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Jewish Father

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Dad made them at the office.
So, again, as in Europe, the
Jewish father defaulted the
home to his wife. He distanc-
ed himself from his children
not, as before, in the name of
God, but in the name of suc-
cess. He became "the quin-
tessential" middle-class
father, says Brandeis Univer-
sity professor Larry Fuchs,
"who brings home the bacon,
which is not an inappropriate
metaphor for the Jewish
father in America."
Missing now from Jewish
fatherhood, said Fuchs, is a
sense of the father "as so-
meone who knows what he
believes in, the father as a
rabbi in his own house."
Perhaps there was a subtle
awareness of this among the
children of these first- and
second-generation Jews. "A
father should be treated like
a king," instructs the Book of
Proverbs; "Even a rabbi
should rise [in the presence of
his pupils] when his father
enters," compels the Talmud.
But the American Jewish
father is certainly not treated
as a monarch; and whether a
rabbi stands when his father
enters a room may be more a
matter of sheer manners than
filial respect.
In fact, went one school of
thought (the Philip Roth
school), why should anyone
stand up for someone who
served his family in a
"ferocious and self-
annihilating way?"
"My father," sighed Mr.
Roth's world-class whiner,
Alexander Portnoy, "served
my mother, my sister Han-
nah, but particularly me."
Once the guardian of tradi-
tion, the teacher of Talmud,

the Jewish father had
become, according to Portnoy,
a servant — a frustrated but
dutiful servant.
Eventually, the mother's
prominence in the Jewish
family transformed her into
the butt of jokes and a subject
for fiction and movies. Most of
these works were written by
Jewish men. If these authors
had "taken potshots at their
fathers," said sociologist Mon-
son, "they would have in-
directly been taking potshots
at themselves."

The flourishing of jokes
about Jewish mothers, sug-
gested Rabbi Mordechai
Liebling, executive director of
the Federation of Reconstruc-
tionist Congregations and
Havurot, may "reflect a lot of
rage by Jewish boys and men
against mothers because she
has so much power. Jewish
males, especially fathers, feel
they are powerless."
Faye Moskowitz, a novelist
and short-story writer living
in Washington, said she has
"been thinking about why I
haven't written more about
my father. Every Jewish
woman writer does. In the
eyes of my generation, the
mother had more prominence
because she had more prox-
imity."
"Any Freudian," said
Moskowitz, "can explain why
male authors write so much
about their mothers." She add-
ed that "a woman writer will
write about mothers to set out
their own identity."
While most of the Jewish
father's traditional role erod-
ed under the pressures of
making it in America, much
remained of their age-old at-
titudes toward sons and

