Category: Life

From Sybil’s kosher kitchen

(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

It’s summer – time to enjoy the fresh local produce and some cool meals, treats and drinks. Here are several of my favourite (kosher) recipes, from soups to salads to cakes and cobblers, plus a few icy desserts and drinks.

GAZPACHO
8 servings

12 small or 16 cherry tomatoes
6 kirby cucumbers
2 small onions
2 green peppers
2 red peppers
2 garlic cloves
4 cups tomato juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp chopped parsley
6 ribs celery
salt and pepper to taste

  1. Place half the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, garlic, tomato juice, oil, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, parsley and celery in a food processor or blender and blend. Pour into a large jar.
  2. Place remaining ingredients in food processor or blender and blend. Add to jar and refrigerate until ready to serve.

 
MOM’S BEET BORSCHT
3-4 servings

1/2 tsp sour salt or 1 to 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
4 cups water
2 cups grated beets
1 egg yolk

  1. In a saucepan, bring to a boil sour salt or lemon juice, salt, sugar and water.
  2. Add beets and boil 10 minutes.
  3. Beat egg yolk with a little cold water and add slowly to soup.
  4. Cool and serve.

 
COLD CUCUMBER AND SPINACH SOUP
I adapted this from a recipe I found from a café in Evanston, Ill. It serves 4.

1 tbsp margarine or oil
2/3 bunch chopped scallions
2 diced cucumbers
2 cups pareve chicken soup
1/3 pound cleaned spinach
1/3 cup sugar-free whipping cream
3 tbsp non-dairy creamer
1 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

  1. Melt margarine or heat oil in a soup pot. Cook scallions until tender.
  2. Add cucumbers and sauté five minutes. Add chicken soup and bring to a boil. Simmer 15 minutes. Add spinach and cook four to five minutes.
  3. Add whipping cream and non-dairy creamer. Cool.
  4. Purée in food processor. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper. Chill.
  5. To serve, pour into bowls and garnish with sliced cucumbers, radishes or scallions.

 
ZUCCHINI SALAD
4 servings

2 cups zucchini, cut in matchsticks
1/2 cup green pepper, cut in matchsticks
1/4 cup chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup shredded yellow cheese
1/4 cup minced parsley
4 cut-up black olives
1 large minced onion

dressing
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp anchovy paste (optional)
1/2 tsp chopped dill
pinch oregano

  1. In a salad bowl, combine zucchini, green pepper, tomatoes, cheese, parsley, olives and onion.
  2. In a jar, combine lemon juice, olive oil, wine vinegar, dill and oregano. Close and shake well.
  3. Refrigerate salad until ready to serve. Pour dressing on top and toss.

 
PEACH SALAD
4 servings

4 large peaches, sliced in half
cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
2 tbsp confectioners sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp almond extract

  1. Place two peach halves in each salad bowl. Add a dollop of cottage cheese.
  2. Combine sour cream, confectioners sugar, nutmeg and almond extract.
  3. Pour into a small bowl or pitcher and serve on the side.

 
WALDORF PEACH SALAD
4 servings

1/2 cup sliced celery
1/2 cup sliced grapes
1/2 cup chopped apples
1/4 cup chopped nuts
4 sliced peaches
4 pieces Romaine lettuce
1 tbsp brown sugar

dressing
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup whipped cream or pareve whip
1 tsp grated orange rind

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine celery, grapes, apples and nuts. Toss lightly.
  2. Place one piece of lettuce on each plate and add a sliced peach. Spoon one-quarter of the salad on top of each peach. Sprinkle with brown sugar. Place plates in refrigerator.
  3. In a bowl, combine mayonnaise, whipped cream and orange rind.
  4. Remove peach salad from refrigerator before serving and spoon dressing on each.

 
CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE
This recipe came from Laurel, an old friend from my Kansas City, Mo., and Overland Park, Kan., days.

3/8 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
5/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup shredded, unpeeled zucchini
1/4 cup milk or non-dairy creamer
1/2 cup chopped nuts

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a loaf pan with vegetable spray.
  2. Cream margarine and sugar. Beat in eggs.
  3. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and cocoa and add to creamed mixture.
  4. Add vanilla, zucchini, milk or non-dairy creamer and nuts. Spoon into greased loaf pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

 
REVERSE STRAWBERRY COBBLER
Can be made with peaches, plums, cherries and apples.

4 cups hulled strawberries
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp oil
1 cup milk or non-dairy creamer
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a glass round pie plate.
  2. Pour oil into pan. Add milk, flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon and stir until mixed.
  3. Stand up strawberries, tips pointed up, around batter; fill in centre.
  4. Bake 25 minutes.
  5. Serve warm with whipped cream on top.

 
QUICKY STRAWBERRY PIE

1 cup mashed strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp lemon juice
1 cup mashed strawberries
pie shell

  1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
  2. Place one cup strawberries with sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Cook for five minutes.
  3. Stir in lemon juice and additional cup of strawberries. Pour into pie shell and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350°F and bake another 40 minutes.

 
PAREVE PEACH PUDDING CAKE
4-5 servings

5/8 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup pareve margarine or 3 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp almond extract
1/4 cup non-dairy creamer or pareve almond milk
1 egg
3 peaches
1/2 cup pareve whipping cream
1/2 package vanilla instant pudding mix

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a pan.
  2. In a mixing bowl, mix flour, baking powder and 1/4 cup sugar.
  3. In a saucepan, melt margarine (if using oil, place it in a bowl). Add vanilla and almond extracts, 1/4 cup sugar and egg and blend. Add to flour mixture and pour into pan. Bake 20-25 minutes until top springs back when touched with finger. Remove from oven and cool.
  4. Peel and coarsely chop one peach. Toss with 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar.
  5. Beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Prepare vanilla pudding using 1/2 cup non-dairy creamer or almond milk. Fold whipped cream into pudding. Fold in chopped peach.
  6. Make a well in the cake and spoon pudding, whipped cream, peach into the well.
  7. Slice remaining two peaches and toss with 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar. Arrange slices on top of pudding mixture.

 
STRAWBERRY-LEMON WHIP DRINK
4 servings

2 cups sliced strawberries
3/4 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup lemon syrup
2 cups water
ice cubes

  1. In a blender or food processor, blend strawberries, cold water, lemon juice, lemon syrup and ice cubes until mixture is smooth.
  2. Pour into tall chilled glasses.

 
BLENDER PEACH ICE CREAM
8 servings

7 medium peaches, sliced and pits removed
2 tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 cup sour cream

  1. Place peaches, lemon juice, sugar and extract in blender. Whirl until pureed.
  2. Add sour cream and whirl until smooth. Pour into a metal pan. Freeze about two hours. Turn into a bowl. Beat until smooth. Return to pan, cover tightly and freeze until firm.

 
FROZEN PEACH YOGURT
3-4 servings

1 cup sliced ripe peaches
1/3 cup sugar or sugar substitute
dash of salt
1/8 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt

  1. Puree peaches in blender or food processor.
  2. Mix with sugar or sugar substitute, salt and almond extract.
  3. Stir in yogurt. Pour into a tray with a lid, cover and freeze for two hours.
  4. Remove 15-20 minutes before serving.

 
STRAWBERRRY YOGURT POPSICLES
6 servings

6 wooden sticks
6 waxed paper cups
1 cup sliced strawberries
2 cups plain yogurt
1/4 cup honey

  1. Combine strawberries, yogurt and honey in a bowl.
  2. Spoon into paper cups and freeze for 20 minutes.
  3. Add sticks and freeze until firm. Peel off cups before serving.

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.

Happy Canada Day 150!

The Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, minister of justice and attorney general of Canada (MP for Vancouver Granville), at the Canada Day celebration in Douglas Park, which is in JI publisher Cynthia Ramsay’s neighbourhood. (photo from twitter.com/puglaas)

photo - George Heyman, MLA for Vancouver-Fairview, was also at hand at the Douglas Park party. He is seen here speaking with David Berson, left, and Mary Gillis
George Heyman, MLA for Vancouver-Fairview, was also at hand at the Douglas Park party. He is seen here speaking with David Berson, left, and Mary Gillis. (photo by Franco Pante)
photo - The JI’s Pat Johnson, right, helped represent the Regional Animal Protection Society in the Steveston Salmon Festival Parade on Canada Day
The JI’s Pat Johnson, right, helped represent the Regional Animal Protection Society in the Steveston Salmon Festival Parade on Canada Day. (photo by Alan Marchant)
photo - The JI’s Leanne Jacobsen (in the baseball cap) participated in the North Vancouver Canada Day Parade with her North Shore Dragon Busters teammates
The JI’s Leanne Jacobsen (in the baseball cap) participated in the North Vancouver Canada Day Parade with her North Shore Dragon Busters teammates. (photo by Jonathan Ross)
photo - PADS puppy-in-training Pika, in the care of JI production manager Josie Tonio McCarthy, heads out to celebrate Canada Day
PADS puppy-in-training Pika, in the care of JI production manager Josie Tonio McCarthy, heads out to celebrate Canada Day. (photo by Josie Tonio McCarthy)

Mystery photo … June 30/17

Beth Israel group reading, 1965. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.09870)

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 archives@jewishmuseum.ca or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.

BBQ party for Lag b’Omer

Approximately 300 people celebrated Lag b’Omer at David Livingstone Park on May 14. (all images are screenshots from the video by LNP)

Chabad East Van, Chabad of Richmond, Chabad Lubavitch BC, Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel, Tzivos Hashem Vancouver (a Kollel program) and Chabad of Downtown hosted a community BBQ at David Livingstone Park in honour of Lag b’Omer on May 14. Approximately 300 people attended and kids from Tzivos Hashem did a presentation and led a short program. There was food, music, prizes and sports. A video by Lior Noyman Productions, which captures some of the afternoon’s highlights, can be found on YouTube.

screenshot - Lag b’Omer BBQ at David Livingstone Park on May 14

screenshot - Lag b’Omer BBQ at David Livingstone Park on May 14

screenshot - Lag b’Omer BBQ at David Livingstone Park on May 14

Exploring Jewish Marseille

BirthWrong participants in Calanques de Morgiou. (photo courtesy Jewdas)

Marseille, a lively port city sloping down toward the Mediterranean Sea, has a long, rich history of immigration and multiculturalism – including a Jewish presence dating back 1,000 years. Today, France’s second-largest city is home to about 80,000 Jews, or almost 10% of its population, with both newer and centuries-old Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities.

Recently, a group of 30 self-identifying Jews and allies from Europe, North America, South Africa and Israel gathered in Marseille for the second edition of BirthWrong, an initiative started by the London-based collective Jewdas to explore and celebrate Diaspora histories and cultures. (The inaugural BirthWrong took place in Seville, Spain, in 2015.) We spent four days exploring the city and surrounding nature, meeting with locals and partaking in Jewish life, and found plenty to do for visitors.

The city’s Old Port is the classic starting point, with a spacious plaza, boat-filled marina and daily cruises shuttling visitors along the Calanques, a 20-kilometre series of fjord-like inlets surrounded by steep limestone cliffs. With a compact city centre, Marseille is easy and enjoyable to explore on foot; there are also trams, buses and subways. As in Vancouver, there are beaches in the heart of the city (Plage des Catalans, west of the Old Port) and near the centre (Malmousque, Plage du Prophète, Plages du Prado and Pointe Rouge).

In a city of 40 synagogues, the oldest and grandest is aptly called the Grande Synagogue de Marseille. Opened in 1864, it’s a three-storey Sephardi synagogue (with a basement Ashkenazi chapel) that hosts Shabbat services on Saturdays, followed by Provençal-style kiddush including green olives, anchovies and pastis, which is a local anise-based liqueur. The small congregation is predominantly Algerian-French Jews, and the impressive sanctuary – with the men’s section on the ground floor and women on the second floor – has shining marble floors, chandeliers, Romanesque arches and jewel-toned stained-glass windows. To attend services, be prepared to bring ID and have your bag searched, and women are asked to wear a dress or skirt.

A plaque outside commemorates that, in 1943, Jews were deported from the synagogue to Nazi death camps. In Marseille, 23,000 Jews were deported – with French police aiding the Nazis – and about 1,800 were killed in camps.

Prewar Jewish history in Provence dates back to the first century, with a more documented presence starting in the sixth century. After the Inquisition, Sephardi communities arrived from nearby Spain and Portugal and, in the Middle Ages, when the Vatican controlled the Avignon-Carpentras area, the Juifs du Pape (Jews of the Pope) acted as its financiers. At the time, Jews were banned in most other parts of present-day France.

photo - BirthWrong participants take part in Havdalah
BirthWrong participants take part in Havdalah. (photo courtesy Jewdas)

Today, much of the Jewish community in Marseille came from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in the late 1950s and early 1960s, following the countries’ independence from France. The city is also home to large Italian, Armenian and North African communities (resulting in delicious cuisines to choose from).

A local guide, Lou Marin, gave us a custom walking tour of the city centre focused on 1939-1945, and has encyclopedic knowledge of Marseille’s history. He leads hours-long or multi-day walking tours with flexible rates. (Contact loumarin.mrs@immerda.ch or 33-486-954576 to inquire about a tour.)

Just outside the city, Calanques National Park offers more than 85-square kilometres of stunning coastal walks through pine forests, which were planted by the Romans, and ridges above the cliffs, with bushes of wild rosemary and thyme dotting the landscape. Our group did a four-hour hike with local guide Felix Altgeld (provenceapied.wordpress.com), who offers customized walks and has extensive knowledge of the local flora and geography.

Food-wise, Marseille is an affordable city within France, with ample fresh produce coming from sunny Provence and varied cuisines to relish, including North African kebab shops, Lebanese delis and 30 kosher eateries (including the pizza food truck L’imprévu). On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, look out for the market in La Plaine plaza, a community institution with independent food stalls and other shopping. The neighbourhood, which holds an annual carnival and is filled with colourful street art, is fiercely resisting gentrification, and maintains an inspiring multicultural, multi-class spirit day and night.

We got the sense that many non-Jewish Marseillais are aware of Jewish history and culture. At the annual May Day rally, multiple locals (both Jewish and non-Jewish) approached our group to ask about our trip and the Yiddish songs we were singing. Both Marin and the local historian Alessi Dell’Umbria, who spoke to us about Marseille’s history, knew a lot about Marseille’s Jewish history and culture through both their work and their personal lives.

Given France’s culture of secularism – where religious identity isn’t generally part of public life – the local Jewish activists who hosted us found it refreshing and unusual to meet Jews who bring our religious identity to politics, wear Stars of David and kippot and are openly Jewish in public. We, in turn, were fascinated to visit a bustling but laid-back city with a rich left-wing history, near-constant sun and diverse communities carving out an inclusive collective identity.

Marseille is just over three hours from Paris by high-speed train (visit sncf.com/en).

Tamara Micner is a playwright and journalist from Vancouver who lives in London, England. Her work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Wall Street Journal and London Review of Books.

Mystery photo … May 26/17

Beth Israel Sisterhood luncheon, 1983. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.09853)

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 archives@jewishmuseum.ca or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.

Yom Hashoah at KDHS

The Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School Grade 11 history class for which King David High School teacher Anna-Mae Wiesenthal (middle row, second from the right), did a presentation on the Holocaust. Their teacher, Bonnie Burnell, is to Wiesenthal’s left. (photo from Anna-Mae Wiesenthal)

“They were in awe of the Holocaust survivor,” said Bonnie Burnell, a teacher at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary, describing the reaction of her students to survivor Robbie Waisman’s talk at a Yom Hashoah assembly at King David High School (KDHS) on April 24. “Looking at him as he spoke at the podium, they could scarcely imagine him on the inside of a Nazi concentration camp.”

Students from Prince of Wales Secondary School and, of course, from KDHS also joined the assembly, which was organized by KDHS teachers Anna-Mae Wiesenthal and Aron Rosenberg, and included Cantor Yaakov Orzech chanting El Malei Rachamim.

The multi-school initiative was led by Wiesenthal, who is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Holocaust and genocide studies. Last year, she went to Austria and Poland with the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre of Toronto. In addition to teaching about the Holocaust at KDHS, she has been giving presentations at various public schools. She told the Jewish Independent that students have been very engaged and have asked many questions. This outreach led to the recent assembly at KDHS, where other schools’ students were invited to attend.

photo - Holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman addresses the assembly for Yom Hashoah at King David High School on April 24
Holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman addresses the assembly for Yom Hashoah at King David High School on April 24. (photo from Anna-Mae Wiesenthal)

“My students, in general, were impressed with the ceremony and glad that they had made the decision to come,” Burnell said. “We have had a real focus on racism in our curriculum this year, and this visit definitely adds something of central importance to that subject.”

Wiesenthal, who has taught at KDHS since 2006, became interested in focusing more on Holocaust education after attending an educators seminar at Yad Vashem in 2012.

“I feel Holocaust education is about giving voice to the millions of victims who were murdered simply because of who they were, and honouring their legacy and our history,” explained Wiesenthal. “It is about remembering the vibrancy of Jewish life both before and after the war. It is about preserving memory for future generations and across cultures. It is about taking the knowledge of unprecedented horrors, and keeping them in front of us so that we remain vigilant about our humanity in the face of genocides today.”

Wiesenthal also admitted to being inspired by a possible kinship with renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Her great-grandfather, Mattityahu Wiesenthal, was a Russian boy saved from forced conscription in the Russian army by being “thrown across the river” from Russia into the town of Skala in Austria-Hungary, as many boys were at that time. As an orphan in Skala, he was taken in by Moshe Efroyim Wiesenthal, who supported many such refugee orphans, and the young boy took the family name Wiesenthal to honour his patron. Wiesenthal does not know if Moshe Efroyim was directly related to Simon Wiesenthal, but the latter remains one of her heroes, and she has been in touch with his granddaughter, Racheli Kreisberg.

Wiesenthal also recently initiated a pilot project at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC), in which KDHS students trained as docents (museum guides) lead other students through the exhibit.

Another project was an art exhibit at KDHS, where her Jewish History 11 class viewed a video of a Holocaust survivor’s testimony, chose an aspect of the testimony that stood out for them and then created a work of art based on that aspect. Each work was accompanied by an artist’s statement, a picture of the survivor and why the student chose the testimony they did. Contributions included painting, sculpture, writing and music. “The quality of expression was very moving,” said Wiesenthal.

Rabbi Stephen Berger, head of Judaic studies at KDHS, said he is thrilled with the work Wiesenthal has been doing.

“She shares her passion with her students and fulfils the talmudic dictum, ‘Words that leave from the heart, penetrate the heart,’” he said. “Our school and students benefit immeasurably by having her as a teacher of history and Holocaust studies.”

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.