What’s for Dinner? Tackling Jewish Guilt at the Dinner Table
A Jewish mother buys her son a red shirt and a blue shirt. He puts on the red shirt. “What, you didn’t like the blue one?” We all know this classic stereotype of Jewish guilt. But, today’s Jewish mom guilt comes in a different form. We don’t make others feel guilty — we are busy enough making ourselves feel guilty about not living up to our own ideals, often for our children. For me, the new guilt manifests itself, when I’m so busy working and taking care of the house that I forget to plan a nutritious dinner. On a recent evening, I had to resort to a mall food court dinner consisting of Hi-C and French fries.
While all parenting responsibilities are powerful, it is the food that I serve my kids that brings the guilt on — that evening, it clung to me like the smell of the food court. I don’t feel that bad about mismatched socks, wrinkled clothes, or a toy bomb in the living room, but when I serve a beige meal, it tears me apart. I know that so much of basic health comes from proper nutrition and that Judaism values proper eating so much that there are volumes of rules telling us what we can and can’t eat. I keep telling myself there is only so much I can do, but the potential guilt of yet another Easy Mac or pizza delivery is daunting.
What brought me up was an e-mail I received from our Chabad rabbi. In his weekly email, he discussed guilt. It can be a motivator to do something you usually would not do, he said. Guilt also can make you think twice about doing something wrong or inappropriate. Based on his advice, this mom’s Jewish guilt has been transformed into action. While I can’t promise that we won’t ever hit the food court again, I can try to be a bit more organized to avoid another meal melt-down. The motivator has forced me to plan an entire week’s worth of food each Sunday and stock pile certain staples such as canned tuna, frozen fruits and vegetables and whole wheat pasta. Since we only buy kosher food, I know I can’t always rely on quick and easy options such as grilled chicken at fast food restaurants and pre-packaged inexpensive prepared meals.
Here are my goals to fight the Jewish mom guilt:
1) Keep a white board and plan all meals (not just dinner and not just main dishes).
2) Think big picture: One meat meal, one chicken meal, one fish meal, two dairy meals. The rest can be creative.
3) Cook certain meals in bulk. When I make meatballs, I tend to cook double servings and freeze the rest for another meal at another time.
4) Ask grandma to cook a meal for you. My mother has never said no when I call and say the family is coming over for dinner. (Is this Jewish grandma guilt?)
5) Do not feel bad about the prepared section of most super markets. Wegman’s kosher stuffed cabbage is in fact delicious and reasonably healthy.
6) Buy more socks!! It is probably better to cook more than do more laundry.
Since I know most working parents struggle with the dinner time scramble, I am always looking for tips to get better at meal planning. What are some ways other parents plan nutritious meals in advance? Are there certain meals that freeze really well that can be simply heated up? Are there any packaged kosher or vegetarian frozen meals that are actually tasty and nutritious?
Aliza Sherman, JD is a Tax Lawyer and Mother of two small children who enjoys cooking kosher meals for her family.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion As Zionist Jews, we must condemn Trump’s campaign to deport students
-
Opinion Trump is cracking down on universities — just like Hitler targeted academics who didn’t bow to his will
-
Fast Forward As Netanyahu arrives in Budapest, Hungary announces exit from International Criminal Court
-
Yiddish הונדערטער פֿרומע ייִדן לאַנצירן לינק־געשטימטע גרופּע אין מאַנהעטןHundreds of observant Jews launch left-wing group in Manhattan
הרבֿ יוסף בלאַו האָט בײַ דער קאָנפֿערענץ באַדויערט וואָס דער רעליגיעזער ציוניזם אין ישׂראל איז „פֿאַרכאַפּט געוואָרן“ פֿון די רעכטע.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.