52 pages • 1-hour read
The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen
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Chapters 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of religious discrimination and violence.
The next morning, Hoodie asks Rabbi Moritz for a Hebrew dictionary so that he can better understand the Talmud portions he is studying. He focuses on a section that claims if one Jewish life is saved, it is as if the whole world is saved. By the end of the afternoon, he begrudgingly admits that studying the Talmud is interesting when he can actually understand it.
Hoodie convinces Rabbi Moritz to let him take a walk for self-reflection. He goes directly to Anna-Marie’s house. When he arrives, Anna-Marie and her mother answer the door with red eyes and faces, as if they’ve been crying. Anna-Marie is initially annoyed, believing that Hoodie had ghosted her, but agrees to speak to him. When Hoodie casually mentions the TikTok of Anna-Marie dancing with Case, she is shocked that he watches her videos. Hoodie is confused as to why she would post a video she didn’t want people to see, but Anna-Marie explains that it’s weird for him to watch her videos without posting any of his own.
Hoodie grows increasingly nervous. Finally, he tells Anna-Marie that he has found a solution to his problem: Anna-Marie can go to New York University, as she planned, and he will go to Yeshiva University, also in Manhattan, so that they can be together. He tells Anna-Marie that, as long as they’re engaged, she won’t have to convert to Judaism until they get married.
Anna-Marie is shocked and insists that she is not his girlfriend and that he doesn’t know anything about her. Hoodie is confused, believing that her hug and inviting him into her room meant that she was interested in him. Anna-Marie reveals that she only hung out with him because her mother thought it would help her politically, and that she offered to help him clean the desecrated graves because her mother wanted to hide them. Hoodie punches a wall, claiming he gave up everything for Anna-Marie, then leaves.
Chapter 13 Summary
Hoodie wanders around town aimlessly. He sees police lights near the cemetery but ignores them. He walks into the Abramowitz Kosher market to try to find a snack to cheer him up. The market is crowded with women and young girls shopping for dinner. Hoodie recognizes his sister’s friends and the mothers of his friends. He also sees Anna-Marie reaching for a pack of Starbursts, a candy they have shared many times.
As Hoodie ducks down to hide from Anna-Marie, he hears a gunshot, and the pack of chips he was reaching for explodes. He realizes someone is shooting at the store, and his body and mind go completely blank. Hoodie looks outside and sees a man and a woman wearing tactical gear and bulletproof vests climbing out of a van. As they enter the market and continue to shoot, Hoodie is shocked by how quickly the bullets appear.
As he tries to escape, Hoodie collides with Anna-Marie. He uses a rack to break a window so they can avoid using the main door. As Hoodie tries to push Anna-Marie through the broken glass, the pair are spotted by one of the shooters, and Hoodie is shot in the chest and the arm. Despite his injuries, he pushes Anna-Marie out of the window to safety. She pulls him through and helps him escape down the street. As they run away, an unknown photographer takes their picture.
Anna-Marie stops a passing ambulance and explains that Hoodie has been shot. As they ride to the hospital, Hoodie prays desperately, promising God that if his life is saved, he will rededicate himself to studying the Torah. Hoodie survives, though the doctor warns that his arm rehabilitation will be long and painful. In the hospital, Hoodie learns that the owner of the market, his friend Chaim’s father, was killed.
Chapter 14 Summary
As he recuperates in the hospital, Hoodie learns more about the shooting. Four people had been killed: three members of the Orthodox community and a police officer who encountered the shooters in the cemetery before the shooting began. The shooters had been radicalized online and left a manifesto explaining that they wanted to purify the human race by exterminating the Jewish population. Investigators had also found a pipe bomb in the van and evidence that they had planned to plant it at the yeshiva.
The photograph taken of Hoodie and Anna-Marie escaping the shooting goes viral. In the photo, Hoodie’s religious garments are bloodied while Anna-Marie’s shirt is riding up, exposing her bare stomach. The photograph is taken as a symbol of unity and humanity: two people helping each other despite the hatred between their communities. Only Anna-Marie and Hoodie know about the fight that happened an hour before the photo was taken.
Within the Jewish community, the photograph inspires more heated debate. Hoodie’s father brings him articles and essays claiming that his relationship with Anna-Marie caused the shooting and that his efforts to save lives do not cancel out his violation of Jewish law. Rather than argue, Hoodie finds articles supporting his actions to share with his father. The argument ends with a visit from Rabbi Taub, who criticizes Hoodie’s father for using the tragedy to get Tregaron to reverse their construction ban. He urges the community to release Hoodie from cherem, which he claims was unjustified.
On Hoodie’s last day in the hospital, Anna-Marie visits with her mother. Hoodie’s father prohibits Mayor Diaz-O’Leary from entering but allows Anna-Marie to stay. Hoodie introduces her to his sisters, and although Anna-Marie is shocked by their family dynamic, she does not try to leave.
While alone in the hospital, Hoodie decides not to follow the strict prayer schedule he was raised to observe. However, the trauma of the event and his grief over the loss of life cause him to pray the Kaddish—a community prayer—independently. Although he knows he is not praying as the rules dictate, he still feels comforted by the prayer.
Chapter 15 Summary
One month after the shooting, Zippy and Yoel get married. Zippy invites Anna-Marie to the wedding even though men and women are separated at Orthodox weddings. At the wedding, Hoodie’s friend Moshe—who never came to visit him in the hospital—tries to apologize. He tells Hoodie that he understands from Rabbi Taub’s teachings that the saving of any life—not just Jewish lives—is a sacred act. As Anna-Marie approaches, Moshe gets up to leave.
Hoodie moves his chair farther away, so that Anna-Marie is not sitting directly next to him. Anna-Marie questions why the married couple isn’t allowed to dance together, and Hoodie explains that it would violate the rules of modesty for them to touch in public. Anna-Marie insists that small rules don’t matter, but Hoodie claims that if the rules matter to God, they matter to him. He suggests that they smuggle wine from the bar, and Anna-Marie agrees, hoping to anger her mother.
Hoodie walks Anna-Marie home, confident that no one will miss him at the wedding. Anna-Marie kisses him in front of her house, confusing and thrilling Hoodie. After the kiss, Anna-Marie looks up and sees her mother watching them. She grins and tries to kiss Hoodie again, but he stops her. Hoodie feels hurt by the fact that Anna-Marie is using him to anger her mother and is unsure whether he is willing to violate the rules of his community again. As he tries to explain his feelings, she dismisses him and goes inside.
A few days later, Zippy returns to the house with a gift for Hoodie: an unfiltered smart phone which she and her new husband will pay for. Zippy urges Hoodie to find his own way to live within the guidelines of their community, promising him that it is possible. Hoodie uses the phone to text Anna-Marie, who sends him information on a dual degree program at NYU and Yeshiva University. Unsure of what their future holds, Hoodie decides to keep Anna-Marie as a friend.
Chapters 12-15 Analysis
Blum’s resolution brings his narrative full circle to the first lines of his novel. As The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen opens, Hoodie claims that “my horrible crime was the thing that saved the whole community” (1). The final chapters of the novel help to explain his logic. The “crime” Hoodie refers to in the opening lines is his relationship with Anna-Marie, which puts him in cherem with the rest of the community. After the shooting at the Abramowitz Kosher market, however, a photograph of Anna-Marie and Hoodie escaping the market “ended up everywhere: the home page of every news website, the front page of every newspaper, the graphic that hovered on the screen while commentators argued on TV” (184). The focus in this passage on different types of media—print, online, and televised—highlights the viral nature of the photo of Hoodie and Anna-Marie.
The virality of Hoodie and Anna-Marie’s image is central to Blum’s exploration of the power of online and news media and its role in community perception. As the photo is shared, it becomes a symbol of “universal humanity” for some and the potential for unity over division for others, representing a dangerous breakdown in Orthodox tradition. These dualling perspectives underscore The Importance of Argumentation and Debate in Jewish Culture. The novel suggests that Hoodie’s father Avraham attempts to capitalize on the photo’s popularity by “calling reporters and journalists, telling them all about […] how the town wouldn’t let the Jews build an apartment building” (188). Ultimately, the local government reverses its original position and approves construction on the new apartment building “to avoid the bad publicity” caused by the shooting (188). Hoodie’s assertion that his relationship with Anna-Marie saved the community is a reflection of his belief that the town accepted the community because of the virality of the photo and outside pressure not to appear antisemitic. Ironically, Hoodie criticizes his father for focusing on construction while he is in the ICU, even as he takes credit for the construction win.
These chapters also utilize the recurring motif of jackets representing Orthodox Judaism to define Hoodie’s personal arc. In Chapter 5, Hoodie compares the restrictions of his faith to a series of heavy jackets:
[Y]ou’re already wearing a lot of clothes, and then people just keep draping jackets and coats, and more jackets and coats over you, until you can barely stand, and you’re doubled over under all that material. And then they tell you to stand up straighter, that it’s disrespectful to bend, so you try to stand up straighter, but you just can’t, because the stuff is too heavy (76-77).
In this passage, the repetition of the words “jackets and coats” and the use of the phrase “all that material” emphasize the many rules and restrictions imposed on Hoodie by his religious community. This metaphor positions Orthodox Judaism as a weight that restricts Hoodie’s ability to stand tall and proud as he moves through life, underscoring the idea that he begins his arc grappling with Jewish Orthodoxy as a restrictive force in his life. However, as his arc progresses, he finds himself deeply engaged in his personal study of the Talmud for the first time, pointing to The Role of Community in Maintaining Faith. His personal religious study helps define the end of Hoodie’s arc in which he commits to finding his own way to embrace the religious teachings of his faith.
In the final chapter of the novel, Hoodie reworks the jacket metaphor, describing Orthodoxy as “a jacket that [doesn’t] fit me right anymore” (203). This time, however, he is less willing to shed the jacket, reasoning that “the only one [he has]” and he’s “naked underneath it” (203). Ultimately, he concludes, “I didn’t really want to wear it […] I couldn’t take it off either, because then what would I have?” (203). In the passage from Chapter 5, he views Orthodox Judaism as a restrictive set of rules, but by the end of the novel, he views it as a way of protecting himself from the outside world. This change reflects his sister Zippy’s encouragement for him to find his own way of living within Orthodox Judaism, making it less restrictive without fully shrugging it off.
The open-ended resolution to Hoodie and Anna-Marie’s relationship underscores their coming-of-age context. As young adults, both Hoodie and Anna-Marie are still figuring out who they are and who they want to be. They’re still evolving toward maturity which, in their case, often results in misunderstandings and hurt feelings. After the shooting, Hoodie suspects that “part of the reason [Anna-Marie] liked spending time with [him] is that it made her mother so upset” (202). This suspicion is strengthened after their first kiss, when Anna-Marie “turn[s] around to make sure her mom was watching” (210). Ultimately, Hoodie leaves her house after the kiss feeling “empty” and returns to his sister’s wedding, where he knows that his community will “fill” him, emphasizing the support that Hoodie feels in his community despite how he’s beginning to question some of their beliefs and restrictions. The safety and security that Hoodie feels in his family and community highlight the fact that he has opened himself up to new ideas and experiences but recognizes the gift that he has in a sense of home.
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