Stock Images: What Cookbooks, Advertisements, and Chicken Soup Recipes Tell Us About Jewish America

The Jewish Mother

One of the most recognizable stereotypes about Jewish people is that of the Jewish Mother: the “guilt-producing, nagging, and overprotective” (Antler) smother who expects nothing less than constant communication and Jewish grandbabies, courtesy of a Nice Jewish Partner. She criticizes and feeds, pesters and sends home with leftovers. She’s loud and brassy, overshadowing her meek husband; “Jewish women dominate and render Jewish men silent,” Prell notes.

Before there was the Jewish Mother, there was the Yiddish Mama: Ashkenazi immigrants and first-generation American women who navigated immediate assimilation. She spoke Yiddish, kept kosher, covered her hair; she sustained family and transmitted Jewish values, making the sacrifices “that acculturation demanded.” (Antler “You never call”) She was the yenta, the all-loving, all-caring, all-maternal figure. While some Jewish immigrant women worked factory jobs, the Yiddish Mama’s primary occupation was “to create the Jewish personality of her home— its “spiritual” as well as “social” character.” (Antler) She was kind, nurturing, comforting. She was synonymous with nostalgia, an embodiment of the Old World. (Gross, Naumberg, Robenbaum) And her image endured: portrayals of the Yiddish Mama alleviated tensions of acculturation and modernization (Antler) and foiled the more negative portrayals of Jewish women later in time (Hyman).

The Jewish Mother stereotype as we know it emerged during the interwar and post-war period as Jewish families moved from urban enclaves to the suburbs and as men moved into increasingly professional middle-class jobs. As Weiss puts it, “While the father was away ‘putting food on the table,’ the mother was at home, literally putting food on the table.” She served not just food, but expectations and aspirations. She didn’t earn money herself, but she demanded luxuries. She was expected to see motherhood as her top priority (Kobrin), overwhelming her children with Jewish guilt and American sensibility. She balanced Old World traditions with New World apprehensions. She was “arrogant, spoiled and exceptionally aggressive” (Kranson). She was an “icon of excess and consumption,” an excessive giver, a masterclass in guilting. She was a symbol of Americanization gone awry and a manifestation of anxiety about losing traditional Jewish identities.

However, the reality of postwar Jewish motherhood was warmer and less materialistic. Evidence points to Jewish mothers having supportive and flexible parenting styles, rather than the controlling, overpowering style portrayed in media (Antler Imagining). They emphasized education and attainment, helping to fuel their families’ upward mobility. And while any of them did not work for wages, they found alternate means of contributing and transmitting values of communal life. They joined synagogue sisterhoods, Hadassah chapters, and the National Council of Jewish Women, engaging in grassroots organizing, civic engagement, and fundraising. Jewish women among the first who identified and organized against national and global social problems (Kranson). Many organized for war relief and food access; some were deeply engrained in the Zionist movement or rallied for Civil Rights. Their philanthropism and involvement expands the concept of children, family, and community. Their maternal roles expanded to care beyond just their households; they weren’t just putting food on their tables but felt a responsibility to feed those disadvantaged and persecuted. With this maternalism, community service became a gendered trait; Jewish women’s activism shifted gender roles when it comes to who was permitted to be in the public sphere.
 

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