People from many cultures show love via food and, of course, Jews are no exception. And what a palate our culture has, since we have lived in so many places. Two children’s books from Collective Book Studio, one new and one from recent years, highlight the flavourful diversity of Jewish culture, while teaching other valuable lessons.
Published earlier this year, Tali and the Timeless Time by Mira Z. Amiras, with illustrations by Chantelle and Burgen Thorne, shares the love of a granddaughter for her grandmother, and vice versa. Every Friday, Tali helps her nona get ready for Shabbat. Nona gives hugs, tells stories, still tries to get Tali to nap, even though she’s older now. When Nona dozes off, Tali explores in the backyard, cleans up the small fountain there, feeds the goldfish. When Nona awakes, it’s time to cook.
“We bake!” says Tali. “Today, it’s bourekas, yummy for eating. Nona makes them with filo (which it turns out is cheating). She says her nona let her ’cause it doesn’t need kneading.”
The week before, the pair made stuffed grape leaves – yaprakas, dolma or dolmades. Nona’s favourite dish is huevos (eggs) cooked in tomatoes with feta and arroz (rice).
While Tali’s grandmother might get Tali’s name wrong, or forget a word or two, she has these recipes ingrained in her.
“I’m having big thoughts,” says Tali, “but Nona’s not listening – she’s singing ‘chakchouka,’ it’s sometimes called, not just huevos, in the Holy Land, Tunisia and the land of the pharaohs. In Mexico, it’s a lot like huevos rancheros….” But Nona loses focus, she starts dancing with “her zills and her fans.” Tali finishes making dinner, the pair eat together, then dance some more.
In another role reversal, Tali tucks Nona into bed for the night, not sure she should leave her alone. Luckily, Tali and her family live nearby.
It’s a lovely book, “timeless time” being a beautiful description of a day spent with a loved one, doing this and that, in no particular order, sharing stories, mixing up past with present, making memories that will adapt over time.
Family and food are also at the heart of 1, 2, 3 Nosh with Me, written by Micah and Joshua Siva, and illustrated by Sviatoslav Franko, which was published a couple of years ago. In it, the dog Buckwheat shows us the yummy food the family eats, starting with the “One golden challah, to celebrate Shabbat…” We work our way up to “Ten crispy latkes, served by candlelight.” In between, we have matzah balls, matzot, kugel, knishes, apples for a sweet new year, sufganiyot, bagels and hamantashen. (It’s not clear why the Hanukkah treats are separated, but that’s a quibble.)
Tali covers a few Sephardi staples and Buckwheat has the Ashkenazi favourites down. Between the two books, the breadth of world Jewry, as seen through just some of its traditional foods, is impressive.
A round challah symbolizes a long life, or the unbroken circle of the full new year to come. (photo by Przemyslaw Wierzbowski)
On Rosh Hashanah, we are supposed to feast. Why? This is said to come from the passage in the book of Nehemiah (8:10): “Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto our lord.”
Round, sweet challah
The most common Rosh Hashanah custom for Ashkenazi Jews is the making of sweet challah, primarily round in shape, to symbolize a long life or the unbroken circle of the full new year to come. Some people place a ladder made of dough on top of the loaf, so our prayers may ascend to heaven, or because it is decided on Rosh Hashanah “who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low.” Some place a bird made of dough on top, derived from the phrase in Isaiah: “as birds hovering so will the Lord of Hosts protect Jerusalem.”
According to John Cooper, in Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food, the tradition in disparate Jewish communities of baking fresh loaves of bread on a Friday morning has its roots in the talmudic era. The custom was ignored by medieval rabbinic commentators, he writes, but was revived by the Leket Yosher, a report compiled by Joseph ben Moses in the 1400s on the teachings and practices of his teacher, Austrian Rabbi Israel Isserlin; and by Rabbi Moses Isserles, the 16th-century Polish scholar of halachah, at the end of the Middle Ages.
According to Jewish tradition, the three Sabbath meals (Friday night, Saturday lunch and Saturday late afternoon) and two holiday meals (one at night and lunch the following day) each begin with two complete loaves of bread. This “double loaf” (lechem mishneh) commemorates the manna that fell from the heavens when the Israelites wandered in the desert after the Exodus. The manna did not fall on Sabbath or holidays; instead, a double portion would fall the day before the holiday or Sabbath.
Pomegranate blessings
The pomegranate is eaten to remind us that G-d should multiply our credit of good deeds, like the seeds of the fruit. (photo from pxhere.com)
On the second evening of Rosh Hashanah, it is customary to eat a new fruit not yet eaten in the season and recite the Shehechiyanu, a prayer of thanksgiving for the first time something happens. It is said that, in Europe, this fruit was often grapes; in Israel today and around the diaspora, it is often the pomegranate.
The pomegranate is eaten to remind us that G-d should multiply our credit of good deeds, like the seeds of the fruit. For many Jews, pomegranates are traditional for Rosh Hashanah. Some believe the dull and leathery skinned crimson fruit may have really been the tapuach, apple, of the Garden of Eden. The word pomegranate means “grained apple.” In Hebrew, it is called rimon – also the word for a hand grenade!
Some say each pomegranate has 613 seeds for the 613 mitzvot, or good deeds, we should observe.
Symbolism of fish
The first course of the Rosh Hashanah holiday meal is often fish. Fish is symbolic of fruitfulness: “may we be fruitful and multiply like fish.” Fish is also a symbol of immortality, a good theme for the New Year, as are the ideas that we should aim to be a leader (the head) and that we hope for the best (to be at the top). Another reason for serving fish might be that the numerical value of the letters of the Hebrew word for fish, dag, is seven and Rosh Hashanah begins on the seventh month of the year.
Importance of tzimmes
Tzimmes is a stew made with or without meat and usually with prunes and carrots. It is common among Ashkenazi Jews, particularly those from Eastern Europe and Poland, and its origins date back to Medieval times. It became associated with Rosh Hashanah because the Yiddish word for carrot is mehren, which is similar to mehrn, which means to increase. The idea was to increase one’s merits at this time of year. Another explanation for eating tzimmes with carrots for Rosh Hashanah is that the German word for carrot was a pun on the Hebrew word, which meant to increase.
Tzimmes also has come into the vernacular as meaning to make a fuss or big deal. As in, they’re making such a tzimmes out of everything.
Lekach & other sweets
Among Ashkenazim, sweet desserts for Rosh Hashanah are customary, particularly lekach, or honey cake, and teiglach, the hard, doughy, honey and nut cookie. Some say the origin of the sweets comes from the passage in the book of Hosea (3:1): “love cakes of raisins.” There is also a passage in Samuel II (6:10) that talks about the multitudes of Israel, men and women, “to every one a cake of bread and a cake made in a pan and a sweet cake.”
Ezra was the fifth-century BCE religious leader who was commissioned by the Persian king to direct Jewish affairs in Judea and Nehemiah was a political leader and cup bearer of the king in the fifth century BCE. They are credited with telling the returned exiles to eat and drink sweet things.
According to Cooper’s Eat and Be Satisfied, references to honey cake were made in the 12th century by a French sage, Simcha of Vitry, author of the Machzor Vitry, and by the 12th-century German rabbi, Eleazar Judah ben Kalonymos. By the 16th century, lekach was known as a Rosh Hashanah sweet.
Among the Lubavitch Chassidim, it was customary for the rebbe to distribute lekach to his followers; others would request a piece of honey cake from one another on Erev Yom Kippur. This transaction symbolized a substitute for any charity the person might choose to receive, like the traditional kapparot ceremony, where, before Yom Kippur, one transfers their sins to a chicken.
Some Sephardi customs
Food customs differ among Jews whose ancestors came from Spain and Portugal, the Mediterranean area and primarily Muslim Arab countries. For example, whereas Ashkenazim dip apple in honey, some Sephardim traditionally serve mansanada, an apple compote, as an appetizer and dessert, according to Gil Marks (z”l) in The World of Jewish Desserts.
Just as gefilte fish became a classic dish for the Ashkenazi Jews, baked sheep’s head became a symbol – dating back to the Middle Ages – for many Sephardi Jews for Rosh Hashanah. Some groups merely serve sheep brains or tongue, or a whole fish (with head), probably for the same reason – fruitfulness and prosperity and new wishes for the New Year for knowledge or leadership.
The Talmud mentions the foods to be eaten on Rosh Hashanah as fenugreek, leeks, beets, dates and gourds, although Jewish communities interpret these differently. According to Rabbi Robert Sternberg in The Sephardic Kitchen, Sephardi Jews have a special ceremony around these and sometimes other foods, wherein each one is blessed with a prayer beginning “Yehi ratzon” (Hebrew for “May it be thy will”). The Yehi Ratzones custom involves preparing in advance and then blessing the Talmud-mentioned foods, or dishes made with the foods, as well as over the apples and honey, the fish or sheep head (some substitute a head of lettuce or of garlic) and pomegranate. In doing this, people recognize G-d’s sovereignty and hope He will hear their pleas for a good and prosperous year.
Sybil Kaplanis a Jerusalem-based journalist and author. She has edited/compiled nine kosher cookbooks and is a food writer for North American Jewish publications.
Left to right are Yoseph Hayun, Brian Libin and Shimon Kalhon, founders of Kehillat Klal Israel. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Vancouver has a new Sephardi congregation – and, while unique in the city, its structure would be familiar to plenty of Israelis and to Jews from places with a larger Orthodox population.
In recent years, alternative housing options have expanded in Vancouver, including coach houses and laneway homes. In an alley behind a home on 12th Avenue, just east of Cambie, passersby might notice a building that resembles one of these newfangled domiciles. Were it not for the mezuzah and the modest sign, they might have no idea that the space is a place for communal gatherings. According to the builder, who does triple duty as the president and leader of daily services, it is not a synagogue.
“A synagogue is a little bit tricky,” said Yoseph Hayun. “I could get [approval for] that, but it’s going to take a long time and I would have to go to a board of variance. We said this was kind of a book club.”
It’s not a lie.
“There are lots of books and we all read the books,” he said. “Then we talk about them.”
The kehillah (congregation or community), called Klal Israel, gathers in the backyard of Shimon Kalhon. The idea started after an informal group of Sephardi families, many of them Israeli, had been getting together for holidays for some time. In Israel, and in places of dense Orthodox populations like parts of the United States, intimate gathering places serving neighbourhood families are not uncommon.
Kalhon said Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and other holidays have taken place under tents and they decided to make it more permanent.
The founders – Kalhon, Hayun and Brian Libin – have nothing against the existing Sephardi synagogue, Beth Hamidrash. They just enjoy the sense of family they get from their small congregation. Kalhon and Hayun also wanted something more like they were familiar with from their upbringing – Kalhon in Tripoli, Libya, and Hayun in Ramat Gan, Israel. (Libin is from Edmonton.)
“For us, we are like a family,” said Kalhon. “We don’t have any politics in the synagogue. We don’t have any membership. Every day after [services] we provide breakfast. Every Shabbat, we have lunch. We do all the holidays together.”
Hayun leads most services, unless Rabbi Yechiel (Helik) Orihman is available. Hayun does not have a rabbinic semichah (ordination), but has served as a cantor almost his entire adult life. He also leads classes and has a conversion group of five at present.
Attendance at morning minyan varies. “Sometimes we have 10, sometimes 12, sometimes 15,” Hayun said. “On the holidays, thank God, we have a beautiful minyan. Sometimes we have 30 people.”
The building itself is about 500 square feet, with air conditioning for summers like the 2021 heat dome, area heaters for winter, plumbing for a washroom and a handwashing station. There is also a fully operational kitchen in a covered patio space of about 400 square feet. There is a screen for presentations and classes, as well as room for cozy meals together.
Kalhon jokes about his family’s long walk to services – out the back door and down a few steps.
Kalhon is known to many Vancouver Jews as the owner of Sabra Kosher Restaurant and Bakery, which he opened in 1991 on arrival in the city after a lifetime in the food sector in Israel. At Klal Israel, he is the gabbai(lay leader).
For Libin, the treasurer, the new congregation has been an opportunity to improve his Hebrew skills.
“All the prayers are in Hebrew,” he said. “There’s not much English. There are times where Yossi [Hayun] will explain things, but, for the most part, I’m using a book that’s all in Hebrew. I didn’t used to. Most of us who aren’t native speakers of Hebrew, our Hebrew has improved.”
The linguistic choice is deliberate.
“This is the idea: to bring the young Israelis,” Hayun said, adding that he meets many Israelis on his soccer team, playing golf and around town who do not attend shul. “My vision is to bring them in, to try once a week, once a month, doesn’t matter. Just bring them in. That’s basically the idea and people are coming … slowly, slowly.”
Funds for the building and its operations come from the three founders and anyone else who wants to make an out-of-pocket contribution.
“We have others who are regulars who help out whenever they can,” Libin said.
While the place technically houses a book club, Hayun said it was designed following the religious laws for how a synagogue must be built.
“It’s not like you do whatever,” he said. “There are rules that you need to follow. I know the rules and I went over the books again and again to make sure that we followed the whole thing.”
The aron kodesh, the Torah ark, is the focus of the modest structure and the Torah covers were commissioned by local people for scrolls that were purchased from Israel.
The trio have already mooted what will happen if success renders the space – which seats 40 – too small. They shrug and say they’ll find a bigger place. In the meantime, Klal Israel is open for anyone who wants to join – and stay for a shmooze and refreshments after services.
Not fitting in. Being misunderstood and miscategorized. These are recurring themes in Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage, edited by Loolwa Khazzoom, a Seattle writer, musician, activist and occasional contributor to the Independent.
The book was first released in the 1990s and was recently re-released.
“I wish I could say that this book is no longer as revolutionary, cutting-edge, or as needed as it was when I began compiling it in 1992, but, unfortunately, that is not the case,” writes Khazzoom, the daughter of an Iraqi Jew, in the new introduction. “Even though there have been changes – shifts in consciousness, language, and even representation – Mizrahi and Sephardi women remain overall excluded, in theory and practice, from spaces for women, Jews, Middle Easterners, people of colour, LGBTQI folk, and even Mizrahim and Sephardim. In addition, so many of the presumably inclusive conversations about us seem basic and superficial, with an undertone of it being a really big deal that these conversations exist at all.”
Khazzoom’s struggle to fit in led her to Seattle, in large part because it is home to one of the largest Sephardi communities in the United States. But even in that milieu she found herself an outsider.
“In June 2014, however, on the first sh’bath [Sabbath] after driving my U-Haul up the coast from Northern California, I was appalled by a sermon so sexist – where women were equated with ‘meat’ – that I walked out of the Sephardi synagogue, just 15 minutes after arriving,” she writes.
“I have been a hybrid all my life, forever caught between two or more worlds,” writes Caroline Smadja in her contribution to the collection. It is a state of being that is shared by many of the writers.
Yael Arami, born in Petah Tikvah to parents from Yemen, speaks of others’ perceptions of her.
“In Germany, I have had to avoid certain areas, fearing local skinheads’ reaction to my skin colour. In France, I have been verbally ridiculed and insulted for being yet another ignorant North African who does not know French,” she writes. “In California, people’s best intentions have resulted in a number of social blunders: When I left a tip in a San Francisco café, I got a courteous ‘gracias’ from the politically correct Anglo waiter. After a predominantly African-American gospel group sang at a Marin County synagogue, several members of the congregation approached me, to express their admiration for our wonderful gospel performance! It seems that wherever I go in white-majority countries, I am, in accordance with local stereotypes, seen as the generic woman of colour – Algerian in France, African-American or Puerto Rican in California.”
Rachel Wahba, an Iraqi-Egyptian Jew, calls out politically correct hypocrisy.
“Sometimes, when I bring up the oppression of Jews in Arab countries, progressive Jews get strangely uncomfortable – as if recognizing the Jewish experience under Islam would make someone racist and anti-Arab,” she writes. “During my mother’s cancer support group intake, I listened as my mother told her story of living in Baghdad and surviving the Farhud. She ended with an ironic ‘I survived the Arabs to get cancer?’ The Jewish oncology nurse was shocked that my mother was so ‘blunt.’
“Should we revise our history? Leave out the details of our oppression under Islam? Pretend my mother never saw the Shiite merchants in Karballah wash their hands after doing business with her father, because he was a ‘dirty Jew?’”
The book’s title comes from an essay by Lital Levy, “How the Camel Found Its Wings” and an Israeli film of the same name.
The metaphor involves the repair of a broken statue of a flying camel, which actually stood at the entrance to the international fairgrounds in Tel Aviv in the 1930s. In the film, the two wings of the camel become stand-ins for a dichotomy that mostly excludes Mizrahi/Sephardi Jews and yet still casts them in a negative light.
“By the end of the screening, the camel had found two new wings, and I got to thinking,” writes Levy. “I started putting my own pieces together – making my own flying camel out of the remnants of the past, borrowing missing pieces from the present, and using my imagination and willpower to try to make it all stick together. The pieces of my own American childhood, the histories that preceded it in Israel and in Iraq, and the challenges I see before me in my work are the various fragments I have been remembering and re-membering into an integral whole. I do not yet know its shape – camel, dromedary, llama, yak – but I do not care, as long as it will fly.”
Las Vegas’s Or Bamidbar Chabad Sephardi synagogue at Chanukah. (photo from Rabbi Yossi Shuchat)
The Las Vegas Strip is where all of the action is, an endless sea of attractions and hotels with casinos, exhibits and more. These hotels cater to a tourist’s every whim. However, during my last trip to Vegas, several years ago, I spent a majority of my time off the strip, away from the bright lights and glitz.
I met up with a group of friends who I had spent a year with in Arad, Israel, in 1990-91, on a World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) program that was for young Jewish professionals thinking of making aliyah. This was our second excursion to Las Vegas and members of our group hailed from Paris, New York, Boston, Toronto and Seattle. On our first trip, we stayed in the Egyptian-themed Luxor Hotel; this time, we stayed at Bally’s Hotel, in the heart of the strip.
We spent our first night wandering around the area near our hotel. The next day, on Friday afternoon, we ventured further afield to eat a fabulous lunch at an Israeli kosher restaurant called the Jerusalem Grill, which also offers pre-Shabbat delivery to hotels. As we dined on authentic Israeli dishes that could have come straight from the Holy Land, we reminisced about the good times we had had on our program and the many trips we took to explore Israel together.
We then explored the Palms Casino Resort and the Rio Hotel and Casino, which were near the restaurant. The Rio, where we would be going to see magicians Penn and Teller perform on Saturday night, after Shabbat, was also hosting the World Series of Poker.
On the Friday night, a few of my WUJS friends and I went to Or Bamidbar Chabad – East Las Vegas, a unique Sephardi synagogue, whose Chassidic spiritual leader, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok (Yossi) Shuchat, is from Venezuela. I had made arrangements with the rabbi prior to Shabbat to attend services and he graciously invited my friends and I to dinner at his house afterwards.
A Sephardi Torah case at Or Bamidbar Chabad. (photo from Rabbi Yossi Shuchat)
The synagogue features a picture of the Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson) but, other than that, it is a typical Sephardi house of worship, with the bimah in the middle, and Sephardi prayer books and a Sephardi Torah case. I felt right at home, as I have prayed at Sephardi and Chassidic congregations all over the world and have an affinity for the customs and traditions of both streams of Judaism.
After some spirited davening and a great drash by the rabbi, we and a few members of the congregation followed the rabbi to his home, where we were treated to a scrumptious Shabbat meal by his wife, Miriam Bryna Shuchat, who is co-director of Or Bamidbar.
Most of the guests were Sephardi and from Las Vegas, but there was also Baruch, a visitor from New York who was in town to play at the poker tournament. There was also Walter, a Jew who had moved to Las Vegas from Boston and, at one time, was a boxer and a blackjack dealer. After great conversation and food, I retired to a recently renovated mobile home right across from the synagogue, which was reserved for guests – and I had the honour of being the first one!
Or Bamidbar Chabad – East Las Vegas. (photo from Rabbi Yossi Shuchat)
The next morning, I participated in the services and got to chant Birkat HaKohanim, the ancient priestly blessing that Sephardi shuls – including Beth Hamidrash in Vancouver – do every day, but Ashkenazi ones do not. At lunch, I had a lively discussion with a former Vancouverite who was encouraging me to leave Canada and move to Las Vegas’s thriving Jewish community, with its approximately 80,000 Jews, 20 synagogues, many Jewish schools and several kosher restaurants. When they had lived in Vancouver, both he and his mom had attended services at the Kollel and are fans of Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu. Interestingly, since my Vegas visit, the Pacific Torah Institute, which was located in Vancouver, has relocated to Las Vegas and merged with a local yeshivah.
After services, I was contemplating walking back to the hotel in the sweltering 32°C heat, but Walter, the former blackjack dealer, invited me to spend the afternoon at his house. It was a relaxing, enlightening and cool afternoon. Walter regaled me with stories about what Vegas was like when he arrived there in 1956. At that time in the city, which was founded by notorious Jewish gangster Bugsy Siegel, most of the hotels were owned by Jews and, so, as a blackjack dealer – at a variety of casinos, including the Flamingo and Desert Inn – Walter got to know many of them. He also got to know Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and other members of the Rat Pack, as well as boxer Rocky Marciano. (When Walter was a boxer himself, he also met Muhammad Ali.)
After my stay at Walter’s – where I even got a Shabbat nap in – he gave me a lift to the Rio, where I met my friends to see the Penn and Teller show. The poker tournament was also in full swing, of course, but I don’t know how Baruch fared.
I spent my last night in Vegas before returning home to Vancouver with my friends at a glitzy hotel watching a magic show. However, while I enjoyed all that I did, the highlight of my trip – in addition to hanging out with friends – was the gracious hospitality of the folks in the Jewish community. I will always remember my wonderful Shabbat in Las Vegas at Or Bamidbar Chabad.
David J. Litvak is a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer, former Voice of Peace and Co-op Radio broadcaster and an “accidental publicist.” His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com.
I was introduced to the Sephardi and Mizrahi tradition of a Rosh Hashanah seder by a dear friend, at whose home I celebrate most of the Jewish holidays. This New Year’s, given the pandemic and that we are not in each other’s immediate bubble, I will join their seder on the first night of Rosh Hashanah either outdoors, weather permit, I was looking, perhaps, to prepare myself mentally for this year’s socially distanced gathering, and a Zoom with my family in Ontario, when I thought of the idea for the cover, which is created using watercolour and ink (and surprisingly little Photoshop).
In a Sephardi or Mizrahi seder, special dishes are served of specific foods whose Hebrew or Aramaic names are linked in a blessing to another word that has the same root letters. Puns flourish. So, for example, the Hebrew word for carrot and that for decree have different vowels but the same root letters – gimel, zayin and resh – and the blessing over the carrots translates as, “May it be your will, Lord our God, that that our bad decrees be torn up and our merits and blessings be proclaimed.” The word for leeks, chives or scallions – karti – is akin to yikartu, cut off, so the blessing over these vegetables is, “May it be Your will, God, that our enemies be cut off.”
Spinach or beet leaves also symbolize the hope that God will make our enemies retreat and we can “beat” a way to freedom. Dates carry the hope that hatred will end; the many seeds of a pomegranate that our mitzvot will be many; an apple that we will have a sweet year; string beans that our merits will increase; a pumpkin or gourd that God will “tear” away all evil edicts against us, while our merits are proclaimed. You get the idea.
Rosh Hashanah greeting cards (above and below) from the author’s family’s collection. The cards are almost 100 years old. The translation of the one in which people are walking is “Into the synagogue.” It is signed by Chaim Goldberg, a well-known artist who also illustrated many children’s books. The party postcard, also done by Goldberg, is a printed rhyme, which translates as, “Boy, girl! Dear, refined! Who is like you? Happy letters, dear writings, I have for you!”
The Jewish calendar is an amazing conceptualization of time that has evolved (what else?) over time.
In his blog on the Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot website, Ushi Derman relates that, originally, the Jewish calendar was a solar calendar. But it was not just a solar calendar, it was a holy solar calendar, delivered by angels to Enoch. (See the Book of Enoch, the section dealing with astronomy, called “The Book of Heavenly Luminaries.”) Temple priests had to follow a rigorous schedule – time itself was judged to be sacred. Thus, the Temple in Jerusalem was regarded as both the house of G-d and the dwelling of time.
With the destruction of Jerusalem’s Second Temple, the priests lost their power. They were no longer the mediators between G-d and the people. Authority switched to the scholars (our sages) of the Mishnah (edited record of the Oral Torah), Talmud and Tosefta (similar to the Mishnah, but providing more details about the reasons for or application of the laws).
In a bold move, the scholars declared that G-d had handed religious authority to humans. “Each month, envoys were sent to watch the new moon and to determine the beginning of the month. Thus, the ownership of time was expropriated from G-d and delivered to man – and that is why the Hebrew calendar has survived for so many centuries,” writes Derman in the 2018 blog “Rosh Hashanah: The Politics and Theology Behind Jewish Time.”
Here is a lovely story from The Book of Legends, edited by Hayim Nahman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky, illustrating the above change. A king had a clock. “When his son reached puberty, he said to him: My son, until now, the clock has been in my keeping. From now on, I turn it over to you. So, too, the Holy One used to hallow new moons and intercalate years. But, when Israel rose, He said to them, until now, the reckoning of new moons and of New Year’s Day has been in My keeping. From now on, they are turned over to you.”
Perhaps oddly, the Mishnah mentions more than one new year. In fact, it points out four such dates on the Jewish calendar:
The first of Nissan is the new year for kings and for festivals;
The first of Elul is the new year for tithing of animals (some say the first of Tishrei);
The first of Tishrei is the new year for years, sabbaticals and Jubilee, for planting and vegetables;
The first of Shevat is the new year for trees, according to the House of Shammai, while the House of Hillel (which we adhere to today) says the 15th of Shevat, or Tu b’Shevat.
With its thrice daily prayers, the synagogue came to replace the Temple. Excluding Yom Kippur, synagogue attendance is higher on Rosh Hashanah than any other time of year. Rosh Hashanah prayers are compiled in a special prayer book, or Machzor.
Amid COVID-19, the following words about Rosh Hashanah have heightened meaning: “The celebration of the New Year involves a mixture of emotions. On the one hand, there is a sense of gratitude at having lived to this time. On the other hand, the beginning of a new year raises anxiety. What will my fate be this year? Will I live out the year? Will I be healthy? Will I spend my time wisely, or will it be filled in a way that does not truly bring happiness?” (See the Rabbinical Assembly’s Machzor Lev Shalem for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, published almost a decade ago.)
Sounding the shofar is one of the special additions to Rosh Hashanah services. According to Norman Bloom – in a 1978 article on Rosh Hashanah prayers in Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought – the timing of the shofar blowing weighed in the physical safety and comfort of the congregation. Hard as it may be to comprehend today, scholars considered potential attacks from both local enemies of the Jews and from Satan himself. They also considered the comfort of the infirm, who might not be able to stay through a long service.
Rosh Hashanah has other curious customs. For example, there is a tradition of having either a fish head or, among some Sephardim, a lamb’s head as part of the Rosh Hashanah meal. This is meant to symbolize that, in the year to come, we should be at the rosh or head (on top), rather than at the tail (at the bottom). Vegetarians and vegans substitute a head of lettuce.
Both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews have Rosh Hashanah seder traditions. The symbolic foods include beets, leeks, pomegranates, pumpkins and beans. As Rahel Musleah has pointed out, each food suggests a good wish for the coming year. Thus, before eating each one, people recite a special blessing. Humour is at play, too, as some of the blessings are puns on the food’s Hebrew or Aramaic name. (Read Musleah’s article “A Sephardic Rosh Hashanah Seder” at myjewishlearning.com/article/a-sephardic-rosh-hashanah-seder.) Of course, we cannot neglect to mention that the festive table also includes apples dipped in honey, for a sweet new year, and a round challah, symbolizing both the cycle of life and G-d’s kingship.
Another Rosh Hashanah custom is Tashlich. This ceremony involves going to a body of water to symbolically cast off one’s sins. Breadcrumbs are often used, as are leaves, but, seeing that COVID-19 will be a part of this year’s holiday, here is another suggestion. Originally, this activity was used with youth groups of the Reform movement – participants wrote out their sins and then the papers on which they were written were put through a paper shredder. A dramatic gesture, suited to our current need for social distancing.
My city, Jerusalem, is a land-bound city without a sea or lake in its immediate vicinity. So, what do residents of the capital do? Those who wish to practise Tashlich go to one of the following four sites. Two of the four places are near the Supreme Court: the Jerusalem Rose Garden and the Jerusalem Bird Observatory. Also in the same general area is the Botanic Garden in the Nayot neighbourhood and, in the Old City, one can go to the Shiloah Springs in City of David.
Wishing all readers a year of blessings and not of curses.
Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
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Additional observations
• Hebrew has a number of expressions using the word rosh. Here are just a handful of examples: rosh hamemshala (prime minister); rosh kroov, literally cabbage head, or a negative reference to someone who is not very bright; rosh katan, someone who is small-minded; l’kabel barosh, to be defeated; and rosh tov, or good vibes.
• Anyone interested in learning more about the solar calendar should read Prof. Rachel Elior’s article, “Enoch Son of Jared and the Solar Calendar of the Priesthood in Qumran,” which can be found in a Google search.
At a Sephardi Rosh Hashanah seder, one of blessings, over leeks (or cabbage) is the request, may “our enemies be destroyed.” (photo from Wikimedia)
Food customs differ among Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. For example, whereas Ashkenazim dip apple in honey at Rosh Hashanah, some Sephardim traditionally serve mansanada, an apple compote, as an appetizer or dessert, according to The World of Jewish Desserts by Gil Marks, z”l.
Just as gefilte fish became a classic dish for Ashkenazi Jews, baked sheep’s head became a Rosh Hashanah symbol for many Sephardi Jews, dating back to the Middle Ages. Some groups serve sheep brains or tongue or a fish with head, probably for the same reasons, for fruitfulness and prosperity and wishes for the New Year of knowledge or leadership.
The Talmud mentions the foods to be eaten on Rosh Hashanah as fenugreek, leeks, beets, dates and gourds, although various Jewish communities interpret these differently.
According to Rabbi Robert Sternberg, in The Sephardic Kitchen, Sephardi Jews have a special ceremony called the Yehi Ratsones (Hebrew for “May it be Thy will”), where each food is blessed. There are foods that symbolically recognize God’s sovereignty and our hope He will hear our pleas for a good and prosperous year.
The Hebrew word for gourds is kara, which sounds like both the word for “read/proclaim” and the word for “tear.” When we eat the gourd or pumpkin, there are two possible Yehi Ratzons that can be said. The first one goes: “May it be your will, Hashem, that our merits be read/proclaimed before you.” The other is that the decree of our sentence should be torn up.
The second food mentioned is fenugreek, or rubia, which sounds like yirbu, the Hebrew word for “increase.” Therefore, we say a Yehi Ratzon that contains the request, may “our merits increase.”
The word for the third food, leeks or cabbage, is karsi, krusha or kruv, which sounds like kares, or the Aramaic word karti, to cut off or destroy. The Yehi Ratzon asks, may “our enemies be destroyed.”
The fourth food, beets or beet greens, silka or selek, sounds like siluk, meaning removal, or she’yistalqu, to be removed, or the Aramaic word silki. The Yehi Ratzon requests that “our adversaries be removed.”
The last food is dates, tamri or tamar, which sounds like the Hebrew word sheyitamu and the Aramaic word tamri, to consume. Hence, we say a Yehi Ratzon that asks, may “our enemies be consumed.”
For many Jewish cultures, the fish head is a symbol on the Rosh Hashanah table. (image from chabad.org)
All of these foods, which grow rapidly, are also symbols of fertility, abundance and prosperity. Among other items that might be on a Sephardi table at Rosh Hashanah, Sternberg includes baked apples dipped in honey or baked as a compote with a special syrup; dates, which were among the seven species found in Israel; pomegranates, which have many seeds, or black-eyed peas, to represent our hoped-for merits; rodanchas, a pastry filled with pumpkin whose spiral shape symbolizes the unending cycle of life; and a fish head, symbolizing a wish to be the head in life, a leader, and not the tail. The main course might feature stuffed vegetables, symbolizing a year full of blessings and prosperity.
Some communities ban sharp, bitter or black foods for Rosh Hashanah, such as black olives, eggplant, chocolate or coffee.
In The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews, Edda Servi Machlin, z”l, who grew up in Pitigliano, Tuscany, explains that her father held a seder for Rosh Hashanah around the theme of growth, prosperity and sweetness. On the seder plate were a round challah, a boiled rooster’s head, fish such as anchovies, boiled beets, figs and pomegranates. In the centre was a dried, round, sourdough cake with an impression of her father’s right palm and fingers, and fennel weed growing on each side.
The foods were then blessed – “May we grow and multiply like fish in the ocean, like the seeds of a pomegranate, like the leavening, grain and fennel of the bread. May the year be sweet like beets and figs.”
The meal consisted of soup, fish, salad, chicken and fruit. Italian Jews also often serve at Rosh Hashanah desserts made with honey and nuts; stick or diamond-shaped cookies; strufali, cookies made of fried dough balls in honey; or ceciarchiata, cookies that resemble chickpeas and are made from bits of dough like the Ashkenazi teiglach.
A Greek cookbook writer from Ioannina (Yahnina) wrote that the people of her area made koliva, a thick porridge of wheat berries flavoured with cloves, cinnamon, walnuts and honey for eating on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. According to Marks in The World of Jewish Desserts, wheat berries are unprocessed whole wheat with the outer husk removed, leaving a nutty flavour and chewy texture. Jews of Yahnina also ate kaltsoounakia, a half-moon-shaped cake stuffed with ground walnuts, honey, cinnamon and cloves. For the main course, dishes in Yahnina were influenced by the Turkish occupation and included stuffed tomatoes, stuffed squash and stuffed vine leaves – filled with lamb, rice and parsley, as well as okra stewed with chicken.
Instead of honey cake, Greek Jews might have baklava for Rosh Hashanah dessert. (photo from Wikimedia)
Other Jews of Greece have different customs. Nicholas Stavroulakis, author of Cookbook of the Jews of Greece, writes that some people soak apples in honey or eat quince or rose petals cooked in syrup as the New Year sweet. Fish is often the main course and, in place of honey cake for dessert, Greek Jews use almonds or pumpkin in making turnovers, as a symbol of abundance. Other desserts include semolina cake in syrup, pastry triangles filled with nuts or dried fruit, or baklava.
Among Jews of Syria, sugar or honey is substituted for salt at the table, and many families do not serve any dishes that are sour. For the second night Shehechiyanu blessing, the fruit used may be quince, prickly pear, star fruit or figs. Instead of, or in addition to, dipping apples in honey, Jews of Syria often dip dates in honey.
Many Jews from Muslim countries also eat autumn foods cooked with sugar and cinnamon; the food names contain a symbolic allusion to prayers in Aramaic and, through alliteration, are recited over the vegetables and fruits. Syrian Jews use the same prayers but over different vegetables: leek, Swiss chard, squash, black-eyed peas, pomegranate and the head of an animal. This idea of wanting people to be smart, as symbolized by the head or brain, is observed by Jews of Tunisia in their serving of a cake made with chicken and calves brains.
Moroccan Jews take sesame seeds, warm them in the oven and eat them with apple dipped in honey to symbolize that Jews should be fruitful and multiply like the seeds and have the sweet year. They also eat the pomegranate because of its alleged 613 seeds, which symbolize the 613 mitzvot. Moroccan Jews identify the seven autumnal foods as pumpkin, zucchini, turnip, leek, onion, quince and Chinese celery, and sprinkle these with sugar and cinnamon to eat at the beginning of the meal.
Some Moroccan Jews also serve cooked lamb head as an appetizer for Rosh Hashanah. Other lamb dishes served might be lamb with prunes and almonds or lamb intestines filled with rice, meat and tomato, seasoned with cinnamon and cardamom.
Another popular dish served by Moroccans for Rosh Hashanah is couscous, the traditional North African grain, or farina. It is steamed above a stew made with meat or chicken, chickpeas, pumpkin, carrots, cinnamon and raisins. Baked fish with the head, made with tomatoes and garlic, tongue with olives, or meat and rice rolled in Swiss chard are other Moroccan New Year’s dishes. Two soups that may be served are vegetable soup with pastels, a meat-filled turnover similar to kreplach, and potakhe de potiron, a yellow, split-pea and pumpkin soup. The evening may be completed with honey-dipped “cigars,” filled with ground almonds and traditional hot mint tea.
“Cigars” are traditional for Moroccan events and can be made sweet or savoury. The sweet version is a slim roll of Phyllo pastry filled with almonds, pistachio nuts or walnuts, baked or deep fried and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. Savoury cigars may be filled with cheese, chicken, meat, potatoes or tuna.
For Rosh Hashanah, Jews of Egypt make loubia, a black-eyed pea stew with lamb or veal, to symbolize fertility.
Jews of Iraq cook apples with water and sugar like applesauce, as a symbol of a sweet New Year. Some also prepare a special, pale-green bottle-shaped squash, which they eat with whole apple jam and sugar. They also make the blessings over leek, squash, dates, pomegranate and peas and place the head of a lamb on their Rosh Hashanah table.
Yemenite Jews, who do not consider themselves Ashkenazi or Sephardi, dip dates in honey instead of apples; others mix sesame seeds and anise seeds with powdered sugar and dip dates in this mixture. They also eat the beet, leek, pomegranate and pumpkin, as well as a salted fish head. The main meal for Yemenites would be a soup made of chicken or meat, carrots, potatoes and the spice hawaj (a combination of black pepper, cumin, coriander and turmeric). Meat stew, cooked chicken, rice, dried fruit and nuts complete the meal.
Whatever your family’s origins, why not try something from another Jewish culture this Rosh Hashanah?
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.
Rabbi Shlomo Gabay is the new spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Hamidrash. (photo from Shlomo Gabay)
“The Sephardic world has its own customs, its own personality – communicating that to the next generation is a priority for Beth Hamidrash,” Rabbi Shlomo Gabay told the Independent. “They needed someone who could guide the next generation in the Sephardic way.”
Gabay was explaining why he, a rabbi who most recently worked as a high school teacher in the Sephardi community of Gibraltar, was invited to take over the role of spiritual leader at Congregation Beth Hamidrash following the departure of Rabbi Ilan Acoca in August of last year.
Gabay was born in London, England, and attended yeshivah in Gateshead, a hub of Orthodox Jewish life in Britain. He married “the rabbi’s daughter,” Rachel, who works in graphic and web design, and the couple now has three daughters. Coincidentally, Rachel Gabay is the niece of another former Beth Hamidrash rabbi, David Bassous.
After the Gabays married, they spent some time in Israel, where Shlomo Gabay pursued training in kiruv, or Jewish outreach. He then landed his first job, in Gibraltar, where he worked as a teacher of Gemara and halachah at the Jewish boys high school. He also taught other classes and founded and directed the Shovavim Project, an annual six-week learning program, in Gilbraltar.
Gibraltar is a British territory on a peninsula jutting out of southern Spain, across the water from Morocco. The community is almost totally Sephardi and led by Chief Rabbi Ron Hassid.
“Gibraltar is very relaxed, it’s very beautiful,” said Gabay, who earlier this year posted on Beth Hamidrash’s Facebook page a video of himself and some monkey friends on the Rock of Gibraltar. “It’s a holiday place where everybody goes. The population is almost 30,000, but 11 million [tourists] … come a year. The streets are full all the time, you get to meet people from all over the world.”
Gabay sees some similarities between Gibraltar and Vancouver – the natural beauty, the many tourists and a more laid-back culture than London for example – although, obviously, there’s a considerable difference of scale.
Gabay and his family are settling in well and enjoying the West Coast, even the previous winter weather. “London and Vancouver,” he said, “have something in common as well – rain.”
During the interviewing process, the Gabays were invited to come for a trial Shabbaton and Beth Hamidrash decided they had a winner.
“One of the strong reasons we were chosen,” said Gabay, “was because Beth Hamidrash felt they needed to focus on the next generation. Sephardic culture is quite different from Ashkenazic culture – the food, the personality – they didn’t want it to be pulled away in a different angle from what the founders intended.”
Beth Hamidrash has been without a rabbi for a year and a half. Gabay said he is looking forward to reinvigorating what the community is known for – having a warm, family atmosphere, being a community social hub, as well as a place of culture and Torah learning. “We want everyone to be happy here,” he said.
Gabay offers Talmud classes on Tuesdays and has started a Sunday class after breakfast, which covers a different topic of discussion every week. Rachel Gabay is a trained teacher of Judaics, as well as having training in marriage counseling and preparation for marriage.
Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.
Susan Barocas is one of 40 presenters at the April 14-15 “buffet for the mind.” (photo from Susan Barocas)
Among the many presenters at this weekend’s Limmud Vancouver is Susan Barocas, writer and filmmaker, Sephardi chef and expert on the history of Sephardi cooking.
Barocas, who was former president Barack Obama’s guest chef for White House seders, will give two presentations at this year’s Limmud. On April 14, 7:30 p.m., she will speak on Tastes Across the Centuries: The Enduring Influence of the Foods of Spain’s Medieval Jews. On April 15, 10:50 a.m., she will speak on The Long and Short of Noodles, a history of noodles from ancient China to the modern day.
Barocas lives and works in Washington, D.C., where she is an active and well-known foodie. She is a regular contributor to the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Lilith and Moment, and is a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier, a philanthropic organization of women leaders in the food, beverage and hospitality industries. She was the project director of D.C.’s Jewish Food Experience. Limmud Vancouver spoke with Barocas about her unusual career and interests.
LV: In Vancouver, you are speaking about classical Sephardi cuisine. Can you give us a little preview?
SB: I am really looking forward to talking about the food of the Jews of medieval Spain, putting it into historical context. Food played quite an important role in the Inquisition. (Hint: it goes way beyond pork!) Then, I will talk about what happened to the food of those original Sephardim and the surprising influences they have on contemporary Jewish and other cuisines. Of course, I’ll be sharing recipes, too.
LV: Can you tell us more about your heritage and its influence on your career?
SB: I grew up in a mixed household – Sephardic and Ashkenazic. On one side, my grandparents were from Russia-Poland and, on the other, from the Ottoman Empire, what is now Turkey and Macedonia, descended from Jews expelled from Spain in the Inquisition. My father and mother both cooked, so we ate both cuisines – tongue, borsht, gefilte fish and shmaltz, as well as lentils, feta and olives, baklava and stuffed grape leaves.
Over the years, I have become more and more drawn to my Sephardic heritage. It is something of a mission for me to share my view that Jewish food really is international cuisine. To think of it otherwise is to miss out on so much of Jewish culture and cuisine.
LV: You describe yourself as a home cook without formal training, and yet you’ve built a very successful professional career. How did your career develop?
SB: I’ve been cooking since I was a very young child. My first career was in nonprofit public relations. Whenever I would do a special event, food definitely got extra attention from me. When I moved to D.C. in 1993, I worked for food guru Joan Nathan for a few years. My second career included writing and producing documentary and organizational films; raising my son; and teaching a course called In Grandmother’s Kitchen at a local Hebrew high school. Next, I ran the Washington, D.C., Jewish federation’s Jewish Food Experience project. Now I am well into my third career, as a food writer, chef, caterer and teacher.
LV: How does the Jewish Food Experience bring people together?
SB: The Jewish Food Experience is an innovative project of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. It includes an award-winning website, jewishfoodexperience.com. The goals of JFE are to use food and culture to build Jewish identity and community, particularly with certain target audiences that research showed had the greatest needs – young professionals, families with young children and interfaith couples and families. The project has become very successful with the website and programs, bringing people together and closer to their Jewish identity in many different ways.
LV: What is your most memorable Jewish meal?
SB: My most memorable Jewish meal would have to be the seders in the Obama White House, where I served as guest chef for three years. Over time, I was able to bring some of my Sephardic food to the table, so to speak, along with the Ashkenazic dishes. Even though I was working and didn’t actually sit down to eat the meal, I still get goosebumps remembering the pleasure the president and first lady expressed about the food, and also hearing from the next room President Obama’s voice booming out “We Shall Overcome” during the seder.
Elizabeth Nichollsis a volunteer with Limmud Vancouver. Chef Susan Barocas is one of 40 presenters at the April 14-15 “buffet for the mind.” To register and for the full schedule, visit limmudvancouver.ca. The fee for the conference is $75, which includes a kosher dairy lunch. Onsite babysitting is available, along with special programming for children and teens. All sessions will be held at Congregation Beth Israel.
Published earlier this year, Tali and the Timeless Time by Mira Z. Amiras, with illustrations by Chantelle and Burgen Thorne, shares the love of a granddaughter for her grandmother, and vice versa. Every Friday, Tali helps her nona get ready for Shabbat. Nona gives hugs, tells stories, still tries to get Tali to nap, even though she’s older now. When Nona dozes off, Tali explores in the backyard, cleans up the small fountain there, feeds the goldfish. When Nona awakes, it’s time to cook.
Family and food are also at the heart of 1, 2, 3 Nosh with Me, written by Micah and Joshua Siva, and illustrated by Sviatoslav Franko, which was published a couple of years ago. In it, the dog Buckwheat shows us the yummy food the family eats, starting with the “One golden challah, to celebrate Shabbat…” We work our way up to “Ten crispy latkes, served by candlelight.” In between, we have matzah balls, matzot, kugel, knishes, apples for a sweet new year, sufganiyot, bagels and hamantashen. (It’s not clear why the Hanukkah treats are separated, but that’s a quibble.)
