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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, NP here.  Not Jewish, but have many many great friends who are.  One of my closest friends is the most charming, lovely woman/mother you could ever meet.  My question?  [b]Where did the stereotype of the overbearing, guilt-tripping, Jewish mother come from?[/b]  Forgive me if my description isn't right on the money - but my friends could not be further from the stereotype.  Was there something like a "Tiger Mom" syndrome in the early U.S. communities - to study hard an make good grades.  Or does it go back further?

Also, I had heard older Jewish men use the term "Jewess" in a non-derogatory way to describe women, but I have assumed that term is one to be avoided. True?[/quote]

Not OP, but the Jewish mother thing arose as a justification for Jewish men who wanted to "marry out" or merely fetishized non-Jewish women (as our very own Portnoy apparently does). These guys had to excuse themselves by saying that Jewish women were simply unsuitable, and that it wasn't their fault they couldn't possibly select women like their mothers as mates. The cultural ties so many men felt were holding them back from all the privileges of white manhood in America were projected onto these guilting mother characters, who served to remind them of their ethnic "otherness" at a moment in history when they found they could otherwise "pass".

Similar story with the "Jewish American Princess" trope. Lots of misogyny, there!

I haven't heard anyone say "Jewess", but I see the word a lot when working with pamphlets and articles from the early 20th century, when today's older men may have learned to use it. It was a pretty innocuous word then, used by charitable Jewish organizations, etc. It sounds a little funny to my ear, but it's not a biggie.[/quote]

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