Nice Jewish Boy

Jewish boys are generally Nice Guys. So are Ambiguously Jewish ones. They also tend to be self-deprecating, studious, and brainy. Although he may still love to argue, even when he's arguing, you can still tell he's nice. It's reasonably likely he's a cheapskate, but he's probably not actually greedy. They're usually Adorkable, because this is a quality favored in Jewish culture as an ideal husband: smart, reliable, and gentle, with a boyish charm.

Even though nice Jewish boys are quite likely to cause Matzo Fever, a character referred to as A Nice Jewish Boy tends to be unmarried — he's often referred to as "a nice Jewish boy" by his domineering Jewish Mother, who wants him to get married and give her grandchildren and is advertising his niceness. Jewish Mothers may also ask their daughters to find one of these, or indeed their sons to find "a nice Jewish girl".

The Other Wiki has an article about the "Nice Jewish boy".

Examples of Nice Jewish Boy include:

Comic Books

• Dan Dreiberg, from Watchmen, is Ambiguously Jewish, but according to Word of God is actually a lapsed Calvinist. Nonetheless, the fact he behaves a lot like a Nice Jewish Boy is almost certainly partially responsible for the widespread Fanon that he's a Jew.
• Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle, who employs a distinctly Yiddish turn of phrase for the whole time he's being written by Len Wein and displays elements of this trope.
• Billy / "Wiccan" in Young Avengers, although he wasn't confirmed to be Jewish for some time.

Film

• The Rebbe's son in A Stranger Among Us.
• Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents.
• Adam Sandler tends to play the Nice Jewish Boy in about half of his movies, and Jerkass or Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the other half. This is most apparent in Eight Crazy Nights, wherein he used to be a Nice Jewish Boy before becoming a Jerkass.
• The main character in American Pie. He's a perv, but then All Men Are Perverts, and other than that he's one of the best behaved characters.
• David Levinson of Independence Day. He's played by Jeff Goldblum.
• Paulie Bleeker in Juno. True, he's only an informed Jew, but still fits.

Literature

• Rabin in the Star Trek novel Vulcan's Forge.
• Reuven Malter in The Chosen. Danny was less so, due to his introspective nature and his father believed he had temptations toward becoming an Insufferable Genius.
• Sent up brutally in Portnoys Complaint.
• Simon from the Mortal Instruments trilogy.

Live Action Television

• House: Dr. James Wilson. Sensitive, caring, has an excellent bedside manner, and retains his composure without being the least bit cold when dealing with dying cancer patients. Even when he does bad things (like rat his best friend out to the police), it's almost always motivated by good intentions (getting said best friend off drugs). His biggest character flaw may be that he's too selfless. And his mother can talk about, "My son, the doctor..."
• Charlie Eppes, from Numb3rs, though he is non-observant.
• Largely wanted by Nanny Fine in the early seasons.
• On Glee, Puck's (Jewish) mother asks him why he can't find himself "a nice Jewish girl," part of the reason he goes out with Rachel. Rachel doesn't exactly fit the "reliable and gentle" mold, though.
  • Puck is Jewish himself, although he doesn't fit the mold either. There are two Ambiguously Jewish characters on the show, though: Jacob, whose School Newspaper Newshound persona is anything but nice, and Tina, who may be the only one in the show who might actually fit the mold.
• Howard on The Big Bang Theory when he's not a complete pervert (which isn't that often).
• Brian Krakow on My So-Called Life.
• David "Gordo" Gordon on Lizzie McGuire.
• Chase Matthews on Zoey 101.
• Robbie Shapiro on Victorious. When he's not insulting people through his ventriloquist dummy.
• Hilariously subverted on the UK version of The Apprentice, when Sir Alan Sugar berated one of the contestants for not knowing the difference between Kosher meat and Halal meat after claiming he was a 'good little jewish boy' on his application.
• Josh from Being Human Remake.
  • George is Jewish, too. Maybe a little less nice, though.
• It isn't often mentioned in The Wonder Years, but Kevin's best friend Paul Pfeiffer is Jewish: one episode featured his bar mitzvah. A geeky Nice Guy, he fits the trope.
• Matt Parkman, from Heroes, is Jewish according to Word of God.
• On Seinfeld, Jerry's mother can't be persuaded that her son isn't a Nice Jewish Boy, although he very obviously is not.
• Sheldon in Less Than Kind.
• Sol Star on Deadwood fits the mold of Nice Jewish Boy to a tee- which isn't really an asset, considering he lives in a Wild West town of murderers, thieves, gamblers, and drunks.
• Zachary Ezekiel Rosenblatt Beekerman also known as Zeke from Wizards of Waverly Place is probably the nicest character on the show. He's so nice, he sometimes blames himself for other people's problems.
• Jeremy on Sports Night. Dan is less nice, but he's working on it.

Real Life

• Logan Lerman.
• Chaim Weisman.
• Jon Stewart.
• Abba Eban.
• Jake Gyllenhaal (mother is Jewish).
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
• Andrew Garfield.
• Jesse Eisenberg
• Barry Manilow
• James Deen, described as "a guy that you would just hang out with at Hebrew school" and "the most normal guy in porn."

Religion and Mythology

• Jesus makes this trope Older Than Feudalism. One of the possible titles for Jesus Was Way Cool was Jesus Was A Nice Jewish Boy, and it's mentioned several times throughout the article. This is sometimes taken to extremes: there's a hymn titled "Gentle Jesus Meek And Mild"... which is an ironic hymn. Jesus had differing ideas about the definition of "meekness" then the modern connotation and often comes off as something of a Drill Sergeant Nasty. He was not a tame carpenter.

Theater

• Motel the tailor in Fiddler On the Roof.
• Mark Cohen in Rent.

Western Animation

• Tommy Pickels from Rugrats. It's even invoked in All Grown Up.
• Kim Possible's partner Ron Stoppable.
• South Park: Kyle Broflovski is probably the best modern version of the stereotype. Even though he can be a bit Hot-Blooded occasionally, mostly due to Cartman's behavior, he can still be pretty nice, especially in later seasons. Unless, of course, something causes his Inner Jersey to manifest. Like Snooki.
• T.J. Detweiler from Recess, though he's more Ambiguously Jewish from the events of the Christmas Episode.

Other

• This calendar of Nice Jewish Guys.
• In the Documentary A History of Britain Simon Schama describes himself as a nice Jewish boy when describing England's Christian Reformation.
• In this NSFW comedy video, 12 year old Jeffrey seems like such a nice Jewish boy. But — Oy veh! — what an imagination he has about his seemingly Plain Jane mitzvah instructor (whom he sees as a Hot Teacher).