What makes a Jewish mother

Judy Gold's opens her one-woman show, "25 Questions for a Jewish Mother," by playing an actual message left on her home answering machine by her own mom
Associated Press

Early in Judy Gold's one-woman show, "25 Questions for a Jewish Mother," she plays an actual message left on her home answering machine by her own mom.

 

The context of the message is that Gold was at her agent's office on the phone with her mother when they got disconnected. Gold didn't call back right away and her mother couldn't find her. The message that follows includes her mother frantically wondering out loud "What happened? Where are you? I'm a wreck," before it ends with her signing off, to Gold's dismay, with the non-frantic phrase "So long."

 

"She thinks Jeffrey Dahmer is chopping my body up into a million pieces and she says so long?" an exasperated Gold says.

 

It's a funny moment, one made even more humorous by Gold's exasperation. And it sets the stage for the next 80 minutes or so of Gold's often hilarious, somewhat uneven exploration of "what makes a Jewish mother different from a non-Jewish mother" that's currently playing at St. Luke's Theatre.

 

By her own admission, Gold doesn't fit the stereotype of the Jewish mother.

 

"Look at me, I'm a 6-foot-3 Kosher standup comic bringing up two kids on the Upper West Side," she says.

 

So she and co-writer Kate Moira Ryan interviewed more than 50 Jewish mothers of various ages, ethnicities, occupations and adherence to Jewish traditions. It is these interviews, excerpts of which Gold performs with aplomb, that form the backbone of the evening. The women talk about their children, their husbands, their parents, their beliefs, their backgrounds, even, in the case of a Chinese woman, their conversion. It is an illuminating, though ultimately superficial, segment of the show.

 

The most affecting moment comes, not surprisingly, from a mother who was a Holocaust survivor. She recalls being in Auschwitz with her mother, whose spine was broken in an accident and couldn't work. Still, the daughter forces her to press on, saving her life. It is a moment that Gold uses to explain how she began performing again after Sept. 11.

 

"25 Questions for a Jewish Mother" is obviously made for a specific audience. But its appeal stretches beyond Jewish mothers and the children who love — and are continually infuriated by — them.

 

Gold is out to make her audience laugh, but she is also clearly celebrating the rich heritage and background from which she comes. After all, despite the numerous fights Gold has had with her mother through the years, they still talk at least once a day.