Thanksgiving in the Holy Land

When Plymouth Rock Meets the Western Wall

For many American immigrants in Israel, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to reconnect, reminisce, and enjoy turkey and pumpkin pie once a year

BY YITZCHAK GOLDBERG

Noah Abramowitz immigrated to Israel from Baltimore, Maryland, several years ago at the age of 18. Yehuda Berlinger moved there from West Hempstead in 1989. Gail Danieli has lived in the country for over 40 years but is originally from Maine. Harel Rosenberg was born in Israel to an Israeli father and American mother. The four are of different generations, have different life experiences, and live in different parts of the country. But what the four have in common is that, although they live in Israel and are part of Israeli society, on the fourth Thursday in November or over the following weekend, they sit down with their respective families and friends to celebrate the very American holiday of Thanksgiving.

Noah, Yehuda, Gail, and Harel are not alone. Thanksgiving has continued to be popular among American immigrants in Israel who wish to hold onto something from the old country, where a majority of the local Jews celebrate the holiday.

“It is the only non-religious American holiday, and the only one we ever celebrated with the ‘American people.’ Honestly, it was the only holiday where we felt a part of and joined in on the holiday spirit with the rest of the country and our friends and neighbors,” Gail explains.

Asking about their Thanksgiving traditions strikes a chord with these American Israelis. The second they begin, you can tell that they were just transported back to Thanksgivings past, sitting with friends and family at a table replete with turkey, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, and other Thanksgiving favorites. Each one recounted the evolution of their Thanksgiving traditions in great detail, from their first Thanksgiving in Israel to their current Thanksgiving traditions.

In the United States, you’ll be hard-pressed to find two families whose Thanksgiving traditions are identical; that rule applies even more so in Israel where making do with what you have and merging cultures is the name of the game.

Turkey and Torah

For most of the years since he left the U.S., Noah Abramowitz’s Thanksgiving has centered around the same traditions: “Normally, I get together with friends who are also American in origin, and we sit down for a meal of turkey, stuffing, winter soup, and such. We sometimes will put on football in the background because tradition is tradition. We then always do a trip around the table saying what we appreciate in our lives, what we normally take for granted,” Abramowitz, whose siblings also have since immigrated to the Holy Land, relates.

Noah adds that he and his friends have managed to find a way to enjoy the meal to the fullest whilst adhering to strict kashrus standards.

“We have the dairy parts of the meal at the beginning, and, after a short break, we eat the meat part of the meal. Pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and buttered sweet potatoes first, and then spiced wine, soup, and turkey,” he explains. “There’s a lot of food factors.”

Not every year goes as planned, and when there was a worldwide pandemic that made social events difficult and unsafe, tradition took a back seat to improvisation. Noah is one of the many who had to find other Thanksgiving arrangements due to Covid-19.

“Last year, for example, when there was still a lot of Corona restrictions, I made pumpkin pie and turkey soup, and ate it with my roommates, just to be yotzei (fulfill my obligation).”

Abramowitz took the opportunity of not having a big meal to teach some Torah instead.

“Last year, when I wasn’t having a big Thanksgiving meal anyway, I gave a shiur at Beit Prat about the machlokot between the American rabbis regarding the nature of Thanksgiving, which was given in a small forum,” he shared.

For Abramowitz, celebrating a traditional kosher Thanksgiving in Israel is easy, compared to doing so in Australia, where he spent a year as a shaliach.

“In Australia, you couldn’t get a kosher turkey,” he recalls, “so instead, we did the whole meal with dairy dishes, and I gave a shiur there as well on whether the holiday

At the Lone Soldiers 2019 Thanksgiving event

can or should be celebrated by Jews.”

Abramowitz sums up his typical Thanksgiving.

“It’s normally a lot of food, a lot of drinks, and we watch football, but I have friends who also insist on watching the Macy’s parade. I was also at a meal one year where we did a reenactment of the first Thanksgiving: one of the guys dressed up as a pilgrim, the other as a Native American, they exchanged ingredients of the meal (corn and pie), and it was really nice.”

Age-Old Traditions

When Yehuda Berlinger came to Israel in 1989, he quickly fell in with a group of English-speakers that would hang out and play Ultimate Frisbee in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park. A number of the “chevrah,” as they were called, including him, his brother, and his then-wife, would meet to celebrate Thanksgiving every year. Those Thanksgivings were more than just food.

“We usually had a crowd of about 18,” he says, “and we would do all these things like laugh about the things that were good in America, something that we would do just that one day because we loved being in Israel but we would laugh at things like, ‘remember when two cars can drive on the same street or park on the same street?’ and ‘remember when stores had a whole department whose job was to give you your money back?’ We would play a folk song. It was quite a tradi-

tional Thanksgiving.”

Over the years, the attendees at Berlinger’s Thanksgiving changed – some moved away, and some returned to the States. Yehuda himself divorced and remarried twice, moved to Raanana, and then back to Jerusalem, but he continued to be a mainstay at these dinners which were still attended by

a few of the original “chevrah” until the mid-2010s.

Even so, he continued to host between 18-20 people for Thanksgiving until 2020, when Covid restrictions only allowed him to host his wife’s kids. Being that this year the restrictions have been lifted, he hopes to return to hosting a large meal with friends.

American Israelis are faced with their next challenge: fitting it in the oven, which, unless it was brought over from the States, isn’t built to fit a 14 lb. flightless bird.

Shushan Thanksgiving

For her first twenty or so years in Israel, Gail Danieli didn’t make a big

Thanksgiving feast.

That changed one year when her cousin came to her with a request.

“About 20 years ago,” she relates, “my American cousin wanted his Israeli friend to see what Thanksgiving is, so he asked me to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It was such a hit that my family – my three children and husband – wanted Thanksgiving every year.”

Gail, like many Americans in Israel who find it difficult to prepare a big meal on a workday, hosts her Thanksgiving feast on Friday night, as a Shabbos meal, or as some may call it “Shushan Thanksgiving.”

Gail’s Thanksgiving dinner has grown to be a large and highly anticipated event.

“Over the years, we have invited friends and family, but as the family is growing and my guests are also anxiously waiting for turkey, we have almost the same crowd every year.”

This includes Gail’s family – her husband, three children and their spouses, along with two grandchildren. Each of her children brings the same friends each year, which amounts to around ten to twelve extra guests. She also hosts her kibbutz family who adopted her when she made aliyah, which comes to an ad-

ditional 18-22 guests, depending on who can show up.

With so many people around the table, there has to be enough food to pass around. So what is Gail serving that draws such a crowd?

“Pretty much the same food every year since my guests are waiting for their special foods,” she says. “At least one turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, applesauce, green beans, beet salad, a green salad usually with baked squash cubes, apple pie, pecan pie, brownies, peanut butter cookies, and carrot cake.”

That’s a mouthful.

For appetizers, Gail opts to serve more traditional Shabbat fare: deviled eggs, chopped liver, dips and crackers, and smoked salmon.

“We always have cocktails, apple juice, and cranberry juice,” she makes sure to add. “Oh! There are always mashed potatoes.

“I have Thanksgiving decorations like napkins and stuff that I pick up when in the States. Oh! I also make an apple-cinnamon stuffed challah.”

Can’t forget that for a Shushan Thanksgiving meal.

The Third Generation

As opposed to the other three Thanksgiving celebrants we met in this article, Harel Rosenberg’s story doesn’t begin in the United States, because he was born in Israel.

The university student is the third generation on his mother’s side to live in the country and has spent nearly all of his 25 years in the Holy Land, save for three-and-a-half of them, which he spent in Silver Spring, Maryland, when his parents temporarily relocated there. What’s interesting is, that in Silver Spring, the Rosenberg family did not have a Thanksgiving dinner – in Israel, they do.

Rosenberg’s maternal grandparents, who immigrated to Israel in 1973, celebrate their anniversary at the end of November. They use the joyous event as an excuse to host a family dinner at their home every year on the fourth Thursday in November.

Rosenberg admits that his family’s Thanksgiving-Anniversary hybrid isn’t the most traditional.

“We don’t have a turkey or most of the other traditional dishes,” he says, “but we almost always have a meat meal, and my grandmother always cooks at least one or two more traditional dishes. She also always decorates the table with seasonal decorations, and my brother and I generally get into a conversation about the Pilgrims and other explorers like Columbus.”

Although it lacks the traditional elements of a Thanksgiving feast, Rosenberg assures me that Thanksgiving takes center stage at his family gathering so much so that “there was a point in time that I pretty much forgot that it was my grandparents’ anniversary and thought that the annual party was only in honor of Thanksgiving.”

Lone, Not Lonely

Possibly the biggest Thanksgiving event held in Israel over the past few years is the one held by the Lone Soldier Center in Memory

of Michael Levin. The Lone Soldier Center is dedicated to helping the approximately 7,000 soldiers that are serving in the Israel Defense Forces who don’t have immediate family in Israel. Of those lone soldiers, about 45% are new immigrants from North America.

One of the center’s missions is to help the soldiers feel at home. Eric Sirkin, chairman of the organization’s board, explains that Thanksgiving is seen as an especially important time to do so.

“In North America, Thanksgiving is a very special holiday celebrated by people of all faiths, and it’s a time when the family gets together, has a very special meal together, enjoys the company of each other, and gives thanks for everything that G-d has provided you until now. So, it’s a very special holiday, and soldiers from North America find that this is the time that they most miss their families.”

Sirkin notes, “Also, the nature of the holiday is giving thanks. It’s our way to give thanks to the lone soldiers by helping them through an emotionally difficult holiday when they’re without their family.”

Thanksgiving is also a great opportunity to hold a big event for soldiers since many of them go out on weekend leave on Thursday, and many Americans in the IDF even receive special leave for the holiday.

Every year, the Lone Soldier Center’s Thanksgiving event is bigger and more extravagant than the last. The center’s 2019 event, which took place in a big tent in Jerusalem’s old train station, hosted upward of 1,000 soldiers, along with members of the U.S. Marine Corps and guest speakers including the then minister of defense (and current prime minister) Naftali Bennett, senior advisor to the U.S. Ambassador Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone and former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren.

This year, after a one-year hiatus due to Covid-19 (in 2020 the center distributed food packages to the soldiers instead), the center is gearing up for another big event, planned to take place on Thursday in a central Jerusalem guest house. Along with a rich menu of Thanksgiving fare, the soldiers will be entertained with music, a big screen playing the day’s traditional football games, and guest speakers including the Deputy Minister of Defense Alon Schuster, the C.E.O. of the Jerusalem based investment platform OurCrowd Jon Medved, and the commercial attaché at the U.S. Embassy Robyn Kessler.

Turkey (and Cranberry Sauce, and Pumpkin Puree, and Pie Crust) Hunting in Israel

One of the hardest parts of celebrating a holiday in a country where the majority doesn’t celebrate it may be finding the proper ingredients for the holiday staples and the correct tools to make them.

My first few years in Israel were spent about a quarter of a mile from a large turkey coop. Every morning, I woke up to the gobbling, and every night I went to sleep to the noxious smell. Turkey is everywhere in Israel, taking the form of hotdogs, meatballs, and cutlets. The one form that’s nearly impossible to find a turkey in is whole, posing a problem to those Americans who wish to grace their table with a whole bird. The only way to obtain a whole turkey is to find a butcher who would be willing to get one for you. Luckily, those butchers are becoming more widespread as Thanksgiving is becoming more wellknown, and carnivore culture grows in Israel.

Once they obtain a turkey, American Israelis are faced with their next challenge: fitting it in the oven, which, unless it was brought over from the States, isn’t built to fit a 14 lb. flightless bird. This step requires some creativity; until my parents bought an American oven second-hand, our Thanksgiving turkey was made on a gas grill.

Noah Abramowitz and his friends were even more innovative: “One year, when I was in the army, my friend built a smoker because otherwise, we didn’t have any means of cooking a whole turkey,” Noah shares.

As per sides, accouterments, and desserts, it depends on what you’re looking for; frozen string beans, potatoes, and sweet potatoes can be bought in every supermarket, but more specifically, American items can be more difficult to find if you don’t know where to look. Local groceries in areas with a large English-speaking population generally are a good bet.

After a quick walk through the local makolet in the Modiin suburb of Chashmonaim, I found a slew of imported Thanksgiving favorites such as Karo corn syrup, both Ocean Spray and Gefen cranberry sauce, and Festal brand canned pumpkin puree.

Dudu Malka, the Israeli owner of the aptly named “Super-Chashmonaim,” told me that after buying the store a decade ago he began to slowly learn about the American customs and buying preferences.

“It took some time, but within a year or two, I got the hang of things. Now I know that around the middle of November I need to make sure I’m stocked up on pie crust, and pumpkin puree, and cranberry sauce.”

Dudu adds that although there is a slight spike in sales around Thanksgiving, it doesn’t come close to sale spikes around any Jewish holiday.

“At the end of the day,” he notes, “we’re in Israel. Thanksgiving’s not our holiday. The Americans have a small celebration to hold onto an old tradition, but it’s not like the Jewish holidays.” At the Lone Soldiers 2019 Thanksgiving event

such as Karo corn syrup,

A Tradition, A Reason to Party, or Sincere Appreciation

If the actual Thanksgiving celebrations differ one from another, the brations differ one from another, the reasons for celebrating differ reasons for celebrating differ even more. For some, like Gail even more. For some, like Gail Danieli, it’s a way to connect to Danieli, it’s a way to connect to their history.

“Thanksgiving is probably “Thanksgiving is probably the most prominent reminder the most prominent reminder that I grew up American. Celthat I grew up American. Celebrating Thanksgiving in Israel ebrating Thanksgiving in Israel reminds me of who I am and alreminds me of who I am and allows me to share my roots with my lows me to share my roots with my family and friends,” she says. family and friends,” she says.

For others, like Noah AbramowFor others, like Noah Abramowitz, it’s about having a distinct immiitz, it’s about having a distinct immigrant culture.

“The holiday is a tradition,” he says. “It’s definitely a cultural event and is very important to me. As such, I think the same way Moroccan Jews have Mimouna, American Jews have Thanksgiving. The customs remind me of family and good times.”

Others, like Yehuda Berlinger, feel connected to America so that celebrating Thanksgiving is not even a question.

“I’ve always continued to feel like an American. I work in English; I have American cultural tastes. In general, I appreciate certain American traditions,” he says.

Harel Rosenberg has an uplifting reason for celebrating Thanksgiving, one that is quite fitting for someone who was born and raised in Israel.

Harel asserts, “I celebrate Thanksgiving to show thanks to the United States of America, for sheltering my grandmother who escaped Nazi-occupied Europe, and for all the good that she’s done for the Jewish people and the State of Israel over the years.”