My Yiddishe Mama

My Yiddishe Mama is more than just a Jewish cookbook. It captures the stories of South African Jews and traces their roots back to Eastern Europe; Africa and the Middle East. These nostalgic stories are sure to make you laugh and cry, but most importantly, remember. Not only did each Yiddishe Mama share their story with me, but they gave me some of their most treasured possessions – their famous recipes. Each recipe has been tried and tested; they are delicious; uncomplicated and are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. My hope is that as you page through My Yiddishe Mama, you will remember to celebrate the past, live joyfully in the present and share in the prospect of the future. The key ingredient in this book is love, and you are sure to find it on every page! “Alts ken der mentch fargesn nor nit esn.” – A person can forget everything but eating. Yiddish Proverb

An illuminating, often humorous history of the Jewish Mother traces the evolution of this popular icon through decades of American culture, detailing both positive and negative aspects through the years while examining such images as the "Yiddishe Mama," "Molly Goldberg," the smothering and shrewish scourge of Portnoy's Complaint, and beyond.

During the first half of the twentieth century, American Jews demonstrated a commitment to racial justice as well as an attraction to African American culture. Until now, the debate about whether such black-Jewish encounters thwarted or enabled Jews' claims to white privilege has focused on men and representations of masculinity while ignoring questions of women and femininity. The White Negress investigates literary and cultural texts by Jewish and African American women, opening new avenues of inquiry that yield more complex stories about Jewishness, African American identity, and the meanings of whiteness. Lori Harrison-Kahan examines writings by Edna Ferber, Fannie Hurst, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as the blackface performances of vaudevillian Sophie Tucker and controversies over the musical and film adaptations of Show Boat and Imitation of Life. Moving between literature and popular culture, she illuminates how the dynamics of interethnic exchange have at once produced and undermined the binary of black and white.

Movie musicals are among the most quintessentially American art forms, often celebrating mobility, self-expression, and the pursuit of one’s dreams. But like America itself, the Hollywood musical draws from many distinct ethnic traditions. In this illuminating new study, Desirée J. Garcia examines the lesser-known folk musicals from early African American, Yiddish, and Mexican filmmakers, revealing how these were essential ingredients in the melting pot of the Hollywood musical. The Migration of Musical Film shows how the folk musical was rooted in the challenges faced by immigrants and migrants who had to adapt to new environments, balancing American individualism with family values and cultural traditions. Uncovering fresh material from film industry archives, Garcia considers how folk musicals were initially marginal productions, designed to appeal to specific minority audiences, and yet introduced themes that were gradually assimilated into the Hollywood mainstream. No other book offers a comparative historical study of the folk musical, from the first sound films in the 1920s to the genre’s resurgence in the 1970s and 1980s. Using an illustrative rather than comprehensive approach, Garcia focuses on significant moments in the sub-genre and rarely studied films such as Allá en el Rancho Grande along with familiar favorites that drew inspiration from earlier folk musicals—everything from The Wizard of Oz to Zoot Suit. If you think of movie musicals simply as escapist mainstream entertainment, The Migration of Musical Film is sure to leave you singing a different tune.

Ruth Lehrer's memoir in thirty-six essays is a compelling contemplation about her life as a secular American Jewish woman. With humor and passion, she tells of her family's arrival in America in 1920, her Yiddishe Mama, Catskill vacations, Bar Mitzvahs, Christmas trees, war and peace, religion, God, and politics. She delights in books, theatre, and film with Jewish content, and laughs loudest at jokes told in Yiddish. When she hears of a crime, she prays that the perpetrator is not Jewish. A Judaica gift shop is her favorite place to browse. Religion-lite may be hypocritical, Ruth writes, but what we need to be worried about is religion-heavy. She still wears her 1960s pendant trumpeting War is not healthy for children and other living things. Jewish Mother jokes, a sure-fire winner in a comedians arsenal, are stereotypical and exaggerated. But for her, they contain more than a nugget of truth. Her big regret is not speaking Yiddish with her sons.

The Jewish mother feels her job isn't done even after death. You're never too dead to be a Jewish mother." --Mallory Lewis, daughter of Shari Lewis * What do Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand, Jon Stewart, Bette Midler, and Natalie Portman have in common with this book? A Jewish mother. Is there such a thing as a Jewish mother? And if so, who is she? For the first time, best-selling Jewish author and humorist Marnie Winston-Macauley examines all aspects of the Jewish mother. Chronicling biblical Jewish mothers to modern-day Yentls, she creates a compendium using celebrity interviews, anecdotes, humor, and scholarly sources to answer these questions with truth and humor. * Contributors to the book range from Dr. Ruth Gruber and Rabbi Bonnie Koppel to Jackie Mason, Amy Borkowsky, John Stossel, Lainie Kazan, and more. * "The definitive source on Jewish mothers." --Eileen Warshaw, Ph.D., executive director of the Jewish Heritage Center of the Southwest

This collection of Robert Dawidoff's essays and journalism is peopled by the likes of the Founding Fathers, Fred Astaire, Henry and William James, Sophie Tucker, Trent Lott, and Cole Porter. Drawing together this unlikely cast of characters, Dawidoff probes into the role of outsider groups as well as intellectual and political elites in the formation of American culture. As a scholar of intellectual and cultural history, Dawidoff takes the stance that historians ought to take an active role in our democratic culture, informing and participating in public discourse. He argues for a broad reach when it comes to cultural expression, resisting the polarization of formal intellectual history and folk or commercial popular culture. In his view and in his book, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Katharine Hepburn are equally worthy topics for a historian's consideration, providing that they are treated with equal seriousness of purpose and analytic rigor. In "The Gay Nineties" section that closes the book, he traces key events in the continual struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights and takes on such unresolved issues as safer sex, needle exchange programs to control HIV transmission, and the public controversy around the portrayal of gay and lesbian television characters. Divided into sections that deal with the patriarchs of American political and intellectual culture, expressive culture, and a historian's public voice, this book is a model of engaged and engaging writing. Accessible and witty, Making History Matter will appeal to general and academic readers interested in American history as well as gay and lesbian political and cultural issues. Author note: Robert Dawidoff is John D. and Lillian Maguire Distinguished Chair and Professor of History at Claremont Graduate University. He is most recently the author (with Michael Nava) of Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America and The Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage: High Culture V. Democracy in Adams, James and Santayana.

A unique, positive collection of essays profiles a number of forgotten female Jewish leaders who played key roles in various American social and political movements, from suffrage and birth control to civil rights and fair labor practices.