Weekend: FAMILY: Let Me Tell You a Story - It's Kosher; from Maureen Lipman's Beattie to the Yiddish Mamas of Woody Allen's Movies, Jewish Mothers Have an Overwhelming Stereotype to Live Up to. but What Is It Really like to Be a Kosher Mum? Jo Ind Investigates

Byline: Jo Ind

Sibyl Ruth does not regard herself as much of a cook until she starts making chicken soup. It is only then that she comes into her culinary own.

Sibyl, who is mother of sevenyear-old Hannah and literature programmer at the Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham, chops carrots, celery and onions, drops noodles into a big pot and fills the kitchen with the delicious aroma of simmering fowl.

'I think it must be something in my genes that has been passed down from generation to generation and has surfaced in me,' she says with a smile.

Sibyl is Jewish. She is also a mother. Therefore she makes a mean chicken soup . . . or at least that is the way the stereotype goes.

Long suffering, a martyr to her children, a suffocating harridan who sees herself as beyond criticism, a benevolent provider of home-made food for every occasion, especially chicken soup - these are what a Jewish mother is meant to be.

The reality of course, is very different. Jewish mothers vary as much as any others do, but they have something in common, if nothing else having to negotiate with such a powerful stereotype.

It was partly in response to this that Mandy Ross, mother of Joe and writer of …

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Publication information: Article title: Weekend: FAMILY: Let Me Tell You a Story - It's Kosher; from Maureen Lipman's Beattie to the Yiddish Mamas of Woody Allen's Movies, Jewish Mothers Have an Overwhelming Stereotype to Live Up to. but What Is It Really like to Be a Kosher Mum? Jo Ind Investigates. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Birmingham Post (England). Publication date: March 12, 2005. Page number: 49. © 2009 Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd. COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group.

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