Guess today’s obit day: Al Lewis, best known as Grandpa Munster, died Friday. He could have been 95, he could’ve been 83 no one’s really telling.
He’ll always be recognized as Eddie’s wacky zaydeh on the ’60s TV show The Munsters, but Lewis had way more of a life than that: He was the child of Jewish immigrants, a civil rights activist, had a PhD in child psychology and ran as the Green Party candidate for governor of New York in 1988.
He was a real mensch, even if he did have 137 wives.
“A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, ‘Who am I, and what do I want out of life?’ She mustn’t feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children.”
Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystiqueand founder of the National Organization of Women, 1964
The woman who identified the true misery of desperate housewives and ignited the feminist revolution died on Saturday, her 85th birthday.
If it hadn’t been for Betty, where would this Jewish mother be? Probably not twirling four really great part-time jobs that leave me time to bake cupcakes and correct hair color experiments gone awry. Stapled to the vacuum cleaner, waiting for the old man to come home, sucking down Percosets, maybe? Or worse, working 9 to 5, five days a week at a job I hate while my kids are in daycare because that’s the only “feminist” choice?
Before the working-away-from-home mamas go all ballistic, it’s a wonderful thing to go to a job every day and entrust your kids to skilled caregivers as long as that’s your choice. In the 70’s, feminist groups took on Friedan’s book as a call for all women to get out in the workplace, and those who stayed home were considered throwbacks you couldn’t possibly be a feminist if you didn’t get a paycheck.
Nowadays, enough of a wedge has been created in the politics of gender that women can have any job they want (except maybe sperm donor) though the glass ceiling is still in full effect. And it’s socially acceptable even approved of for a smart, educated woman to stay home for a few years making sure the cooking, cleaning and childrearing gets done.
“For a great many women, choosing motherhood makes motherhood itself a liberating choice.”
It’s all about choice, and without Betty Friedan, American women might still believe they only had one.
May she rest peacefully knowing that women will never go back to a world without choices without one a helluva fight.
Yes, the Yenta has slacked lately on the ridiculousity of celebrity kabbalah for the obvious reason that it’s sooo done, but I have always regarded Madonna (and yes, sometimes she is known as Esther) with a healthy respect concerning her self-proclaimed Jewishyness. I mean, she may not be playing by the traditional rules, but she’s just so darned committed when so many Jewish-born celebrities could give a sh*t, so if she wants to be one of ours, it’s ai’ight by me. And we all know how much weight that holds.
According to this article about her psycho exercise regimen, she’s already got a seriously neurotic streak:
“The truth is that she takes only Christmas Day off from the workouts,” says an associate. “If she has a bad day, she will start exercising furiously. It’s like an emotional crutch — she might have a row with Guy, for example, and her response is to start exercising like a fanatic.”
“Forget Kabbalah … exercise has always been her No.1 religion … Madonna loves to punish herself.”
What’s more, she thinks between kabblah and eating macrobiotic vegetable soup for breakfast, she can stave off menopause.
Poor Madge. All the money and fame and she’s just as scared as the rest of us to get dried up and old with chicken flap arms.
Photo of the Maddonaesther and Lourdes (or Lola) c/o Herald Sun.
Listen, the whole kashrut thing, I’m working on it. Having grown up in completely secular homes, I consider it an accomplishment that I’ve gotten El Yenta Man to stop trying to flavor the mustard greens with hamhock. “I’m a Southern Jew,” he likes to tell to me. “We do things different.”
He’s been very open to my insistence that we ever-so-slowly move into a more observant direction in our lives, but if I have to tell him that his beloved Gentleman Jack ain’t kosher, things are gonna get ugly.
From Ynetnews: Though previously regarded as kosher because it’s not wine, the halachic nature of whiskey is now up for debate. A group of rabbis now says that because some brands of whiskey are aged in oak barrels previously used to produce non-kosher wine, it’s best to abstain until things get cleared up. Apparently using old barrels gives the brew that little extra “something” in Johnny Walker, Chivas and Grant’s.
American rabbis investigating the conflict say that here barrels get burned clean, so it’s not an issue. But until there’s an official ruling, I’m keeping this news to myself. After yesterday’s mold debacle, a guy deserves a Friday afternoon drink in peace.
Me, I’m currently a rum-and-Coke, once-in-a-while kind of gal, all good halachically. But my previous drink tequila shooters are iffy, and a big ‘nay’ if there’s a worm involved.
Want to know if your favorite libation is kosher? World Jewish Review’s Rabbi Tzvi Rosen breaks it down.
Shabbat shalom, y’all!
If you find just the title of this post revolting, count your blessings that you weren’t at my house today.
You may or may not have noticed that the Yenta rarely doles out housekeeping advice. And this picture should tell you why. While it’s not an actual photo of what the wall behind my children’s bunkbed looked like when I pulled it out this morning to retrieve the vaunted Stuffed Blue Bear In the Red Checkered Apron, it’s a enough of a likeness (borrowed from ehagroup.com) to show you that I may have been in a teeny bit of denial that the great NoCal flood a few weeks back has caused a fairly gargantuan science experiment in the crawl space.
Further inspection of what lurked behind every other piece of furniture in the house revealed a veritable green carpet of nastiness, some parts speckled with black, others so thick and furry they might be harboring entire families of gnomes. So rather than my usual schedule of carpool, green tea and blogcruising, today brought an intimacy I’ve never known with scrub brushes, dehumidifiers and copius amounts of bleach. (And a great Hallelujah! to Napoleon’s scientific advisor Claude Louis Berthollet, the man who invented the household chemical that can kill any and all germs while keeping the laundry whites oh-so-bright.)
In the midst of this sanitizing frenzy (which I was actually kind of enjoying since El Yenta Man was wiping down the walls wearing dish gloves and no shirt, serving as eye candy and an example to all husbands everywhere), our 2 year-old daughter was struck with the kind of gastrointestinal affliction parents only whisper about amongst themselves.
All I can say here is every single one of you should call your mothers and thank them for wiping your stinky tushy for all the years you couldn’t do it yourself. I love my children dearly and would chew up their food for them and spit it in their hungry mouths if I had to (which, come to think of it, I’ve done on many occasions) but dealing with someone else’s sh*t, no matter how adorable they are, is not pleasant. Especially if it’s the runny kind.
Grossed out yet? Not as grossed out as I was when I went to mine something from the freezer for dinner after we’d spent the whole day chasing down mold and poopy, and the walls and toddler tush were finally drying out, only to discover the only choices were a three year-old chicken pot pie and a box of escargot hors d’oeurves from Trader Joe’s that I bought while under the illusion that we might still someday host a cocktail party. After a brief discussion on whether buttery snails are kosher (I still can’t figure it out help, anyone?) El Yenta Man and the kids got the pot pie.
So my apologies for the interruption of Jewish news in this blog; I really do try to stay on track. But you can see some factors came together today for a perfect storm of domestic emergency along with the news that non-stick pans cause cancer.
Guess that means that damn scrub brush and I are going to be constant companions. Oy.
When you’ve got a gnarly cold on top of PMS, nothing says “No, I do NOT want to have sex!” more than these pajama pants with “SHLUMPY!” across the tush. Sometimes a significant other needs it spelled out, y’know?
From Modern Jewish Mom, a really excellent site full of sage advice, Shabbat recipes and parsha summaries in plain English, as well as a “Moms Share” section.