There was a time \u2014 not too long ago \u2014 when a nose job was practically a given for a Jewish girl of means. But recent plastic surgery statistics show that 37 percent fewer Americans got nose jobs in 2011 than in 2000. Obviously there\u2019s the small matter of the financial crisis, which left most Americans with less cash to spend on unnecessary and expensive nips and tucks. Of all the various treatments, rhinoplasty saw the most dramatic drop: from 389,000 in 2000 to 244,000 in 2011. But while the overall numbers are down, rhinoplasties are increasingly popular among Hispanic and Asian American populations \u2014 \u201cnose reshaping\u201d is actually the most common cosmetic surgical procedure for the latter right now.<\/p>\n
Rita Rubin, who crunched the numbers in an article for\u00a0Tablet<\/em>, puts it this way: \u201cIf the total number of nose jobs in America is rapidly declining, while their popularity rises among certain non-Jewish groups, one likely conclusion is that rhinoplasty is declining among Jews.\u201d Certain Jews, anyhow.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s because of increased ethnic pride and a decreased desire to stop looking Jewish and blend in,\u201d said Emory University physician and anthropologist Melvin Konner, author of\u00a0The Jewish Body<\/em>, \u201cwhich is why rhinoplasty was invented.\u201d Another historian told\u00a0Tablet<\/em>\u00a0that ethnic men and women, like Jews, Italians, and Greeks, used to feel pressure to look like WASPs due to anti-immigration sentiment. But now most U.S. children under a year old belong to racial or ethnic minorities, meaning upturned noses are increasingly less prominent \u2014 and, therefore, less desirable.<\/p>\n Rubin doesn\u2019t touch upon this, but I wonder if the downturn has anything to do with the proliferation of television shows and Tumblrs that send the message to young adults that it\u2019s okay \u2014 cool, even \u2014 to be unique. Kids don\u2019t care so much about looking \u201cAll American\u201d anymore. Maybe Lea Michelle is the new Grace Kelly! (Okay, that could be a stretch. But, you know, aesthetically speaking.) \u201cThe ideal beauty can be anybody,\u201d said Babak Azizzadeh, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, aka nose-job Mecca. \u201cI think people actually don\u2019t want to assimilate as much.\u201d He writes on his practice\u2019s website that Jewish patients want to keep \u201ctheir ethnic identity intact.\u201d Sure, he\u2019s still hawking cosmetic surgery, but it\u2019s interesting that his sales tactics have more to do with preserving one\u2019s culture and less to do with having a cookie-cutter nose.<\/p>\n At the same time, as national rates go down, more Orthodox Jews feel comfortable getting the surgery because modern rabbis are giving them the go-ahead. One doctor said less religious Jews ask him for eyelid lifts and chin implants, but Orthodox Jews always want nose jobs. One Miami surgeon, Dr. Michael Salzhauer,\u00a0recently launched\u00a0a \u201cpro-bono campaign\u201d for single men and women in the Orthodox community \u2014 if they\u2019re referred by their matchmakers and have their finances verified by a rabbi, they might be eligible for free rhinoplasty. That is, if Salzhauer thinks they need it. \u201cThere\u2019s a bunch where I\u2019ve said, \u2018You\u2019re beautiful, and you don\u2019t need rhinoplasty,\u2019\u201d he said. Wait, isn\u2019t this all about the nose-owner feeling self-confident?<\/p>\n The sentiment seems especially odd coming from the man who produced a pop-punk music video called \u201c<\/p>\n