LAURIANE « Three moms are kicking it, playing mahjong, and bragging about how their sons spoil them. The first one says: My son adores me so much, for my last birthday, he bought me a gorgeous winter coat. The second chimes in, mine did even better. He saved up for a year to send me on a Caribbean cruise. My son, the third declares, is even more extraordinary: three times a week, he goes to his shrink, and he pays him just to talk about me. » When Rebecca shows up in heaven, she's greeted by 7 Jewish mothers, and not just any Jewish mothers, mind you. There’s Albert Cohen's mom, Marcel Proust's, the Marx Brothers', Freud's, Einstein's, Romain Gary's, and Woody Allen's. Each one, in turn, brags about her son’s extraordinary talents and exceptional qualities. They all defend themselves against being excessive, sometimes admit they might have been unbearable, and loudly proclaim their boundless love. But what exactly is a Jewish mother? «She’s someone who gets up to make her child’s bed after he pees in the middle of the night.» In Nathalie David-Weil's novel, 'Jewish Mothers Never Die,' we're led to ponder a question you, dear reader, might just have the answer to: Does the Jewish mother make the genius, or does the genius make the Jewish mother? The chicken or the egg? Who started it? A Jewish mother is more than a cliché, more than a concept, more than an expression—it's a set of symptoms that build up step-by-step and get passed down from mother to son. The Oedipus Complex? Maybe… Through the dialogues of these famous men’s mothers, across 13 chapters, we uncover an entire process, with its circumstances and its flaws. Because, let’s be real, their son is always the most beautiful, and these mothers, more Jewish mother than Jewish mother to the point of suffocation, to the point of exhaustion. 1 – A Paradise Reserved for Mothers « God invented Jewish mothers because he didn't have time to do everything himself. » Jewish Proverb. In the beginning, there's the mother—the one who doesn't have the right to die before her son, who feels guilty from beyond the grave, who regrets no longer being able to meddle in his affairs and, especially, realizing his life goes on without her. In 'The Book of My Mother,' Albert Cohen, with his characteristic virtuosity, reproaches his mother for leaving him, even doubting her love. 2 – Did I Over-Nurture Him? « She would bless me sacerdotally and watch me almost animalistically, with a lioness's attention, to see if I was still healthy or, humanly, if I wasn't sad or worried. » Albert Cohen. The Jewish mother embodies devotion, excess, invasion, immodesty, intrusion, sacrifice—she's that mother who stands in the hallway, listening for her son's breathing through his bedroom wall, like Jeanne Proust, as her son testifies in 'Remembrance of Things Past.' 3 – What About the Husbands? « My husband decides everything: whether to believe in God, who to vote for, and I do the rest: how much we spend, where we go on vacation, where the kids go to school, what we eat… » Jewish Proverb. The husband is the partner, the family's shop window that the wife polishes. He's the one who looks like the son, not the other way around: like Jacob, Sigmund's father, even if he was unfaithful, Amalia didn't care. He loved his daughters, she loved her son. 4 – Exile « The first connection between a child and civilization is their connection with their mother. » Romain Gary. In every Jewish mother, there's exile—because of wars breaking out, antisemitism returning, money lost, or fortunes made. In Russia, Warsaw, Marseille, from Paris or Corfu, from London to Jerusalem. Romain Gary's mother, she stubbornly hauled her son’s happiness between Russia and the French Riviera, going from « Jews in Russian society to atheists among Jews. » 5 – My Favorite « When you've undeniably been your mother's favorite child, you keep that conquering spirit for life, that certainty of success which, in reality, rarely fails to bring it about. » Sigmund Freud. The son is the one who will never be a Jewish mother, who will never replace his own. He's the pampered prince, the king of the castle, naturally more gifted than his sisters. And what if there are several sons? Which one to pick as the favorite: the eldest? That was the case for Chico Marx, even though he wasn't the easiest. 6 – Rebecca « Mistakes? I've made a few. First, I was born. First mistake! » Woody Allen. The Jewish mother is so perfectionistic in her mothering that she gives complexes to others and plants seeds of doubt: « what if I'm not as good as her? » That's the question Rebecca asks herself when facing these Jewish mothers, all while thinking they're doing way too much. 7 – You Will Succeed, My Son « Guynemer! You’ll be a second Guynemer! You’ll see, your mother is always right… You’ll be a hero, you’ll be a general, Gabriele d’Annunzio, French ambassador. » Romain Gary. Barely had their sons entered the world than these mothers knew they’d become great men; they already knew their destiny, and anyway, they wouldn't give them a choice: it’s almost as if they conjure it into being. By bringing Sigmund Freud into the world, his mother knew she was creating an entire concept: psychoanalysis. E=mc2 and a Nobel Prize came out of Pauline Einstein's womb. 8 – Jewish from Mother to Son « What really interests me is whether God had any choice in creating the world. » Albert Einstein. What a Jewish mother transmits above all is that Jewish identity, a secret only she holds. And though they might not live that identity the same way, the legacy is undeniably there, and you just have to deal with it: the glory of a people, antisemitism, myths, sometimes just a name, traditions, a state, war stories, ghetto memories, pride, belonging, a flaw, holidays, questions of faith. When Woody Allen says: « I don't know if God exists. But if he does, I hope he has a good excuse. », his mother nods. 9 – I Know What’s Good For You “But when nothing remains from an ancient past, only more fragile, yet more vivid, more intangible, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and the taste still linger for a long time.” Marcel Proust. She decides what he'll eat, uses it to infantilize him and monitor the kashrut: that's the classic portrait of the nurturing mother. The intention is the same, only the recipes change: Sephardic meatballs or Ashkenazi gefilte fish. And if he doesn't want meat and vegetables on the same plate, he'll get two plates! Through flavors, the Jewish mother feeds memory: it's Proust's Madeleine. 10 – All Sick « Dad told everyone I’m fine and my asthma is purely imaginary. » Marcel Proust. Marcel's asthma, the hypochondria of Woody's fictional characters and his own neurosis, Freud's cocaine addiction, Albert Cohen's insomnia, Romain Gary's depressions: they were all sick. 11 – And Their Love Lives? « With a mother’s love, life makes a promise it never keeps. » Romain Gary. Is she beautiful, is she elegant, is she Jewish? Does he have the success with women he deserves? According to Romain Gary, seeking a woman's love when you have a Jewish mother's is like spending your life waiting for what you've already received. 12 – They Want to Get Rid of Us « Very few people survive their mothers. » Woody Allen. Between hate and love, we discover a Freud who describes a terrifying, archaic, engulfing, and castrating mother. The same Freud evokes a mother's love as « the most perfect, the most devoid of ambivalence of all human relationships » and idealizes the mother-son bond. Did the man who fathered the Oedipus Complex resent his mother for loving herself so much? 13 – We Never Die « Isn't absence, for those who love, the most certain, most effective, most vivid, most indestructible, most faithful of presences? » Marcel Proust. Marcel outlived his mother by seventeen years; she couldn't imagine him living that long without her. Albert Cohen penned one of the most beautiful tributes in French literature to his departed mother. In 'The Book of My Mother,' he writes: « What's so terrible about the dead is that they are so alive. » Minnie Marx forced a smile for her sons, not wanting to worry them until her last breath. They all rejoice in one thing: that people still talk about them, and that even after their death, they continue to live on. Like the Jewish people and its prophets, like humanity, like light: Jewish mothers never die. As for the novel itself, I found it both funny and enriching. It made me want to read 'The Book of My Mother' and re-read 'Remembrance of Things Past.'
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