The Mamaleh exchange, part 1: On Jewish mothers and what they can teach us

” target=”_blank”>Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do to Raise Successful, Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children.

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Dear Marjorie,

I feel I can't really start this exchange without a question about your book's curious title – Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do to Raise Successful, Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children.

Now, I've met quite a lot of Jews in my life. Some of them were successful, creative, empathetic and independent, others less so. I've also met quite a few Jewish mothers, and they were by no means a monolithic group with a shared parenting style. What Jewish mothers is this book about? Do they have a blueprint? Who are they, and what can they teach your readers?

Yours,

Shmuel

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Dear Shmuel,

My working title for the book was Revenge of the Jewish Mother. I thought that sounded enticing, curiosity-piquing, and indicative that the book would refute (or at least add nuance to) the stereotype of the neurotic, clutching Jewish mother. I also thought that title conveyed that the book would have a lot of humor.

But.

Everyone at my publishing house hated it. Loathed! It was too flippant; it was too limiting of the book’s audience; and most of all, it was too negative. The word “revenge” was a downer; people – it is said — like to buy books that convey optimism. If I remember correctly, I countered with Make Me a Mensch, but that was perceived as too confusing. My editor tried adapting some Yiddish proverbs that we could explain in a subtitle or in the introduction (God Made Mothers; As You Teach, You Learn; Fear, Sugar and Chutzpah) but for various reasons, I dinged all of them. The novelist Lev Raphael suggested Mama Is Gonna See to It, which is a line in “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from the musical Gypsy. I loved that suggestion because it referenced the powerful, loving-yet-terrifying, all-consuming scariness of Ethel Merman and Bette Midler. It conveyed force of will. And I thought it was a title that raised questions and allowed for nuance. But the book is really aimed at millennial and younger GenX parents, and the publisher felt that the title wouldn’t really resonate with them. Then my Tablet colleague Mark Oppenheimer suggested Mama Knows Best, and my editor countered with Mamaleh Knows Best (which offered a tantalizing whiff of Jewishness and also played off whatever name recognition I might have from doing the “East Village Mamele” column — YIVO spelling! — at The Forward for years).

So we went with it. What I have since discovered is that THANK GOODNESS my clever-geek husband registered every variant spelling of “Mamaleh” as a domain name, because people spell my book title in all kinds of fascinating ways. Fortunately, all Google search roads lead to