Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Everyone Needs a ‘Jewish Momma’ — Even ‘Real Housewives’

My current guilty pleasure is “The Real Housewives of New York City. ”Watching their “reunion” on Bravo Tuesday night was like watching a sack full of expensively bejeweled, super-skinny, couture-clad cats in a sack claw at each other. But hilariously.

Going by their names, looks and mannerisms — hey, if we can’t stereotype ourselves, who can? — I’m guessing that two of the “housewives” are Jewish: Bethenny Frankel who’s single and a natural foods chef and cookbook author, and Jill Zarin (nee Kamen), a fund-raiser for several charities and mother of a teenage girl, Ally Shapiro.

Ally did this interview with New York magazine about her “Jewish momma.” Not only is Zarin the funniest of the bunch, she speaks with a bit of a Brooklyn brogue, which as a naturalized citizen of the best borough makes me like her even more. She’s kind of the hoity-toity super-rich girlfriend I’ve never had and hope one day might invite me for a shopping spree on her AmEx black card.

Part two of the catfight — I mean reunion — airs Thursday night. Tune in!

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.