Susan Schnur on Jewish Mothers

Haaretz :

Dear Ms. Schnur,

You recently interviewed the historian Joyce Antler on the image Jewish Mothers, a topic that is now having some kind of renaissance. Is the Jewish mother stereotype something one ought to cherish or is it one of those images you rather see destroyed?
Thank you, Gina Susman

Gina: First I would say that what's really awesome about the stereotypes of the Jewish mother -- either the life-giving and nurturing stereotype, or the stereotype of a figure who is ridiculed for overwhelming and suffocating her children -- is understanding where they came from historically.

Read Joyce Antler's You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother, and you will be blown away by the smorgasbord of Jewish mothers she presents who are vital, canny, brainy, empathic, and incredibly energetic. These historical portraits are what led me to end my interview with Antler by saying, "I love us!"

The stereotypes themselves are kind of like pasta: banal, overwrought, standardized, flat. Not hugely interesting ... though certainly knowing that the negative stereotypes impinge on some Jewish mothers' sense of themselves and their freedom to be who they are, to be, perhaps, large -- is reason to push back against the belittling images. And it's also worth pointing out to those who think negatively of the Jewish mother that she has always produced -- both historically and now -- extraordinary children. Isn't it interesting that she could be so hideous and still pull this off?

Second, I would say that, in understanding the images of the Jewish mother that our culture has wrought, the key word is AMBIVALENCE. We're ambivalent about the Jewish mother. That's what's behind creating these projected, polarized images...

Look, mothers, in general, are so core, so desperately needed by children, that they're extremely powerful. Jewish mothers, as immigrants to the US, as members of a minority group that was routinely victimized, needed to be particularly protective; we've been mothers to the nth degree. So for those of us who haven't yet really grown up, who don't yet feel personally in control of our lives, we'll stay stuck in these projections. (I thank Dr. Katherine Jungreis for these insights.)

Where you smell polarization -- where you see the absence of integration --- that's where you'll always find deep ambivalence. Our culture, at heart, feels so ambivalently about us.

They just can't resolve what they think of us, so, in Solomonic fashion, the resolution is to split us in two.

Susan Schnur