Two unidentified women hold a White Elephant sign for Hadassah Bazaar collection, 1953. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.10545)
If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected] or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.
Crews from the office of the Rabbi of the Western Wall remove tens of thousands of written prayers from the Western Wall. (photo by Gil Zohar)
On April 10, equipped with long sticks, crews from the office of the Rabbi of the Western Wall removed tens of thousands of written prayers, which worshippers had wedged into crevices at the holy site over the previous half year. The painstaking work is done twice annually, in advance of Passover in April and Rosh Hashanah in September, to ensure space for new prayers. The notes that are removed are buried in Mount of Olives Cemetery.
The origin of the practice of placing small folded sheets of paper between the cracks of the 2,000-year-old ashlars is unclear. According to tradition, God’s female presence (Shechinah), has never left the holy site.
A retaining wall of the Temple Mount, built by King Solomon circa 960 BCE and destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the Kotel Maaravi (Western Wall) stands today beneath a religious plaza known in Arabic to Muslims as al-Haram ash-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary). Jews believe the holy hill marks the navel of the world from where God began his creation 5779 years ago; the site also marks where Abraham brought his son Isaac to offer him up as a sacrifice. Muslims consider the Western Wall to be where Muhammad tethered his winged steed al-Burak when he ascended to the Seventh Heaven. And Christians believe Jesus was one of the millions of Jewish pilgrims in antiquity who came here during the festivals of Passover, Tabernacles and Pentecost.
From 1948 until 1967, when East Jerusalem was under the control of Jordan, Israelis were prohibited from visiting the site.
Gil Zohar is a journalist based in Jerusalem.
Harvey’s charoset pyramid. (photo by Shelley Civkin)
As the Torah commands us, we tell the story of Passover and the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt to our children and ourselves every year, by reading from the Haggadah. Coming from a secular home, I don’t recall our family owning a single Haggadah. Instead, my father had a little black notebook in which he wrote down the story of Passover and the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. It took about five minutes for Dad to read it, and then we had our seder. It wasn’t particularly traditional, but it was meaningful nonetheless.
On the all-encompassing journey called Yiddishkeit, preparing for Passover scores about an 18/10 on the commitment scale. Between the feathers and flashlights, flourless sponge cakes and briskets, a balabusta has her work cut out for her. And then some.
As an accidental balabusta and relative neophyte to traditional Passover preparations, I want to get with the program as much as possible. I scared myself the other day though, by reading articles about what goes into getting ready for this significant holiday. One such article – called “Cook your Pesach while you sleep” – was particularly troubling. It seems to me that a Pesadik balabusta requires at least 36 hours in every day to prepare her food for the seder, a month ahead of time. She might also require a housekeeper to do all the laundry and clean the house while she’s tethered to the kitchen, cutting, peeling, blanching, baking and roasting the eight-course meals she’ll serve to her 42 guests over the two nights of Passover. Oh, and did I mention the other two minor meals she needs to organize daily for her family during the eight days of the holiday? Holy flourless kugel, Batman!
And then there’s the issue of finding and removing all the chametz from your home. Let me confess something right from the get-go: I am not an observant Jew in the strict sense of the word. I do observe certain things, like going to synagogue every Shabbat, lighting Shabbat candles, doing the odd mitzvah, and studying a little Torah. That’s about the extent of it. I refrain from eating chametz during Pesach, but I have never actually removed all the chametz from my home before the holiday. And I don’t keep kosher. However, I do eat matzah religiously during Pesach. And I kind of have a crush on shmurah matzah.
As for that age-old shmurah versus Manischewitz matzah debate … I wholeheartedly throw my vote behind shmurah. Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s so worth it. Having visited Kfar Chabad on our trip to Israel last year, we went to their shmurah matzah factory and witnessed how the matzah is made by hand. Seeing the meticulous precision with which everything is measured, timed and baked, it was a fascinating and educational experience. And did I mention its unique flavour and round shape? Sure, parts of it can be burnt, but that just enhances the taste. Once you go shmurah, you’ll never go back.
I’m the kind of accidental balabusta that, instead of making matzah ball soup, brisket, tzimmes and macaroons for Pesach, I’m inclined to make hotel reservations in Whistler and call it a day. There’s no need for me to be Jewish Wonder Woman. Gal Godot has that covered. I know, not every woman who prepares for Pesach considers herself Wonder Woman. But, given the magnitude of preparation that must get done in advance – and done to rigorous standards – I’m pretty sure that devotedly observant women qualify for that title. As for me, I’ll do the best I can to honour the traditions, prepare a welcoming and tasty seder for my family, then enjoy a plotzfest.
Preparing for Pesach can be dangerous though. A couple of years ago, I decided to forgo the store-bought chrain (horseradish) and make my own. I found a recipe, then went out and bought the fresh horseradish root. It looked innocent enough. From a distance. Nobody told me that taking a close-up whiff of newly pulverized horseradish root is akin to inhaling mustard gas. I thought I’d burned my lungs. Sure, it produced that unrivaled heat I always admire in a memorable horseradish. However, it almost knocked me out. This Pesach, I plan to simplify the process by buying horseradish. And saving my lungs for more important things … like breathing.
On the topic of food … my husband Harvey makes the ultimate Passover crowd-pleaser: a visually stunning, delicious pyramid-shaped charoset. He got the recipe decades ago from the L.A. Times. It never fails to impress guests. Here’s the recipe.
HARVEY’S CHAROSET PYRAMID
1 unpeeled pear, cored and chopped roughly
1 unpeeled apple, cored and chopped roughly
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped almonds
1 cup chopped hazelnuts
1 cup chopped pistachios
1 cup chopped pitted dates
1 cup chopped raisins
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
sweet wine, preferably Manischewitz (about 1/4 cup)
extra dates to decorate the plate
For another Passover culinary experience, check out Jamie Geller’s recipe for potato kugel cups at joyofkosher.com/recipes/potato-kugel-cups. You can YouTube it, too. If you’re not afraid of hot oil in a 425°F oven, this recipe will knock your Pesach socks off. Personally, scorching hot oil makes me a bit skittish. But the result is potato heaven.
As Pesach approaches, it’s a time to clean house, both literally and spiritually. It’s a time to remember how blessed we are in our freedom as Jews today. And it’s a time to hold close our traditions, pass along the story of our exodus from Egypt to the younger generation, and be thankful for where we are now.
So, eat the matzah and bitter herbs and drink those four cups of wine. Then go out and buy lots of Metamucil. Because you’re going to need it after eight days of matzah. But check with your rabbi first to make sure Metamucil is kosher for Pesach.
Wishing you all a meaningful and freilach Pesach.
Shelley Civkin, aka the Accidental Balabusta, is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review, and currently writes a bi-weekly column about retirement for the Richmond News.
Moses and Aaron lead the Israelites to the Red Sea in this still from Nina Paley’s feature-length animated film Seder-Masochism, which screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival last year and is available to view for free online at archive.org/details/sedermasochism. Being in the public domain means that all of Paley’s animation and images are free for anyone to use. Nonetheless, the Jewish Independent requested and received her blessing to run the images from the film that grace the cover of this issue and its Passover section.
According to sedermasochism.com, the film “loosely follows the Passover seder story, with events from the Book of Exodus retold by Moses, Aharon, the Angel of Death, Jesus and the director’s father. The film puts a twist on the traditional biblical story by including a female deity perspective – the Goddess – in a tragic struggle against the forces of patriarchy.”
The feature was “in the works since 2012, when Paley first animated a scene called This Land Is Mine, a parody about never-ending conflict in the Levant, which has been viewed over 10 million times on various online channels.” Paley has written and designed a companion book, The Seder-Masochism: A Haggadah and Anti-Haggadah, which can be purchased through Amazon.
Paley is also the creator of the animated musical feature film Sita Sings the Blues, which, her bio at palegraylabs.com notes, “has screened in over 150 film festivals and won over 35 international awards.” It continues: “Her adventures in our broken copyright system led her to join questioncopyright.org as artist-in-residence in 2008. Prior to becoming an animator, Nina was a syndicated cartoonist. A 2006 Guggenheim Fellow, she also produced a series of animated shorts about intellectual freedom called Minute Memes. Nina began quilting in 2011 as a way to do something real with her hands after years of pushing pixels.”
Readers can find out more about Paley at blog.ninapaley.com.
Inside the Samaritan Museum. (photo by Barry Kaplan)
It was one of the worst winter days I could remember – freezing temperatures, high winds and streets turned into rivers from the rain. Our friend, the pastor of the Jerusalem Baptist Church, had invited us to come on their church trip to Judea-Samaria.
Judea-Samaria is the area on the west bank of the Jordan River, approximately 30 miles wide, 70 miles long, not quite 2,000 square miles in area. Judea was the southern kingdom of the country with Jerusalem as its capital, and Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom. To call this area Judea-Samaria makes clear the Jewish biblical and historical connection, but it is contentious. However, the other term for this area, the West Bank, is also a matter of contention, as that description negates the Jewish connection.
In 1922, 80% of the area of Palestine, as defined by the League of Nations (predecessor to the United Nations), was removed and became Transjordan, which was occupied then by Bedouin. During the British Mandate (1922-1948), Judea-Samaria was an integral part of the Jewish homeland and described by the British as Judea-Samaria.
In 1946, the British granted independence to Transjordan and Abdullah bin Al-Hussein was crowned king.
Jordan occupied the west bank of the river until 1950, when it annexed it to the Hashemite Kingdom. King Abdullah named it the West Bank and ruled over the area from 1950 to 1967.
Our adventure begins
Our first stop was Jacob’s Well, which is in St. Photini Church in Nablus, or Shechem. Jewish, Samaritan, Christian and Muslim traditions all associate Jacob with a well, which lies within the monastery complex of the Greek Orthodox Church. The well is not specifically mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but Genesis 33:18-20 states that, when Jacob returned to Shechem from Paddan Aram, he camped “before” the city, bought the land on which he pitched his tent and erected an altar. Biblical scholars contend that the plot of land is where the well was constructed.
Today, Jacob’s Well is about 250 feet from the archeological ruins of ancient Shechem, which has a long history in Jewish tradition and was the first capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.
The well has been venerated by Christian pilgrims since the early fourth century CE. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, a Samaritan woman’s story at Jacob’s Well with Jesus was so powerful that many listeners became followers of Jesus, including her five sisters and two sons. The disciples heard of her experience with Jesus and came to baptize her, giving her the name Photini, meaning, “Enlightened One.” Thus, the name of the church in Nablus.
Abuna Ioustinos, a Greek Orthodox priest in Nablus, spearheaded the reconstruction project that saw Jacob’s Well restored and a new church built within the grounds of the Bir Ya’qub monastery, modeled on the designs of the Crusader-era church. Visitors access the well by entering the church and descending the stairs to the crypt.
Joseph’s Tomb is located just north of Jacob’s Well in an Ottoman-era building marked by a white dome. We could go inside the gate but no further. The tomb lies inside Area A of the West Bank, which is officially under Palestinian Authority control and the Israel Defence Forces bars Israeli citizens from entering the area without prior authorization. The site is venerated by Jews, Christians and Muslims, and has often been a flashpoint for violence. Jewish pilgrims are usually only allowed to visit the tomb once a month under heavy armed guard.
There is one synagogue in downtown Nablus, two on Mount Gerizim and two in Holon.
The Samaritans
Arriving on Mount Gerizim, our bus drove around Kiryat Luza, a village on the mountain ridge where Samaritans live. Mount Gerizim forms the southern side of the valley in which Shechem is located. On the northern side is Mount Ebal.
We stopped at the Samaritan Museum, where the grandson of the high priest and another young woman explained their history before the current high priest – the 137th generation – came to talk to us.
In 721 BCE, the Assyrians invaded, destroyed and exiled the population of the Northern Kingdom. Samaritans believe that those who remained are descendants of the original Israelites. However, when the Jews returned from exile in Babylon, they did not accept the Samaritans, so the Samaritans separated and settled near Mount Gerizim, which they believe G-d chose as his only holy place.
Samaritans say they are descendants of the Northern Kingdom’s tribes, while rabbinical sources regard them as descendants of the Assyrian colonizers who converted to Judaism. Either way, their name, Shomronim, comes from the Hebrew word shomrim, “keepers of the law.”
Today, Samaritans number about 800, half living in Kiryat Luza, half in the Neveh Marque neighbourhood of Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv. All Samaritans are citizens of the state of Israel, and those in Holon serve in the IDF and speak Hebrew as their main language.
Shechem is mentioned in the Book of Genesis after Abraham arrives and offers a sacrifice to G-d at Alon Moreh. Jacob then came, pitched his tent and bought the land here, and Joshua made it a city of refuge. The bones of Joseph were brought here from Egypt for burial.
The three holiest places to Samaritans are where Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed, where Joshua placed 12 stones when the Israelites entered Canaan and where the Israelites re-erected the Tabernacle. According to the Samaritans, these events all took place on Mount Gerizim.
Samaritans believe in G-d, Moses and the Torah, and base their traditions on the Torah. They speak ancient Hebrew; however, their mother tongue is Arabic. They practise ritual circumcision. They observe dietary laws. They can marry non-Samaritan women who convert, provided they are virgins when they marry. They observe biblical holidays but not post-biblical holidays, such as Purim or Chanukah. They await the Messiah.
Samaritans observe Passover, and I once attended one of their Passover celebrations. They keep alive the tradition of the Passover sacrifice, as described in the Hebrew Bible. Prior to 1967, the Jordanians only allowed them to ascend Mount Gerizim for the Passover celebration. Since the Six Day War in 1967, the Israelis have allowed them free access to the mountain.
Our trip winds up
Our adventure ended in a church in Taybeh for lunch, where we arrived cold and wet. Due to a power outage, caused by the rain, a long grill with burning charcoal was brought out so that we could warm our hands. Taybeh is the last all-Christian community in the West Bank and the home of Taybeh Brewery, one of the few breweries in Palestine.
We returned to Jerusalem around 6 p.m.
Hopefully, another trip to Shechem will take place in the spring, after the rains end.
Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer. 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. She also writes stories about kosher restaurants on janglo.net for which her husband, Barry Kaplan photographs.
The market in Jenin. (photo by Dave Gordon)
Everything is political in Israel; there’s no escaping it. Pick a corner, a street sign, a building, there’s potential for argument. So, you can imagine what it’s like to take a tour of an area as contentious as the West Bank, which, thankfully, was quiet with respect to violence when we visited. Not surprisingly, our guide almost took on the role of spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority.
Abraham Hostel, in the heart of Jerusalem, offers a three-day West Bank tour. The tours include Nablus (biblical Schechem), Jenin and the refugee camp that borders it, Jericho, Ramallah and Bethlehem.
It was eye-opening for me. For one, the media frequently portrays Palestinians in the West Bank as living in squalor, often involved in conflicts with the Israel Defence Forces. We saw bustling markets, shopping centres, corporate plazas, sports cars, and plenty of American restaurant franchises, such as KFC and Pizza Hut.
Our tour guide was a wannabe biblical scholar and archeologist. “Personally,” he told us, “there could never have been a Jewish Temple.” It’s impossible, apparently, to build on top of solid rock, he explained.
He gave a brief history of the term Palestine, correctly stating that Roman invaders, Vespasian and Titus, in the first century, renamed the region from Israel/Judah. But why, particularly, call it Palestine? “Hmm,” he said, taking a moment to think. “Because they liked the name.” Not, as many scholars believe, because the Romans sought to call the area after the Jews’ sworn enemy, Philistines, to rub salt in the wounds.
While at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, our guide gave his take on the Gospels, contending that it wasn’t the case that Jesus’s mother, Mary, couldn’t find a room at an inn – rather, the Jews forbade Mary to have a room because she was ritually unclean after childbirth. And that, he said, was the unwritten explanation of the manger/barn scenario.
He then proffered his views on Jews. “Since anyone can become a Jew,” he said, “they’re not really tied to the land.” Meaning that anyone who has converted, or was born to converts, has no connection to Israel.
And, he added, since the parcel of land called Judah, from which the name “Jew” was derived, was only a fraction of modern Israel, today’s Jews should only have rights to those ancient borders.
Quoting the Torah – “if you bless Israel, you are blessed; if you curse Israel, you will be cursed” (Genesis 12) – our guide insisted that the “Israel” referred to in this verse has never meant “the nation of Israel” (which it does), but only refers to the patriarch Jacob, who was later named Israel. The underlying message was that there was no concern about being cursed if you curse Jews.
For good measure, he asked, pointing toward the refugee camp, “Doesn’t it say ‘love your fellow’ in the Torah? That’s one of the top commandments.”
Almost no tour anywhere is complete without the commercial aspect – wandering through the souvenir shops and markets.
At the ice cream shop, our guide claimed, “Palestinian ice cream is made with real cream, not like the Israeli version!” At the spice store, he spoke about how Israelis use cheap ingredients in their Zaatar, but not Palestinians. And, he said, “Even Israelis agree that Palestinian beer is better than the sewer water in a can they make.”
The hero worship of Yasser Arafat was astounding. Virtually every street corner in Ramallah had a wall-sized poster of him. My trip was in November, so these displays were likely timed for the anniversary of his death. Schoolchildren took a field trip to his tomb in Ramallah for a commemoration and photo opportunities.
Our guide made every effort to politicize the tour, down to the free lunch. He said there wasn’t such thing as “Israeli couscous,” only co-opted “Arab-Palestinian couscous.” Scholars and culinary experts differ, saying that Israeli couscous was created in the 1950s in response to food rationing. Alas, more was still to come from our guide.
While he had our attention, he showed us illustrations of how Palestine in 1947 comprised modern Israel and the West Bank, while today, the Palestinians only have small, scattered autonomous dots in the Palestinian Authority. As for the Palestinian part in this development, he said, “just a couple of bus bombs” derailed the peace process, but only temporarily.
Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.
The interior of Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi, India. (photo by Lauren Kramer)
Dec. 6 marked an emotional homecoming for Canadian siblings Linda Hertzman and Kenny Salem. The pair were among some 180 Jews who returned to their birthplace in Kochi, India, to mark the 450th anniversary of the Paradesi Synagogue in the neighbourhood known as Jew Town. Three generations of families gathered from Israel, Australia, Canada and England to celebrate the milestone. They walked the ancient stone pathway of Synagogue Lane, spoke their native tongue of Malayalam and congregated in the synagogue for a festive celebration of the Jewish life that once flourished in this corner of southern India.
The festivities were tinged with sadness, however. For many, it would be their final visit to the beautiful Paradesi Synagogue. The shul is unique for its colourful oil lamps and a Torah scroll decked in a gold crown that was gifted to the community in 1802 by the maharaj of Cochin. (Kochi is the preferred term for the city formerly called Cochin.) The handpainted Chinese tiles on the synagogue floor have long since emptied of worshippers and the Jewish community of Jew Town now numbers just five – the oldest of them age 96. It’s tourists that stand beneath the oil lamps these days, visiting from dawn to dusk to marvel at the ancient Jewish history and try to comprehend its relevance. Opportunities for congregational prayer have been rare since most of the community left for other parts of the world from 1948 onwards.
On the Shabbat following the 450th anniversary, however, tourists were turned away from the Paradesi Synagogue and the sanctuary again echoed with Jewish prayer. The pews were filled with women in colourful dresses, reaching out to touch the ancient Torah scrolls as they were lifted joyfully from the aron hakodesh (holy ark) for morning prayers. Tears streamed down the faces of Jews for whom the synagogue was filled with rich memories. There were children who were seeing their families’ history for the first time and elders who were stepping into the synagogue for the last time. Adults in their 60s recalled their childhood memories of watching their parents pray in the synagogue, of riding their bicycles around the narrow roads of Mattancherry and of the warm, deeply religious and meaningful Jewish life that existed in Jew Town.
The vibrant hub of Jewish life in Kochi, Jew Town was home to three synagogues, each serving different segments of the community. The “synagogue in the middle,” with a star of David still etched in its concrete, is now a repurposed building, while the southernmost shul is a ramshackle 900-year-old structure, its rafters occupied by nesting pigeons. Indentations on the side of many of the doors of homes and businesses in Jew Town mark the spot where mezuzot used to announce a Jewish home and the large Jewish cemetery a few minutes’ walk from the shul is unlikely to be filled with many more graves as the years roll by. The Jewish life that flourished here has become a lucrative business for antique dealers and souvenir shops selling scarves and trinkets, retailers loitering outside and using all their powers of persuasion to bring shoppers in.
Hertzman, who lives in Richmond, B.C., and Salem, from Richmond Hill, Ont., were the first guests to check into what was their family home, recently transformed into a boutique hotel called A.B. Salem House. It was named for their late grandfather, Abraham Barak Salem, an attorney known as the “Jewish Gandhi” for his negotiations with Israel that enabled the Jews of Kochi to make aliyah.
Kenny Salem left Kochi at age 25 in 1987 and returns to the city annually to see his childhood friends. “It was good to have everyone back here in Jew Town,” he said. “Friends and family were walking in and out of our house all day long, just like old times, when my mother had her door open to everyone. But the sad part is that, in the aftermath of the celebrations, Jew Town is silent once again.”
There are plans to fill that silence in the near future. David Hallegua, a spokesperson for the Cochin Synagogue Trust, announced plans to build a museum dedicated to the history of the Kochi Jews in the hall above the synagogue.
“It’s a dwindling community,” admitted Salem. “So, when there are no longer any Jews living here, we will hand the management of the synagogue and cemetery over to the Archeological Department of India. We need to tell the story of the Jewish community that once lived here and pass on this message to future generations.”
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.
In Jerusalem, as soon as Purim is over, everyone begins to get ready for Pesach. Two-and-a-half weeks ahead, macaroons are already in the stores, as well as various other products for the holiday. Here are a few desserts you can make at home, from traditional to unusual.
CLASSIC ALMOND MACAROONS
Makes 20 macaroons. This recipe is adapted from an American food magazine (not sure which).
1 1/2 cups blanched almonds
1/4 cup sugar
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp confectioners sugar
CHOCOLATE BISCOTTI
3/4 cup margarine or butter
2 1/8 cup sugar
6 eggs
2 tbsp vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups matzah flour
1 1/4 cups potato flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 tbsp Passover baking powder
5/8 cup ground almonds
2 cups chocolate chips
TOFFEE MATZAH
This is my favourite sweet for Pesach but this version is an Andrew Zimmern contribution from Food & Wine magazine with a few of my changes.
1 cup salted butter or margarine
5 pieces of matzah
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup mixed chopped nuts
MARILYN’S CHOCOLATE BRANDIED CANDY
Marilyn is a longtime friend of mine who came from the Boston area and has lived in Israel since 1949.
3 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate (a candy bar works fine)
1 cup raisins, soaked in cherry brandy
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup matzah pieces
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.
What food eaten during Pesach causes the most debates? If you guessed matzah balls, you’re right. Should they be hard or light? Big or small? What secret ingredient should be added to them?
From where did matzah balls, or kneidlach, originate? German Jews had a dumpling that they put into their soup called knodel. From this came the Yiddish term kneydl, singular, or kneydlach, in the plural. In Czech, it is known as knedliky. Dumplings have been in Central European cookery since the Middle Ages and then they came to Germany and Eastern Europe later.
So, just how many ways are there to make matzah balls?
Joan Nathan, a friend of mine, who has written a number of cookbooks and is considered a maven of American Jewish cooking, proposes adding chicken fat or vegetable oil plus seltzer, club soda or chicken broth, to make them light and airy. In Jewish Cooking in America, she also relates that some matzah balls, originating in Lithuania, use chicken fat or vegetable shortening and contain a filling made of onion, oil or chicken fat, matzah meal, egg yolk, salt, pepper and cinnamon. The filling is then placed in the middle of the matzah ball before they are cooked in salt water. After cooking in salt water, they are baked 30 minutes then placed in the soup for serving. Joan also has a recipe for matzah balls made in the southern United States, using pecans. In my research, I discovered that some Louisiana Jews add green onions and cayenne pepper.
In her cookbook Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France, Joan explains that, in France, matzah balls are called boulettes de paque, krepfle or kneipflich. They are the size of walnuts and not fluffy. They are made from stale bread or matzah soaked in water and dried, and they contain rendered goose fat, vegetable oil or beef marrow, eggs, water or chicken broth, matzah meal, salt, pepper, ginger and nutmeg.
In The New York Times Passover Cookbook, edited by Linda Amster, among the recipes for matzah balls is one by Mimi Sheraton, Times food critic at the time, who used chicken fat and cold water. Another is from Joan’s cookbook Jewish Holiday Kitchen, and she uses ginger and nutmeg. The winning recipe for the first Matzah Bowl contest in New York at the time the Times cookbook was published used vodka and club soda. A low-fat, low-salt version is made with egg whites and vegetable oil. Another style, which is airy, is made with beef marrow, instead of chicken fat, plus nutmeg.
Refrigeration and the temperature of the liquid seem to be key common denominators in many recipes.
Nina Rousso, an Israeli, in her book The Passover Gourmet, uses beaten egg yolks, lukewarm water, melted margarine, salt, parsley, matzah meal and stiffly beaten egg whites folded in. The mixture is refrigerated two hours before making.
In Passover Lite, Gail Ashkenazi-Hankin, an American, combines egg yolks, onion powder, salt, pepper, matzah meal, water and beaten egg whites and chills the mixture 30 minutes.
Zell Schulman, the American author of Let My People Eat, says the key to making light, melt-in-your-mouth, floating matzah balls is to beat egg whites until stiff then fold into the yolks with salt, pepper, cinnamon, matzah meal and optional parsley and refrigerate 15 minutes. A second version combines matzah meal with only the beaten egg whites until they hold peaks, plus parsley, cinnamon, grated carrot and oil, but no egg yolks.
Susan Friedland, the American author of The Passover Table, combines whole eggs with seltzer, salt, pepper, matzah meal and schmaltz, which she refrigerates for one hour. The schmaltz adds the flavour.
Marlene Sorosky, American author of Fast and Festive Meals for the Jewish Holidays, provides a recipe using ground almonds, ginger and chopped parsley. She chills the matzah balls for one hour.
Edda Servi Machlin, whose family has 2,000-year-old roots in Italy, says her family serves a mix between Italian Passover soup and Ashkenazi chicken soup. Her matzah balls are made of chopped chicken, egg, broth, olive oil, salt, pepper, nutmeg and matzah meal. The batter is refrigerated one hour before making.
Other Italian Jews, who call the matzah balls gnocchi di azzaima, add onions or mashed potatoes to the dough or grated lemon rind.
An aside: In 2001, Ariel Toaff, a professor at Bar-Ilan University, who is the son of Rome’s chief rabbi, came out with a book called Mangiare alla Giudia (Eating the Jewish Way). He devotes a chapter to Passover traditions, and writes that matzah was so popular that the Catholic authorities banned Jews from selling matzah to non-Jews and banned Christians from eating it.
Italian bakers also baked different kinds of matzah: plain for intermediate days, shmurah matzah for the sederim, and matzah made with white wine, eggs, sugar, anise and goose fat for those with more rich tastes.
Jews of Italy even developed sfoglietti or foglietti, a kosher-for-Passover pasta made with flour and eggs, which was then quickly dried and baked in a hot oven and served in soup or with a sauce.
Joyce Goldstein, an American fascinated by Italian Jewish cuisine, describes, in Cucina Ebraica, a combination of ground chicken, egg, matzah meal, salt, pepper and cinnamon, which she refrigerates before cooking in soup, but she does not say for how long.
Sonia Levy, a native of Zimbabwe, wrote a cookbook of her community, called Traditions. She describes luft kneidlach, light matzah balls, made with matzah meal, water, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon or ginger, eggs and oil. These must be refrigerated at least half a day. She adds that you can also make a pit with a finger and insert chopped meat that has been mixed with fried onions and spices. Another Zimbabwe version uses egg, cold water, chicken fat, salt, pepper, ginger and matzah meal.
Ruth Sirkis, an Israeli, in A Taste of Tradition, says “air” matzah balls have eggs, matzah meal, salt, chicken soup and chicken fat and are refrigerated two hours.
Another version, by Anya von Bemzen and John Welchman in Please to the Table: A Russian Cookbook, has walnut balls for soup, which are made by the Georgian Jews using ground walnuts, onion, egg, matzah meal, oregano, salt, pepper and a froth egg white.
A couple of last pieces of matzah ball trivia. In 2008, a New York kosher delicatessen held its annual matzah ball-eating competition to raise money for a shelter for the homeless. The winner ate 78 matzah balls in eight minutes. Although not in the Guinness Book of World Records, a few years ago, the largest matzah ball was measured at 17.75 inches across and weighed more than 33 pounds.
And, lastly, among some ultra-Orthodox Jews, matzah balls are not eaten because they expand when they cook, and they consider this reaction a form of leavening.
Regardless of the style of matzah balls you prefer, just make plenty for your guests!
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.
God Almighty Herself induces Egypt to give birth. We simply need to listen for the birth mother’s screams in the delivery room. We hear the screams throughout the plagues, as they become increasingly intensive, starting with the first plague, blood. (illustration by Nina Paley)
The idea of the Exodus as a birth story begins as Shemot (Exodus) begins. The first chapter brings us into the atmosphere of a giant delivery room. Things have gotten out of control: “And the Israelites were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and grew exceedingly strong and the land was filled with them.” (Shemot 1:7)
The Israelites are having children all the time. There’s this anonymous, collective mass of people that are steadily spreading out. The only two figures mentioned by name are the midwives, Shifra and Pua, and there’s a reason for that. The book is telling us: “Pay attention, readers. We are entering a delivery room, and so the most important figures are the midwives. You will feel this sense of birth.”
If one didn’t get this sense from Chapter 1, take a look at Chapter 2. It begins with the personal birth story of Moses, the story of a natural, biological birth, in which a woman becomes pregnant and has a son. A few verses later, the mother places the baby in an ark, or basket, and, when Pharaoh’s daughter comes by, she takes him in and becomes his adoptive mother. She, too, has a birth story. There’s a womb – the ark. There’s water – the Nile. She sees the womb, the ark. She opens it and she sees the baby. She, too, is portrayed as having given birth. If we saw a portrait of the natural, biological birth by the Hebrew mother, we also have a portrait of the Egyptian adoptive mother who takes the child.
This “birth” mindset will intensify and be actualized through this grand metaphoric story we call the story of the Exodus from Egypt. There was a famine in Canaan, so the Israelites went to Egypt to buy grain and find seed. They stayed. Scripture tells us how they “were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, and the land was filled with them.”
This little nucleus, the embryo that first descended, is developing within this large Egyptian womb, Israel’s “surrogate mother,” which nourishes this fetus. The time comes for the birth. As in any case of surrogate motherhood, there is difficulty. On one hand, it’s not my baby. I want it out. On the other hand, there’s emotional difficulty. I nourished that child. He’s part of my body.
From the perspective of the child, there will be problems, or challenges, of attraction and repulsion toward the surrogate mother in whom he developed. The Children of Israel grew and developed in that womb, and it must be taken out. But the Egyptian mother refuses to begin the birthing process.
Enter the most powerful midwife imaginable – God Almighty Herself. She induces Egypt to give birth. The entire story is described in this manner. We simply need to listen for the birth mother’s screams in the delivery room. We hear the screams throughout the plagues, as they become increasingly intensive. Blood. Frogs. Lice. Beasts. Pestilence. Boils.
We’re standing next to the birth mother, saying, “Push! Push! Scream! Scream! Let this baby out!” Just before the birth, a moment before the Children of Israel emerge, they are commanded to paint the doorposts with blood. Soon after, this people will pass through this doorway.
They will reach the waters. And the waters will descend, as well. Then the sea will split in two, and the Children of Israel will pass through the waters on dry land, through the birth canal that has opened for them. At the end of the birth canal, who will be waiting for them? The midwife, ready to grasp them and teach them to walk.
This story, this birth story, is the powerful story of the birth of a people. But, beyond the importance of hearing this story, it can also explain what happens later, during their travels in the desert.
Like any newborn baby, the people will cry and scream for their most immediate needs – water, food. Moses and God will provide for them because that’s how you take care of an infant. You give water and food. You can’t expect anything else. Slowly but surely, he will be taught to walk. Slowly, he will learn rules. He will be given laws to follow.
When we meet this child in Bamidbar (Numbers), once he has grown, he will make the same requests that he made in Shemot as an infant: water and food. But God’s response will be different, because we don’t have the same expectations of a little baby that we have from a growing child. We expect something different.
How do we connect this to the seder night? The Exodus, first, is a story. There is a strong emphasis on telling the story. It has all the detail it needs, and all the drama we want. These are what make this story a foundational story, one that can be transmitted generation after generation.
We sit around and tell our birth as a people. We try to impart it to the next generation. When we tell the story with all its detail, it excites us once more. But why is this done over matzah?
God planned the Exodus from the time of Abraham: “Know that your seed will be a sojourned in a land not theirs; they will serve them and be tormented by them for 400 years. But then they will go out with great wealth.”
It’s all planned, down to the moment. God tells them to have their loins girded, their bags packed and their food prepared and, when I say so, leave. Everything had been planned. So what happened? Why couldn’t the dough rise? Why couldn’t they have fresh rolls?
This is a precise dramatization of a birth story. If you want it to be credible, it has to be exact. As in the story of any birth, everything is planned. There’s a due date. There’s a packed suitcase, a list of phone numbers to call. If it’s not the first birth, there are arrangements for the older kids.
Yet labour will always be unexpected. It’s always sudden. The water breaks suddenly. Contractions come suddenly. Suddenly, it’s time to go. That’s birth. Everything is planned, but the moment arrives suddenly. This is the meaning of eating matzah. It’s as if we are saying, everything was there, everything was planned. This birth was a major event and, like every other birth, it was unexpected. Despite all the preparations, we had to run, we had to leave. The dough did not have a chance to rise. All that could be made from it was matzah.
Ilana Pardes’s book The Biography of Ancient Israel describes this as the story of a collective persona, the people of Israel: “The Israelites are delivered collectively out of the womb of Egypt. National birth, much like individual births (and all the more so in ancient times), takes place on a delicate border between life and death. It involves the transformation of blood from a signifier of death to a signifier of life. It also involves the successful opening of the womb, the prevention of the womb’s turning into a tomb…. God performs a variety of wonders in Egypt (the 10 plagues in fact are perceived as such), but the parting of the Red Sea seems to surpass them all. It marks the nation’s first breath – out in the open air – and serves as a distinct reminder of the miraculous character of the birth. Where there was nothing, a living creature emerges all of a sudden….”
As we sit around the seder table, around the matzah, telling the story of our birth each year, you may want to read from the poem, “Miracles,” by Yehuda Amichai: “From a distance everything looks like a miracle / But up close even a miracle doesn’t appear so. / Even someone who crossed the Red Sea when it split only saw the sweaty back of the one in front of him.”
Ask every participant at the seder to think of something that happened to them during the year, something that, because the individual was part of it, they “only saw the sweaty back of the one in front of him.” If we were to take a step back and look at things from a distance, we could have said to ourselves: “I’m living through a miracle. I’m passing through the sea, on dry land. I’m undergoing the process of birth, right now.”
It is worthwhile, and it even brings joy, to mention this miracle and think about it at this event celebrating the great miracle of the nation’s birth.
Dr. Orit Avnery is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. She received her PhD in Bible studies at Bar-Ilan University. Her dissertation is entitled The Threefold Cord: Interrelations between the Books of Samuel, Ruth and Esther. This article is based on a talk she gave in Hebrew. Articles by Avnery and other institute scholars can be found at shalomhartman.org.
