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Motherhood

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Rising Voices Fellow Lili Klayman and Family

A Woman And Her Journey To Better A Community

Lili Klayman

My grandmother Elaine Fallon was born in 1938 and grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. Social activism has played a major role throughout her life, even though her involvement started later than one would expect. Since her introduction to feminism and activism, Elaine has been a key figure in voicing the importance of education throughout her community. 

Justina Machado

A Tale of Two Quinces: How One Day at a Time Blends Tradition and Modernity

Katy Ronkin

One Day at a Time is about a Latino family…Oh wait, you thought I was talking about that show from the seventies about a single mother raising her daughter? Well I am. Sort of. The Netflix reboot of One Day at a Time (ODAAT) tells the story of Penelope Alvarez, an army vet, current nurse, and single mother who shares the screen with her two children and her mother. 

Nursing Area Sign

Public Indecency, or Necessity?

Lili Klayman

Every once in a while the topic of public breastfeeding sparks a heated debate in the media. Whether it’s a nursing mother being asked to leave a public place, or a nurse-in being staged, controversy ensues as many express their varying opinions on the topic. I’m a seventeen-year-old girl who is not a mother (nor would I like to be anytime soon), but the controversy surrounding public breastfeeding completely baffles me.  

Marjorie Ingall

Marjorie Ingall’s 2016 parenting guide Mamaleh Knows Best offers a blend of empathy, ethics, and practical advice that readers have come to expect from her “East Village Mamaleh” column in the Forward.
Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham

Are You There God? It’s Me, Hagar

Diana Myers

The matriarchs are complex women, who do not always behave “perfectly,” or in the manner we would expect of our biblical female role models. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the story of Hagar, Sarah’s one-time slave, and Abraham’s one-time concubine.

Cropped Excerpt of "The Creation" by Judy Chicago

A Victory for Moms and Midwives

Dina Weinstein

In 2003, when the new head of obstetrics at the University of Chicago decided to close the nurse midwife practice, he said it was due to cost. For me and many other past and present patients...it also felt like yet another attack on women and our access to quality reproductive health. It seemed to communicate that women's comfort, and the personal services midwives provided, weren’t valued as a meaningful aspect of obstetrics.

Grandmother with Granddaughter

The Sandwich Generation: An Interview with Author Iris Waichler

Bella Book

Recently, the Pew Research Center has found that in 2013, 47% of adults, ages 40-59, had both a parent who was sixty-five or older and children they were still financially supporting. This group, called the “Sandwich Generation,” will only grow larger as people live longer and have children later.  The responsibility of taking care of elderly parents often falls on daughters who are also mothers and professionals.

Topics: Motherhood

Immigration and Generations: Anzia Yezierska's Children of Loneliness

Children of Loneliness, a short story by immigrant writer Anzia Yezierska, illustrates how one young woman's struggle to find her own place in American society tears her from her parents and their way of life.

Stack of Magazines

Celebrity Status

Hani Fish-Bieler

I don’t think I fully understood the importance of my mother's words at the time. But looking back, this lesson, and being raised in a household that constantly preached passion and hard work over vanity, are some of the things that have shaped me most into who I am today.

Topics: Feminism, Motherhood
Rising Voices Fellow Rana Bickel Gardening with her Mom

My Mama Loves Every(body)

Rana Bickel

I was never allowed to have a Barbie doll. My mom decreed it a rule in the Bickel household. I asked her why one time when I was six or seven, and she told me that she didn’t want us having dolls that portrayed unrealistic body standards. She didn’t want me and my two sisters growing up thinking that we were supposed to look like Barbies when we grew up

Episode 4: Mothering

A man with a beard admits he's the stereotypical Jewish mother…a woman who's always been afraid of teenagers explains why an 18-year-old from Somalia is calling her mom…and a veteran stage actor waxes philosophical about all the mother roles she has played—though she's not a mother herself. In this Mother’s Day episode, we celebrate the many forms motherhood can take, and look at what it means to wholeheartedly step into the role.

Rising Voices Fellow Abby Richmond with her Grandmother Cropped

Not Your Average Grandma

Abby Richmond

Many people view grandmothers as sweet, docile old ladies, whose sole purposes are to bake cookies and knit sweaters for their grandchildren. While it’s true that my Grandma Brenda does greatly enjoy spoiling and feeding her grandchildren, there’s so much more to her story.

Resilience is an attitude Cropped

The Power of Resilience

Ariela Basson

Change: the act or instance of making or becoming different. Change can be wonderful. Change can be terrifying. Change can be exciting, but change is never easy. Whether we want it to happen or not, change doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye. It takes time and effort. I learned this lesson when I decided to start a new position for my temple’s USY (United Synagogue Youth) board. 

Judy Batalion

An Interview with "White Walls" Author Judy Batalion

Bella Book

A scholar, writer, and comedian, Judy Batalion has a knack for finding the humor in family. As the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Batalion grew up in Montreal with her parents, a younger brother, and a house that was overflowing and chaotic with the results of her mother’s aggressive collecting. With insight and kindness, Batalion's book traces her messy origins, the complicated relationship between being a daughter and mother, and how to live with humor and authenticity in the world, and within our families. We were lucky enough to discuss the release of White Walls with Judy during her ongoing tour.

Judy Gold

Standup comedian Judy Gold won two Daytime Emmys for her work writing and producing the Rosie O’Donnell Show in 1998 and 1999.
Tess and Judy Favish in Verba, Ukraine

Feiga's Choice: Tracing One Family's History of Resilience from South Africa to Ukraine

LeeAnn Dance

Tess Peacock comes from a long line of strong Jewish women. As a South African human rights attorney, she believes passionately in equality and dignity for all. It’s a value she learned from her mother, Judy Favish—a former anti-apartheid activist now on staff at the University of Cape Town where she works to ensure equal access to education for all.  Judy’s mother was a pioneering doctor working in the townships. Her father Mannie was an attorney known for his integrity, compassion, and pursuit of fairness. But it was his mother—Feiga Shamis—to whom Judy and Tess feel they owe their strength, resilience, and commitment to human rights.

Jeanne Manford

In 1973 Jeanne Manford’s fierce love for her gay son in the face of national condemnation of homosexuality led her to create a support network for other families, Parents of Gays, later known as PFLAG.
Tziona Szajman with her daughter Eliyana

Now That I'm a Mommy, Can I Keep My Women Friends?

Rabbi Tziona Szajman

I didn't anticipate losing friends when I became a mom. Perhaps I was naive, perhaps I was too focused on achieving a dream. Years of infertility treatments followed by years waiting for our adopted daughter took their toll. Being around young families then was painful, so I built close relationships with women who had chosen not to have children. Some had fertility issues, some not. All felt judged by society for not "achieving motherhood." 

Topics: Children, Motherhood
Sally and Betty from AMC's Mad Men

Mad Men TV Club: Last Minute Reflections

Judith Rosenbaum

I’m late to the party of commentary on last week’s episode, The Milk and Honey Route, and anyway, all thoughts are running to this evening’s looming end. So I offer some general reflections instead. 

Topics: Motherhood
Rabbi Tziona Szajman, Timothy Olivieri, and Daughter Eliyana

The Dream That Was Meant To Be

Rabbi Tziona Szajman

Looking down at my beautiful daughter in my arms, I sometimes wonder what on earth took me so long. Bringing her into our lives was a long journey that did not begin with agency and governmental red tape, but with a dream I was afraid to let die.

Topics: Motherhood
Lesléa Newman, cropped

Parting Gifts

Lesléa Newman

“I can’t die before July 28th,” my mother said as soon as her doctor strolled into her room at Long Island Jewish Hospital. “I have theatre tickets.” Then, exhausted from the effort of uttering those two short sentences, she lay back on the pillow and shut her eyes.

Topics: Motherhood, Theater

Miriam Belsky Solotaroff

Miriam Belsky Solotaroff made headlines in 1937 when she “rocked the school board” of New York for insisting on maternity leave to care for an adopted baby, a privilege only granted to biological mothers at the time.

Sandy Sasso

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso was the first woman rabbi ordained by the Reconstructionist movement, which was one of many firsts in her career.

Gay Block

Gay Block’s photography allowed her to explore surprising facets of her subjects, from girls at summer camp to Holocaust survivors to her own mother.

Sarah Thal

Sarah's husband had brothers living in Milwaukee who sent home glowing reports of the conditions in America. Intrigued, Sarah and Solomon immigrated to America in 1882.

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