The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of religious discrimination and violence.

Yehuda Rosen, known as “Hoodie,” is the protagonist and narrator of The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen. Blum describes him as having “dark curly hair and a rather prominent nose” and being “thin and about average height” (14). His anxiety about his failure to live up to his community’s expectations, and his obsession with Anna-Marie Diaz-O’Leary positions his arc within a coming-of-age context. Hoodie’s anxiety about his family’s expectations is rooted in the fact that he’s “the only boy in the family” (23). As a result, he is expected to “pass [his] yeshiva classes and graduate, go to a post-high school program and study more, marry an Orthodox girl, go to college or rabbinical school,” and continue to the tradition set out by generations before him (76). Throughout the novel, however, Hoodie worries that he’s incapable of meeting these expectations. When introducing himself to the reader, he admits that he “couldn’t offer a decent Talmud interpretation to save [his] life” and “could barely read Hebrew” (23). He repeats this criticism of himself later, claiming to be “the worst nightmare of the Jewish parent—lacking in devotion, without talent and interest in Talmud” (133).