"Momma, Do We Believe in Winter?": Yiddishe Mama and Judaism in Portnoy's Complaint

Abstract:In Portnoy's Complaint (1969), Philip Roth created a particularly vivid image of a Jewish mother. Now, more than fifty years after the novel was published, it is hard to define whether this novel produced the Jewish mother jokes or whether the jokes produced the novel. Sophie Portnoy is the embodiment of Jewishness as well as Judaism in the novel. "Hundreds of thousands of little rules" of the Portnoys' household go back to the laws of Judaism but are interpreted and presented by the mother in an odd and distorted way. Jewish philosophy is lowered to the everyday taboos that regulate Alex Portnoy's life even when he becomes an adult and lives separately from his parents. The belief in these taboos subsumes Judaism and its real laws, becoming the only Judaism Alex knows.