Jewish mother stereotype
Encyclopedia
The Jewish mother or wife stereotype is a common stereotype
and stock character
used by Jewish comedian
s and authors whenever they discuss actual or fictional situations involving their mother
s or other females in their lives who possess mother-like qualities. The stereotype generally involves a nagging
, overprotective, manipulative
, controlling
, smothering, and overbearing mother or wife, one who persists in interfering in her children's lives long after they have become adults. Lisa Aronson Fontes describes the stereotype as one of "endless caretaking and boundless self-sacrifice" by a mother who demonstrates her love by "constant overfeeding and unremitting solicitude about every aspect of her children's and husband's welfare[s]".
's research into the European shtetl
, financed by the American Jewish Committee
. Although her interviews at Columbia University
, with 128 European-born Jews, disclosed a wide variety of family structures and experiences, the publications resulting from this study and the many citations in the popular media resulted in the Jewish mother stereotype: a woman intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering and attempting to engender enormous guilt
in her children via the endless suffering she professes to have experienced on their behalf. The Jewish mother stereotype, then, has origins in the American Jewish community, with predecessors coming from Eastern Europe. In Israel, where the geographical background of Jews is more diverse, the same stereotypical mother is known as the Polish mother.
Comedian Jackie Mason
describes stereotypical Jewish mothers as parents who have become so expert in the art of needling their children that they have honorary degrees in "Jewish Acupuncture". Rappoport observes that jokes about the stereotype have less basis in anti-Semitism than they have in gender stereotyping. Helmreich agrees, observing that the attributes of a Jewish mother—overprotection, pushiness, aggression, and guilt-inducement—could equally well be ascribed to mothers of other ethnicities, from Italians through Blacks to Puerto Ricans.
The association of this otherwise gender stereotype with Jewish mothers in particular, is, according to Helmreich, because of the importance that is traditionally placed by Judaism on the home and the family, and on the role of the mother within that family. Judaism, as exemplified by the Bible (e.g. the Woman of Valor) and elsewhere, ennobles motherhood, and associates mothers with virtue. This ennoblement was further increased by poverty and hardship of Eastern European Jews immigrating into the United States (during the period 1881–1924, when one of the largest waves of such immigration occurred), where the requirements of hard work by the parents were passed on to children via guilt: "We work so hard so that you can be happy." Other aspects of the stereotype are rooted in those immigrant Jewish parents' drive for their children to succeed, resulting in a push for perfection and a continual dissatisfaction with anything less: "So you got a 98? Who got the 100?" Hartman observes that the root of the stereotype is in the self-sacrifice of first-generation immigrants, unable to take full advantage of American education themselves, and the consequent transference of their aspirations, to success and social status, from themselves to their children. A Jewish mother obtains vicarious social status from the achievements of her children, where she is unable to achieve such status herself.
, in the situation comedy The Goldbergs
on radio in the 1929-1949 and television from 1949-1955. Molly was sensible, warm-hearted, and a moral guide. But the stereotype as it came to be understood in the 20th century was exemplified by other literary figures. These include Rose Morgenstern from Herman Wouk
's 1955 novel Marjorie Morningstar
, Mrs Patimkin from Goodbye, Columbus
by Philip Roth
, and Sophie Ginsky Portnoy from Portnoy's Complaint
also by Roth. Sylvia Barack Fishman's characterization of Marjorie Morningstar and Sophie Portnoy is that they are each "a forceful Jewish woman who tries to control her life and the events around her", who is "intelligent, articulate, and aggressive", who does not passively accept life but tries to shape events, friends, and families, to match their visions of an ideal world.
The Jewish mother became one of two stock female Jewish characters in literature in the 20th century, the other being the Jewish-American princess
. The focus of the stereotype was different than its precursors, too. Jewish writers had previously employed a stereotype of an overbearing matron, but its focus had always been not the woman, but the ineffectual man whom she dominated, out of necessity. The focus of the Jewish mother stereotype that arose was based in a shift in economic circumstances of American Jews during the 20th century. American Jews were no longer struggling first generation immigrants, living in impoverished neighborhoods. The "soldier woman" work ethos of Jewish women, and the levels of anxiety and dramatization of their lives, was seen as unduly excessive for lifestyles that had (for middle-class Jews) become far more secure and suburban by the middle of the century. Jewish literature came to focus upon the differences between Jewish women and what Jews saw as being the various idealized views of American women, the "blonde bombshell", the "sex kitten", or the sweet docile "apple-pie" blonde who always supported her man. In contrast, Jewish writers viewed the still articulate and intelligent Jewish woman as being, by comparison, pushy, unrefined, and unattractive.
While the Jewish-American princess stereotype was aimed at Jewish daughters, the Jewish mother stereotype was aimed at Jewish mothers. Fishman describes its use by male Jewish writers as "a grotesque mirror image of the proverbial Woman of Valor". A Jewish mother was a woman who had her own ideas about life, who attempted to conquer her sons and her husband, and who used food, hygiene, and guilt as her weapons. Like Helmreich, Fishman observes that while it began as a universal gender stereotype, exemplified by Erik Erikson
's critique of "Momism" in 1950 and Philip Wylie's blast, in his 1942 Generation of Vipers, against "dear old Mom" tying all of male America to her apron strings, it quickly became highly associated with Jewish mothers in particular, in part because the idea became a staple of Jewish American fiction.
Betty Friedan
, in contrast to Blau, rejected the stereotype. In her view, a stifling Jewish mother didn't create a nice Jewish boy, but rather a homosexual son. Brodkin observes that this view was not confined to the Jewish mother stereotype, and that a more general climate of "mother bashing" obtained in the 1950s. One did not have to be Jewish necessarily in order to be a "Jewish mother", and Jewish mother jokes were enjoyed by the population at large, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
One example of the stereotype, as it had developed by the 1970s, was the character of Ida Morgenstern, mother of Rhoda Morgenstern
, who first appeared in a recurring role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show
, and later as a regular on its spinoff Rhoda
. While Rhoda herself was not the Jewish-American princess daughter, the character resisting the pull of that particular stereotype, Ida was a canonical example of the overbearing Jewish mother. The character of Ida was a problem for critics. Albert Auster observed that although "thoroughly assimilated, there was about her [Rhoda], as well as her mother and sister, reminders of some of the negative traits ascribed to Jews".
of an overprotective mother arguably originates in Germanic mythology, traces it as far back as the Nordic goddess Frigg
, who tried to protect her son Balder
from all earthly perils.
}
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
and stock character
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
used by Jewish comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
s and authors whenever they discuss actual or fictional situations involving their mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
s or other females in their lives who possess mother-like qualities. The stereotype generally involves a nagging
Nagging
Nagging is a form of pestering, or otherwise reminding an individual of previously discussed dictates or advice, usually from a perspective of superiority. The word is derived from the Scandinavian nagga, which means "to gnaw".-Social nagging:...
, overprotective, manipulative
Psychological manipulation
Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics. By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at the other's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative,...
, controlling
Control freak
In psychology-related slang, control freak is a derogatory term for a person who attempts to dictate how everything around them is done — "a control freak. Scared to let us have differences"...
, smothering, and overbearing mother or wife, one who persists in interfering in her children's lives long after they have become adults. Lisa Aronson Fontes describes the stereotype as one of "endless caretaking and boundless self-sacrifice" by a mother who demonstrates her love by "constant overfeeding and unremitting solicitude about every aspect of her children's and husband's welfare[s]".
Origins in Jewish immigration to the United States
A possible origin of this stereotype is anthropologist Margaret MeadMargaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
's research into the European shtetl
Shtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...
, financed by the American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee was "founded in 1906 with the aim of rallying all sections of American Jewry to defend the rights of Jews all over the world...
. Although her interviews at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, with 128 European-born Jews, disclosed a wide variety of family structures and experiences, the publications resulting from this study and the many citations in the popular media resulted in the Jewish mother stereotype: a woman intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering and attempting to engender enormous guilt
Guilt
Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...
in her children via the endless suffering she professes to have experienced on their behalf. The Jewish mother stereotype, then, has origins in the American Jewish community, with predecessors coming from Eastern Europe. In Israel, where the geographical background of Jews is more diverse, the same stereotypical mother is known as the Polish mother.
Comedian Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason is an American stand-up comedian and movie actor.-Early life:Born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City....
describes stereotypical Jewish mothers as parents who have become so expert in the art of needling their children that they have honorary degrees in "Jewish Acupuncture". Rappoport observes that jokes about the stereotype have less basis in anti-Semitism than they have in gender stereotyping. Helmreich agrees, observing that the attributes of a Jewish mother—overprotection, pushiness, aggression, and guilt-inducement—could equally well be ascribed to mothers of other ethnicities, from Italians through Blacks to Puerto Ricans.
The association of this otherwise gender stereotype with Jewish mothers in particular, is, according to Helmreich, because of the importance that is traditionally placed by Judaism on the home and the family, and on the role of the mother within that family. Judaism, as exemplified by the Bible (e.g. the Woman of Valor) and elsewhere, ennobles motherhood, and associates mothers with virtue. This ennoblement was further increased by poverty and hardship of Eastern European Jews immigrating into the United States (during the period 1881–1924, when one of the largest waves of such immigration occurred), where the requirements of hard work by the parents were passed on to children via guilt: "We work so hard so that you can be happy." Other aspects of the stereotype are rooted in those immigrant Jewish parents' drive for their children to succeed, resulting in a push for perfection and a continual dissatisfaction with anything less: "So you got a 98? Who got the 100?" Hartman observes that the root of the stereotype is in the self-sacrifice of first-generation immigrants, unable to take full advantage of American education themselves, and the consequent transference of their aspirations, to success and social status, from themselves to their children. A Jewish mother obtains vicarious social status from the achievements of her children, where she is unable to achieve such status herself.
Development of the stereotype in 20th century popular culture
One of the earliest Jewish mother figures in American popular culture was Molly Goldberg, portrayed by Gertrude BergGertrude Berg
Gertrude Berg was an American actress and screenwriter. A pioneer of classic radio, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs , later known as The Goldbergs.-Career:Berg was born...
, in the situation comedy The Goldbergs
The Goldbergs
The Goldbergs is a comedy-drama broadcast from 1929 to 1946 on American radio, and from 1949 to 1956 on American television. It was adapted into a 1948 play, Me and Molly, and a 1973 Broadway musical, Molly.-Radio:...
on radio in the 1929-1949 and television from 1949-1955. Molly was sensible, warm-hearted, and a moral guide. But the stereotype as it came to be understood in the 20th century was exemplified by other literary figures. These include Rose Morgenstern from Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author of novels including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.-Biography:...
's 1955 novel Marjorie Morningstar
Marjorie Morningstar (novel)
Marjorie Morningstar is a 1955 novel by Herman Wouk, about a woman who wants to become an actress. In 1958, the book was made into a Hollywood feature movie starring Natalie Wood, also titled Marjorie Morningstar.-Plot:...
, Mrs Patimkin from Goodbye, Columbus
Goodbye, Columbus
Goodbye, Columbus is a 1959 book by American novelist Philip Roth. It was the writer's first book: a collection of five short stories and one novella, also titled "Goodbye, Columbus"....
by Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
, and Sophie Ginsky Portnoy from Portnoy's Complaint
Portnoy's Complaint
Portnoy's Complaint is the American novel that turned its author Philip Roth into a major celebrity, sparking a storm of controversy over its explicit and candid treatment of sexuality, including detailed depictions of masturbation using various props including a piece of liver...
also by Roth. Sylvia Barack Fishman's characterization of Marjorie Morningstar and Sophie Portnoy is that they are each "a forceful Jewish woman who tries to control her life and the events around her", who is "intelligent, articulate, and aggressive", who does not passively accept life but tries to shape events, friends, and families, to match their visions of an ideal world.
The Jewish mother became one of two stock female Jewish characters in literature in the 20th century, the other being the Jewish-American princess
Jewish-American princess
Jewish-American Princess or JAP is a pejorative stereotype of a subtype of Jewish-American female. The term implies materialistic and selfish tendencies, attributed to a pampered or wealthy background.-Origins:...
. The focus of the stereotype was different than its precursors, too. Jewish writers had previously employed a stereotype of an overbearing matron, but its focus had always been not the woman, but the ineffectual man whom she dominated, out of necessity. The focus of the Jewish mother stereotype that arose was based in a shift in economic circumstances of American Jews during the 20th century. American Jews were no longer struggling first generation immigrants, living in impoverished neighborhoods. The "soldier woman" work ethos of Jewish women, and the levels of anxiety and dramatization of their lives, was seen as unduly excessive for lifestyles that had (for middle-class Jews) become far more secure and suburban by the middle of the century. Jewish literature came to focus upon the differences between Jewish women and what Jews saw as being the various idealized views of American women, the "blonde bombshell", the "sex kitten", or the sweet docile "apple-pie" blonde who always supported her man. In contrast, Jewish writers viewed the still articulate and intelligent Jewish woman as being, by comparison, pushy, unrefined, and unattractive.
While the Jewish-American princess stereotype was aimed at Jewish daughters, the Jewish mother stereotype was aimed at Jewish mothers. Fishman describes its use by male Jewish writers as "a grotesque mirror image of the proverbial Woman of Valor". A Jewish mother was a woman who had her own ideas about life, who attempted to conquer her sons and her husband, and who used food, hygiene, and guilt as her weapons. Like Helmreich, Fishman observes that while it began as a universal gender stereotype, exemplified by Erik Erikson
Erik Erikson
Erik Erikson was a Danish-German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T...
's critique of "Momism" in 1950 and Philip Wylie's blast, in his 1942 Generation of Vipers, against "dear old Mom" tying all of male America to her apron strings, it quickly became highly associated with Jewish mothers in particular, in part because the idea became a staple of Jewish American fiction.
Reception in the middle 20th century
This stereotype enjoyed a mixed reception. In her 1967 essay "In Defense of the Jewish Mother", Zena Smith Blau defended the stereotype, asserting that the ends, inculcating virtues that resulted in success, justified the means, control through love and guilt. Being tied to mamma kept Jewish boys away from "[g]entile friends, particularly those from poor, immigrant families with rural origins in which parents did not value education".Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
, in contrast to Blau, rejected the stereotype. In her view, a stifling Jewish mother didn't create a nice Jewish boy, but rather a homosexual son. Brodkin observes that this view was not confined to the Jewish mother stereotype, and that a more general climate of "mother bashing" obtained in the 1950s. One did not have to be Jewish necessarily in order to be a "Jewish mother", and Jewish mother jokes were enjoyed by the population at large, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
One example of the stereotype, as it had developed by the 1970s, was the character of Ida Morgenstern, mother of Rhoda Morgenstern
Rhoda Morgenstern
Rhoda Morgenstern, portrayed by Valerie Harper, is a character on the television sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show and subsequent spin-off Rhoda.-The Mary Tyler Moore Show:...
, who first appeared in a recurring role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977...
, and later as a regular on its spinoff Rhoda
Rhoda
Rhoda is an American television sitcom, starring Valerie Harper, which ran for five seasons, from 1974 to 1978 airing in 109 episodes. The show was a spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which Harper between the years 1970 and 1974 had played the role of Rhoda Morgenstern, a spunky,...
. While Rhoda herself was not the Jewish-American princess daughter, the character resisting the pull of that particular stereotype, Ida was a canonical example of the overbearing Jewish mother. The character of Ida was a problem for critics. Albert Auster observed that although "thoroughly assimilated, there was about her [Rhoda], as well as her mother and sister, reminders of some of the negative traits ascribed to Jews".
Decline in the late 20th century and the "Jewish grandmother"
According to Alisa Lebow, in the late 20th century and 21st century the stereotype of the Jewish mother has "gone missing" from movies. She observes that there appears to have been no conscious effort on the part of screenwriters or film-makers to rewrite or change the stereotype, in pursuance of some revisionist agenda, but that it has simply fallen back a generation. It has become irrelevant to filmmakers, as the political pressures of assimilation, and of 1950s and 1960s culture, that brought it about have receded. The Jewish mother has transformed in the Jewish grandmother, or bubbe. While still unschooled, food-obsessed, doting, loving, anxious, and a working-class balabusta (good home-maker), the Jewish grandmother is more mellow than her Jewish mother antecedent.Footnotes
Twark, stating that this literary archetypeArchetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
of an overprotective mother arguably originates in Germanic mythology, traces it as far back as the Nordic goddess Frigg
Frigg
Frigg is a major goddess in Norse paganism, a subset of Germanic paganism. She is said to be the wife of Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses" and the queen of Asgard. Frigg appears primarily in Norse mythological stories as a wife and a mother. She is also described as having the power...
, who tried to protect her son Balder
Balder
Baldr is a god in Norse mythology.In the 12th century, Danish accounts by Saxo Grammaticus and other Danish Latin chroniclers recorded a euhemerized account of his story...
from all earthly perils.
Further reading
— also published as:}
- How to Be a Jewish Mother: A Very Lovely Training Manual by Dan Greenburg; published by Price, Stern, Sloan; distributed by Pocket Books [New York (1964)] ASIN: B0007EN0II — later republished as:
- The Jewish Mother, Slate slideshow, June 13, 2007
See also
- Jewish humorJewish humorJewish humour is the long tradition of humour in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash from the ancient mid-east, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal, self-deprecating, crude, and often anecdotal humour originating in Eastern Europe and which took root in the United...
- Gerald and Sheila Broflovski (characters on the animated TV show South ParkSouth ParkSouth Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
) - My Yidishe MamaMy Yidishe MamaMy Yiddishe Momme is a song written by Jack Yellen , and Lew Pollack , first recorded by Willie Howard, and was made famous in Vaudeville by Belle Baker and by Sophie Tucker, and later by the Barry Sisters. Sophie Tucker began singing "My Yiddishe Momme" in 1925, after the death of her own mother...
- Nice Jewish BoyNice Jewish boyThe Nice Jewish boy is a stereotype of Jewish masculinity which circulates within the American Jewish community, as well as in mainstream American culture...
- Ethnic stereotypeEthnic stereotypeAn ethnic stereotype is a generalized representation of an ethnic group, composed of what are thought to be typical characteristics of members of the group.Ethnic stereotypes are commonly portrayed in ethnic jokes.-Ethnic stereotypes:*African Americans...
- Co-dependence