25 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 are 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.