Jewish Motherhood in the Narratives of Mothers Living in Poland
Jewish Motherhood in the Narratives of Mothers Living in Poland

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses the maternal experiences of three women of Jewish origin. The data was collected by means of a free-text interview with narrative elements and was analyzed by means of the linguistic narrative method of text analysis. The main questions we seek to answer are “What types of motherhood do Jewish mothers represent?” and “What are the characteristics of each of them?” The aims of the article are (1) to juxtapose the three styles of motherhood and describe each of them and (2) to show the importance of the transfer of the culture of origin and upbringing for the performance of the parental role by Jewish women. In this paper, we discuss the cultural pattern of motherhood by juxtaposing the figure of the Polish Mother with the Yiddish Mame. We then outline the detailed methodological design of the article. In the next section, we characterize three types of motherhood: monocultural, bicultural and multicultural. Our analysis leads to the conclusion that despite contemporary social changes, mothers are still responsible for the religious upbringing of their children. At the same time, we point out the similarities between the Polish Mother and the Yiddish Mame.

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