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Biographies & Memoirs

ANTLER, Joyce

Community & Culture

The Free Press

You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother

In You Never Call, You Never Write, Joyce Antler provides an illuminating and often amusing history of one of the best-known figures in popular culture--the Jewish Mother. Whether drawn as self-sacrificing or manipulative, in countless films, novels, radio and television programs, stand-up comedy, and psychological and historical studies, she appears as a colossal figure, intensely involved in the lives of her children. Antler traces the odyssey of this compelling personality through decades of American culture. She reminds us of a time when Jewish mothers were admired for their tenacity and nurturance, as in the early twentieth-century image of the "Yiddishe Mama," a sentimental figure popularized by entertainers such as George Jessel, Al Jolson, and Sophie Tucker, and especially by Gertrude Berg, whose amazingly successful "Molly Goldberg" ruled American radio and television for over 25 years. Antler explains the transformation of this Jewish Mother into a "brassy-voiced, smothering, and shrewish" scourge (in Irving Howe's words), detailing many variations on this negative theme, from Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint and Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks to television shows such as "The Nanny," "Seinfeld," and "Will and Grace." But she also uncovers a new counter-narrative, leading feminist scholars and stand-up comediennes to see the Jewish Mother in positive terms. Continually revised and reinvented, the Jewish Mother becomes in Antler's expert hands a unique lens with which to examine vital concerns of American Jews and the culture at large. A joy to read, You Never Call, You Never Write will delight anyone who has ever known or been nurtured by a "Jewish Mother," and it will be a special source of insight for modern parents. As Antler suggests, in many ways "we are all Jewish Mothers" today.

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Oxford University Press

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

A biography of the woman who made pioneering changes in the education of children, fought to increase women's contributions to society, and founded the Bank Street College of Education

Lucy Sprague Mitchell: The Making of a Modern Woman

Yale Univ Pr

Americas

Yale University Press

A unique, positive collection of essays profiles a number of forgotten female Jewish leaders who played key roles in various American social and political movements, from suffrage and birth control to civil rights and fair labor practices. 10,000 first printing.

The Journey Home

Free Press

Changing Education: Women as Radicals and Conservators (Feminist Theory Educ (Dis))

Explores the roles of women as agents of change, resisters of change, and as objects and victims of change, focusing on the relationship between gender and the politics of education. The 17 essays survey what different groups of women know, and how and where they learned it. Paper edition (not seen by Book News ), $17.95. Annotation copyright Book

Politics & Social Sciences

Women's Studies

State University of New York Press

Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.

Throughout the twentieth century, American Jewish women have made history, challenging the political and cultural constraints facing women in every aspect of American life. From suffrage to birth control, from trade unionism to civil rights and feminism, from education to literature and the arts, Jewish women have been in the vanguard, leading key social movements and shaping cultural consciousness. Interweaving social history with lively biographical portraits, Joyce Antler profiles women ranging from Emma Goldman, Sophie Tucker, and Golda Meir to Bella Abzug, Gertrude Stein, and Wendy Wasserstein, examining the political conflicts and personal tensions that have animated their lives as they made their mark on American society. Meticulously researched and fascinating to read, The Journey Home is a valuable resource that will inspire all women.

The Journey Home: How Jewish Women Shaped Modern America

Schocken

Finalist, 2019 PROSE Award in Biography, given by the Association of American Publishers
Fifty years after the start of the women’s liberation movement, a book that at last illuminates the profound impact Jewishness and second-wave feminism had on each other 
Jewish women were undeniably instrumental in shaping the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Yet historians and participants themselves have overlooked their contributions as Jews. This has left many vital questions unasked and unanswered―until now. Delving into archival sources and conducting extensive interviews with these fierce pioneers, Joyce Antler has at last broken the silence about the confluence of feminism and Jewish identity.
Antler’s exhilarating new book features dozens of compelling biographical narratives that reveal the struggles and achievements of Jewish radical feminists in Chicago, New York and Boston, as well as those who participated in the later, self-consciously identified Jewish feminist movement that fought gender inequities in Jewish religious and secular life. Disproportionately represented in the movement, Jewish women’s liberationists helped to provide theories and models for radical action that were used throughout the United States and abroad. Their articles and books became classics of the movement and led to new initiatives in academia, politics, and grassroots organizing. Other Jewish-identified feminists brought the women’s movement to the Jewish mainstream and Jewish feminism to the Left. For many of these women, feminism in fact served as a “portal” into Judaism.
Recovering this deeply hidden history, Jewish Radical Feminism places Jewish women’s activism at the center of feminist and Jewish narratives. The stories of over forty women’s liberationists and identified Jewish feminists―from Shulamith Firestone and Susan Brownmiller to Rabbis Laura Geller and Rebecca Alpert―illustrate how women’s liberation and Jewish feminism unfolded over the course of the lives of an extraordinary cohort of women, profoundly influencing the social, political, and religious revolutions of our era.

Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement (Goldstein-Goren Series in American Jewish History, 3)

World

NYU Press

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Books by ANTLER, Joyce