Class and status are sources of conflict throughout Goodbye, Columbus. In the titular story, “Goodbye, Columbus,” protagonist Neil believes that he possesses a lower status in the eyes of the Patimkins because of his working-class background. His insecurity causes tension between himself and Brenda, culminating in the climactic scene in the hotel in Boston when Brenda lets Neil read the letters she received from her parents. In both letters, Neil is referenced in ways that blame his lower-class status for the corruption of their daughter. Mrs. Patimkin’s letter is particularly harsh, painting Neil and his family in a disparaging light: “He is his parents’ responsibility and I cannot imagine what kind of home life he had that he could act that way. Certainly that was a fine way to repay us for the hospitality we were nice enough to show to him, a perfect stranger” (129). Mrs. Patimkin’s view of Neil as an ungrateful stranger proves to Neil that he was never truly welcome or accepted in the Patimkin house because of his class. While he remains on the fringe, characterized as a boy who took advantage of the Patimkins’ kindness, Harriet, who comes from a wealthy family, is accepted immediately into the Patimkins’ family. Neil despises this treatment, and his insecurities over Brenda possibly sharing this view of him with her family lead him to break up with her.

In “You Can’t Tell a Man by the Song He Sings,” status once again leads to the dissolution of a relationship. In this story, the unnamed protagonist becomes friends with the ex-con Albie Pelagutti. Albie and another boy, Duke, are both viewed as different and even threatening by other students and are immediately treated as outsiders. Both boys come from a disadvantaged part of Newark but are sent to the protagonist’s school in hopes that its “higher culture would absorb the lower” (240). While this difference at first has no impact on the protagonist’s ability to be friends with Albie, their differing circumstances eventually deteriorate their friendship. One day, Albie breaks up a practice fight by pushing the protagonist, who then accidentally breaks a window. Albie flees, leaving the blame with the protagonist. Looking back on this event, and the meeting with the principal in which he was shown his record, the protagonist understands why Albie ran: “I understood—just short of forgiveness—why the two of them had zoomed off and left me to pay penance for the window by myself. Albie, you see, had always known about the filing cabinet and these index cards” (246). Albie’s life is filled with run-ins with the law and authority figures, and though he is trying to be better, he cannot afford to have another incident placed on his card. His life, so different from the protagonist, leads him to abandon his friend and shirk responsibility. The protagonist, though he understands this, does not forgive him for it.

Class and status play an important role in the final story of Goodbye, Columbus, “Eli, the Fanatic,” as well. In this story, Eli Peck represents the Jewish people of the suburban town Woodenton, New York, as they try to evict a large family of Jewish immigrants and Holocaust survivors because of their traditional clothing and plans to open a yeshivah. When Eli attempts to explain the town’s reasoning, Leo Tzuref pushes back: “‘Look, Mr. Tzuref, I didn’t come here to talk metaphysics. People use the law, it’s a flexible thing. They protect what they value, their property, their well-being, their happiness—’ […] ‘They hide their shame. And you, Mr. Peck, you are shameless?’” (266). Their disagreement stems from the town’s preoccupation with status. The town tolerates its Jewish residents only as long as their cultural and religious practices are not too visibly different from what non-Jewish residents perceive as the norm. Eli’s statement about the uses of the law makes clear what is really at stake here: This is an affluent suburb in which property values depend on the perception of elevated status. Because of antisemitism, the presence of Jews who dress and act differently from their Protestant neighbors threatens that perception.