Jewish mothers have been quietly controlling the world for, well, millenia and an unsuspecting public is only dimly aware of the strings controlling every articulation of their joints. The Stone Cutters would be beside themselves with jealousy if they had even half an inkling that they had been bested by an army of kindly women in sensible shoes and designer labels they bought at 50% off retail.
The stories that fill these pages are not exactly history, but they’re not really fiction either. They are moments in time that, taken together, create a collective memory of mothers everywhere. They are an homage to the women who shape the values of the world and the influencing tactics they use to do it. As it happens, Jewish mothers have a particularly deft ability to wield guilt as the ultimate tool for achieving their own well-meaning purposes. Of course, there are plenty of mothers who wish you would call a little more often, and mothers who could really use some help to fix a few things around the house - if you can spare the time from your big important job - but Jewish mothers strike at something deeper. Their aim is to make you see that very air you breathe is a gift - so why would you waste it trying to sell schmatas to a bunch of worthless teenagers who have never worked a day in their lives?
See the difference? It’s subtle.
Jewish guilt is about more than feelings. The point is to make you feel so badly that you act, which is why we think the lessons that we offer here have enormous untapped potential. We spend all our time trying to coax people to do what we want (or tell them if they work for us), usually with mixed results. If we can apply even a few of the lessons our mothers have learned over generations, we may be able to re-shape the course of human history - or at least get our children to clean their rooms once in a while.
Even if your life probably does not change in any material way for having uncovered the hidden powers that reared the first monotheistic people in human history, we hope that it will be good for a laugh, and a cry, and maybe inspire you to pick up the phone and call your mother. And if we can accomplish just that much together, then their plan will have worked perfectly.
