Email a friend25 Questions for a Jewish Mother
For a Jewish girl who remembers the first book ever read to her as a child was the pop-up version of The Diary of Anne Frank, learning how to be a Jewish mother who wasn’t a carbon copy of HER Jewish mother wasn’t easy. Here, Emmy Award-winning comedienne Judy Gold asks, “Are there any Jewish mothers out there like me, or all they all, G-d forbid, like my mother????”
In 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, she incorporates her own adventures in Jewish motherdom and her memories of growing up Jewish in suburban New Jersey—communicating with her mother by putting Ann Landers articles on the fridge (“Dear Ann, My mother won’t let me walk alone to school and I’m 16! Please help.” “Dear Ann, The crossing guard drinks. Please help.”)—with the voices of the fifty other Jewish mothers, she and her co-author Kathleen Moira Ryan, interviewed. They asked homemakers, lawyers, Holocaust survivors twenty-five questions, including:
• Who’s your favorite Jewish mother? (Judy’s is Barbra Streisand.)
• How many times a day do you talk to your children or mother? (for Judy, it’s anywhere from one to the high double digits)
• Are Jewish mothers really more paranoid? (or, “Why do I have to write an entire itinerary with names, addresses and phone numbers every time I leave the house?”)
And so on. The culmination of these extraordinary stories confirms that there is ultimately something strong, courageous, and loving in every Jewish mother—a hopeful—and very funny—message to mothers and their children everywhere.
For a Jewish girl who
“You don't have to be Jewish, or even a mother, to appreciate this hilarious little book. But since I'm both, it's the humor combined with poignancy that gets me every time.”
—Judy Blume
“This book is the greatest, even the goyim agree!”
—Joy Behar
“Honest, poignant, and very real, 25 QUESTIONS reminds us that you never know how you will touch someone's life and how they will affect yours—and that the more you know about history, the more you know about yourself. A great read that keeps you laughing and thinking.”
—Billie Jean King
“Judy Gold and Kate Ryan reach beyond their confines of their title to talk about—with canny humor and surprising grace—the nature of parenthood, the immigrant experience, the rudiments of faith, and the cathartic function of comedy. The book tickles your funny bone, but it also satisfies your soul.”
—Doug Wright, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2004, I AM MY OWN WIFE.
"Judy Gold's mom could have been my mother and I'm not Jewish. Warm, funny, and all about being a parent and a patient, understanding daughter."
—tapsille
