Yiddishe Mamas (7 page)

I
n the 1940s and 1950s we got a glimpse of the Jewish mother through the incomparable Gertrude Berg, as Molly Goldberg, in what many consider the first true sitcom. The show, which started on radio, then moved to television, targeted the cultural differences between immigrant parents and their new-world children. During the show’s thirty-year run, the Goldbergs,
like many immigrant families, “moved on up” from a New York tenement, to the Bronx, and finally to Connecticut.

Molly, buxom and benevolent, was the family fixer, who, in her Mollyisms, or cracked Yinglish, used common sense, wisdom, and compassion as her tools to advise her family—and anyone else in her orbit. Through Berg’s highly skilled writing and performance, every show revealed a love for mankind and acceptance of human behavior. She was likeable and personal with her audience and reflected the trials, hopes, and patriotism of many immigrant groups of her time—but in a nonthreatening way, which was acceptable to postwar viewers of many religions and races.

So much for positive ethnic images. After
The Goldbergs
ended in 1955, Jewish women mostly disappeared on air for two decades. The babies had boomed, many leaving generations between themselves and the shtetls. As families ran from their ethnic city streets to “melt” into suburbia— and the Land of Assimilation—the Vanilla families took over. The Nelsons, the Cleavers, the Andersons, and the Stones reigned in Main Street, USA, representing the generic American family archetype.

Then, in the 1970s came Rhoda Morgenstern (played by non-Jew Valerie Harper), Mary’s best gal pal on
The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
When
Rhoda
spun off, enlarging the role of her Jewish mama, Ida Morgenstern (Nancy Walker), the change from warmhearted shtetl mom started. The turbulent 1960s that pitted parent against child while bringing new world abundance to the Jewish mother became a part of prime-time TV, film, and books. The result was a reinvention of the Jewish mother, who, born or raised in America, was portrayed as a mélange of nurturing and devouring, manipulative, pushy, judgmental, demanding, insufferable—and “loving.” The message was clear: Children were locked in mama-prison and their attempts to break out brought the laughs. Big ones.

As second bananas, the Jewish mother proved the perfect foil for their “long-suffering” children in shows such as
Mad About You, Seinfeld, Will and Grace,
and
The Nanny.

Sylvia (Renee Taylor), Fran Fine’s mother in
The Nanny,
is the quintessential pain in the
tuchus
(behind) with her all-consuming interest in: her daughter getting married, food, and greed. Guilt … constant one-line guilt, was the MO, as “Sylvia,” when thwarted, asked “Fran” to, among other things, feel her for lumps.

More, even her
stereotype
was flawed. Not only was she tasteless and tactless, most attempts at the redeeming moment between mother and child just weren’t, well, believable as the formula was objectifying and the quick joke.

In Sylvia’s world, for example, greed came before kidfirst. In one episode, when it was thought there was a baby mix-up at the hospital, she was willing to give up her daughter to a classy Black woman—with money.

This would never happen.

In
Seinfeld,
there was no attempt at redemption with George Constanza’s mother, played by the marvelous Estelle Harris. The same is true of the Jewish mothers (Susie Essman, among others) in
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Larry David takes no prisoners in his group. They’re all equal opportunity obnoxious, pretentious, paranoics, doomed to view life as universal
mishegoss,
and meet it mouth-on, with their own
Mega-mishegoss.

The exception (on TV) was
Brooklyn Bridge
(1991), set in the 1950s, that showed Jewish mothering and grand-mothering as bountiful, beloved, and balanced. Sadly, few wanted to watch beyond a few seasons.

Today, the Jewish mother media stereotype has become the prototype for mothers of all stripes.

Mama-bashing is now universal. If these women aren’t actually vipers, then many fall into the “Smart Wife Saves Tuchus of Stupid Male” category.

Most notable is Lord of the Wimps, Ray Barone: OK, he’s a harmless guy but no hero. Why? Because, he’s been “fixed,” neutered, by “Everybody [Who] Loves” him. Mostly … the moms.

Ethnic moms, especially those of Italian descent, such as Marie Barone, are hard hit. Marie sets a new standard for the maternal stereotype as part harridan, part wolf, who acts with a vengeance— that “comes from love.” Ray’s put-upon wife, Debra, while far more aware, also grows a few unflattering fangs, coming out of most frays with “Wife Knows Best” tattooed on Ray’s psyche.

Black moms, on the other hand, have faired better, thanks to Bill Cosby’s influence. Claire Huxtable is the very soul of the modern mom, who can balance her law career while raising five children with a firm (if not sarcastic) hand in place. Child-first, this is a professional family with the affluence to provide for their brood.
The Jeffersons
and
Good Times
portray the wise matriarch, who, again, is both peacemaker and the conscience of the family.

Even the WASP mother (the perennial back-seated and obedient June Cleaver) is no longer immune. Jamie Buchman’s mom in
Mad About You
evoked trembling in her daughters at the mere thought of a visit. Although she was portrayed as a constantly smiling, “life is good,” woman whose MO was steeped in denial, her code-speak was like something out of
Through the Looking Glass.
Will’s mother in
Will and Grace,
played by the glorious Blythe Danner, was the consummate stereotype of the WASP mom, who not only
talked
in code-speak, but was concerned with keeping up appearances and was steeped in emotional denial, which she handled through a very proper (and very extended) cocktail hour. (In crime shows, the WASPy mom is often
rich
—and in denial—with a son who has an eye tick and collects flesh-eating moths under mama’s radar.)

In
Sex and the City,
though none of the
characters
were born Jewish, and their mothers are not seen on air, whenever they’re
mentioned, they usually bring about eye rolls, and trips home are about as welcome as a ring, courtesy of Cracker Jacks.

Yet one can’t help but notice, that for all the kvetching about mothers, recent hits have reinvented almost precisely the same ethno-type in their “new” family groups—their friends.

The
Seinfeld
“four” are rife with “Jewish mother” stereotypes— without the Jewish mother. Argumentation for one. No debate is too petty. With almost Talmudic logic, the group might be found arguing about the possibility of “over-drying.” It’s laundry by Talmudic review. While George loathes the “insanity” of his babbling mother, within his new “family” of pals, could he be
more
of the stereotype in high decibel?

Group kvetching forms the core of the comedy. The “we four against the world— which is out to get us,” plus the never-ending picayune debates are a close replica of the very traits they loathe in their parents. If you add a few years to the group, they would fit neatly with their mamas—arguing over temperature control, early bird specials, and pens that write upside down.

Will and Grace, along with friends Karen and Jack, form yet another faux “family.” The Jewish Grace is not unlike her overbearing, narcissistic, yet charming mother. Will maintains his mother’s rather formal rigid, appearances-first stance. Grace, like mama, is all about, well—Grace.

It could be that the need for “family,” connection, involvement, and intimacy, burdensome as it may be, is still around. Because if we don’t get it, we simply reinvent something like it—and call it “friends.”

Comic films and books in popular culture haven’t treated the Jewish mother—or any mother—much better. While some have been depicted as loving, the majority are harridans in films, for example:
My Favorite Year, Lovers and Other Strangers, Meet the Fockers, Annie Hall, Goodbye Columbus, Throw Mama off the Train,
and if you can imagine, Jane Fonda in
Monster-in-Law.

And in books, there was the breakthrough seller,
Portnoy’s Complaint
(1970), by Philip Roth who, in one passage, describes his mother as a woman who might actually be “too good”—as weeping and suffering, she ground her own horseradish, checked every “crease and seam” in his body, and whose house was so spotless, you could eat off the bathroom floor.

Comedy albums abounded.
How to Be a Jewish Mother
is based on the book by Dan Greenberg who “advises” the Jewish mother to sit with a daughter who is without prospects, and tell her you wish to go into the coffin with a smile on your face … so, maybe a professional man may not be so important (after all, her father was in ladies’ buttons); besides, by then, mama will probably be dead anyway.

“On film, a real man has to be dueling, some supremely threatening force, something powerful, primal, and difficult,” says author, film critic, and radio personality Michael Medved. “In domestic dramas, in so many films, novels, and stories involving Jewish men, they are involved in a constant duel with a mother— and you have to make that mother monstrous.”

E
arlier I wrote of the sons in media who helped shape the negative image of the Jewish mother. How did this transformation from adoration to comic strip occur when these shtetl families came to America? Like most change, it was a process, fueled by
assimilation. In the shtetls, Hebraic traditions, sacrifice, protection, involvement, and making sure the kids were in the fold, were
essential
to keeping the family Jewish, together—and alive. I believe when these mothers came to America, they found themselves “outsourced” as their children wanted to fly and grab a piece of the American Dream and status, which was hard to reconcile with their Jewishness, and their mothers’ expectations.

In the very early days of TV and film, this dual tug was expressed, but Mama was still an adored part of the equation. In the iconic
The Jazz Singer,
a classic story of assimilation, Jack Rabinowitz (Al Jolson) faces a life-changing choice. Does he sing as a cantor on Yom Kippur, or fulfill his duties as “Jack Robin,” the jazz singer? In 1927, Hollywood’s first feature-length “talkie” includes a memorable excerpt between mother and son after his father, the cantor, dies. In the dialogue, Jack promises his mama, that if he’s a success, he’ll move them to the Bronx (a step up), buy her a nice pink dress, and take her to Coney Island.

This critical speech sent Jack and his mother on their way to a new and untried future. One where, for the first time, the son had to take mama by the hand in this alien world. Her role was changing. She was no longer the sure moral center. Now, as a stranger in a brave new world, she was being led by her child— one whose religious values were being usurped by secular values in a fervent desire for acceptance.

The next giant step in the change of image was the development of the Jewish comedian. Within a generation, Jewish sons were honing a new craft and a new view of “mama,” as writers and comics in the Borscht Belt.

The Borscht Belt, in New York’s Catskill Mountains, refers to the summer resorts Jews began to frequent in the 1940s. Initially bungalow colonies, known as
kuchaleyns,
they grew, due in part to “restricted” hotels. The Concord, Grossinger’s, Granit, Kutshers, the Nevele, the Pines, Raleigh, Brickman’s, and Brown’s, became full-service luxury resorts and turned the area into what was called “the Jewish Alps.” With virtually unlimited food,
shadchens
(matchmakers) and
tummlers
(underpaid social directors), young comics looking for a break, “apprenticed” by doing everything from acting as Master of Ceremonies to calling Simple Simon. These legendary hotels peaked in the 1950s and 1960s.

Male comedians who got their start or regularly performed in Borscht Belt resorts include: Jerry Lewis, Jackie Mason, Buddy Hackett, Woody Allen, Freddie Roman, Morey Amsterdam, Milton Berle, Carl Reiner, Shelley Berman, Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce, George Burns, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, Jack Carter, Myron Cohen, Norm Crosby, Bill Dana, Rodney Dangerfield, Shecky Greene, Mickey Katz, Danny Kaye, Alan King, Robert Klein, Jack E. Leonard, Don Rickles, and Henny Youngman, among others.

This group of mostly first-generation Americans became the founders of Borscht Belt humor, which was fast, frequently deprecating, and often used “Mama” material. The wonderful film
Mr. Saturday Night
is an excellent representation of the Borscht Belt.