David Isaac

In Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth wrote "a Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until the day he (or his parents) dies."

Roth refers to that well-worn stereotype of the Jewish mother—overbearing, overprotective and through a clever manipulation of good food and guilt, a woman who holds her children on a short leash long after they’ve reached adulthood.

In exile, the Jewish mother can be endearing. For all her faults she is warm and loving. The harm she does, more acute in sons than daughters, is limited. Her smothering love produces at worst a child with complexes, one who seeks therapy, has difficulty connecting with the opposite sex and lacks physical courage. As Woody Allen, who plays the type so well, would say, “A bleeder.”

In Israel, the Jewish mother is not so endearing and the harm she does far-reaching. Just as having a mother who persistently nags you to get married, constantly cajoles you to eat more chicken soup, and daily calls you to demand to know why you haven’t called her creates a nervous nebbish, so, too, having a nation that relies on an army and government made up of mama’s boys creates a country that makes less than rational decisions.

This is not to say that Jewish mothers alone bear the guilt for Oslo, the retreat from Lebanon, the destruction of Gush Katif, the non-reaction to the bombing of Sderot and on and on. All that poor Jewish mothers want is to keep their boychiks safe. Alas, keeping boychik safe makes a poor foundation for nation-building.

A recent example is the reaction to the Arab mortar that fell in the middle of an Israeli army training camp on September 11. Over 60 soldiers were wounded. The mothers of the young cadets criticized the location of the base, which they said was too close to Gaza. Some openly called for it to be moved somewhere safer or closed altogether.

The mothers could have criticized the Arabs for dropping the bomb in the first place. There’s a reason they didn’t. If they blamed the Arabs, the rational response would be to go after the Arabs. That would mean putting their children in harm’s way yet again. The whole appeal of getting out of Gaza in the first place was to get their sons away from all that meshugas.

Mothers groups in Israel have a history of influencing important state decisions. The “Four Mothers,” a group started by four mothers who had sons killed or wounded in Lebanon, is credited with introducing and legitimizing the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. A decade prior, when the first intifada broke out, a group of Israeli women calling themselves “Women in Black” began to protest. They donned black clothing and stood at an intersection once a week with signs reading “Stop the Occupation.” Prime Minister Rabin all but admitted he felt constrained by such outfits.

These sort of groups exist in every country. The Committee of Soldier’s Mothers in Russia wants to end the Chechen war. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo want to reunite with their children who vanished under the Argentine dictatorship. And in this country, Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed, wants an immediate pullout from Iraq and President Bush’s impeachment. None of these have had anything like the success of Israel’s mothers.

Part of the reason may be the iconic status of the mother in Jewish culture. Dating as far back as Rebecca, the Jewish mother has played a pivotal role in Israel’s history. We’re still feeling the effects of her decision to help the more peaceable Jacob win the birthright over his elder brother, the hunter Esau. Not to say she made the wrong decision. It’s just that Esau wasn’t all bad. In fact, he had certain qualities that would serve Israel well today.

But it’s not so much Jewish men who need to look to different models of manhood. Israeli Jews have guts. Anyone who has sat in on a talk of just one of Israel’s many war heroes must acknowledge that. No, what needs to change is the model of the Jewish mother. The chicken soup making, guilt inducing, overprotecting mother of yesteryear has got to go.

But to be replaced with what?

After considerable thought, I have concluded that, given Israel’s existential threat, the Jews would best be served if their mothers modeled themselves after those of…Sparta.

The ideal Spartan mother is Queen Gorgo, daughter of a king, wife of a king and mother of a king. Her husband, King Leonidas, who fought against the invading Persian army at Thermopylae, was a man among men. And as the saying goes, behind every great man there lies a great woman. Herodotus, who often left out the names of the female characters in his histories, mentions her three times.

If Jewish mothers want a quick video tutorial on how to act like Queen Gorgo, they should rent the film “300” and pay particularly close attention as she stabs the traitor Theron right through the kishkes.

We do not condone such an approach in the Knesset. The number of Therons are simply too high. But the Greek model still holds. Look to their marvelous tradition of banishment.

David Isaac is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles