Alef: The NEXT Conversation
The Knish Lives in Israel
By Laura Silver
- Pizza Bourekas on King George Street, Tel Aviv
Israel, on my first visit, was teeming pitas, tomato-and-cucumber breakfasts, and fresh-squeezed Jerusalem juices (How did they pull milk from plump shriveled dates?)
At my cousins’ house, Cohava shuttled cutlets and salads of cucumbers, beets and zucchini to the porch and introduced each dish in French, easier for me to understand than Hebrew. Her husband asked me questions about each branch of the family tree. Yiddishized words got untangled and enunciated. Family was not mishpoche, but mish- pa-CHA. Even coziness sounded gruff.
Outside the suburbs of Haifa, at Kibbutz Ramat Yochanan, I worked behind the scenes in the dining hall. The Egyptian-Jewish cook thumped smoke flavoring from industrial containers to a plastic vat of eggplant innards. More smoke flavor. More. More. Babganush, I later learned, was called hatzilim or eggplants in Hebrew, which sounded like haloutzim or pioneers. Each time I went back to Israel, the food and the people became less foreign. I learned words for soft cheese, pastries and drinks. Café hafouch, upside down coffee, seemed to make the most sense: a scoop of cold vanilla ice cream doused in hot, black coffee.
Still, I could not find a cornerstone of my culinary upbringing. The knish seemed to be as absent from Israel as the Yiddish language. Janna Gur, editor of the Israeli food magazine Al Ha Shulchan (On the Table), confirmed some of my suspicions in an email:
| “Indeed knishes are quite rare here. Your best bet would be Bney Berak and Mea Shearim Quarter in Jerusalem, time capsules of the Eastern European Shtetl. There are quite a few delis that sell Ashkenazi classics, including knishes.” |
On a trip to Warsaw I found a through line to the Israeli knish. At the Singer Festival for Jewish Culture, I sat next to a Polish-born Israeli woman who told me her aunt had played the Yiddish theater in Poland and later baked knishes in Tel Aviv.
- Cafe Batya predates the state of Israel
Bella Sherman, now 87, arrived in Israel in 1948, and started working at Café Batya, an Ashkenazi-style restaurant that predated the founding of the Jewish state. She remembered that Batya’s husband hid Haganah weapons inside the cauldrons in the kitchen. Bella worked there for seven and a half years and remembered the recipe:
“The dough has to be elastic, if the flour is too dry, you add some water to it,” she told me. “You knead the dough, make it as thin as a table-cloth, that’s what we call it too, “a table cloth of dough” (mapat batzek in Hebrew) then you put the meat, not at the center but all around, then use a glass to press around it… the size depends on what you fill it with.”
Guidelines and traditions that gave way to improvisation. And so my relationship with Israel: different forms, shapes, aftertastes and emotions that run the gamut from hot to cold to lukewarm. But, always, a gut feeling.
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Photos provided by the author.
Lisa Eats Everything
by Lisa Radding
Bacon cheeseburgers don’t need ketchup. As a child, I thought every burger should be accompanied by a bottle of Heinz. It’s true that if you obtain quality ground beef or doctor it up a little, it can have exquisite flavor of its own, but at BBQs I’d douse my burgers in ketchup. Of course, a burger meant a hamburger, plain and simple. I grew up in a kosher (style) home where meat and dairy stayed separate and traif didn’t exist. Only recently did I learn how cheese and bacon add layers of flavor and texture that complement the meat of this sandwich, rendering all condiments unnecessary. They bring a salty, smoky, and gooey blending of flavors that accentuates the ground beef for a really (artery cloggingly) excellent burger.
I’m learning all this on my “Lisa eats everything” yearlong adventure. It was a Rosh Hashanah new years resolution. The rules of the game are as follows: If someone offers me a food/drink I’ve never tried before, I have to try at least one bite. Nobody can make me pay for food I don’t want, but if they offer a taste, I can’t say no. The point is to be uninhibited, to look at a menu and order exactly what I want to eat, to order it the way the chef prepares it, even if there is a hint of shellfish in the sauce of an otherwise innocuous dish. Although at times I’ve considered this my chance to try a Cuban, clam chowder, chorizo (insert your favorite traif here), it is really an opportunity to learn about people, culture, and the world I live in.
Take for example the day I suggested that my friend Erin order a breakfast sandwich for us to split. Sausage, egg, and cheese on a croissant? Eww. But it wasn’t the sausage the irked me, it was the croissant. In my experience, breakfast sandwiches belong between savory carbs, like toast or bagels. Croissants are for jam or nutella, a sweet spread to soak up those buttery flakes of pastry. But Erin grew up sandwiching her savory breakfast in sweetness. It tasted as delicious as it sounded revolting. Thus I gained a token more insight into mixing flavors. Although the flavor profile in question here wasn’t the traif, only by allowing myself to eat everything could I try this combination, since the entire ensemble required consumption of sausage.
But resolving to experiment with taste and actually ordering ham are wildly different. A few days after Yom Kippur I stood in the adorable deli on my block struggling to say “croque monsieur.” While it’s gotten easier, placing a traif order and subsequently taking a bite still make me slightly uncomfortable. It’s not because I kept strictly kosher before last Rosh Hashanah, or because I have firm beliefs about the importance of Kashrut. In fact, I feel more confused about religious dietary laws than governed by them. More likely, the uncomfortable feeling is because in this exploration of people and culture through food, I suspend my own culture, which is closely tied to Kashrut, and is the right/wrong of food with which I was raised. On the other hand, eating everything has done for me what Kashrut does for many others: it has made me think sincerely about my sustenance and specifically about which food I am choosing to eat. This year I may not have eaten as the Torah prescribes, but neither did I take my food for granted. And I do see purposeful eating as a meaningful message behind seemingly archaic dietary laws. Despite feeling uncomfortable, I also feel exonerated by the fact that this project is designed to be thought provoking: I am more conscious of both what I consume and of how others understand food.
Although gaining food cultural knowledge is a life long project, as Rosh Hashanah approaches again, I’m ready to let the project change forms. I can stop this NYC bacon cheeseburgers tasting mission. When I travel, however, I’ll want to taste the local dishes… “When in Rome.” I have yet to discover where October will lead me, but I think it will be far from the ketchup bottle. Even if I grill an unadorned hamburger, the way I was raised to eat ground beef, I think I bring enough experience in the mixing of flavors to turn it into an exquisite sandwich in its own right. But maybe, before September ends, I’ll need one more reminder of that salty, smoky, and gooey sandwich that is so quintessentially American.
Photo by Savory.Recipes, licensed under Creative Commons.
Jews at the White House
by Liz Kohn
This article originally appeared on The Jew and the Carrot. Reprinted with permission.
Last week twelve excited Hazon representatives and 160 other Jewish participants gathered in Washington DC as part of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable (JSJRT), a collection of twenty-one nonprofits supporting social justice as an essential component of Jewish life. The two-day affair began on Thursday, July 28th with Congressional Meetings and culminated the following day with the White House Community Leaders Briefing Series, a unique summer-long opportunity for grassroots leaders to engage White House officials and voice issues close to our hearts.
Jon Carson, Deputy Assistant to the President & Director, White House Office of Public Engagement, succinctly articulated the purpose of the series: “I’m not here to talk”, he said, “I’m here to listen about what you’re seeing across the country.” For many in Hazon’s cohort and millions of American Jews, this issue is food justice.
Early Friday, after a lively opening session at the National Press Club, the large group split four ways for agency briefings about housing, healthcare, education and food justice. I joined the food justice cohort for an overview of food accessibility, policy, and budgeting by three key members of the White House Staff.
American Jewish World Service Director of Advocacy, Timi Gerson, first introduced JSJRT and the session’s storytellers: Rabbi Andy Kastner, American Jewish World Service Neta Fellow and Campus Rabbi at Washington University and David Napell, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger Board Member, shared short, telling stories of food injustice and insecurities, setting the stage for the briefing from agency staff. USDA Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Acting Deputy Director Julie Curti was the first staff member to share her insights.
It was a pleasure hearing Curti mention the USDA’s first Food and Justice Passover Seder and stress the importance of nonprofit partnerships in actually executing the communal work. She painted a troubling landscape of hunger and food access in America, revealing that 50.2 million Americans were food insecure at some point in 2009. She said a recent study also found that 23.5 million Americans live in low income areas that are more than 1 mile from a food store, a trouble with food access on the retail side often described as “food deserts” or “food swamps.” The third theme she discussed was obesity, saying it has become clear that simply “too few fruits and vegetables consumed, sometimes by choice, but many times not. “ She then detailed various ways the government is combating these issues; from their 18 different agencies addressing producer and consumer components of accessibility and 15 partnerships around nutrition assistance programs.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the most important with approximately 44 million Americans enrolled, up from 28 million in ’08. This number, Curti added, still only reaches 68% of eligible participants, which she called “an issue of reach, not funding.” She highlighted several programs, such as the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which gives food to nonprofits to distribute to kids. Others such as the Community Food Projects Competitive Grants Program relate to urban farms and gardens and address the supply side of food access. There is also the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) which helps to increase the availability of nutritious food in grocery stores, small retailers, corner stores, and farmers markets.
Curti finished her presentation by praising *who* in the bigger picture is the greatest champion of healthy food access: The First Lady, Michelle Obama. Her Let’s Move! initiative to build healthier communities has recently received commitments from private retailers like Wal Mart and Walgreens as well as public support from a variety of individuals and venues. Curti acknowledged the government’s many food justice oriented Jewish nonprofit partners (including Hazon!) and thanked us for our presence and dedication to the cause.
Brandon Willis, Senior Adviser to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack spoke next, and Jennifer Yezak, the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs at the USDA chimed in during the question and answer session. Willis overviewed the Farm Bill and said that while it is difficult to know its timing or breakdown, funding cuts are inevitable. The Farm Bill is incredibly complex, with approximately 70% of its funding going to nutrition programs, followed by conservation and commodity programs. This complexity leads to health, economic, and environmental issues and as with any complex and broad legislation, straightforward answers were difficult to come by.
Yezak shared that recent discussions about regulatory reform provided the Administration with some ideas that need to, and will, get on the table: “there are efforts and discussions about this in the USDA. Rural Development State Directors are looking at ways to make their loans and grant programs more accessible and easier to apply for.” She encouraged us to continue our involvement as these conversations progress and said she will be on hand as a resource and source of support.
Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service echoed this sentiment: “We must not underestimate the power of letting our government know that global food justice, equitable healthcare, education reform, and affordable housing are authentic expressions of Jewish values. They are issues that Jewish leaders care about deeply and will work on intensively.” This collective commitment to advance social justice in the food realm has the potential to drive change in a big and powerful way. Moments like last week’s symbolize that we are doing so across communities and around the country, in the Jewish community and beyond.
Photo of Valerie Jarrett addressing the group by Kristian Whipple.
Liz Kohn, originally from Evergreen, Colorado, is a Masters in Social Work 2012 candidate in the University of Michigan’s Jewish Communal Leadership Program and is Hazon’s Social Work Intern. Her professional and volunteer work and travels have deepened her desire to develop skills in meeting both individual needs and communal challenges related to accessibility and affordability of fresh, healthy food.
Keeping Kosher?
For some people the decision is easy, and for others it’s a little more complicated. To keep Kosher or not to keep Kosher is a question that many Jews grapple with for certain. As you make up your mind about the issue, here are a few Jewish and Kosher Food links that we found interesting…
The Jew and the Carrot – a blog about Jews, Food, and Contemporary Issues.- The Detroit Free Press reports on taking a business Kosher.
- An Alef writer discusses why she eats the other white meat.
- One blogger’s Jewish Food Cookbook.
- Huffington Post excerpt from Sue Fishkoff’s book, Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority.
For more on Jewish Food, check out Alef’s Issue #23: Why I Eat What I Eat.
Photo by BecomingJewish.org, licensed under Creative Commons.
Here’s One For the Recipe Books
When we talk about how people choose to eat on Alef, usually we’re referring to Jews keeping kosher, making changes to live sustainably, or even just deciding where to buy their lox.
This week, we’ve discovered a whole new category of person sharing the reasons behind why they eat what they eat. The Shiksa in the Kitchen, Tori Avey, is a Jew by choice with a keen eye for Jewish cuisine. Her blog is downright full of mouthwatering recipes that might just change the way you cook and eat.
Photo by Zawezome, licensed under Creative Commons.
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