Last week the women who birthed Jason Alexander, Marlee Matlin and Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Jeff Garland kvelled over their tateles for the Broward County Hadassah chapter as part of the group’s “Tears & Laughter — Jewish style” event.

Laughter: Jason Alexander told his mother he was either going to regular school or Hebrew school, but not both. His mother, Ruth Greenspan, said “I told him he had to go to both to become an educated person and to know what it means to be a Jew. He said, ‘I already know — it means to suffer.’ ”

Tears: Marlee Matlin is married to non-Jew and is not raising her four children Jewish, according to her mother, Libby Matlin.

Where else but in Miami do the mothers of Jewish actors get center stage?

No, it’s not one of those meme thingies that no one ever sends me.

It’s a one-woman show starring Emmy award-winning comedian Judi (or “Jewdy” as she signs herself on her site) Gold, described as a “comic’s personal journey to find love, laughter and acceptance as a Jewish mother with two kids and a nagging Jewish mother of her own.” Um, if I was paranoid, I’d think she’s been spying on me. But I’m not. So stop following me.

Anyway, Ms. Gold’s got quite a resume, from writer at The Rosie O’Donnell Show to sharing the smut with the greats in The Aristocrats, so I’m sure she’ll give the Jewish Mother Experience appropriately snarky treatment. She and playwright Kate Moira Ryan interviewed 50 Jewish mothers around the country over five years to figure out what makes a modern Jewish mother, just in case we’re not all exactly alike. (Guess that 51st set of questions meant for the Yenta got lost in the mail or blue hair was just too far off the curve?)

The show, which opens in Manhattan Jan. 18, hasn’t been reviewed yet and due to geographical limitations, I won’t be previewing it, but I’m dying to know what the 25 Questions are!

If anyone finds out and wants to tag me with a meme, I’d be delighted…

My mother’s always been a real knockout and loves to get farpitzed (fancied-up) even to walk the eighteen feet down the driveway to the mailbox. Since the whole make-up gene seems to have skipped a generation (and apparently landed on my son, who won’t let me trim his nails unless I paint them red, but that’s a different post), she’s always after me to glam it up a little. When she comes to visit and we take the kids to play in the mud at the playground, she says to me, “You couldn’t wear a little lipstick?”

The truth is, I’ve tried. I apply the eyeshadow, I look like someone socked me with a bag of oranges. I try to line my lips with pencil and fill them in, I come out like the pill lady from Saturday Night Live. I just don’t have the skills.

But here comes Tamara Gold — gorgeous Jewess, professional make-up artist and the voice of The Red Lipstick Report. I think she just might be able to help me.

Her instruction on foundation was very helpful this month; I tend to goop myself up so badly I appear to have the kind of skin torn off in horror movies.

“Makeup isn’t brain surgery. It’s another form of creative expression,” Tamara writes on her site.

Oy, that’s my problem, Tammy! I get so creative I look I either end up looking like a drag queen or as if Jackson Pollack got whacked on heroin and went off on my face.

I’m looking forward to learning more, and perhaps, one day, my mother won’t be ashamed to be seen with me.

Great. Thanks to Jewschool, I’ve been tipped off to another Jewish supermother. This one’s a New Jersey rabbi who tucks her kids into bed and makes it back to the synagogue for the evening minyan.

The inferiority that I feel because I’ll never be able to fill these women’s shoes is compounded by the fact that I’m still in my pajamas.

Of course, she’s able to accomplish this by having a full-time nanny who cooks dinner and bathes the kids (a good three to four hours of at-home-mommy work.) And ultimately, the sacrifice has to come from somewhere:

In between her congregants and her two children, Rabbi Roston doesn’t have much time left for her man. She says she hopes to reinstitute “date night” with her husband Marc soon: “We put ourselves last,” she says. “That’s the part I’m working on in the next six months.”

I’m sure with all her strength, spirit and resources, she’ll find a way. But make sure you bring the lingerie, rabbi.

That’s one thing this Jewish mama’s got this weekend — a hot overnight date with El Yenta Man in — *gasp* — a hotel room. Thank heavens for free babysitters Jewish grandmas.

May it be a Shabbat to remember for all of us!

As if I didn’t feel inferior enough, here comes Sarah Lipman, an Orthodox Israeli former schoolteacher and mother of FIVE who, in her spare time, has invented a “stylus for use with Palm Pilots and other devices that emits an invisible light, allowing for ‘three-dimensional interaction'” and is a star at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this week. (Hat tip to Jewish Blogmeister.)

The Yenta has never been in danger of inventing anything (for which you should all be very grateful — I can make a toaster explode with nothing more than a piece of spelt bread and a deep yawn.) I can’t imagine keeping a kosher house with five shrieking mouths to feed, then creating technologically advanced products after they go to bed. She undoubtedly has domestic help and the children are in school part of the day, but even if I had a maid, a cook and a full-time nanny, I’d still end up serving butter with the brisket. It’s the life of a bad Jewish mother, but it’s my life.

On the other hand, my son made a “tzedakah machine” out of the Tinker Toys he got for Chanukah. Let it be known that this was completely his own idea, because I was blogging rather than being the kind of mother who gets down on the crusty carpet and plays with Tinker Toys.

In his own words, “it spins around and money comes out, so I’m going to send it other countries, like in Africa, and then when they buy all the food and medicine they need there, they can send it back and I’ll send it somewhere else.”

My accomplishments may not ever make me rich, famous or even fulfilled, but man, is my kid a mensch. And that, my brothers and sisters, is the best thing a bad Jewish mother could ask for.