The Jewish Mothers' Hall of Fame

For this wonderful collection, Fred A. Bernstein interviewed 25 mothers of famous and successful Jewish people, including, for example, Clara Sussman, mother of Rosalyn Yalow, a Nobel Prize winner in medicine: Like other mothers in the book, Clara exemplified a life of hard work and sacrifice, as well as worry about her child when a teacher told her Rosalyn was a genius ("I never met the man Einstein but I heard he was a little peculiar"). And also Leah Adler, mother of film director Steven Spielberg, who, Bernstein writes, was the funniest person he'd ever met, and readers will agree. With obvious love and pride, Leah kvetches about bringing up a peculiar son ("I didn't know what the hell he was").

The mothers in The Jewish Mothers' Hall of Fame lovingly report on their children-rock stars, a lawyer, a playwright, and other achievers, and at least two people more notorious than famous: porn film star Harry Reems and Yippie ex-convict Abbie Hoffman.