Rich Newman grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, believing his family’s story was simple: Jewish immigrants came to America, worked hard, and built a life. But as he grew older—and as his own career in finance and technology unfolded—he began to see the shades of gray in his family’s past and in his own identity. In Don’t Be Such a Big Shot, Newman traces four generations of his family’s journey: from pogroms in Poland, to his grandfather’s eight years in the Russian army; to cousins who survived Auschwitz; to his parents’ Bronx childhoods shaped by war, prejudice, and quiet resilience; and finally, to his own coming of age. Newman navigates the racial and cultural tensions of his diverse neighborhood, straddles worlds as an exchange student in Germany in high school and a midshipman in the Navy, co-founds two successful software firms that are sold to prestigious public companies, and learns the unspoken rules of once WASP-dominated Wall Street—all while wrestling with what it means to belong. The memoir gains new urgency after the deaths of his parents, Rose and Dan. Moving his father to Boston in his later years gave Newman a chance to finally hear the stories Dan never told—about his own parents’ marriage, about silence as a survival strategy, about the wounds carried forward without words. In contrast, Rose’s side of the family spoke about their past incessantly, often in stark black-and-white terms. Newman begins to see how both approaches—speaking and silence—shaped him. As he digs into birth certificates, ship manifests, and faded photographs in his search for Polish citizenship, Newman uncovers a trove of forgotten histories. Names he’d only heard in passing become real people with struggles and contradictions of their own. And in the process, he comes to terms with his own complicated relationship to identity, privilege, and family legacy. Woven with humor, humility, and unflinching honesty, Don’t Be Such a Big Shot is more than a memoir. It’s a meditation on the secrets we inherit, the histories we rewrite to survive, and the conversations we wish we’d had before it was too late. The title comes from his grandmother Sara, who used to admonish his grandfather Morris whenever he got too full of himself: “Don’t be such a big shot.” Newman grew up hearing the phrase from his father too—sometimes playfully, sometimes pointedly. Now, it resonates as both a rebuke and a reminder: of where we came from, and how far we still have to go.
