What feeling about jews does mommy communicate to her children? What does she admire about them and what values does she take for them? (chapter 10)

James remembers how his mother often sought out things that were Jewish, even though she outwardly rejected her past life as Rachel Shilsky. She exhibited contradictory feelings, and shocked James when she spoke fluent Yiddish with the merchants in Manhattan's Lower East Side, where they went to buy their school clothes. When choosing a public school for her children to attend, Ruth ensured that they attended predominantly Jewish public schools, even though getting to these schools were often very far away. Ruth liked the focus on education and the discipline that Jewish culture had.