Books – Page 35

Wonders of Mediterranean

Joyce Goldstein was chef and owner of Square One restaurant in San Francisco; prior to that, she was chef at Chez Panisse café. Today, she is a cooking teacher, restaurant consultant and cookbook author. Her bibliography lists 60 cookbooks, the most recent being The New Mediterranean Jewish Table (University of California Press, 2016).

The introductory essays are very informative – “Jews in America,” “Mediterranean Jewish Communities” and “Old World Food in a New World Kitchen.” Goldstein reminds us that “not all Jewish cooking traditions come from Eastern Europe,” and that the delicious and varied cuisines of North African and Mediterranean Jews “have been nearly unknown until recently.”

She writes, “This Mediterranean Jewish cookbook for the modern kitchen will build and expand on carefully selected recipes from many of my cookbooks.” The recipes are from the cultures of the Sephardim (those expelled from the Iberian Peninsula), the Maghrebi (those from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Egypt) and Mizrachi (Jews from Muslim lands since biblical times).

After an explanation about kosher laws and the food of Jewish holidays, there are 11 cookbook chapters covering appetizers, spreads and salads (49 recipes), savory pastries (21 recipes), eggs and fritters (24 recipes), soups (29 recipes), rice, pasta and grains (31 recipes), vegetables (48 recipes), fish (46 recipes), poultry (23 recipes), meat (49 recipes), condiments and preserves (24 recipes) and desserts (51 recipes). There are a whopping 395 recipes in all.

Each chapter has an explanatory essay, in addition to a list of ingredients and instructions. The volume is so large: recipes go from page to page.

The publisher calls this “an authoritative guide … a treasury filled with vibrant, seasonal recipes … the story of how Jewish cooks successfully brought the local ingredients, techniques and traditions of their new homelands into their kitchens.”

Just reading about the origins of each recipe is a wonderful learning experience, but here are two recipes to try.

ARTICHOKE SOUP (CREMA DI CARCIOFI)
(serves six to eight)

juice of one lemon
12 artichokes
3 tbsp unsalted butter
2 cloves minced garlic
12 ounces russet potatoes, peeled and diced or 1/2 cup white rice
3 cups vegetable broth plus more for thinning as needed
salt and freshly ground black pepper
chopped toasted hazelnuts or pine nuts or chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley or mint for garnish
milk or heavy cream as needed for thinning (optional)

Have ready a large bowl of water to which you have added the lemon juice.

Working with one artichoke at a time, trim the stem to two inches if it is tender, then peel away the dark green fibrous outer layer. If the stem is tough, trim it off flush with the bottom. Pull off and discard all of the leaves. Pare away the dark green areas from the base. Cut the artichoke in half lengthwise and carefully remove the choke from each half with a small pointed spoon or a paring knife, then cut each half lengthwise into quarter-inch slices and slip them into the lemon water.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Drain the artichokes, add to the pan and sauté for a few minutes.

Add the garlic, potatoes and about 1.5 cups of the broth or enough just to cover the artichokes. Cover the pan and simmer over medium heat until the artichokes are very tender and almost falling apart, 25 to 30 minutes.

Remove from the heat and cool slightly. In batches, transfer to a food processor and purée until smooth, then return the purée to the saucepan.

Add the remaining 1.5 cups broth and reheat, adding more broth if needed to achieve a consistency you like. You can also add a little cream or milk if you prefer a richer soup.

Season with salt and pepper.

To intensify the artichoke flavor, make the soup a few hours or a day ahead and reheat at serving time. To serve, ladle into soup bowls and garnish with hazelnuts, pine nuts, parsley or mint.

TURKISH HAZELNUT TEA CAKES (GATEAUX DES NOISETTES)
(makes 24 small cakes)

1 vanilla bean, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 freshly ground black pepper
6 eggs
1 cup plus 3 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
grated zest of 2 lemons or 1 lemon and 1 orange
1 1/3 cups toasted, peeled and ground hazelnuts

Butter 24 muffin pan cups, dust with flour and tap out the excess.

In a spice mill or food processor, grind the vanilla bean with the sugar until the bean is ground to a powder.

In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, salt and pepper.

In a separate bowl, beat together butter, confectioners sugar and vanilla sugar until creamy and pale. Add eggs and lemon zest and beat until incorporated. Fold in nuts and flour mixture until combined.

Spoon batter into muffin cups, two-thirds full. Let rest for one hour.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the centre emerges dry, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and turn on to racks. Let cool completely.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.

Bringing Israel to the table

Steven Rothfeld is a travel photographer with an emphasis on culinary cuisine. He has written more than 10 books of photography and lives in Napa Valley, Calif. His cookbook Israel Eats (Gibbs Smith Publishers) came out earlier this year.

In the introduction, Rothfeld describes how he met an Israeli on a train in Italy in 1984. The fellow passenger asked Rothfeld why he hadn’t been to Israel. Twenty-five years later, reading Amos Oz’s memoir, Rothfeld’s imagination started working. In 2010, he finally made the trip.

“I encountered a world I had never imagined existed in Israel,” he writes, referring in large part to the vibrant cuisine.

He had worked on three books previously with chef Nancy Silverton so, when he conceived of Israel Eats, he asked her to join him.

Silverton is a chef, baker and author of eight cookbooks. She won the James Beard Foundation’s outstanding chef award of 2014 and lives in Los Angeles. She had been intrigued by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s cookbook Jerusalem and, in Israel, she discovered that “the cuisine of Israel is an extraordinary layering of flavors.”

And, writes Rothfeld, “Contemporary Israeli cuisine reflects a global consciousness rooted in a vast, mind-boggling array of cultural influences and traditions.”

Rothfeld and Silverton’s enthusiasm infuses this book.

After Haaretz journalist Ronit Vered explains the history of Israel’s cuisine from the 1950s to today, Rothfeld and Silverton embark on a tour of Israel – Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the north, the centre, the south, Jerusalem and the Judean hills, concluding with the “ecosystem of Israel Eats,” meaning the people who contributed to the book.

Each “chapter” has an introduction, with accounts of places Rothfeld and Silverton visited and people they met, and is followed by the recipes, each with its own introduction, source and beautiful color photographs.

Some of the recipes are from restaurants and chefs, others are from individuals and some are by Silverton. This is not a kosher cookbook but only five recipes are strictly non-kosher and most of those could be adapted by leaving out one ingredient that would not change the tone of the recipe; only one recipe is not adaptable. There are 90 recipes in total, and here are a couple.

HALLOUMI CHEESE FLOWER
(two servings: “A single flower will only make you crave a bouquet.”)

3 tbsp olive oil
1 ripe, medium-size tomato, halved and thinly sliced
3 to 4 ounces halloumi or mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
salt and freshly ground pepper
3 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 small fresh green chili, thinly sliced
10 cilantro sprigs

Heat oil in a heavy eight-inch skillet over medium heat. Arrange tomato slices in the skillet in the shape of a circle. Top the tomato slices with cheese slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange the garlic and chili slices atop the cheese. Bunch the cilantro sprigs in the centre of the skillet. Continue cooking until cheese is soft but not totally melted. Serve immediately.

VANILLA ICE CREAM WITH CHERRY TOMATO JAM
(four to six servings: “an excellent and surprisingly tasty marriage”)

1 pound cherry tomatoes
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp black peppercorns
2 pints vanilla ice cream
chopped fresh mint leaves

Combine the tomatoes, sugar, water and peppercorns in a medium-size heavy pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally until the mixture is thick and syrupy and reduced by half, about one hour.

Divide the ice cream among bowls. Spoon the tomato jam over the ice cream. Garnish with mint.

Internet access and poverty

On Nov. 24., writer Penny Goldsmith spoke at King David High School about PovNet, a B.C.-based anti-poverty network.

When Storming the Digital Divide: The PovNet Story was published in August by Lazara Press, the Jewish Independent received a copy. A history told in words and through illustrations about the B.C.-based online anti-poverty community network, the JI waited until school started, as it seemed the perfect topic for King David High School teacher Aron Rosenberg’s social justice class. And it was.

Once students were into the rhythm of classes and the High Holidays had passed, Rosenberg met with Penny Goldsmith – PovNet founder and a longtime community organizer and advocate – to determine how to address the subject. Goldsmith wrote Storming the Digital Divide, while B.C. artist, writer and activist Kara Sievewright – who has been PovNet’s web coordinator and illustrator since 2005 – created the images, and there are additional drawings by artist, researcher and educator Nicole Marie Burton of Ad Astra Comix, which publishes comics with social justice themes.

Before Goldsmith even did her presentation to Rosenberg’s class on the morning of Nov. 24 – appropriately enough, a day that fell during KDHS’s Random Acts of Chesed Week – the students had homework. In pairs, they had to choose a bubble from the 12-page timeline laid out in the book, which, as the book notes, highlights “selected issues that are an important part of the history of work done by the many advocates and marginalized community members who use PovNet in British Columbia. It also scans the history of technology and organizing as it affects the anti-poverty movement in British Columbia.”

The timeline goes from 1971 – “The first email is sent” – to 2015, which contains several key developments, such as the province’s first seniors’ advocate (Isobel Mackenzie) being appointed and the release of a 40-page report in which “nine social services agencies from across B.C. have asked the ombudsperson of B.C. to launch a systematic investigation into service reductions at the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation (the welfare ministry) that shut out many eligible people from accessing social assistance.”

For Goldsmith’s presentation, students were asked to consider their chosen bubble with respect to a few questions: “What does the information in the bubble mean for poor people? For anti-poverty advocates who work with them? For you?” Divided into groups, a table spokesperson shared some of the thoughts that arose from the brief group discussion of the questions. Student Leora Schertzer, in her role as master of ceremonies, made sure that every student who wanted to contribute aloud was invited to do so.

Alternating between group discussion and Goldsmith’s talk, which included visuals of some of the book’s illustrated pages, the students considered questions that Goldsmith and Rosenberg had prepared in advance, such as “What do you think the digital divide might mean?” “What do you think the difference is between charity and anti-poverty work?” and “How do you envision a future online world?”

Once the students had a chance to think about the issues, Goldsmith offered her thoughts, using portions of the book, beginning with an explanation of its title.

“From trying to get a job, finding adequate housing and accessing government services … to networking with fellow advocates and fighting for social change, the internet is now at the very least an essential service,” said Goldsmith. Regarding the accessing of government services, she gave the example of qualifying for welfare, which requires the completion of a 90-screen online application.

She offered a few definitions. “Collins English Dictionary defines the digital divide as ‘the gap between those people who have internet access and those who do not.’ Simple,” she said. “Dictionary.com expands the definition to include ‘the gap between those who are computer literate and those who are not.’ An important addition. Other dictionaries expand the definition to include marginalized communities in developing countries.

“According to a report from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre published in July 2016,” she said, “one-half of low-income Canadians are trading off other household goods or services in order to pay their communications bill – almost one in five (17%) indicated they went without other essential goods such as food, medicine or clothing in order to pay a communications bill.”

A lack of money is not the only barrier to internet access.

“An online space can, by its very structure, leave out marginalized communities,” Goldsmith explained. “If English is not your first language, online communication is not always as easy as being in the same room together with your peers. If accessing a computer is an issue, particularly in rural communities, if technology is daunting – people get left out of the conversation.”

It is these barriers that PovNet also works to diminish.

“PovNet is an online community of social justice advocates, activists, community workers and marginalized people who work in the anti-poverty world in British Columbia and across Canada,” said Goldsmith. “It hosts a public website that provides up-to-date information about welfare, housing and homelessness, unemployment, disability and human rights issues.

“PovNet’s community of users is vast,” she continued. “A disability rights organizer in Nelson goes to the PovNet website to get some information for a community workshop she is doing that night about changes to disability bus passes. A tenant in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver goes online to find an advocate to help him deal with a landlord trying to evict him. Several workers at a women’s centre in a small northern British Columbia town sign up for an online course at PovNetU about dealing with debt because they have so many clients coming into the women’s centre who are being harassed by a local collection agency.

“But what’s important,” she said, “is that everyone who wants to, has to have access to PovNet. That means money for computers, and government commitment to universal bandwidth and internet access. It also means that all of PovNet’s diverse communities have to feel that the network belongs to them.”

Storming the Digital Divide contains many illustrated stories from the online anti-poverty community, which bring the facts and figures closer to home, as well as the impact of PovNet over the 20 years since it began in 1997. While Goldsmith is no longer the organization’s executive coordinator – a post she filled for 18 years, until 2015 – she remains passionate about its work. And some of it rubbed off. Here are some of the comments students wrote after her talk.

• “Penny’s presentation exposed me to how reliant our society and greater world is on the internet…. Those who are unable to access the internet or technology are at an automatic disadvantage for workplace opportunities and almost all information.” (Justine Balin)

• “Listening to Penny’s presentation last week gave me an insight into the challenges that people without access to the internet face. Hearing about how some people have to choose between paying for internet access or having dinner made me realize how much I take having internet for granted. I also realized how big of a luxury it is to have my own computer and the privacy that comes with owning my own device. Before hearing Penny speak, I never realized how large of an issue internet access was…. Hearing about PovNet and how they advocate for internet access for those who need it really opened my eyes to a social justice issue that I would have otherwise been oblivious to.” (Talia Buchman)

• “In ‘A PovNet Timeline,’ I chose to focus on the [2008] bubble that states that over 40% of people who died in B.C. of HIV-AIDS died because they never received the necessary treatment because they were poor. Reading this bubble disturbed me quite a bit. I was mostly disturbed because we, as a country, try so hard to be the best society we can possibly be (i.e. equal rights), however still tend to fail at the situation with people living in poverty. We advertise that Canada has free health care, but do we really?” (Michelle Nifco)

• “The cost to live in British Columbia has been rising steadily and the welfare rate has also been rising but not as fast as the cost of living. I am fortunate enough to not be relying on welfare and hope that I will never need to rely on it, but many Canadians rely on welfare cheques every month to keep a roof over their head and food in their stomachs.” (Elle Poirier)

• “What I found immensely important about my experience with Povnet’s work was what they called ‘A PovNet Timeline: A Selective History of Poverty, Anti-Poverty Organizing & Technology in B.C.’ The timeline was extremely motivational and taught me that if citizens have enough passion and drive, they can influence the powers that be, even when it may seem that said powers are completely inflexible or severely rigid. This premise was explored throughout a variety of different events within the timeline.” (Anthony Schokalsky)

Storming the Digital Divide ($12.95) is available from lazarapress.ca.

Unique book group

The next novel up for discussion at the Jewish-Muslim women’s book group is The Red Tent.

One Sunday in July led to several new experiences for yours truly, a 23-year-old Jew living on Vancouver’s North Shore. For starters, it was my first time in a mosque, it was my first time in Delta and it was without a doubt my first Jewish-Muslim book gathering. Thankfully, it wasn’t my first time reading a book in less than 24 hours, as my decision to attend the gathering after seeing it mentioned in this very newspaper, was pretty spur of the moment.

The book group’s second-ever session was held at Baitur Rahman Mosque, a building that, upon first impressions, was slightly imposing – British Columbia’s largest mosque, dwarfing any synagogue I’ve come across – but which proved home to an incredible amount of warmth. The warmth began with smiles when I entered the room late – it was a longer journey than I expected – and continued through the entire two-hour session about the book (I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb), and well into the snacks and chats afterwards.

Having been greeted by 30 or so women from both Jewish and Muslim backgrounds, there was the classic ice-breaker – going round in a circle, saying one’s name, a little bit about yourself and an interesting fact. I may not have been able to beat one woman’s fact (she used to be a stilt walker) but my relatively young age meant I stood out.

This lengthy introduction introduced me well to the thoughtful, kind group. In true Canadian spirit, they were from so many different places and cultures. The Muslim women in particular had a heartening appreciation for their country. One said she “liked Canada very much”; another one-upped her, exclaiming, “I am one of the luckiest people alive” for having been welcomed here. There’s no doubt that the women from both religions were of a progressive stance – the bulk of Jews was from egalitarian Or Shalom synagogue, while the Muslim women were part of the Ahmadiyya community, which has been persecuted relentlessly by more orthodox Muslim groups.

As conversation began about the book, it became clear that everyone was so lovely – was I the only person who hadn’t helped Syrian refugees settle in Canada? – that I began to wonder if the group was a case of “preaching to the converted.” Surely the people most ignorant, and most in need of education about other religions, weren’t the type who would turn up to this group? A cynic by nature, this worry stayed with me during the (fairly fleeting) discussions about the book and the (much longer) follow-up conversation about the link between religion and education, how and whether you can teach critical thinking, and other thought-provoking questions.

So, I reached out to the organizers from both sides. The email chains that followed gave me insight into two great communities and their prior interfaith ties, as well as into two pioneering women: Tiferet Welch from the Jewish community and Aisha Naveed from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at. They provided some strikingly similar answers to my questions, illustrating how much common ground can be found between the two religions (religions that, evidently, don’t always see eye to eye).

About why the book group came about, it seemed that the books were simply a way of facilitating discussion about religion itself. Welch said she decided to make the group happen after meeting some of the Muslim women, who “stated their knowledge of Judaism and, hence, Jews, was extremely limited,” but they were “fueled with a strong desire to know more.” Naveed said “the book club was initiated to remove common misconceptions between the Jewish and Islamic faith,” explaining to me how her community believes in interfaith dialogue to “encourage learning” and “prevent ignorance.”

The women were also on the same wavelength about the group’s future – Naveed called it “an organic venture” and Welch said “we want to see it progress organically.” They were both proud of what it had accomplished in such a short time: Naveed proclaimed it “a huge success,” while Welch described the discussions as “open” and “honest.”

And what did they have to say to my “preaching to the converted” angst? Naveed said that, because interfaith gatherings “are a form of open and safe space,” they mean you learn a great deal about one another. Welch said “there needs to be a distinction made between being open and being knowledgeable.” In layman’s terms: those who attend the group are open, but that doesn’t mean they’re knowledgeable, and the group aims to educate.

Welch also pointed out that, because the event is promoted, for instance, via Or Shalom’s electronic bulletin, geography is a non-issue. Theoretically, people all around the globe can subscribe to the group and see how progressive it is. And, she reminded me that, once this article is published, other Jews will know about it, and thus the group’s potential for change is increased.

With that in mind – how to sell the group to someone reading this? I’ll break it down, simply and honestly, into three points.

First off, the reading material is quality. The first session the group discussed the book Faithfully Feminist: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Feminists on Why We Stay, edited by Amy Levin, Gina Messina-Dysert and Jennifer Zobair. It led to a worthwhile discussion on how both religions are traditionally patriarchal, and what this has meant for female faith in male-dominated arenas. For me, having started off dubious about I Am Malala, the second session’s read proved a powerful one. The youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner’s account is both humble and knowledgeable, a memoir that explains well the Taliban’s rise, Pakistan’s history and politics, and the monumental importance of educating girls.

Second, the discussions that stem from the books are as intelligent as they are interesting. The two-hour discussion flew by at the mosque – the only thing I can compare it to is a dream university seminar or tutorial; i.e. one not ruined by hung-over students unable even to blag the required reading. Participants were incredibly educated and respectful. We covered moral values and where they should be learned, we discussed the media’s portrayal of religion and our internal prejudices, and I gained a ton of insight into a religion that many of us could, and should, know more about. Their actual definition of jihad – as education; a clear rejection of terrorism – which hung proudly in the room, struck me as particularly vital in this day and age.

Third, the post-discussion food is fantastic. The informal portion of the event, where we stood eating (delicious snacks) and chatting, was where we all connected more personally and more deeply. I found out what it’s like to be judged immediately and constantly for wearing a hijab, and how it feels to be asked where you’re from, to reply saying “Canada,” and then receive a demanding “No, but where are you really from?” On a more light-hearted note, I found out how pleasing it is to interact with people outside my usual social circle, to do something new and to spend a Sunday afternoon with a group of thoughtful, inspiring women from all over. Oh, and did I mention how good the food is?

The group’s next meeting – about The Red Tent by Anita Diamant – is scheduled for Dec. 18, 2-4 p.m., at Or Shalom. Women interested in attending are advised to follow Or Shalom’s web page or subscribe to its email list, and to RSVP Welch at [email protected].

Rebecca Shapiro is the associate editor of vivalifestyleandtravel.com and a travel blogger at thethoughtfultraveller.com. She’s been published in the Guardian, Elle Canada and the Huffington Post, as well as various other Jewish newspapers in the United Kingdom and Canada. She currently resides in Vancouver, having previously lived in London, Shanghai and Toronto.

Sharing Muller’s table

Our Table is a beautiful hostess gift for that special occasion or that friend who loves cooking and never tires of inspiring culinary reads.

There are cookbooks you whip out of your kitchen cupboard 45 minutes before dinner in search of something easy, bright and new, and there are cookbooks you take to bed with you for reading pleasure. Our Table (Artscroll, 2016) by Renee Muller falls into the latter category, not because you won’t want to try her recipes, but because there’s a lot of reading involved in many of them.

Muller is a Swiss native who moved to the United States in 2002 and, by winning a recipe contest, landed a regular column in Whisk, a pullout food feature of the national Jewish weekly Ami Magazine. Our Table is a compendium of her favorite kosher recipes, “a cuisine that is heimish yet laced with aromas of my youth,” she writes in the introduction.

The dishes encompass all the usual categories – soups, salads, appetizers, fish and dairy, meat, chicken, snacks, desserts and breads. Many of them are laced with stories about family secrets related to the particular recipe, or how the recipe came into being. For her fragrant standing rib roast recipe, for example, there’s an essay on how and why she created the recipe, as well as tips on how far in advance to make it and how to prevent it from drying out. Her Sugo Della Nonna (Italian-style tomato sauce) contains a half page on the definition of comfort food and the feeling it delivers when she makes it. “I see myself, sitting at Nonna’s table, as a child, feeling nourished and happy,” she writes.

Muller’s insights are written in a conversational style with lots of anecdotes about her family thrown in. By the time you’re finished reading this book, you feel like you know her personally – and you can’t help but like this impassioned chef who adores cooking for her family and friends. That’s because Muller’s enthusiasm is contagious, but also because some of her dishes go way beyond the usual suspects. There is a recipe for onion crisps, a whole page on the art of roasting chestnuts, one on toffee apples, one titled “Really, really good whole wheat challah” and another for brown buttered pear salad. And the pictures? Whoa. They are amazing, mouthwatering bites of full-page color that will leave you salivating as you plan your next dinner party. Most of the recipes are not terribly complex either, they’re just new combinations of ingredients most of us know well and use regularly.

Muller is that friend we all want in our lives – the one whose cooking is fabulous, who isn’t shy about sharing her recipes and whose conversation is full of funny stories, notes from her past and sage bits of wisdom. There are times when the essays feel perhaps a tad too long but, nonetheless, Our Table is a 270-page hardcover recipe book worth having, a beautiful hostess gift for that special occasion (Chanukah?) or that friend who loves cooking and never tires of inspiring culinary reads.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

Scholar talks at Peretz

Prof. Ester Reiter, author of A Future Without Hate or Need, points to the U.S. election as a warning that the issues the Canadian Jewish left dealt with are as timely as ever. (photo from Ester Reiter)

On Dec. 1, Prof. Ester Reiter will speak at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture to launch her new book A Future Without Hate or Need: The Promise of the Jewish Left in Canada (Between the Lines, 2016).

Reiter’s book documents “the varied political and cultural activities of those who were part of the secular Jewish left” – the movements in which many Yiddish-speaking immigrants and their children took part during the first half of the last century, made up of Yiddish schools, theatres, choirs, dance troupes, drama groups, sports leagues, union activism, newspapers, women’s groups and summer camps. Their members were animated by a vision of what many of them would have called a shenere, besere velt (a more beautiful, better world). There were groups throughout the country, with the strongest ones in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg.

Many of these groups came together nationally in the United Jewish People’s Order (UJPO), founded in 1945. The book launch is being undertaken to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Labor League – which later became part of UJPO – in Toronto in 1926. The launch is sponsored by UJPO, and co-sponsored by the Peretz Centre and the Shaya Kirman Memorial Foundation for Yiddish Culture. It will start at the Peretz Centre at 4 p.m.

Reiter, a sociologist by training and a senior scholar at York University in Toronto, grew up in New York in a milieu similar to the one she describes. “I grew up in the New York left, the sister version of the Canadian Jewish left. I was a child in the Yiddish shule [school] in Brooklyn and later the mittlshul [middle school] in Manhattan during the Cold War. Many of my teachers were well known in Canada – they were in the summer camps in Montreal and Toronto, and taught in Canada. The politics were virtually the same and shule materials used in Canada were produced in New York, particularly in the early years, the 1930s.”

This community was at its strongest from the 1920s to the 1950s. Yiddish-speaking immigrants were immersed in the secular Yiddish culture and literature that emerged in the late 19th century. “The Jewish left was the equivalent of a university for working-class women and men. The cultural activities – dance, choirs, orchestras – were accessible to both women and men. People working in the needle trades with no time to learn to read music would sing classical works in the choirs, learning them by heart.”

Reiter says of the Yiddish Arbeter Froyen Fareyn (Jewish Women’s Labor League) that, “the very act of getting together changed many of the women,” particularly in women-only groups, “where women felt more comfortable, they described how they learned to speak in meetings. Their political commitments, which involved activities such as walking picket lines, raising money for various causes, necessitated engaging in public life in a way that required and reinforced self-confidence. This participation in the wider world was empowering. They supported each other, made close friendships and had a lot of fun.”

Jews on the left in Canada, as elsewhere, were diverse – they included social democrats, Bundists, anarchists, Labor Zionists and Marxists. Reiter focuses on those whose outlook was Marxist and supported the Soviet Union after the 1917 October Revolution.

Reiter emphasizes that this sector of the Jewish left had a life of its own distinct from the Communist party. “The leadership were Communist party members, but approximately 95% of the membership of the UJPO and its predecessors were not. One could think and say what one felt in the Jewish left without concern over whether it was the ‘correct’ position. Many people came [to the Jewish left] because of the liveliness of the community, as well as the politics.”

Initially, Yiddish schools saw their purpose as conveying ideological values, but this later shifted to transmitting the Yiddish language and Jewish cultural identity for their own sake, including secularized versions of Jewish holidays and rituals. “In the early period, a Yiddish education in the shule was to ensure that the children learned they were the children of workers, and needed to care about racism and class exploitation. After Hitler came to power and antisemitism was growing, Yiddish was valued as an end in itself, and there was more acceptance of the different ways of identifying as a Jew. The community developed secular ceremonies around the bar/bat mitzvah, the High Holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”

The Jewish left experienced government harassment during the Cold War, especially in Quebec under premier Maurice Duplessis. Reiter notes that Canadian Jewish Congress defended civil liberties in the face of repression, but “dealing with pro-communist groups in their midst was a different matter.” UJPO was expelled from CJC in 1952 for dissenting from the Cold War consensus by opposing the postwar rearmament of West Germany and supporting the Stockholm peace petition.

The Jewish left for a long time saw the Soviet Union as a hope for a better society, in its outlawing of antisemitism and support for Yiddish culture in the 1920s, but their hope was shattered by the Stalin regime’s murder of Yiddish artists in the late 1940s and early 1950s. “For many years, people projected their idealism on[to] the USSR. When they found out about Stalin’s suppression of Jewish life, it was shocking. Most of the Jewish [Communist party] leadership from UJPO left the party. However, the rank and file in UJPO were never actually party people, so many felt that, although the USSR under Stalin was terrible, their activities in Canada – helping the unemployed, union support – were important and valuable.”

Reiter describes various factors in the shrinking of the Canadian Jewish left – Cold War persecution, disillusionment with Stalinism, the erosion of Yiddish by assimilation. However, UJPO itself has survived the disappearance of the milieu that gave birth to it, and has even attracted new members. Reiter reflects, “There certainly is a need. Our politics mean that we are inclusive of different kinds of families – gay, straight, trans, mixed racial and religious origin. Yiddish has pretty well disappeared, but the progressive politics remain. With respect to Middle East politics, there are a variety of views in the UJPO, but we all agree that criticizing the actions of the Israeli government does not mean that one is a self-hating Jew. We also continue with trade union support, First Nations solidarity, environmental activism. We exist because we have a community that has a good time together. As the organized Jewish community has moved to the right, we provide a place where one can have a Jewish identity and be progressive. Secular left Jews now have to think about what we have in common, not what separates us.”

Reiter points to the Nov. 8 U.S. election as a warning that the issues the Canadian Jewish left dealt with are as timely as ever. “The struggle against racism, sexism, homophobia and all this meanness and narrowness is an ongoing one – a call to remember and honor and value our own history and where we came from.”

Carl Rosenberg is a member of the United Jewish People’s Order and Independent Jewish Voices Canada. For many years, he edited Outlook: Canada’s Progressive Jewish Magazine.

Acoca launches book here

Rabbi Ilan Acoca has published his first book, The Sephardic Book of Why (Hadassa Word Press, 2016).

Why is a set of Sephardi tefillin different from an Ashkenazi pair? Why do Sephardim laugh during Havdalah, after reciting the blessing over the wine? Why do Sephardim not use the shamash to light the Chanukah candles? Why do Sephardim celebrate with henna before a wedding? These and so many other questions are answered by Rabbi Ilan Acoca in his book The Sephardic Book of Why: A Guide to Sephardic Jewish Traditions and Customs, just published by Hadassa Word Press.

The spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Hamidrash for 17 years, Acoca will return to the synagogue for the book’s local launch on Dec. 10, as part of a larger tour. Acoca and his wife Dina have been rabbi and rebbetzin of the Sephardic Congregation of Fort Lee, N.J., since they left Vancouver in August, and Rabbi Acoca is also rabbi-in-residence of Yeshivat Ben Porat Yosef, in Paramus, N.J.

photo - Rabbi Ilan Acoca will be back in Vancouver for the Dec. 10 book launch — Rabbi Ilan Acoca will be back in Vancouver for the Dec. 10 book launch. *(photo from Hadassa Word Press)*

“I would like to invite the entire community to the book launch,” Acoca told the Independent, “where I will explain what triggered me to write the book, as well as some singing and shmoozing.”

The rabbi shared a little of his motivation for writing The Sephardic Book of Why, which, he said, took three years to put together.

“Through the years, many people (Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike) asked me questions about Sephardic customs, trying to understand where each originated and what is the significance. At times, I had an answer and, at times, it intrigued me to research and find out more. One day, I was invited to a wedding as a guest and saw that the officiating rabbi had a Chabad rabbi’s guide. I knew that the RCA [Rabbinical Council of America] had an Ashkenazi rabbi’s guide so I thought to write one for Sephardic rabbis. A few days later, I sat down with my friend David Litvak and shared my idea with him. He thought about it for a moment and suggested a book that would include the entire Jewish and non-Jewish world. Immediately after the meeting, I opened my email and saw one from Hadassa press telling me they saw some of my classes on YouTube and were interested for me to publish a book with them. For me, that was a sign from heaven that I could not ignore.”

Adorned by a cover featuring the interior of Lazama Synagogue in Marrakesh, Morocco, The Sephardic Book of Why – Acoca’s first book – is divided into five chapters: Daily Rituals, Shabbat and Holidays, Lifecycle Events, Sephardic Culture, and Rabbi’s Musing. The last chapter comprises a selection of articles by Acoca that were originally published in the Canadian Jewish News. They cover a range of topics, including essays on “the middle path,” unity and the importance of diversity. So, having arrived in the United States from Vancouver only months before the presidential election, the Independent asked him if he had any advice to offer to Jews living in the United States (or Canada) about the polarity and divisions that were highlighted in the campaigns.

“It is pretty simple,” he said. “In order to move forward, we have to find things in common. There are so many things that unite but we often concentrate on what divides us. By finding things in common, we could understand each other, communicate and move forward.”

While there are a couple of other books on Sephardi customs, Acoca said, “My book is the only book that is in a question-answer format. It is more condensed, short, to the point, with sources.”

“The book is very thorough, yet easy to read,” writes Rabbi Elie Abadie, MD, of New York City’s Edmond J. Safra Synagogue and director of the Jacob E. Safra Institute of Sephardic Studies, Yeshiva University, in the book’s foreword. “It will please scholars and students equally, with good source material and footnotes. It covers the entire year-cycle of holidays and the lifetime milestones. It is a perfect book for Sephardim who, unfortunately, are just beginning to learn about their own traditions and for Ashkenazim who have just begun to interact with and learn about the Sephardim and their ‘different’ customs.”

Abadie puts quotes around the word different because, he notes, “In the overwhelming majority of minhagim [customs], the ‘Sephardi way’ was the ‘original and standard way’ of fulfilling a commandment, and the Ashkenazi community throughout the ages veered from the original minhagim and traditions, given the geographic region that they lived in and the circumstances that surrounded them.”

For those wanting to learn more about the “original” ways of Jewish practice, or to see a good friend while he’s in town, the Dec. 10 book launch, talk and signing starts at 8 p.m. People can also order a copy of the book from Hadassa Word Press.

Meditating mindfully

Or Shalom is hosting one of the leading innovators in the field of Jewish meditation next weekend – Rabbi Jeff Roth of the Awakened Heart Project will lead a half-day retreat at the synagogue on Dec. 4.

Roth, who has been practising and teaching meditation for decades, teaches his own synthesis of Eastern techniques with a Jewish heart, which he calls Jewish mindfulness meditation.

Rabbi Jeff Roth of the Awakened Heart Project will lead a half-day retreat at Or Shalom on Dec. 4. (photo from Jeff Roth)

“I was already a rabbi when I started studying Asian meditation,” he explained. “Everything I learned, I learned through a Jewish lens. I never took on a practice without altering it slightly.”

When asked if anyone has objected to his synthesis of Jewish spirituality with Asian contemplative techniques, the rabbi said, “What I integrate is the truth of the nature of mind and no one has any objection to that. I ask questions like, What is the influence of conceptual thinking on the mind? What are the effects of different thoughts?”

Roth teaches a type of meditation that involves experiencing the mind and body with a healing, nonjudgmental awareness. It is rooted in the mindfulness movement first brought to North America in the 1970s, which has steadily grown in popularity, even finding a significant place in new medical treatments and corporate environments. And Jews have played a large role in the movement, demonstrated by leading teachers like Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Jon Kabat-Zinn and others.

Drawn to the mystical teachings of Judaism as a young rabbi, Roth said they remained “intellectual” for him until he began practising meditation. “In the quiet, in the silence, I became a mystic,” he said. “It became a direct experiential realization.”

Among his students now are many rabbis. “I teach rabbis they need to come to the silence, the witnessing, to have a deeper spiritual experience,” said Roth, referring to the practice of “just witnessing” that characterizes mindfulness meditation. By just witnessing thoughts, feelings and sensations, say its exponents, mindfulness meditation calms the body and mind and allows deeper, non-conceptual awareness of experience. “From a Jewish perspective, ‘just witnessing’ is not enough, however,” he said. “You need to be the compassionate witness.”

Roth said he draws his central inspirations from the teachings of the Chassidic masters, especially the Baal Shem Tov – Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, 1698-1760, founder of the Chassidic movement.

“The Baal Shem Tov said ‘everything is God and nothing but God,’” Roth explained. “The whole thing to do is to align ourselves with the truth of being, which in the Torah is expressed as ‘ein od milvado’ (‘there is nothing else besides God’).”

A turning point in Roth’s development came in 1981 when he received teachings from Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, which became the scaffolding of his theology of contemplation.

“Reb Zalman taught me about the four worlds, or levels of manifestation, that occur within the Holy One of Being,” said Roth. The contemplation of how the four levels of manifestation happen in our minds and bodies can guide our mindful exploration of experience, he said. “The four worlds have become a central metaphor in my teaching. I have been working out that teaching for the last 35 years.”

book cover - Me, Myself and God Roth’s latest iteration of that “working out” can be seen in his recent book, Me, Myself and God: A Jewish Theology of Mindfulness (Jewish Lights, 2016), from which he will be presenting practices and Torah teachings at the Dec. 4 session.

“We’re trying to understand the fundamental forces that alienate us in our experience of life, in order that we might live more from a place of awakened heart, which is connected to all experience and allows us to manifest with more love and compassion in our daily lives,” said Roth. “I want to emphasize that acting with love and compassion – that’s where we’re going with the whole thing.”

For more information on the retreat, which will take place from 2:30-5:45 p.m., and be followed by a potluck meal, visit orshalom.ca.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

Yiddish food’s long history

Michael Wex, author of Rhapsody in Schmaltz (St. Martin’s Press, 2016), will close the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on Dec. 1.

“Heavy, unsubtle and, once it emerged from Eastern Europe, redolent of an elsewhere that nobody missed, the food of Yiddish speakers and their descendants is a cuisine that none dares call haute, the gastronomic complement to the language in which so many generations grumbled about it and its effects,” writes Michael Wex in the introduction of his latest book, Rhapsody in Schmaltz: Yiddish Food and Why We Can’t Stop Eating It.

“This vernacular food continues to turn up in vernacular form in the mouths of people who have never eaten it, or who don’t always realize the Jewish origin of the strawberry swirl bagel onto which they’re spreading their Marmite,” he writes. “We’ll be looking at the aftertaste of Ashkenazi food as much as at the cuisine itself. But before we can do so, we have to go back to the Bible to see why Jewish food exists and what it really is.”

Toronto-based Wex – who is the author of many books, including Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods and How to Be a Mentsh (& Not a Shmuck) – will close the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on Dec. 1. His topic, appropriately enough, is Jews and Food.

In Rhapsody in Schmaltz, Wex takes readers from the Exodus from Egypt – “Most national cuisines owe their character to flora and fauna, crops and quarry, domesticated animals and international trade. Jewish food starts off with a plague” – to the modern delicatessen, which “might no longer be the social hub it was for earlier generations, but the food that it serves is still recognized as Jewish, even when the ingredients are combined in ways that can’t help but pain an observant Jew.”

Michael Wex (photo by Zoe Gemelli / St. Martin’s Press)

While written in a tongue-in-cheek manner, Wex’s love of Yiddish culture, if not of Yiddish (aka Ashkenazi) food, is apparent in every page. And each page is packed with information – that he somehow compiled on his own, without research assistants.

“Although all of my non-fiction is rooted in subjects with which I was already quite familiar, I’ve found that it’s the research itself, the jump from one source to the next, that tends to produce the sparks that lead to the better ideas,” he explained to the Independent of his creative process. “I don’t think summarized works or lists of facts provided by an assistant would allow for the immersion that I, at least, need in order to write a book.

“It generally takes me about a year to research and write a book – maybe 18 months, if you count the preliminary research that usually goes into preparing a proposal for a publisher. I generally start with a specific, if somewhat vague, question and then try to answer it: What makes Yiddish different from other languages? Why do Jewish people go on eating traditional Jewish food even when they spend most of their time finding fault with it and have abandoned the rituals and ceremonies with which such dishes were associated?”

With nine pages of endnotes and a 13-page bibliography, one might assume that Rhapsody in Schmaltz is a dry read. It is anything but – Wex’s style is completely irreverent. For example, in writing about the formation of the dietary laws, he comments, “the Israelites aren’t supposed to feel any more deprived of the right to eat certain creatures than most of us usually do about the right to get high on crystal meth or pee in the street.” He openly discusses over-the-top kosher practices, bodily functions, etc. Perhaps surprisingly, his writing hasn’t ever gotten him into trouble with his religious compatriots.

“The only ‘trouble’ I’ve encountered has arisen from misunderstanding,” he said. “For instance, I received a vehemently condemnatory email from a woman who objected to my having used the phrase ‘goat or kid’ in describing the Passover sacrifice; she was afraid that non-Jews might take the word ‘kid’ as proof that we really murder gentile children and use their blood to bake matzah. Otherwise, though, the response has been quite positive. A number of rabbis – Orthodox, Conservative and Reform – have written to tell me that they’ve used material from my books in their sermons; Born to Kvetch is frequently cited in the language column of Hamodia, an English-language ultra-Orthodox paper published in Brooklyn.

“Most feedback about Rhapsody in Schmaltz has focused either on readers’ memories of the foods mentioned or on the ritual or halachic reasons behind the forms they’ve assumed or the occasions on which they are eaten, including questions relating to their viability in a world in which most Jews are not religiously observant.”

For many readers, some of Rhapsody in Schmaltz will serve as a memory refresher of the origins of certain rules of kashrut or the types of meals that are traditionally prepared for various holidays. But there is much readers will learn and, while Yiddish food may have been a topic with which Wex was familiar before he began his research, there were a few findings that surprised him.

“The whole Crisco-Manischewitz nexus and the things that grew out of it was probably the main thing I learned; I’d known how important Crisco was for kosher marketing, but until I looked into it, had no idea of why,” said Wex. “The other thing that really shocked me when reading through cookbook after cookbook was the surprising popularity of brain latkes at one time – I knew that brains were once popular, but had never heard of consuming them in latke form.”

Tickets to the closing of the book festival, which takes place at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, are $24 and the event features a food reception – brain latkes not included. To order, call 604-257-5111, drop by the JCCGV or visit jewishbookfestival.ca.

Best books for children

The top three picks of B.C. teachers for elementary school students.

As part of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s 100th anniversary, the BCTF encouraged members to recommend their favorite kids books to celebrate literacy and lifelong learning. It asked teachers: “What are the books you believe every student should read before graduating?” The result is a list of 100 books each for elementary and secondary students with an accompanying online resource and poster set to promote the books and the love of reading.

image - The top three picks of B.C. teachers for secondary school students — The top three picks of B.C. teachers for secondary school students.

“The BCTF received thousands of submissions from teachers throughout the province to make these best books lists,” said BCTF president Glen Hansman. “Some teachers told us they chose books that inspire, books that resonate with their students, and books that stand the test of time. Other submissions were made based on the outstanding quality of writing or the compelling stories told. The list is by no means exhaustive or scientific, but it reflects the enthusiasm and passion teachers have for literacy and reading.”

BCTF has created a new web page called bctf.ca/100bestbooks, which has links to every book to help visitors access descriptions and the publishers’ information. The release of the two lists in September coincided with International Literacy Day, which was Sept. 8.

“I encourage all teachers and others who love a great read to explore these best book lists,” said Hansman. “There is some excellent diversity represented and it shows how rich the genres of children’s and young adult literature are. Thank you to all the authors out there creating such wonderful stories!”