Sybil Kaplan

Fruits for the holiday

The holiday of Chamisha Asar b’Shevat or Tu b’Shevat is not mentioned in the Torah but makes its first appearance in the Talmud, where it is called Rosh Hashanah l’Ilan (New Year of the Tree).

Jewish literature of the sixth to 11th centuries identifies Tu b’Shevat as the day on which the fate of the trees and fruit is decided. The holiday gets its name from when it occurs. “Tu” is an acronym for the Hebrew letter tet, which in the Hebrew system of counting is nine, and the letter vav, which is six, thus adding up to 15, the day on which the holiday falls in the month of Shevat.

The date was chosen when the rabbinic schools of Hillel and Shammai (from the time of the Second Temple) argued about the dates. Hillel said it fell on the 15th of Shevat; Shammai said it began on the first. Hillel’s opinion prevailed because it was thought that, by the later date, the winter rains in Israel were almost over.

Tu b’Shevat links Jews to the land of Eretz Yisrael. In the time of the Second Temple, on the 15th of Shevat, Jewish farmers would estimate their obligatory tithes for tax collectors, as well as other contributions that Jewish law required. In effect, Tu b’Shevat was the beginning of the new fiscal year.

Part of the celebration is a seder with certain foods.

In her book The Jewish Holiday Cookbook, Gloria Kaufer Greene mentions that the drinking of four cups of wine at the seder symbolizes the changing of seasons. She suggests that the first cup is chilled, dry, white wine, to symbolize winter. The second cup of wine is pale, perhaps a rosé, and signifies spring and the early thaw. The third cup of wine is deeply coloured, like a dark rose, and represents the late spring and the blossoming trees. The fourth cup of wine is rich and red and stands for the fertility of summer.

In between drinking, one eats fruit in order of “ascending spirituality.” After the first cup of wine, one eats fruit with inedible coverings, like almonds, avocado, banana or melon, to represent the body covering the soul. After the second cup, one eats fruit with pits, such as plum, prune, date, apricot, olive or carob, to symbolize the heart being protected. After the third cup of wine, one eats fruit that can be eaten in its entirety, such as berry, apple, pear or fig, because they are closest to the pure spiritual creation.

In Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, the late Rabbi Gil Marks lists different ethnic dishes for the holiday, including borleves, Hungarian wine soup; salata latsheen, Moroccan orange salad; dimlama, Bulgarian vegetable and fruit stew; savo, Bukharian baked rice and fruit; gersht un shveml, Ashkenazi barley with mushrooms, fruit strudels and fruit kugels; and schnitzelkloese, German fried dumplings with fruit. Food customs associated with Tu b’Shevat are fruits and nuts connected to Eretz Yisrael, such as the seven species mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:7-8 – barley, wheat, figs, dates, grapes, olives and pomegranates.

Here are a couple of my fruit recipes. The first is one that a friend gave me about 40 years ago.

CREAMY FRUIT SALAD
6-8 servings

2-3 cut up apples
1-2 peeled, cut-up oranges
2-3 cut-up bananas
1/4 cup coconut
1/4 cup chopped nuts
3/8 cup sour cream or 3/4 cup lemon yogurt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar or whipped cream
1/8 cup orange juice
3/8 cup vanilla yogurt
raisins (optional)

Combine apples, orange and bananas in a bowl. Add coconut and nuts. Combine sour cream or lemon yogurt, sugar or whipped cream, orange juice and vanilla yogurt. Pour over fruit and refrigerate.

I have altered this recipe at times and use pareve whipping cream to make it pareve, leaving out the sour cream/yogurt.

HOT SPICED FRUIT
4 servings

6 peaches, pears or apricots, halved
1/2 cup red wine
2 tbsp sugar
dash cloves
1/8 tsp cinnamon
dash cardamom
3/4 tsp grated orange peel

Combine wine, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and orange peel in a saucepan. Add fruit and cook 15-20 minutes. Drain and reserve liquid. Chill fruit. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Spoon sauce on top.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.

Little hat store that could

SherlockS has a window display starring a two-foot-high teddy bear dressed like Sherlock Holmes. (photo by Micha Paul)

There is a small, magical hat store right in the heart of Jerusalem, called SherlockS. It’s not hard to find. Just walk along King George Street until you see a two-foot-high teddy bear dressed in a SherlockS deerstalker hat and Inverness cloak, holding a pipe in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other, perched on a table in the display window.

SherlockS is packed with hundreds of hats for both men and women. The store specializes in hard-to-fit heads and carries hats by Stetson, Bailey, Kangol, Christys’ and many other quality hat companies. There are even Borsalinos, the kind the snazzy Italians wear. SherlockS is also the home of handmade hats by local milliners like Danielle Mazin and Justine. And SherlockS makes their own Panama hats, as well.

Owner Yaacov Peterseil decided to create this store after his dermatologist warned him about the damage the sun’s ultraviolet rays were doing to his head. “You must wear a hat outside in summer and winter,” said the doctor.

photo - Yaacov Peterseil is owner of SherlockS — Yaacov Peterseil is owner of SherlockS. *(photo by Micha Paul)*

“I was just looking for something to do, having left publishing,” Yaacov explained. “Could a hat store afford me the opportunity to help people by keeping the sun’s rays at bay and be financially rewarding, as well? I wondered. I had to try. So, in 2016, I opened SherlockS Hats in my garage. Before long, people came in droves to the store, which was way too small to hold both the hats and the people. So, I moved to Diskin Street, in an underground mall. But, soon, that store was too small, too. Finally, I moved to King George Street, where people could stop by, relax, get a cappuccino and a muffin, and even buy a hat.”

When Yaacov was choosing a name for his business, Sherlock and Sherlock Holmes were already taken. “So, I thought of SherlockS. SherlockS Hats has a nice ring to it. And there’s no need for an apostrophe,” he said.

Peterseil was born in 1946, in Salzburg, Austria, in a displaced persons camp. His family moved to the United States in 1949. Eventually, his father opened a wholesale clothing shop, selling ladies sweaters and T-shirts to all the big chains in New York.

“I worked with my dad for awhile,” said Yaacov. “It was there I developed a love of quality clothing.”

Yaacov believes that his varied business endeavours all led him to SherlockS Hats. He worked as a copywriter for Prentice-Hall, had his own byline in the Nassau Herald, taught journalism at the University of Michigan, was a speech writer for B’nai B’rith, founded Enjoy-A-Book Club, and owned K’tonton Book Store on Long Island. He also found time to get his rabbinic degree, and joined the rabbinate in the United States and in Newfoundland, where he taught Jewish studies at Memorial University.

In 1986, he, his wife Tamar (a family and sex therapist) and their (then) six children made aliyah. Once they settled in, Yaacov kept busy as public relations director for his mentor, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, and developed Pitspopany Press for Children.

It was while he was busy publishing Jewish children’s books at Pitspopany that Yaacov asked me to review some of their titles. Since then, our paths have crossed a number of times.

“One of my first hat purchases was the deerstalker hat,” said Yaacov. “It was made famous in 1891 when Sidney Paget illustrated one of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, putting a deerstalker hat on the detective. Today, I sell about 50 deerstalker hats a year in Israel.”

When COVID-19 forced him to keep his shop closed for weeks and months at a time, Yaacov took his store online. He created sherlockshats.com, which features a 3-D tour of his hat-filled store, as well as hundreds of hats from which to choose.

“I write two kinds of blogs for the website,” he said. “One is a story-type blog called The Adventures of the Mad Hatter. The blog tells the story of some of the strange and unusual things that happen in my hat store. The other blog gives a bit more practical information about hats and how to wear them. I’m writing one now on how to fit the hard-to-fit head.”

Next time you get to Israel, you’re invited to visit SherlockS at 31 King George. It’s not as famous as 221b Baker St. yet, but it’s getting there. And, if you want to talk hats with Yaacov, call him at 972-50-361-2342 or message him via the website.

Variations on latke tradition

With all the oil used for frying Chanukah potato pancakes – otherwise known as latkes, in what we think is Yiddish, or as levivot in Hebrew – they may be considered an unhealthy food. Yet, each Chanukah, many of us, who are staunch-hearted and old-fashioned, spend time grating potatoes by hand, always accidentally suffering at least one scraped finger. The more modern among us risk coming out with liquid mush by using a food processor or blender.

Why do we keep making these little pancakes year after year? Why do we eat them for Chanukah in the first place? An old folk proverb says: “Chanukah latkes teach us that one cannot live by miracles alone.”

Jewish food writer and cookbook author Joan Nathan contends that the word latke is not in fact Yiddish but rather stems from “a Russian word, latka, and a pastry, from obsolete Russian, oladka, or flat cake of leavened wheat dough.” This, in turn, probably came from a Middle Greek word, eladion, or oil cake, stemming from elaion, meaning olive oil.

Potato pancakes seem to have originated among poor Eastern European Jews, but potatoes did not become a staple until the mid-19th century. John Cooper, in Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food, comments that Jews from Lithuania ate pancakes made from potato flour for Chanukah and had borrowed the idea from Ukrainians, who made a potato pancake dish with goose fat called kartoflani platske, which they ate for Christmas. Since Chanukah fell about the same time, and there were plenty of geese to provide goose fat or schmaltz, we could conclude that schmaltz became a substitute for oil. Jews living in the Pale of Settlement in the 17th century probably adapted it for Chanukah as a way to dress potatoes differently for the holiday. Cooper also states that many Eastern European Jews ate buckwheat latkes for Chanukah, while Polish Jews made placki, pancakes, from potato flour and fried them in oil.

Here are a few types of latkes that would be nice to serve during Chanukah.

ROMANIAN ZUCCHINI POTATO LATKES
(six to eight servings)

2 pounds zucchini, peeled and grated down to the seeds
2 large potatoes, grated
1 medium onion, grated
3 eggs
1 tsp vegetable oil (I use canola)
3/4 cup matzah meal (I use flour)
salt and pepper to taste
vegetable oil for frying

Grate zucchini down to the seeds, discard the seeds and squeeze out the liquid.
Peel potatoes and grate. Remove liquid.
Grate onion and add to zucchini-potato mixture.
Add eggs, oil and half a cup of matzah meal or flour. Add more if necessary.
Season with salt and pepper.
Heat oil in a frying pan. Spoon mixture into pan and brown on both sides.
Serve hot with sour cream or applesauce. You can add carrots, parsley and dill.

TUNA LATKES
This recipe came from Starkist Tuna, with adaptations. It makes 16 latkes.

2 cans drained tuna
2 grated potatoes
1 chopped onion
2 eggs
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
3 tsp dry parsley flakes
3 tsp dry chives
salt and pepper to taste
2/3 cup flour
oil

dressing
1 cup sour cream
3 crushed garlic cloves
4 tbsp olive oil
6 tsp dry herbs such as chives, thyme or dill or mixed
1 tbsp sugar
salt to taste

In a bowl or jar with a lid, mix sour cream, garlic, oil, herbs, sugar and salt. Refrigerate.
Heat oil in a frying pan and fry onions until golden.
Crumble tuna in a bowl. Add potatoes, onion, eggs, breadcrumbs, parsley, chives, salt and pepper.
Place flour in a shallow plate. Form round patties and dip in flour. Add oil to frying pan. Fry patties until golden. Drain on paper towels.
Serve on a platter with dressing on the side.

HERBED ZUCCHINI FETA LATKES
With a few changes, this recipe is from Food & Wine and is by Didem Senol, a chef from Istanbul, Turkey, who trained at the New York French Culinary Institute. It makes four to six servings.

4 medium grated zucchini
1 tbsp kosher salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped dill
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

sauce
1 seeded chopped, peeled cucumber
1 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
vegetable oil

Place zucchini in a colander, sprinkle with salt, toss and let stand five minutes. Squeeze out liquid and transfer to a bowl.
Add eggs, flour, dill, parsley and feta. Refrigerate 10 minutes.
Puree cucumber in food processor and transfer to a bowl. Stir in sour cream, salt and pepper.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Heat oil in a frying pan and then, working in batches, drop tablespoons of batter into the hot oil and fry until brown and crisp. Transfer to a baking sheet and keep warm in oven.
Serve with sour cream-cucumber sauce.

Making savoury muffins

Scott Hocker’s Chicken Pot Pie Cornbread Muffins. The recipe can easily be made kosher. (© Scott Hocker)

It was really a hot summer, and I was trying to think of creative ways to make and serve food. I took the idea of making savoury items in my muffin tins from the online Food & Wine magazine, koshering some of the recipes they have posted. These hand-size meals should delight children and adults alike, though it may take more than one portion to sate the older crowd.

The word muffin is first found in print in 1703, possibly from the German word muffen, meaning small cake. It may also have originated in a British magazine in 1851. In 10th- or 11th-century Wales, however, there existed an English muffin made with yeast and cooked on a griddle. American-style muffins in individual molds are from the 18th century. It is uncertain which came first, the cupcake cups or muffin pans. Regardless, here are some recipes to try out.

CHICKEN POT PIE CORNBREAD MUFFINS

The original recipe was created by Scott Hocker, editor-in-chief of liquor.com, a writer, editor, recipe developer and cookbook author, and his recipe can be found at foodandwine.com/recipes/chicken-pot-pie-cornbread-muffins. Both his and the kosher recipe serve six.

3/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup flour
salt to taste
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 egg
3/4 cup non-dairy creamer or pareve milk
***
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 chopped onion or green onions or shallot
1 finely chopped clove garlic
1/2 carrot cut into chunks
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 tsp flour
3/8 cup chicken soup
1/4 cup shredded cooked chicken

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease six muffin tins.
Stir together in a bowl cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
Whisk in egg and liquid. Fill greased muffin tins two-thirds full with batter.
Heat oil in a frying pan and stir in onion, garlic, carrots, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, eight to 10 minutes. Stir in flour and cook two minutes.
Add soup and bring to a boil then add chicken.
Place one to two tablespoons filling on top of each batter-filled muffin tin. Bake for 25 minutes or until muffins are golden around the edges.

“HOGS” IN A BLANKET

This is a kosher adaptation of a recipe by Grace Parisi, who grew up in a family of cooks and is a cookbook author who headed several test kitchens. The original recipe can be found at foodandwine.com/recipes/hogs-in-blanket. Both recipes make 18 hors d’oeuvres.

3 1/3 ounces pareve puff pastry cut into 2 5-inch squares
1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tbsp water
2 3-ounce beef hot dogs or sausages
1/8 cup chutney
1 tbsp whole grain mustard

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Arrange puff pastry squares on a work surface and brush with egg wash.
Place sausages or hot dogs on bottom edges and roll up pastry, pressing edges to seal. Freeze for 10 minutes or until firm.
Cut logs into half-inch slices and place cut side up in mini-muffin pans. Bake for 25 minutes until golden and sizzling. Cool on a paper towel-lined rack.
Pulse chutney and mustard in food processor until chutney is chopped. Spoon a dollop on each slice and serve.

MUFFIN CUP MACARONI AND CHEESE

This recipe is adapted from one by Kate Winslow, former Gourmet magazine editor, writer, recipe developer and cookbook author. The original recipe can be found at foodandwine.com/recipes/muffin-cup-macaroni-and-cheese. The kosher and original versions are both for 12 mini-muffins.

2 tbsp unsalted butter or margarine
1 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
4 ounces shredded cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste
4 ounces macaroni
2 1/2 tbsp breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a mini-muffin pan.
In a saucepan, heat one tablespoon butter or margarine. Add flour and stir for one minute. Add milk and cook over low heat for 10 minutes or until thick.
Add cheese and stir until it is melted and the sauce is smooth.
Cook pasta in boiling, salted water. Drain and add to cheese sauce. Spoon into 12 muffin cups.
Melt remaining one tablespoon of butter or margarine. Stir in breadcrumbs and cook three to five minutes. Sprinkle over macaroni and cheese muffins.
Bake for 15 minutes. Let macaroni cool five to 10 minutes before removing from the pan, so the muffins will hold together.

A history of sweetness

(photo from pixabay.com)

Although beekeeping as an occupation is not mentioned in the Bible, bees are mentioned four times, honeycombs are referred to eight times and honey is referred to 26 times. Archeologists actually have discovered proof that there was beekeeping and honey 3,000 years ago in a site in northern Israel.

Among Ashkenazim, sweet desserts for Rosh Hashanah are customary, particularly lekach, or honey cake, and teiglach, a hard, doughy, honey and nut cookie. Some say the origin of the sweets comes from a passage in the book of Hosea mentioning “love cakes of raisins.” There is also a passage in II Samuel, which talks about the multitude of Israel, “to everyone a cake of bread and a cake made in a pan and a sweet cake.”

It was Ezra, the fifth-century BCE religious leader who was commissioned by the Persian king to direct Jewish affairs in Judea, and Nehemiah, a political leader and cup bearer of the king in the fifth century BCE, who told the returning exiles to eat and drink sweet things.

Honey cakes traditionally include honey, spices, coffee and brown sugar as major ingredients, but some contain cognac, brandy, orange or lemon peel and nuts. In Curaçao, for example, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, raisins, nuts or currants, lemon or orange peel is added. In Zimbabwe, Jews include allspice, cinnamon, cloves, raisins, chopped nuts, brandy and chopped candied fruit in their honey cake.

In That Hungarian’s in My Kitchen, Linda Radke includes a Hungarian recipe from her family, which includes the basic ingredients and orange juice. A cookbook of Russian recipes includes a Ukrainian honey cake, medivik, with the basic ingredients as well as cardamom, orange peel, raisins, walnuts and apricots.

In The Jewish Book of Food, Claudia Roden writes that honey cake was a favourite in Germany as far back as the Middle Ages, and that lebkuchen, honey gingerbread, was also mentioned as early as the 12th century.

According to John Cooper in Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food, references to honey cake were made in the 12th century by a French sage, Simcha of Vitry, author of the Machzor Vitry, and by German rabbi Eleazar Judah ben Kalonymos. Cooper writes that, on the new moon in the month of Nissan, boys at Jewish school were given honig lekach, honey cake: “Originally, the names of angels were inscribed on the honey cake and amulets were attached to them, but later this practice was discarded.” According to Cooper, the words lebkuchen and lekach probably came to be related to the German word for lick, lecke.

By the 16th century, lekach was known as a Rosh Hashanah sweet. It also became popular for other lifecycle celebrations, such as betrothals and weddings. Malvina W. Liebman writes in Jewish Cooking from Boston to Baghdad that Crypto-Jews in 16th-century Latin America ate honey cake at weddings, in memory of the honeycomb that an angel gave to Asenath when she married Joseph.

In The Complete International Jewish Cookbook, Evelyn Rose (z”l), a maven of Jewish cooking from England, wrote that the first cakes made with artificial raising agents were honey cake, and honey was the chosen sweetener because sugar was not widely available until the end of the 19th century. As an aside, she also recommends keeping a honey cake in a closed container for a week before serving it, so it will “mature.”

Among the Chassidim, it was customary for the rebbe to distribute lekach to his followers, and others would request a piece of honey cake from one another on Erev Yom Kippur. This transaction symbolized a substitute for any charity the person might choose to receive.

Gil Marks (z”l), in The World of Jewish Desserts, says fluuden, a layered yeast cake, was traditional for Rosh Hashanah among Franco-German Jews. Made with a cheese filling, it could be eaten after a meat meal, since they only waited one hour between meat and dairy. Strudel, from the German word for whirlpool, was also common for Rosh Hashanah among European Jews.

The most traditional cookie for Rosh Hashanah is teiglach, the dough pieces dropped into a hot honey syrup and simmered until brown then left to cool. It has been suggested that this Eastern European sweet was probably invented by some housewife who had dough left over and dropped the pieces into a boiling honey syrup.

Many Jews of Sephardi background make tishpishti for Rosh Hashanah. This cake with walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts or pecans, has a hot syrup poured over it. The syrup can be made with sugar, water and liqueur, according to Rabbi Robert Sternberg in The Sephardic Kitchen. Sternberg also points to rodanchas as a popular Sephardi Rosh Hashanah sweet. These spiral-shaped pastries of phyllo dough contain a pumpkin or squash filling because these vegetables and their shape symbolize the cycle of life and the ascent of the soul into heaven.

Here are some honey cakes to try this year.

TISHPISHTI
Jews who lived in Turkey after being expelled from Spain in 1492 adopted this dish, whose name means “quick and done.” Some say it was always served on Rosh Hashanah, but it was also popular for Passover because it has no flour.

2 cups ground almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios or walnuts
1 cup cake meal
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves or allspice
6 separated eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp orange juice
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp grated lemon or orange peel
* * *
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a rectangular baking pan.
In a mixing bowl, combine nuts, cake meal, cinnamon and cloves or allspice.
In another bowl, beat egg yolks with sugar. Add to nut mixture along with orange juice, oil and lemon or orange peel.
Beat egg whites in another bowl until stiff. Fold into batter. Pour into cake pan and bake 45 minutes.
Place honey, sugar, water and lemon juice in a saucepan. Stir until sugar dissolves. Increase heat, bring to a boil and cook for one minute. Let cool.
Cut cake into squares or diamonds. Drizzle syrup over cake. Serve warm or at room temperature.

MOM’S HONEY LOAF CAKE
I don’t recall my mom baking this, but it was in my collection of recipes as being hers.

3 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
* * *
2 cups honey
1/2 cup strong coffee
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease two loaf pans or a rectangular baking pan.
Combine in a bowl flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg.
Beat eggs and sugar in another bowl until fluffy. Add oil, honey and coffee.
Stir in flour mixture. Add raisins and nuts. Pour into pans. Bake for 1.5 hours.

New MK has Canadian roots

Both MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh, left, and her political aide, Becca Wertman, have Canadian roots. (photo from Becca Wertman)

A new, dynamic force has hit the Knesset, with a political aide just as passionate, and both are rooted in Canada.

Michal Cotler-Wunsh, who once held Canadian citizenship, became a Member of the Knesset for the Blue and White Party this past June. She is among those who have endorsed a proposed bill that, if passed, would change the requirement that Knesset members who hold citizenship in another country must give up that citizenship.

Recently sworn in, Cotler-Wunsh heads a staff of four – a political aide, a parliamentary aide, a spokesperson and an aide who works with her on her portfolio as chair of the Drug and Alcohol Use Committee. In a recent interview, she told the Independent that the issues that concern her are “unity, mamlachliut (often translated statesmanship) and responsibility…. You can’t politicize or personalize issues,” she stressed. Two other issues about which she is passionate are “the ability to combat antisemitism and a commitment to olim [immigrants] and prospective olim.”

Cotler-Wunsh also emphasized her commitment to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. As a lawyer and international law expert, she added that the international community and Israel must always uphold international law and not allow terror groups to exist in a culture of impunity. She specifically highlighted the importance of this in the context of Hamas not returning the four Israelis currently being held captive in Gaza, in a six-year standing violation of international law.

Jerusalem-born, Cotler-Wunsh spent her first seven years in Israel. When her mother, Ariela (née Ze’evi), married Canadian Irwin Cotler, the family moved to Montreal, where her three siblings were born. Most JI readers will be familiar with Cotler-Wunsh’s father, a former minister of justice of Canada, an international human rights lawyer, emeritus professor of law at McGill University, and founder and chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, among other things.

Cotler-Wunsh returned to Israel for a one-year program after high school and stayed to serve in the Israel Defence Forces as a lone soldier. She then received her law degree from the Hebrew University and did her internship.

In 2000, she and her husband returned to Canada with their son but returned to Israel 10 years later, by which time they had three more children. In 2010, she became associated with the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya and was a research fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

Cotler-Wunsh’s political aide is Vancouver-born and -raised Becca Wertman. The two met at a conference of nongovernmental organizations. “I read Becca, I heard her voice in what she writes,” said Cotler-Wunsh.

Wertman, who is the daughter of Charles and Carla Wertman of Vancouver, has a bachelor degree from the University of Southern California in international relations and a master’s from Columbia University in political science. She was managing editor and responsible for the Canada portfolio at the Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor, authoring articles for a wide variety of publications.

“My messages are very nuanced; it was important to find somebody that can make my nuanced messages accessible to the public and be able to represent me,” explained Cotler-Wunsh. “Having read some of what Becca published, I saw that the values that drive me also drive Becca as well, particularly in the areas of human rights, international law, Zionism and democracy.”

Wertman manages Cotler-Wunsh’s schedule, handles all things that come in English, including media and social media, and reaches out to NGOs that fight antisemitism or are concerned with olim; she also assists Cotler-Wunsh in her foreign endeavours. Like her boss, she is passionate about issues concerning olim chadashim (new immigrants) and working with Diaspora communities.

Wertman made aliyah in 2016 and went to an ulpan to learn Hebrew; she is engaged to an oleh from Chicago. She sees her role as a perfect fit because of the values she shares with Cotler-Wunsh and their shared Canadian backgrounds. In addition, she admires Cotler-Wunsh’s father.

“As a Canadian who is interested in human rights, Prof. Irwin Cotler has been someone I looked up to for many years,” said Wertman.

In June, when Cotler-Wunsh received word that she would be a member of the Knesset, she reached out to Wertman and offered her the position.

“I’m 100% dedicated to MK Michal Cutler-Wunsh, to help her accomplish what she wants to accomplish,” said Wertman. “I fully believe in her goals. Her issues are those I care about. I feel so lucky to work for a member of the Knesset who is furthering issues that I so deeply believe in.” She added, “her background in human rights and international law, these are unique and important skills, experiences and values that can and will add to the Knesset.”

A grape holiday revival

(photo from commons.wikimedia.org)

Most of us are familiar with the spies who were dispatched by Moses to “spy” out the land of Canaan – they cut down a branch with a cluster of grapes on a staff and carried it back. Grapes were part of the summer harvest in ancient Israel. In fact, there was a holiday called Feast of First Fruits and Wine because grapes were the first major crop to ripen. It was not mentioned in the Bible, but in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was celebrated on the third day of Av (July 24 this year), with Israelites bringing grapes to the Temple. So, here are some grape recipes in case you want to celebrate this little-known holiday.

VINEYARD CHICKEN
(I found this in an Empire Kosher recipe brochure many years ago. It makes eight servings.)

2 4-to-4.5-pound roasting chickens
2 lemons, cut in half
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
4 tsp ground ginger
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp dry basil
2 tsp your favourite herb
6 peeled, quartered onions
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup orange juice
4 cups seedless red and green grapes
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or cilantro

Preheat oven to 425°F.
Rinse and pat dry chickens. Squeeze half lemon over each chicken. Place two lemon halves inside each chicken.
Combine Dijon mustard, ginger, salt, pepper and herbs in a bowl to make a paste.
Rub mixture over each chicken and place rest in each cavity. Put chickens into a large roasting pan. Scatter four onions in the pan. Roast 30 minutes.
Meantime, combine giblets, neck, two onions, chicken broth and orange juice in a saucepan. Simmer 25 minutes.
Reduce oven to 375°F. Strain broth and add 1.5 cups to roasting pan. Roast 15 minutes and baste. Repeat three more times. Remove chicken, let rest 15 minutes and cut into serving pieces.
Remove lemons, return chicken pieces to roasting pan, spoon juices and onions over chicken. Scatter grapes over chicken and add remaining broth. Cover and bake 15 minutes.
Serve on a large platter with grapes and juices and sauce. Garnish with fresh basil or cilantro.

MIDDLE EASTERN ORANGE BLOSSOM FRUIT BOWL
(six servings; pareve)

1 fresh pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into slices then quarters from each slice
2 large peeled, sectioned oranges
2 cups seedless red or green grapes
1/4 cup orange blossom flower water or orange-flavoured liqueur
1/4 cup slivered almonds
confectioners sugar
cinnamon
mint sprigs

In a bowl, mix pineapple pieces, orange sections, grapes and orange flower water. Cover and refrigerate two hours.
Put nuts into a small frying pan. Cook and stir until toasted. Remove to a small bowl.
Arrange fruits on a large platter. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar, cinnamon and toasted nuts. Garnish with mint sprigs. Serve cold.

GRAPES IN BRANDY
(five to six servings; dairy)

3/4 cup honey
3/8 cup brandy
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 pound seedless red and green grapes, without stems
1 cup sour cream
lemon peel curls

On the day before serving, mix the honey, brandy and lemon juice. Place the grapes in a large bowl and pour the mixture over them. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, divide the fruit mixture into serving dishes, champagne glasses or any unusual glass. Spoon sour cream on top of each. Garnish with lemon peel curls.

Three fave kosher fruit pies

Blueberry Bottom Pie is garnished with blueberries and fresh mint. (photo from pxfuel.com)

When I think of summer, I think of fresh fruit. When I think of fresh fruit, I think of pies. Early pies may have originated with Egyptian cakes and ancient Greek pasties filled with fruit. According to Wikipedia, Medieval England had sweet pies, but they were called tarts, and fruit pies were unsweetened, because sugar was a rare and costly “symbol of wealth.” Also according to Wiki, a pie could have a number of items as its filling, but a pastry would have only a single filling. Fruit pie recipes began appearing in the 15th century. Here are recipes for three of my favourite fruit pies.

PEACH PIE

1 1/2 pounds seeded, sliced peaches
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter or margarine
2 tbsp flour
2 large eggs
pinch nutmeg
nine-inch crust (bought or homemade)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare a nine-inch pie plate with dough.
In a bowl, mix together sugar, butter or margarine, flour, eggs and nutmeg.
Arrange peaches in piecrust. Pour batter over them. Crimp edge of crust.
Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until just set.

BLUEBERRY BOTTOM PIE

2 packages vanilla pudding
1 1/4 cups milk or non-dairy creamer or soymilk
1 1/2 cups pureed blueberries
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp grated lemon rind
1 baked nine-inch pie shell
3 1/2 cups kosher whipped topping
blueberries and mint leaves for garnishes

Check to make sure which vanilla pudding dissolves with non-dairy creamer or soymilk. Combine one package pudding and a quarter cup milk or non-dairy creamer or soymilk, blueberries and cinnamon. Cook until mixture comes to a full boil. Pour into crust and chill.
Prepare remaining pudding and milk or non-dairy creamer or soymilk. Add one teaspoon lemon rind. Pour into bowl, cover with plastic wrap and chill about one hour.
Fold in one cup whipped topping to refrigerated mixture and spoon over blueberry layer.
Combine remaining whipped topping with remaining lemon rind and spoon over filling. Freeze one hour or refrigerate three hours.
Garnish with blueberries and mint leaves before serving.

FAUX CHERRY COBBLER
(Cobblers generally have a dough-like topping dropped on top of fruit. This cobbler is more like a pie).

2 cups pitted cherries
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1 cup milk or soymilk
2 1/2 tbsp melted butter or margarine
brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a square baking dish.
Combine flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Add milk and melted butter or margarine. Pour into a greased baking dish.
Scatter pitted cherries over batter. Sprinkle the top with brown sugar. Bake for about an hour.

Surviving the Gulag

Dressed for a Dance in the Snow: Women’s Voices from the Gulag by Monika Zgustova (Other Press, 2020) is the first book to focus exclusively on women who lived in the Gulag. It is an intimate look at nine women, who shared their experiences with Zgustova. Regrettably, several of them passed away before the book was published.

The word Gulag is the acronym for Main Administration of Camps (in Russian), which was the government agency in charge of the former Soviet Union’s forced-labour camp system, which started under Vladimir Lenin. The system continued through Joseph Stalin’s rule and the term is also used to refer to any forced-labour camp in the former Soviet Union, including camps that existed in post-Stalin times. The camps housed a wide range of people, from actual criminals to political prisoners.

Zgustova was born in Prague. In the 1970s, her parents took her and her brother on a trip to India. Instead of returning to Prague, they went to the United States, where she studied at the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. She taught Russian in several American universities before moving to Barcelona, where she works as a writer and translator.

The book’s translator is Julie Jones, who is a professor emeritus of Spanish at the University of New Orleans.

In 2008, Zgustova traveled to Moscow, learned about the women of the Gulag and decided to interview some of them. To do this, she also traveled to Paris and London.

Zgustova writes in the book’s introduction that she wants her readers to learn about the Gulag “through the stories of the nine intelligent, sensitive and strong women [she] had the honour of interviewing.”

“What these women found in the Gulag was their hierarchy of values, at the top of which were books and invulnerable, selfless friendship,” writes Zgustova.

Zayara Vesyolaya, her sister and their friends were celebrating her sister’s successful thesis defence in 1940, when Vesyolaya was arrested, imprisoned and sent to Siberia. The people there would compose and memorize poetry and recite it at night to develop their minds through literature.

Susanna Pechuro was sentenced to 25 years in a forced labour camp for ostensibly belonging to a group of Jewish dissidents. She was in 11 prisons and seven work camps.

Ella Markman was part of an anti-Stalin group and sentenced to forced labour in the mines of the Arctic Circle.

Elena Korybut-Daszkiewica came from a Polish family, spent the war in Ukraine but was arrested as a collaborator and sent to work in the mines above the Arctic Circle, where she kept a Pushkin book that was passed from person to person.

Valentina Iyevleva was imprisoned after having an affair with an American and having his daughter.

Natalie Gorbanevskaya was arrested and sent to a psychiatric hospital because she went to a demonstration and was a well-known dissident.

Janina Misik, a Polish woman with a half-Jewish father, was sent to a work camp.

Gayla Safonova was born in a labour camp and raised there.

Irina Emelyanova is one of the most interesting of the women interviewed for the book, and the best known. Her mother was Boris Pasternak’s last love and the inspiration for Lara in Doctor Zhivago. She and her mother were sent to the Gulag after Pasternak’s death because of their connections to him.

Each woman’s story is moving and the theme running through all the oral histories is their strength in surviving. Zgustova also includes their struggles after their release. It is a remarkable book to read.

Jewish papercutting art

The paper cut “Jerusalem Mizrah” by Yehudit Shadur (1928-2011). (photo from shadurarts.com)

Papercuts are created by taking a folded sheet of paper and drawing a design on one side. The folded sheet is then fastened to a wooden board and the design is cut out with a sharp knife. When the paper is unfolded, a symmetrical work of art appears.

Papercutting dates back to the fourth-century CE in China. It appeared in Western Asia by about the eighth century; in Europe by the 13th century and in Turkey, Switzerland and Germany by the 16th century. Papercutting has been a common Jewish folk art since the Middle Ages and, by the 17th century, it was popular for Shavuot.

Shevuoslekh (little Shavuots) and roysele (rosettes or flowers) were used to decorate windows on Shavuot. They were made of white paper, usually, and frequently displayed the phrase, “Chag haShavuot hazeh” – “this holiday of Shavuot.”

According to an article by Sara Horowitz in the recently defunct Canadian Jewish News a couple of years ago, “for Ashkenazi Jews, there was a particular link between papercutting and Shavuot, which stems from an old practice of decorating homes and synagogues with flowers, branches, boughs and trees. In shtetl culture, cut flowers were a luxury – pricey and perishable. And Jewish culture was deeply literate, so paper, especially used paper – was always around and available for artistic repurposing. Some sources cite the objection of 18th-scholar Vilna Gaon to the Shavuot greening as another reason for the development of a Shavuot papercutting tradition. Because church décor involved cut flowers and pagan practices involved trees, the Vilna Gaon viewed such customs as inherently non-Jewish.”

An acquaintance of mine from many years ago, Yehudit Shadur (1928-2011), and her husband, Joseph, wrote a history of the last three centuries of Jewish papercutting, called Traditional Jewish Papercuts: An Inner World of Art and Symbol. The book won a 1994 National Jewish Book Council Award.

Yehudit Shadur was considered to be the one who pioneered the contemporary revival of the Jewish papercutting tradition. Her works are represented in major museum collections. She also had museum exhibits in Israel, England and the United States.

Shadur’s website offers many quotes from the artist, including one from a 1996 exhibit catalogue, in which she states, “What at first seemed a simple craft proved to be an artistic medium of endless possibilities and variations – not only in the arrangement of time-honoured Jewish symbols imbued with deep and often complex significance, but also in the challenges of colour, composition and texture. Eventually, the subject matter of my papercuts went beyond traditional forms and content to express my personal vision as a contemporary artist….”

Some typical symbols in Shadur’s Jewish papercuts – and in those of others – are menorot, crowns (keter Torah, the crown of Torah), columns representing the Temple in Jerusalem, plants or trees (the Tree of Life, the Torah), and grapevines, lions and gazelles (all representing the people of Israel).

For an in-depth article on the history of Jewish papercutting, visit myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-papercutting.

If you’re looking for an activity to do with your children, PJ Library (pjlibrary.org) offers the book The Art Lesson: A Shavuot Story written by Allison and Wayne Marks and illustrated by Annie Wilkinson, in which “Grandma Jacobs teaches Shoshana how to make traditional papercuts,” and readers also learn to make a papercut. For anyone interested, there are various websites that have papercutting tutorials for kids and adults alike.

Chag sameach!