The Great Jewish Mother

by David Kilimnick

Mother's Day is a beautiful day to celebrate our Jewish matriarchs. Let us praise these Eishet Chayils with talking a bit about the Jewish mother we all love.

Jewish mom makes your favorite dish. Every Jewish Mom has a special dish that nobody else has ever had. It's called Tzimis. Whatever is in that thing, you love it and one day you will find out that nobody else knows what it is.

Every Jewish mother makes the best food. How every Jewish mother is the best cook is an anomaly. Even if other people hate the spinach gravy apple tart rolls with date juice, your mom makes it. And that's the family's dish. Special to your family, because nobody else would ever think about making that concoction.

Jewish mom scoops your food for you. She feeds you into your forties.
A good Jewish mom doesn't take the chance at you deciding what you want to eat. If you decide what your portions should be, you might eat less. That's not acceptable. You might even say no to spinach gravy apple tart rolls.
You’re a growing forty-year-old who needs nutrients. You’re her shnukums. And your wife is getting very annoyed.

Jewish mom is honest about you putting on weight. And you are always putting on weight. She will scoop your food, ensure your plate is full and then tell you that you have to watch yourself. She'll tell you you're fat, while forcing more food on you. And then she’ll be offended if you don’t eat it.

Jewish mom knows you're the best, because you're her child. And that's all that matters till you meet the other kids in the class. Being the best doesn't help when you lose at everything. Getting whacked by a rubber dodgeball does not reinforce this feeling of being the best.
The fact that she thinks you're the best, even when you're not still makes you feel good. Because you're her shnukums. Asthma may hurt your chance at making the pros. However, Mom knows you're still the best athlete. And she will acknowledge that by hugging you and making you fatter.

Jewish mom will make you self-conscious, because she loves you. From the first day she yelled 'watch out,' you will always be aware that stairs can be dangerous when walking up them.
Thanks to your Jewish mother, you will always be aware of danger. You will watch out for sun because it's bright. You will watch out for chicken because it has bones. And you will drive your Honda with a twitch to something in your head going, 'Shnukums. Watch out. There are cars. Cars are dangerous.'

Jewish mom buys you stuff to make sure you wear it, and to get offended when you don't. 'It's June' is not an excuse to not being wearing the sweater mom bought you for Chanukah.

Jewish mom dresses modestly. And then she tells you the clothes she bought you are hip. Saying something is hip, by definition means it's not. It means it might look good on somebody who is over eighty-five.

Jewish mom expects you to call, and calls you to let you know she's expecting the call. She tells you this to let you know you're going to let her down somehow. If it's not for the sweater with a dreidel on it, or the fact that you eat way too little to be a three-hundred-pound athlete who is the best at dodgeball, your not calling enough will let her down. 'Enough' is the amount you will never call.

Jewish mom wants you to get married and will make you feel bad about it. She still can't figure out why other women find it hard to be attracted to her shnukums. And she calls you her shnukums. I believe ‘shnukums’ is Yiddish.
She cares. Which means you're going to be contacted by a friend of mom's who turned into a matchmaker once your mom shared how pathetic you are. She told he friend that she can't figure out why no girl wants to be with the best son, her shnukums. And her friend understood you're a loser.

Jewish mom will tell you you're a man. She will pinch your cheeks and tell you you're a man. Because you're her shnukums.
With all this belief in you as a man, with all the love, she will never trust you with a wrench. You’re the best, but you do not have abilities as a man to use a tool. You come from your father, who has been beaten down.

She says Tehillim all the time. She constantly prays, especially for her children, so that they will someday not let her down. She prays her children might pick up a phone and call. She prays her son will take off weight and eat more.

And it is all because she loves you. You're hers. And you are the best shnukums.
No matter how old you are, when you're with your Jewish mother you feel a warmth. You feel at home. You feel like the greatest athlete in the world, and the smartest kid who ever had a 'C' average in elementary school. And that was the teachers' fault. All of them. You’re the best and you’re her favorite child. You and your eight siblings are her favorite child.
We need a Jewish Mother's Day, a special day for our special moms, to give the Jewish mom another chance to call and let you know she's expecting a call, so you can surprise her and let her down.