MSW. PA State Policy Specialist. Democratic Party Organizer. Culinary and Garden Artist with Natural Rhythm. Twice exceptional.Margaret Charlap Cohen Rubin, my mother, is a natural performer, and she is an intense Democrat and a liberal reformer who is 2e (gifted and dyslexic). She is a visually, spatially, and rhythmically talented French chef and gardener, as well as a fashionista with liberal political views and conservative style. She is the granddaughter of immigrants and daughter of Herbert Cohen, who was nationally famous in his 20s, a center-stage, dominant leader of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party for decades, but also a middle-class public servant who did not spoil his children. My mother's achievements are her own. My mother attended York, PA’s city public schools and — like me — has a big mouth when necessary and does not take crap from anyone. No one.
All the women in my family are mentally tough but physically feminine. That includes both my mother and me. (The junior-high bullies and mean-girls mobbing me and my family need to face the biographical and scientific facts). Being the Jewish daughter of Herbert Cohen and Mildred Charlap Cohen in York, PA, attending York's public schools, banned from York's private clubs because you are Jewish, and twice exceptional, gifted and dyslexic, ain't easy.
Commuting to Baltimore to get your Master of Social Work degree after having three children, and then commuting to Harrisburg to your Department of Public Welfare job—where you cope with sexual harassment and daily bureaucratic hornets’ nests—ain’t easy. Especially when you are the daughter of one of Pennsylvania’s most powerful Democratic politicians and justices, and Jewish—although he passed away in 1970, everyone is keenly aware of the lineage—and there are antisemitic, misogynist people who wrongly insinuate that “Daddy” helped you get where you are in life.
When in fact your Jewish father — son of immigrants — was a public servant with a middle-class income, and you went to York’s city public schools for most of your childhood.
We need to talk about the normalized, antisemitic misogyny toward Jewish women in America. And we need to talk about how it comes from all races. And how it is so normalized that the people doing it don’t even notice they are doing it.
We need to talk about the fact that my mother’s hometown — and mine—York, PA—had a Black female mayor for two terms, but it definitely never had a Jewish female mayor.
We need to talk about the fact that there are exactly zero Jewish female lead anchors in prime time on any major news platform — but there are a number of non-Jewish women of all races anchoring in prime time, who regularly have Jewish men on their shows to prove how much they “love the Jews,” but don’t even notice that there are exactly zero Jewish women in lead anchor roles in prime time—or, for that matter, in movies or TV in general—unless they change their names or play Jewish stereotypes like Funny Girl and "geek.”
Oh yeah...there has never been a Jewish First Lady. There has never been a Jewish Second Lady. Obviously, no Jewish POTUS or VEEP.
But we have had a Black President and First Lady for eight years, and a Black-Indian female Vice President for four years. But definitely - no Jewish women. And if one ever did get elected, it would probably be a biracial Jewish woman — because she’d have to be a woman of color and not look like an Ashkenazi Jewish woman to get any votes. So liberal Ashkenazi Jewish women often end up working for nonprofits, being liberal sidekicks, and supporting the political careers of non-Jewish people — both people of color and white politicians — who are not Jewish women. One or two of them even get to go to the Obamas’ yearly Passover dinner. And probably Mamdani’s when he throws a Seder at Gracie Mansion and makes sure to tweet the pics to prove he’s not a total antisemite.
Lots America needs to talk about.
My parents and grandparents were not wealthy. My mother's father, Herbert Cohen, while politically powerful, was a public servant with a middle-class salary. Both of my middle-class parents worked full-time.
Due to my middle-class Jewish parents' commitment to civil rights and racially integrated education, my older sister and I attended York, PA's working class inner city schools — often violent — in the violent inner city of York, PA in the 1960s and '70s. We were the only Jewish children in the entire school system.
To this day, York, PA has a far higher murder rate than New York City, and the York City School System is ranked as one of the worst in Pennsylvania. It always needs more funding.
A related point that is being addressed legally: Numerous people in sports, entertainment, politics, and the arts have exploited their media power and wealth to slander me as a "Jewish princess" who supposedly "deserves" to be beaten down by them. That is complete BS. Completely fraudulent. Those anti-Semitic racists (which includes self-loathing Jewish ones) all had spoiled and safe childhoods compared to me. They are criminals and liars who have been perpetrating anti-Semitic, racist and misogynyist hate crimes against me and my family for decades.
Like me, my mother is on the feminine side of the hormonal spectrum — high estrogen and lower testosterone than most women. I am scientifically more feminine than any insecure mean-girl lying about my femininity — and so is my mother — but, like me, Peggy Cohen Rubin is also internally tough and resilient.
She had triple-negative aggressive breast cancer and a total mastectomy in her 60s, chemo, Herceptin, beat it, and was cancer-free for over fifteen years. In March 2018, my father died, wrongfully. Since then my mother has lived alone in Washington, DC, and in 2020, her metastatic breast cancer came back as estrogen-positive, cells in her chest wall, some cells in her lower spine, and she needed a pacemaker because chemo weakens your heart.
My family is mostly Ashkenazi Jewish but we do not have the genetic marker for breast cancer. My mother was tested. Genetics are not the reason for my mother's cancer. Her mother, Mildred, was rarely sick one day. Her brother, my uncle Donn, now in his 90s, has never had any disease. My grandfather, Herbert Cohen, smoked in his 20s and 30s, and so did my mother, so my grandfather had a sudden heart attack in his sleep in 1970, and my mother has breast cancer.
However, in the past five years, it has not metastasized further. She had Covid twice and beat Covid both times without hospitalization.
