In Jerusalem, as the Women of the Wall continue to project an image of Jewish women seeking change, here in the U.S., what about those other Jewish women of the wall--the drama and sitcom characters we see on our flat screens hanging on our living room, bedroom and den walls? Have their images kept up with changing times?
On a day like Mother's Day, can we turn on the TV and see Jewish mothers who might reasonably stand in as our own Jewish Mom? Or, are the stereotypical overbearing Jewish mothers we find, freeze-framed somewhere in the 1950's?
Perhaps TV's earliest Jewish TV mom was Gertrude Berg as Molly Goldberg on the long-running radio and TV show, "The Goldbergs." Goldberg, the sweetly concerned Jewish neighbor from the Bronx--on radio she began every show with "Yoo-hoo is anybody...?"--was introduced by an announcer intoning, "There she is, folks--that's Molly Goldberg, a woman with a place in every heart and a finger in every pie."
When the show moved to TV in 1949, Berg continued starring as the relative or friend who was always lending advice.
Watching a few episodes one day at a museum, the Goldberg character, even with a Yiddish accent, gradually broke from the overbearing stereotype and even seemed familiar, as I recalled that my own mother, Pearl, was also a seasoned advice giver.
However, it was with Molly that any resemblance to real Jewish moms seemed to end. Somehow the channel changer got stuck, and all we saw were characters caught in a Philip Roth-Sophie Portnoy axis of guilt.
In the mid-seventies, the situation comedy "Rhoda," featured her mother Ida Morgenstern--played by Nancy Walker--who was right out of Roth's Novel "Portnoy's Complaint." She was overbearing, manipulative, guilt giving, plus she had weird hair.
The Nanny on CBS from 1993-1999 is about a Jewish native of queens-- Fran Fine, played by Fran Drescher--who is a nanny of three children in a "British" New York mansion. Fine, who finally becomes a mom in the show's final season--she marries her employer--is remembered for her irritating nasal accent, and inability to stay out of everyone's business.
On animated South Park--on Comedy Central since 1997--one of the main characters, Kyle Broflovski, has a Jewish mom, Sheila, who is overweight, wears her hair in a beehive and speaks with a thick New York accent.
In comparison, though my mother was proudly from the Bronx, and animated--she would give you her opinion, or that of Time magazine's on most any subject-- she was thin, stylish, and spoke in unaccented and unaffected tones. Unlike most of the sitcom Jewish moms, she hardly ever yelled--which brings us to a current TV mom disconnect--Mrs. Wolowitz.
On the hit show "Big Bang Theory," Mrs. Wolowitz, is almost never seen--why bother since TV has already put the stereotype in your head. She is heard though-- yelling, whining and snarling at her son Howard, one of the show's main characters, who for most of the run of show lived in the same house with her.
She is loud, overbearing, obnoxious, controlling, infantilizing, and has a highly selective memory. When she shrieks, "Hooowarrddd it's the phooooneeeee," you know you have entered a Jewish hell that you hope only exists in some writer's imagination.
Back in the real world, my mother could be warm or frosty. If she didn't like you or your attitude she had ways of letting you know, but even in a month of her worst days, she was nothing like Mrs. Wolowitz or the other TV Jewish mom stereotypes.
Yes, there are clips of Molly, Fran, Ida, even Mrs. Wolowitz creeping about in all our experiences and psyches. But on TV, in a time influenced by reality shows, where are the real Jewish moms? Those Jewish mothers who choose their words carefully, went into business, became professionals, do yoga, run, have a light to shine on the world? Why can't I see that Jewish mother on my wall?
Edmon J. Rodman has written about making his own matzah for JTA, Jewish love music for the Jerusalem Post, yiddisheh legerdemain for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a Bernie Madoff Halloween mask for the Forward, and what really gets stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits for the Los Angeles Times. He has edited several Jewish population studies, and is one of the founders of the Movable Minyan, an over twenty-year-old chavura-size, independent congregation. He once designed a pop-up seder plate. In 2011 Rodman received a First Place Simon Rockower Award for "Excellence in Feature Writing" from the American Jewish Press Association."