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Motherhood

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Postsecret Community Art Project, 2011

Our Bodies, Our Moms

Leah Berkenwald

Last Sunday on Postsecret, someone sent in a postcard (pictured right) about mothers, daughters, and body image. I think most can relate to the anonymous author of the Postsecret card.

Remembering Dr. Rosalyn S. Yalow, Nobel Prize winning scientist and mother

Leah Berkenwald

“A Jewish woman whose father-in-law is a rabbi, who keeps a kosher home, who invites her lab assistants to Passover seders, and worries about them catching colds is not the typical image of a Nobel Prize winner,” Emily Taitz writes in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. “But it is the image of Rosalyn Yalow, the first woman born and educated in the United States to win a Nobel Prize in a scientific field.” Rosalyn S. Yalow passed away Monday, May 30, 2011, at the age of 89.

The battle hymn of the "bully mother"

Preeva Tramiel

Using "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," as a jumping off point, we can finally challenge some fond assumptions of educators and parents that have gotten us into trouble in the past 30 years.

Topics: Children, Motherhood

Are opinionated Jewish women hiding behind stereotypes?

Galit Breen

Scratching, clawing, digging. Those words don't sound very friendly, do they? When it comes to getting beyond the surface of stereotypes, they're even worse than that. They're painful.

Topics: Motherhood

Eleanor Hatkin Freedman, 1924 - 1974

My mother, I came to realize, wanted to obliterate the barrier between love and sexuality. I was not shocked or shamed to encounter that carnal side of her. The mother I knew during my lifetime was a beautiful and vain woman, one who resisted having a mastectomy for breast cancer because she could not bear to be, as she put it, 'mutilated' and 'disfigured.' Her allure was part of her life-force, something inextricably tied to her passions for intellectual growth and artistic expression.

Raising Girls

Minnesota Mamaleh

Kayli had her first soccer game this week. Right before the big game she jumped into her purple outfit, had her hair french braided by our fabulous babysitter and finished off the look with a dollop of lip gloss. She nodded in the mirror and smiled. Totally and completely satisfied with her “soccer look.” You might be asking yourself what any of this actually has to do with soccer right about now.

Topics: Children, Motherhood

"Listen To Your Mother"

Ellen K. Rothman

The Jewish Women’s Archive was the community partner for the Boston New Center for Arts and Culture’s last program of the season on May 6, “Listen to Your Mother,” featuring StoryCorps founder David Isay. He played a number of clips from StoryCorps interviews and closed the evening with a “sneak preview” of StoryCorps’ newest venture which will be broadcast on PBS this summer -- an extremely effective animated version of a conversation between a mother and her young son.

Topics: Motherhood

Navah Paskowitz-Walther: The Jewish Mother of Surfing’s First Family

Renee Ghert-Zand

Knowing Navah Paskowitz-Walther today as a San Fernando Valley stay-at-home mom who is active in her synagogue and children’s Jewish day school, it is hard to believe that, as a child, she lived a peripatetic existence in a 24-foot camper.

Topics: Motherhood, Sports

On Being a Jewish Mother, Professionally

Stephanie Clayman

I am an actress, currently rehearsing a one-woman show at the Nora Theatre in Cambridge, MA.  I play Ann Landers, a.k.a. Eppie Lederer. The title of the show is The Lady With All the Answers.

Topics: Motherhood

Never too late to become a Jewish mother

Leah Berkenwald

Is 73 too old to become a first-time mother? Not for the trailblazing Marylin Berger, who is now raising an 8 year old boy from Ethiopa.

Topics: Motherhood

"Does working make me a bad mother?" -- Legitimate question, or pseudo dilemma?

Leah Berkenwald

Last week in The Sisterhood, Elana Sztokman weighed in on the struggle to balance work and motherhood. Her piece was written partly in response to an earlier Sisterhood post by Deborah Kolben, who wondered if choosing to stay home with her new baby made her a "bad feminist."  Below is an excerpt from Elana Szotkman's piece.

Topics: Motherhood

Paid Maternity Leave Should be a Right, Not a Privilege

Debra Nussbaum Cohen

Oh to be a working mother in Israel, where women who give birth will soon get 14 weeks of paid maternity leave. Fourteen weeks? I’d have been happy to get 14 days of paid leave in this country.

Topics: Motherhood

Hannah Greenebaum Solomon

Hannah Greenebaum Solomon dared to go out into the world and establish the first national association of Jewish women. A superb organizer, Solomon emphasized unity, and orchestrated agreements among Jewish, gentile, and government groups on local, national, and international levels.

On (not) breastfeeding and maternal Jewish guilt

Debra Nussbaum Cohen

I like this new article by former Forward “East Village Mamele” Marjorie Ingall over at Tablet magazine, in an issue this week focusing on the body.

I had struggles myself with nursing each of my three children, and naturally the first time was the most difficult to deal with.

Topics: Motherhood

Family-friendly policies in the Jewish community

Judith Rosenbaum

I read Gabrielle Birkner's article in the Forward on the shameful lack of family-friendly policies in most Jewish organizations with disappointment, but not surprise. It's one of the well-known but rarely articulated -- except by whispering mothers, trying to figure out how to manage their jobs and pregnancies -- secrets of the Jewish community.

Topics: Motherhood

Sotomayor and motherhood

Judith Rosenbaum

My earlier post on Sotomayor sparked some interesting conversation among my friends on Facebook that I thought worth bringing back to the blog. Most of it -- unsurprisingly, considering my demographic (thirtysomething mothers of young kids) -- was about motherhood.

Topics: Motherhood

Mother's Day reflection, with thanks to Henrietta Szold

Judith Rosenbaum

Frankly, I'm too burnt out by a day spent with my children to offer much in the way of my own reflections on Mother's Day. So instead I will share the words of Henrietta Szold to fellow Zionist activist Jessie Sampter on August 23, 1917.

Topics: Motherhood

Celebrate Your Jewish Mother!

Jordan Namerow

Often, what people celebrate on Mother's Day is the unpaid and under-valued labor of women as nurturers. Here at the Jewish Women's Archive, we celebrate this labor every day of the year along with the myriad ways mothers, and women at large, have touched our lives and transformed our world.

Topics: Motherhood

Gertrude Berg makes her television debut

October 18, 1948

Gertrude Berg made her television debut as Bronx housewife Molly Goldberg on NBC's Chevrolet on Broadway in 1948.

Women strike for peace

November 1, 1961

On November 1, 1961, Women Strike For Peace (WSP) was inaugurated with a day-long strike by an estimated 50,000 women in 60 cities, all pressing for nuclear disarmament.

Jewish Gender Stereotypes in the United States

Stereotypes of Jews have existed from their arrival in the New World to the present. Jews were portrayed as greedy, unscrupulous, and unrefined. However, Jews also created stereotypes about one another based on class, gender, and religion. Specifically, the Ghetto Girl, Jewish Mother, JAP, and others reflected tensions between genders about the place of Jews in the economy and culture.

Sarah: Midrash and Aggadah

The midrash present Sarah as a righteous woman whose actions are worthy of emulation; she converted Gentiles and drew them into the bosom of Judaism. Sarah is described as preeminent in the household. Abraham was ennobled through her and subordinated himself to her; God commanded him to heed his wife, because of her prophetic power.

Sarah/Sarai: Bible

Originally named Sarai, Sarah is the ancestress of all Israel and the wife of Abraham. Barren for most of her life, she gives birth to Isaac at 90 years old, and after securing his position as Abraham’s heir, she largely disappears from the story of Genesis.

Ruth: Midrash and Aggadah

Midrash views Ruth very positively, describing her as beautiful, modest, and virtuous. The Rabbis also link Ruth with other revered women, such as Sarah and Rebekah, furthering her portrayal as an exemplary biblical woman. Despite her mother-in-law’s suspicion about the circumstances of her conversion, the midrash clarifies that Ruth converted based solely on her beliefs.

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