Craig Toomy.
- The Supervillainy Saga protagonist, Gary Karkofsky, constantly references Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and other pop culture. He's also very-very Jewish. Curiously, he's also a Kavorka Man and Pop-Cultured Badass.
- Most of Chaim Potok's characters embody this trope, especially his protagonists.
- Everybody in The Chosen, a novel about a friendship between two Talmud students.
- In The Beginning has an interesting contrast: the protagonist's father is a Badass Polish Jew whose backstory includes joining the Polish army against his family and community's opposition and killing an unspecified, but quite large, number of Cossacks. He is very clear that the appropriate response to a pogrom is violence, and passes this belief on to his son, the protagonist... who couldn't possibly act on it, being a pale, skinny, glasses-wearing, utterly brilliant, chronically-ill bullying target.
- Minerva Green, better known as Min, is the protagonist of Why We Broke Up and applies. She's Jewish and a smart, bookish movie buff with a quick wit. She shares qualities of both a nerd and a Hipster and falls somewhere between the two.
Live-Action TV
- Felicity Smoak from Arrow, a computer geek and expert hacker.
- Beverly Hills, 90210: The two nerdiest characters, Andrea and David, are both Jewish. In the Sequel Series, Navid is by far the nerdiest main character and is also Jewish.
- Howard Wolowitz from The Big Bang Theory. Leonard Hofstader could also be an example: he's never implied to be even ethnically Jewish and he's a bit more 'jockish' than the other nerd characters, but his mother does fit many of the stereotypes.
- Annie Edison from Community is a very intelligent over-achiever as well as the group's requisite Jew.
- Noel Shempsky from Frasier. He's heavy into all things Star Trek, to the point Scott Bakula and William Shatner have both legally required him to remain at least 100 feet away from them. His crush on Roz has him envisioning her as "Queen Rozalinda", a Green-Skinned Space Babe with four breasts.
- Friends: Ross Geller is a brainy paleontologist and easily the most socially awkward Friend.
- Rachel Berry from Glee is a musical-theater nerd, though the show also has a rare stupid (or at least Book Dumb) Jewish character in Jerk Jock Puck. And then, of course, there's Jacob Ben Israel.
- Adam, sci-fi and video obsessed favourite son of a classic Jewish Mother, in The Goldbergs.
- The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: In a cast full of Jews, only Midge's father Abe is really an example, and he's a nerd in the "middle-aged, tweedy professor" style.
- My Dead Ex: Ben is a Jewish boy who's endearingly dorky, with interests like cooking that aren't typical of teenage boys, and charmingly awkward.
- Never Have I Ever: Ben rivals Devi in intelligence, and happens to be Jewish.
- The O.C.: Seth Cohen is Jewish on his father's side and a self-proclaimed geek who loves comic books and video games.
- The Plot Against America: Seldon is a small, bespectacled, nasal-voiced Jewish kid who likes to play chess and won the math competition. He's a friend of Philip's, but Philip ditches him whenever there's something more interesting to do.
- Power Rangers S.P.D. has Bridge, a Cloud Cuckoo Lander with a love for buttery toast. He's Ambiguously Jewish, noting in a Christmas episode that he used to celebrate Channukah instead of Christmas.
- Barbara Brownstein from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, a Twofer Token Minority who is also Asian and Nerdy.
- Victorious: Robbie Shapiro is frequently mocked for his nerdiness by other characters and the narrative alike, and is stated in Wok Star to have had a bar mitzvah.
- Paul Phiffer on The Wonder Years is a Jewish nerd.
Music
- In Zach Sherwin's song "Street Cred", Sherwin discusses how, rather than participating in underground battles and being in gangs like the rappers he admired in his youth, his childhood consisted of joining his synagogue's youth group, being on his high school's debate team, and getting a job at the local TCBY.
Podcasts
- Red Panda Adventures: The first Molecule Max is a theoretical physicist and university teacher. As his name implies, he's able to shrink himself so small an oxygen molecule is the size of a football to him using technology of his own invention. Impressive as this is, Max wishes his powers were more flashy precisely because there aren't a lot of Jewish superheroes out there, and is actually put out that the Red Panda brought him along in "Small Wonders" because he wanted Professor Weisman more than Molecule Max. He was originally a member of the American superhero team the Justice Union, but as World War II ramped up and the Americans initially stayed out of it, he joined a Canadian unit known as the Home Team so he could do his part.
Theater
- Fiddler on the Roof: Chava is sometimes portrayed as this, due to her love of reading books. The 2015 Broadway revival gives her glasses.
- Leopoldstadt: Ludwig is a professor of mathematics at the University of Vienna and is obsessed with number theory, particularly solving the Riemann Hypothesis.
- Little Shop of Horrors: The Ambiguously Jewish Seymour Krelborn is nerdy.
- RENT: Mark Cohen is smart, wears glasses, is an artistic filmmaker, and knows enough about electronics to help fix Maureen's setup. He's also more cultured than most of his friends (he recognizes Musetta's Waltz and knows how to tango).
- A Shoggoth on the Roof: Evokes this.
Video Games
- Hiveswap and Hiveswap Friendsim: Stelsa Sezyat was stated to be "troll Jewish" and looks rather nerdy, with her large glasses and... questionable fashion sense.
Webcomics
- Lackadaisy: Mordecai Heller is Ambiguously Jewish and was eventually confirmed by Word of God to be Jewish and is one of the smartest members of the cast. Unlike many examples, he's also extremely brutal.
- Shortpacked! and Dumbing of Age: Ethan Siegal is a toy collector, a near-fanatical editor of the Transformers Wiki, and can recite He-Man audiobooks from memory.
Web Videos
- Game Grumps/Steam Train: Barry Kramer (the editor) and Danny "Sexbang" Avidan (of Ninja Sex Party fame). Both are fond of making jokes about it at their own expense (Danny even questions the Greedy Jew stereotype on one episode of their Castle Crashers playthrough, asking "Who doesn't love money?")
Western Animation
- Snot on American Dad!. Sort of a subversion, since he might be the least nerdy of Steve's nerdy friends, despite being the only Jewish one.
- Andrew on Big Mouth. Also possibly Missy, whose mother is Ambiguously Jewish whose father is a Black man. Jessi may also qualify, being more intellectually oriented than most girls in her school except for Missy.
- Codename: Kids Next Door: The Smart Guy Numbuh Two speaks with Nerdy Nasalness and has an abrasive grandmother with a strong Yiddish accent.
- Family Guy: Both Neil Goldman and his father Mort.
- The Ghost and Molly McGee: One episode in season 1 is about Libby's Bat Mitzvah and she is in general a quirky nerdy girl who is one of the few people able to vibe on Molly's level.
- Gravity Falls: Dipper Pines is heavily implied to be ethnically Jewish, but Word of God states he was raised non-religiously. His great-uncle Ford, the author of the journals, is a straighter example since he was raised Jewish.
- Hey Arnold!: Inverted with Harold, who is one of the least intelligent characters on the show. Also played straight with Ambiguously Jewish Eugene (confirmed by Word of God)
- The Magic School Bus: Arnold is a very geeky kid with glasses, and the Christmas Episode, it's revealed that he celebrates Chanukah.
- Rocko's Modern Life: Filburt is another Ambiguously Jewish nerd, as well as a Sickly Neurotic Geek.
- South Park: Kyle Broflovski is the smartest kid in his group and has a poster of Einstein on his wall. He also sports a classic, unfortunate Jewfro underneath his hat. However, he's cool enough to be just one of the guys. His cousin from Connecticut, on the other hand, is extremely nerdy, delicate, and stereotypical, to Kyle's annoyance.
- The Simpsons: Professor John Frink was always Ambiguously Jewish until he cleared everything up by admitting that his father enjoyed kosher food. It should be noted that Hank Azaria based Frink's voice on Jerry Lewis from The Nutty Professor (1963) — and Lewis voiced Frink's dad in one segment of "Treehouse of Horror XV".
- Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum: Brad is Jewish, as revealed in "I Am Tomioka Tessai" (His special item is a dreidel, and his grandfather is shown wearing a kippah in a flashback), and is a huge nerd due to his love of comics, knowledge of butterflies, and good math skills (judging by how he always accurately calculates how many years back in time the kids will go).
