The blessing of a Jewish mother

A collection of essays challenges and supports the stereotype.

By RACHEL MARDER
Editor Rachel Ament’s story tells of her mother’s penchant for matchmaking (photo credit: Courtesy)
Editor Rachel Ament’s story tells of her mother’s penchant for matchmaking
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Jewish mother: a domineering woman bent on force-feeding her children, who moments ago said they were not hungry and nagging them into becoming – or at least marrying – a doctor or a lawyer. Or not necessarily.
This always-good-for-a-laugh stereotype has grown tired, out of touch and at times offensive. Rachel Ament’s new collection of essays by Jewish daughters about their Jewish mothers takes on this larger-than-life figure with renewed gusto.
The Jewish Daughter Diaries: True Stories Of Being Loved Too Much By Our Moms brings together diverse (read: Orthodox to secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, young and middle-aged) voices telling of their personal struggles to find love, build careers and feel comfortable in their own skin, while wondering if they are, Heaven forbid, becoming their Jewish mothers.
The essays are personal, funny and heartwarming, though occasionally saccharine sweet, and some will make you cringe and roll your eyes out of sheer awkwardness, or perhaps because you can relate to them.
Lauren Greenberg, in the opening, witty story, tells of her mother’s determination to find her a husband on JDate. Her mother goes so far as to create and manage the profile herself.
Like any independent Jewish daughter, Greenberg resists her mother’s attempts. “My mother wants nothing more than for me to be happy – and it’s ruining my life,” Greenberg writes.
Mayim Bialik’s essay, “They’re all Just Jealous of You,” tells of the boundless, irrational love her Jewish mother had for her growing up. Bialik, the most famous contributor to the book, writes about being teased as a kid and her initial difficulty getting acting gigs because she lacked the classic all-American looks. Her mother responds consistently, in every situation, that everyone, always is just jealous of her.
Some longer, more developed essays are about that special and crazy bond that only exist between mother and daughter. Meredith Hoffa writes about her epic battles with her mother as a teenager, over her showing too much skin and her mother’s need to cover her up. Over time, however, they find common ground and lots of laughter. “We could hardly be in a room together without clinging to each other’s shoulders like two baby koalas,” she writes. “This, not just in spite of our differences, but actually, I think, because of them. We weren’t mother-daughter twinsies; we were more like inverse creatures, cuddled against each other like yin and yang.”
Hoffa’s story turns mature when she becomes a mother. Her mother has passed away by this point, and she writes poignantly about the aching hole she feels without her; her realizations that a daughter’s body is always connected to her mother’s; and that worrying about her daughter’s well-being comes with being a mother. “I am my mother’s daughter, it turns out,” Hoffa notes.
This reluctant and hard-learned lesson repeats itself over and over in Ament’s book.
Chaya Kurtz, a hassidic writer and editor living in Brooklyn, writes of her exploits and adventures as a young woman, in contrast to the selfless and giving behavior she always saw in her mother – not to mention her magical blintzes, which even people who cannot hold down food could stomach. “Aging as a Jewish woman means one thing: I am becoming my mother,” Kurtz concludes.
And is this such a bad thing after all? After complaining about their mothers’ strictures, lack of sophistication, morbid personalities, obsessiveness and meddling – in most of the stories – the Jewish daughters ultimately discover the blessing of being a Jewish mother. The writers do this with humor and honesty.
Iris Bahr tells her emotional story colorfully. Her Israeli mother was always supportive of her dating men of different faiths and cultures – that is, until she started dating a Palestinian. At first Bahr believed her mother was shallow and closed-minded for objecting to the relationship, but after a heated political debate with her boyfriend she realized their differences were too great.
Mothers know best, even in matters of the heart. Ament’s own story, “Seth Cohen Is The One For You,” tells of her mother’s penchant for matchmaking, a genetic trait for Jewish women, according to Ament. Her mother’s efforts as a shadchan take Ament on a hilariously awkward date that culminates in a surprise visit to meet her date’s parents.
The cliches (they are cliche for a reason, I guess) continue with Arianna Stern’s story of her mother’s concern that her vegetarian daughter is wasting away from lack of proper nutrition.
Still, some stories break the mold. Iliza Shlesinger writes that her mother never compared her to her brother or nagged her about marrying a doctor. Rather, she defended her children selflessly, embraced sarcasm as a way of life and never shied away from speaking bluntly, exhibiting the more praiseworthy qualities of a Jewish mother.
Mara Altman, who grew up in a town devoid of any other Jews, can relate. Her laid-back mother enjoys sci-fi and not shaving.
She is calm and collected, and was even okay with her teenage daughter having boys sleep over in her bed. Only in college did Altman come to understand that other types of Jewish mothers existed.
This new recognition conveys it is acceptable if your Jewish mother does not fit into the tiny, misshapen box our culture has created for all Jewish mothers.
One story, though, goes too far in its attempt to be funny. Rebecca Drysdale’s “Classic Cynthia Drysdale” relays her profound dislike of the woman who gave her life (“There was nothing about that woman that I would be anything like, and I knew it from birth”), and her well-meaning attempts to find her daughter a summer camp to attend. Drysdale shows poor taste in her mocking of the summer camp consultant who her mother takes her to see. “The consultant, if I remember correctly, was 150 years old. He was a skinny, graying man who looked like the only camp he had ever seen was the concentration kind.”
Aside from this very off-color remark, the humor in the book is gentle and loving. The Jewish Daughter Diaries makes for a light and sweet summer read, and is the perfect present for mothers and daughters to enjoy and discuss together.
And not just for Jews – the universal story of mothers driving their daughters crazy, and the daughters later recognizing the undying love and devotion fueling their mothers behavior is one to which many women can relate.
What makes a Jewish mother unique, then? Ament answers in generalizations that one can easily poke holes in, but are nevertheless heartwarming. It is her “honesty combined with pluck and gumption.” But more than that, it is how her love materializes.
“Love suffuses a Jewish mom’s every thought, her every behavior,” she writes. “She cannot rein any of it in. And when so much love blares so forcefully out into the world, the sentiment can’t help but be returned.”


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