“Put on a sweater!”
Since the initial outbreak of the pandemic, scientists and others have been working hard to find the antidote to the coronavirus. Christian evangelicals claim they’ve preached the virus away while right-wing extremists will tell you they’ve got a concoction that works. But there’s one group that knows they have the cure. And good luck trying to tell them otherwise.
Jewish mothers and grandmothers everywhere are incessantly calling their ungrateful children and spoiled rotten grandchildren. They are urging them all to “put on a sweater.”
“It’s chilly, put on a sweater,” a Boca Raton local says. When questioned about her advice, the grandmother said, “When the Jews went through the Spanish Inquisition, we told our grandchildren to put on a sweater. When the Nazi’s rounded us up, we told our grandchildren to put on a sweater. Now we’re going through a pandemic and we will do what we have done for generations. We will tell our grandchildren to put on a sweater.”
It is no wonder why these matriarchs are turning to such extreme measures. With lockdowns and self-isolation in place all over the world, the bubby (Yiddish word for grandmother and Jewish American word for person who pays for your bat mitzvah) can no longer resort to her usual tactics. She can not just express love or disdain or both simultaneously, She can no longer spoon-feed her grandchildren matzo ball soup. And she can not merely slip them a one-hundred-dollar bill that had been nestled in her brassiere all day.
THE WORD IS OUT!
The virus has altered life as we know it and the family members of these Jewish mothers are no different. “My phone won’t stop ringing!” Jared of Kips Bay tells me. “If it’s not my mother, it’s her mother. If it’s not her mother, it’s her sister. When they’re busy, I start to get calls from my dad’s side of the family.” Jared details a concerning pattern. It’s as if every Jewish woman over the age of fifty has come down with their own illness. They al compulsively urging their descendants to put on a sweater. When asked about the sweater-call-schedule, Jared’s family had no comment.
“And it’s not just the calls!” Jared goes on. “I get emails, LinkedIn messages, even emoji-filled texts. Almost every day I get a package delivered to my door filled with sweaters and a note saying, “it’s chilly out, put this on.”
After speaking to shipping facilities across the country it appears Jared is not alone. Weekly World News spoke with a manager at one of these facilities, “We have never seen anything like this. We’ve been instructed by the government to prioritize shipments of necessary items like hand sanitizer, face masks, and Tylenol. However, the amount of sweater shipment requests we’ve been getting from these Jewish grandmothers has made this really difficult.”
Weekly World News pushed the manager on this, “It’s not a race thing. They want you to think it’s a race thing but it’s not. We want to honor their religion and if they get through hard times by telling their grandchildren to put on sweaters, they should be able to. “In the coming weeks, we are going to have to make some tough calls about who gets sweaters sent from their grandparents and who does not.”
The manager of the shipping facility requested we keep his identity anonymous. We asked if they were afraid of retaliation from the Jewish grandmothers. He answered, “Let’s just say the coronavirus isn’t the only thing causing life and death situations.”
BUBBYCARE
It is unclear what the future holds for Jewish families on a national and global scale. This fight for Jewish grandmothers to urge their grandchildren to wear a sweater will not end once the coronavirus does. It would not be surprising if this is a matter we see making its way to The Supreme Court. Some experts are concerned Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg would potentially be compromised on this issue. Reports have come out about her own attempts to force her grandchildren into wearing sweaters to prevent corona and chilliness.
At face value these demands from Jewish grandmothers seem brutish, but this appears different at a deeper glance. The Jewish community is nimble and inventive, beating the odds from Egypt to the unexpected fame of Lil Dicky. Jewish people have survived much worse with much less. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if every bubby in the world got to send their grandchildren a sweater.We could all learn a thing or two from the way these bubbies are handling the pandemic.
Other notable methods of prevention put forth by Jewish grandmothers is to “call more often” and “eat something, you look thin.”
This excellent website definitely has all of the information I
wanted about this subject and didn’t know who to ask.
Absolutely brilliant. There are dangerously low levels of sweater inventory. The author of this article appropriately highlights their importance in our battle against disease and overly co-dependent older relatives