PresenTense Issue Seven

food for the soul

a blint z by an y other name issue seven

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kitchen judaism a new recipe for today

The swine of the times

winter 2009 $5.00

taking on taboos of the other white meat

www.presentense.org

jewish food a-Z

a smorgasbord for the hungry jewish soul

LIVE IN THE

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editor and publisher Ariel Beery

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managing editor Deborah Fishman

pitch an idea

associate editors Devra Ferst, Sam Grilli, Devora Liss, Avi Mayer, Jerrin Zumberg society editors Laura Berger, Evin Simon

mooshy: balancing morals and morsels

ideas & innovation editor Josh Wein

aaron potek

features editor Jacob Dallal arts & culture editor Allison Sheren

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around the world editor Eric Ackland

ethnic food

israel editor Flo Low assistant editors

the power of diversity

society Miriam Bader, Judith Heistein

ronit scheyer

ideas & innovation Matthew Ackerman features Ronit Scheyer, Libbie Snyder arts & culture Tamar Benzikry-Stern, Ruvym Gilman contributing editors Laura Chizzali, Rena Katz, Rachel Krauser, Michael Langer, Dana Raviv, Arieh S. Rosenblum, Natasha Rosenstock, Sarah Sechan, Jon Steed, Katie Devorah Wampler

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organic zionism the roots of a new jewish agriculture yoav fisher

copy editors Marc Bailes, Rachel Berger, Evangeline Su web editor Max Socol

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art director Lina Tuv photography director Brian Goldfarb

watch your veggies grow

photographers Mark Anbinder, Darwin Bell, Laura Chizzali, Daniel Dreifuss, Daniel Ersdel, Mark Furman, Rachel Furst, Sarah Glidden, Brian Goldfarb, Christian Guthier, Yehoshua Halevi, Isaac Hametz, Adiella Jones, Anne Ellyse Kania, Yaniv Nahoum, Sara Saalwaechter, Nina Safar, Koshy Sahab, Mike Simons, Jeffrey Yoskowitz, Rebecca Zimmerman

natasha rosenstock

advertising and circulation director Simi Hinden

the mediterranean invasion

business team Esther Cohen, Daniel Ferman, Shoshana Poznansky

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out with the s.a.d. lisa benjamin goodgame

director of communications Shai Davis This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Creative Commons: We think the Creative Commons approach to content is smart because it gives creators flexibility in their licensing choices and it allows for seamless sharing of content. At PresenTense, our exclusive rights to content expire after no more than 120 days. At that time, we encourage our authors and photographers to adopt a CC license for their work.

CC WWW.PRESENTENSE.ORG PresenTense is an international grassroots effort to inspire and enable socially-minded pioneering amongst the Jewish People, and this Magazine is made possible by a network of volunteers around the world. Special thanks go to: Pnina Hinden, Erin Kopelow, and Chari Pere; Tal Fishman; and Rebecca Leicht, Devora Liss, Avi Mayer, Arieh S. Rosenblum, and Bari Weiss. Thanks for help on this issue to: Benita Lebow, Itzhak Beery and Bleecker and Sullivan Advertising, the American Zionist Movement, the AviChai Fellowship Program, and the board and steering community of the PresenTense Group.

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PresenTense accepts submissions, editor@presentense.org.

pitches

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letters

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by

contents features + masthead

produce aisle in the backyard

assistant art director Hillel Smith

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Photo by Sara Saalwaechter contents presentense.org/magazine

Cover art by Hillel issue Smith seven 2009

5 letters 6 contributors 8 editorial

HERE & NOW 9 Bits from the blogs green your shabbat table > leah koenig 10 Woman to Watch dyonna ginsburg > flo low 11 Man with a Plan dan segall > manuela zoninsein 12 Rules of Engagement the case for kosher > josh whisler 14 Jewish food a-z a smorgasbord for the hungry jewish soul > pt staff

contents

Around the world

21 a friend in knead challah for hunger > rachel hamburg

34 produce aisle in the backyard watch your veggies grow > natasha rosenstock

21 lol'chaim mywinetxt.com > josh wein

35 how to make your congregation grow top 10 reasons to start a garden > rafael bratman

22 sustainability off the vine center for healthy living in tzfat > laura chizzali 22 a blintz by any other name do i know you from somewhere? > rachel lieff axelbank 23 innovative hunger solutions table to table > eli gurock

PHOTOESSAY 39 it's in the air visions of food encounters in a poisoned world > brian goldfarb

SOCIETY

ARTS

24 the jewish farmer reclaiming a deep-rooted profession > anna stevenson

42 what's for dinner? omnivore's dilemma > miriam bader

25 ethnic food the power of diversity > ronit scheyer

16 israelis in india rites and wrongs of passage > rachel furst

26 when kosher isn't kosher agriprocessors and the aftermath > aaron finkelstein

17 roaming rome viva israele > elina korshukin

27 free-range organic wisdom eating local in israel > laura chizzali

18 a parisian passover a celebration of strangers in a strange land > eleanor kagan 19 who's hungry? we won: let's eat > benji lovitt

IDEAS & INNOVATION 20 Pitch an Idea mooshy: balancing morals and morsels > aaron potek

issue seven 2009

PARADIGM SHIFT 37 kitchen judaism a new recipe for today > jessy gross

28 jerusalem food beat tips for international bites > raeefa shams

FEATURES 29 organic zionism and the roots of a new jewish agriculture > yoav fisher 32 the swine of the times taking on taboos of the other white meat > jeffrey yoskowitz

43 golda the iron lady > abigail pickus 44 too close for comfort the danger in knowing your food > tiferet zimmern-kahan 45 food for the soul an interview with artist mel alexenberg > tanya strusberg 46 out with the s.a.d. the mediterranean invasion > lisa benjamin goodgame 47 Food Comic moroccan salmon > peter orosz 48 Backpage the jewish food pyramid > dov abramson

community 49 creative zionist cirlce source text sheet presentense.org/magazine contents

of readjusting the paradigms to fit to Judaism, PresenTense readjusts Judaism to fit Western paradigms. It appears to me that PresenTense is taking cultural truisms and judging Judaism by them without asking itself whether those cultural truisms are valid in the first place.

Allon Vishkin University of Maryland

“Minyans of the People”

letters presentense.org/magazine

Alieza Salzberg wrote cogently about the rise of independent minyanim, and specifically the rabbi-less nature of the leadership. In the past 10 years, 50+ independent minyanim in the United States, and dozens more in Israel, have launched and thrived. As one might expect, attitudes toward rabbinic authority vary widely in such a diverse group. At a recent conference of independent minyanim (www.mechonhadar.org/ imconference), organized by Mechon Hadar and sponsored by the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, an entire panel was dedicated to the ways in which independent minyanim relate to rabbis and rabbinic training. (To listen, go to: http://www.mechonhadar. org/Includes/Project/ Content/OnlineLearning/ rabbisandauthority.mp3) Two things are clear from that panel: 1) the traditional role of a rabbi as page-caller and ritual guide during services is moot for these communities, but 2) these communities are challenged by the lack of pastoral, halakhic and moral leadership of rabbinic authority created by the absence of a rabbinic presence. These

Rabbi Elie Kaunfer Executive Director Mechon Hadar (www.mechonhadar.org)

“Zionism A-Z: Israpedia for the Z-word” The definition of “Falashmura” is incorrect. It is a subset of the Ethiopian immigration and potential immigration. The members of this group are Ethiopians who have converted from Judaism to Christianity under conditions of varying pressure by the conditions of their status. There is controversy surrounding the bringing of these Falashmura to Israel, with those who wish to bring them to Israel emphasizing

their desire to return to Judaism and those who do not wish to bring them to Israel saying that they are Christians who want to live under better conditions than the life in Ethiopia affords.

There are various estimates of the numbers of potential Falashmuras who wish to come to Israel, and the Israeli government is bringing them in several hundred a month after their being screened and educated in camps maintained by NGOs desiring their immigration.

Also, there should be a definition of Judaism in the list. Officially, the Israeli government recognizes Judaism as Orthodox in the broadest sense of the word.

Over the years, however, the Haredi groups have increased their position and numbers, and, moreover, have taken over much of the “official rabbinate.” As a result, stricter decisions have been brought by the religious courts. The rabbinic authorities have cast a doubt on the validity of some 5,000 conversions, some of them from as long ago as 15 years. The annulment of a conversion is virtually unknown in Judaism. This has resulted in a great upset, and for the first time, some of the Orthodox rabbis are seeking to join hands with the Masorti (Conservative), Reform, and Reconstructionist rabbis in Israel to fight the Haredi takeover of the rabbinate.

Jerry Blaz mybookiejoint.com

Have feedback about PresenTense? Email

letters to the editor

“Minyans of the People” looked positively upon congregations that are completely egalitarian, where decisions are made by a democratic process: the community votes, and the rabbi’s decision is not decisive.

Democracy may have certain roots in Judaism, but this manifestation of democracy is strictly Western. Even America’s founding fathers voiced very strong opposition to this kind of democracy—this is why Madison crafted a republic, not a democracy, and this is also why Benjamin Franklin said, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.”

I’m sure the intent of the author was to be as objective as possible, but true objectivity is hardly ever achieved. It appears PresenTense is judging Judaism from the perspective of modern Western values, and whenever one culture, tradition, or religion is judged by the values of another, it will always come up short. There isn’t always reason to think that Western values are the correct ones, so such a judgment often does damage.

Western paradigms do not fit onto Judaism, and instead

particular needs of a Jewish community are often met most effectively through a personal relationship with a leader/rabbinic personality.

The creative solutions offered by some—blog-based halakhic opinions (for example, www. halakhah.org), a “lifecycle team” of laypeople meant to support community members in need—offer some approaches to these challenges.

While there have been crucial benefits of rabbinic leadership in the traditional synagogue model, one harmful unintended side-effect has often been a disempowered congregation—one that cedes its knowledge and passion for Jewish ritual to its rabbinic authority figure. The real legacy of the independent minyanim —if they are truly successful— will be the rise of an educated laity that has the passion and the knowledge to act on their principles and goals. The independent minyanim are both an expression of, and a training ground for, this crucial piece of the Jewish tapestry.

editor@presentense.org.

We want to hear from you!

issue seven 2009

Aimee Weiss Sam Grilli Rafael Bratman

Lindsay Canvasser Brian Goldfarb

Eythan-David Volcot-Freeman

Arieh Rosenblum

Allison Sheren Lina Tuv

Deborah Fishman

ANN ARBOR

Daniel Ferman

CHICAGO

TORONTO

Tamar Benzikry-Stern

SEATTLE

Anna Stevenson

Jeffrey Yoskowitz

EUGENE

CONNECTICUT

contributors worldwide

Ronit Scheyer

PALO ALTO

NEW JERSEY

AUSTIN Katie Devorah Wampler

Eric Ackland

Lisa Goodgame

Evin Simon

LOS ANGELES Claire Cohen

Hillel Smith Jessy Gross

DC Jon Steed

Laura Solomon

issue seven 2009

Lauren Blumer

Matt Peterson

Josh Wein

Marni Landes Natasha Rosenstock

presentense.org/magazine contributors

Tiferet Zimmern-Kahan

Yoav Fisher

Libbie Snyder Daniel Schaefer

BOSTON

Sharone Revah Zitzman Peter Orosz

Eleanor Kagan

BUDAPEST

Rachel Krauser

Jerrin Zumberg

Manuela Zoninsein

Linda Lantos

PARIS

BEIJING

Mark Furman Laura Chizzali

Eli Gurock Benji Lovitt

ZICHRON YAAKOV

Phil Getz

TEL AVIV

Flo Low

Dov Abramson Avi Mayer Laura Berger Rachel Furst Adiella Jones

Sarah Sechan

JERUSALEM Ruvym Gilman

NEW YORK Matthew Ackerman

Aaron Finkelstein

Rachel Wanetik

Chanel Dubufsky

Devra Ferst

Michael Langer

Barbara Lerman-Golomb

Rena Katz

Ariel Beery

Shelley Shafran Nina Safar Devora Liss

Leah Koenig

Dages Keates

Dana Raviv Simi Hinden

Miriam Bader

Eli Winkelman

Elina Korshukin

Rachel Berger Rebecca Alperstein

Rebecca Zimmerman

Esther Cohen

Adi Friedman

Noa Levanon

Raeefa Shams

Aaron Potek

Monica Rozenfeld

issue seven 2009

Photo by Nina Safar. www.kosherinthekitch.com

What’s Our Recipe?

editorial

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hicken soup crowned with matzah balls; freshly baked challah; couscous redolent with vegetables and spices. The traditions of Jewish food have been celebrated from generation to generation, tied inextricably to holidays, family, and collective memory. Jewish cuisine has evolved over history, together with the changing geography and tastes of the Jewish People. A time-honored outlet of Jewish creativity, Jewish cooking has constantly experimented with new ingredients and techniques, displaying great resourcefulness in synthesizing kashrut—the religious laws governing what and how Jews eat—with the tantalizing recipes of new neighbors. How does our generation connect with our glorious Jewish culinary tradition? What new flavors do we add into the mix?

In bringing you Issue Seven: Food & the Jews, PresenTense Magazine contributors from around the world have thought deeply about the issues we as young Jews care about concerning our relationship with food. While many of us relate to the traditional and holiday-centered Jewish foods (see “Who’s Hungry?” p. 19 and “A Blintz by Any Other Name,” p. 22), we also feel a strong need to examine the complexity behind what we are eating, and why. How can we respond to ethical challenges concerning our meat consumption (see “When Kosher Isn’t Kosher,” p. 26, “Too Close for Comfort” p. 48)? How can we justify our relationship to our food versus the food of other cultures (see “Ethnic Food,” p. 25)?

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As we confront these questions, our generation is creating new culinary paradigms through innovative reconceptualization of Jewish values and traditions. We can sanctify Shabbat by greening our Shabbat table (“Bits from the Blogs,” p. 9) or reserving our meat consumption for Shabbat only (“Pitch an Idea,” p. 20). Whether consciously or not, we use food preparation and consumption as opportunities to express who we are, whether it be a Jewish farmer (see “The Jewish Farmer,” p. 24), a Jewish educator (see “How to Make Your Congregation Grow,” p. 35), or a secular Tel Avivian (see “The Swine of the Times,” p. 32). In addition, we can use food to make a difference in society (see “A Friend in Knead,” p. 21, “Innovative Hunger Solutions,” p. 23).

In this age of individualization, each of us seems to have found our own way of eating, and a personal meaning for why we eat what we do. Yet eating together will always be one way of showing that we are part of one community. In sharing this issue, we invite you to be a part of our rich and diverse community of young Jews worldwide. You can join the conversation on the articles in this issue through using the source sheet on page 49 for discussion with friends and Creative Zionist Circles, in coffee shops and salons. Afterward, visit www.presentense.org/food to share your local ideas with the global PresenTense community.

No matter what foods you like to eat, we hope you find some delicious inspiration, recipe for creativity, or food for thought in this issue of PresenTense. B’tayavon!

presentense.org/magazine editorial

bits from the blogs green your shabbat table Looking for ways to green your Shabbat table? These tips are brought to you by the Jew & The Carrot, Hazon’s blog on Jews, food, and sustainability (www.jcarrot.org).

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Feature Local Flavors

Experiment with featuring locally-grown ingredients in your Shabbat dishes.Fresh veggies are a great place to start, and most markets also have cider, eggs, and baked goods. Even if you don’t manage to eat all local, all the time in your day-today life (and really, who does?), Shabbat is the perfect time to strive for that ideal. See just how local you can go!

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Serve Ethical Meat One of the best ways to lower the environmental impact of your

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leah koenig

Shabbat dinner is to go vegetarian! There are endless options to satisfy your friends and family, from hearty pesto lasagna to vegetarian cholent. But if you’re a die-hard “chicken on Shabbat” kind of person, head to the farmers’ market and buy ethically-raised and humanelyslaughtered meat. For kosher versions, try Wise Organic Pastures (www.wiseorganicpastures.com).

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Sustainable Centerpieces

Fresh bouquets make lovely centerpieces, but they only last a few days and are often grown with pesticides.

Try sustainable alternatives like potted plants or herbs that will last longer and can be enjoyed after the meal. Or arrange a bunch of apples and pomegranates in a bowl for an attractive centerpiece that doubles as dessert. If you definitely want

flower centerpieces, head to the farmers’ market or go organic! (http://www.organicbouquet.com/)

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Learn Together

5

Clean Up Green

Rabbi Shimon said: If three have eaten together at one table and have not spoken over it words of Torah, it is as though they had eaten of the sacrifices of the dead (Isaiah 28:8)…but if three have eaten at one table and have spoken over it words of Torah, it is as if they had eaten from the table of God (Ezekiel 41:22). Ask your guests to bring texts, quotes, or songs on a specific theme (e.g. sustainability) to share at the meal.

After your sustainable meal, clean up with green cleaning supplies like Seventh Generation or Ecover. Invite your friends to help you wash dishes and put leftover food away.

Whether or not you made all the food yourself, or invited friends to help, clean up should be a team effort!

Leah Koenig is editor-in-chief of the Jew & The Carrot, www.jcarrot.org.

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watch them presentense.org/magazine

issue seven 2009

woman to watch >>

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hen Dyonna Ginsburg was a child, she dreamt about leading the State of Israel. Today, she’s putting her money where her mouth is. As director of Bema’aglei Tzedek, Ginsburg oversees the organization’s flagship “Tav Chevrati” program, the oldest and largest initiative on ethical kashrut in the world.

Over 350 restaurants throughout Israel now carry the “Tav,” a certificate granted free of charge to restaurants that are accessible to people with disabilities and treat their workers ethically.

Three years before joining the organization, Ginsburg made a personal

here & now

One of the challenges of our generation is not only to look at food on our plate but how it got there: who worked to get it there?

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commitment to eat only at places certified by this ethical seal of approval. It changed not only her eating habits but also her worldview.

“One of the challenges of our generation is not only to look at food on our plate but how it got there: who worked to get it there? Were they treated ethically, according to our tradition and values? Does everyone in society have equal access to this plate? This is intrinsic to Jewish tradition— the concept that what we put in our mouths is important and can create a paradigm shift in terms of how we view the world.”

The “Tav” is just one of the numerous initiatives with which Ginsburg is personally involved as she works to make Israel more equitable and just. Since

issue seven 2009

flo low her move to Israel almost seven years ago, Ginsburg has dedicated her time to a variety of influential projects, from developing Israel advocacy tools with Natan Sharansky and the Prime Minister’s office to building a mentorship course to protect the rights of non-union custodial workers at the Jewish Agency. Her current work closes socioeconomic gaps, improves the treatment of minority populations, and furthers social justice and Jewish identity.

“As an Israeli, I care deeply about domestic issues, because I care about how this country will look for my grandchildren. But these are issues that should make all Jews around the world worry; they are the issues which will determine if the experiment that we call the modern State of Israel is a successful one or not.”

Taking the reigns of Bema’aglei Tzedek from its founder, a sabra (or “native-born” Israeli), Dyonna brings a new perspective and skill set to a tremendously successful grassroots organization, widely known for its sabra roots. Her passion, personal commitment, modesty, and natural ease suggest she’ll lead the young organization to new heights.

But, true to her nature, Ginsburg’s focus is on empowering others to join the cause.

She is reaching out to Israelis in all sectors of the population, because she believes the best way to affect real change is by enabling individuals to make an impact in their own local communities.

“The sky is the limit. You need to be willing to roll up your sleeves and stick to it. Particularly in Israeli society, which is a small and relatively young society, there is a tremendous amount of room for people who are interested in thinking creatively and out-of-the-box to solve social problems. You just have to work hard, set mind your to it, and not be afraid to fight.”

Flo Low is the Israel Editor of PresenTense and a proud supporter of Bema'aglei Tzedek. She is a writer, advocate, and fundraiser who lives in Jerusalem,

Photo provided by Dyonna Ginsburg

dyonna ginsburg

name Dyonna Ginsburg

AGE 29

Profession Director of Bema’aglei Tzedek, an Israeli NGO founded in 2004 which uses cutting-edge educational tools and social action campaigns to create a more just Israeli society informed and inspired by Jewish values.

Watch hER because She’s a crusader for Israel, social justice, and Jewish values who is passionate, dedicated, and not afraid to fight.

works for the Education Department of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and shares the dream of building a model and just society in Israel. presentense.org/magazine here & now

man with a plan dan segall

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his Zuma eatery awards from Restaurant Magazine and Conde Nast Traveler can be traced, in part, to his religion. More an ethnic than a religious Jew, Segall doesn’t himself keep kosher; yet our chef believes there are Jewish values that guide aspects of his behavior. For example, “that a lot of ack in the summer of 1991, things in Judaism take time” meshes well with his cooking philosophy. “Especially Daniel Segall was awarded the brachot (blessings). We take time out the title of Kitchen Boy at Camp Tevya, a co-ed to honor and respect food.” The same Jewish sleep-away in New Hampshire. can be said of being a chef, he explains, The following summer he received his first “Good cooking is about taking the time promotion in the world of food, becoming to do it right, with honor and respect for the ingredients.”

Head Kitchen Boy. Since those days of baking challah, prepping ingredients, and One mentor who was especially carting away slop, Segall has gone on to inf luential was Josh Capon—“Jewish cook in culinary capitals around the world as well!” chuckled Segall over the phone. The two met in the Stuyvesant alongside a number of famous chefs. He is currently highlighted in a Sony Cyber-shot High School cafeteria while working ad campaign featuring him photographing immediately after 9/11 to feed rescue his cutting-edge cuisine. workers. The experience ultimately Today Segall is based in Hong Kong, convinced Segall to put aside his other a city whose ideal port location and lifelong passion—acting, which he history as a critical crossroads for Eaststudied at Syracuse University—and West exchange have long encouraged pursue his teenage dream of committing cuisine innovation. At Zuma, where Segall to the life of a chef. At the time, is Executive Chef, he perseveres in this Capon ran Canteen in SoHo (now tradition by introducing a sophisticated Lure Fishbar), and when Segall started take on the popular Japanese cuisine, looking for work, Capon opened his Izakaya—an informal Japanese style of doors. Not that “tribal membership” dining most often practiced during afterhelped Segall get ahead—more work “happy hours” in bars where eating importantly, “[Capon] knew I was is meant to accompany drinking. Segall serious about it.” Yet he admits “there’s explains, “The heart of Izakaya eating is always a bit of a connection there.” keeping the menu on the table.” Guests Immediately after outlining his will order some beers, then “eat like two or experimental menu, Segall asks, “Oh, three dishes. Next, order another round of can I say lobster in a Jewish magazine?” beers, then a few more bits of these, bits of Though Segall admittedly does not keep to those. It’s just relaxed and informal.” kosher laws when cooking, he does feel a Zuma, located in the stony Landmark connection to Jewish guests. Often, Jewish commercial center and occupying 10,000 and Muslim guests see his last name and square feet of space (decadent in such a dense ask “Segall, eh? Are you from the... tribe? city), presents something less quotidian than They feel a little more comfortable with me, traditional Izakaya, but maintains a smartas a Jewish guy.” casual look with plenty of glass, blonde Even as he cooks with star chefs and woods, and a 15-ton granite counter. Segall travels the globe sharing his expertise, oversees three open kitchens responsible Segall remains inspired by his mother, for feeding 70 tables that, almost a year “an absolute phenom in the kitchen.” and a half since opening, remain occupied No matter what new food techniques or

by Hong Kong’s socialites, celebrities, and philosophies influence him, Segall’s favorite executives. The tools and ingredients Segall Jewish food remains just as close to the now uses, honed after cooking for 19 years, hearth as any of our plebeian taste buds are a world apart from mass-produced pastas might desire: “Mom’s matzah ball soup— and salads intended to feed hundreds of what else?” hungry campers.

Despite all the gastro-molecular Manuela Zoninsein lives in Beijing, creations and fusion flavor concoctions that where she is the Dining Editor of get food fashionistas going, with Izakaya Time Out Magazine, strings for the cuisine, “at its core is simplicity,” says Segall. Newsweek bureau, and reports freelance. To see The purist approach which has garnered more of her writing, check out manuelasweb.com.

manuela zoninsein

Photo provided by Dan Segall

B

name Dan Segall

AGE 33

Profession Executive Chef at Zuma in Hong Kong, China

Watch hIm because He’s gone from Jewish camp “kitchen boy” to jet-setting Hong Kong chef.

here & now presentense.org/magazine

issue seven 2009

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Rules of engagement the case for kosher What comes to mind when you hear the word “kosher”?

Fundamentally, the underlying reason that Jews keep kosher is because God asked them to. Whatever benefits derived from it are secondary.

What is the relevance of kashrut?

Kashrut offers many modern-day lessons.

Long before the existence of the Humane Society, Jewish law advocated for the prevention of cruelty to animals (from the Hebrew principle: tsar ba’alei chayim).

In today’s world, threats to the quality of our food supply are commonplace. But it is important to note that proper hygiene and hand washing have been mandated precautions for those involved in kosher environments for hundreds of years.

Do you believe kashrut has become more or less relevant over time?

No question in my mind that kashrut is more relevant today than ever. As a person working in food hygiene and as a food handler, I am continually amazed and amused that the non-kosher world is only now discovering how far ahead of the curve kashrut has been when practiced meticulously.

Fundamentally, the underlying reason that Jews keep kosher is because God asked them to.

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issue seven 2009

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josh whisler

Shimon Ochs Shimon Ochs is a food hygiene and safety expert, chef, and partner in California Catering in Israel: www.californiacatering.co.il.

Do you believe the Bible had healthrelated insights beyond its time in declaring certain foods kosher and others non-kosher based on certain anatomical criteria? For instance, pigs are not kosher and are now known to cause trichinosis?

Whatever the motives are, the facts speak for themselves. Washing vegetables and fruits, salting meats, removing bugs from lettuce, and the many acts of ensuring that laws of kosher are kept are being copied by mass producers of food today to ensure safe, quality foods. After the listeria food-poisoning scandal, Maple Leaf Foods in Canada recently announced they will be adding a salt-based preservative to all their meats. They are only a few thousand years behind the Jewish practice of melicha (salting).

greater quality control, internal organ inspection, salting, etc.). What is your take on this assertion?

Many arguments have been made about whether or not kosher food is healthier or better for people. I am not interested in debating that. Here is what I know: The process of ensuring kosher food reduces bacteriological counts and the risk of other hazards being put into products, either by supervision or by procedure.

If there were a mad cow disease outbreak or similar meat or poultry health scare, do you think people would be more inclined to choose kosher meat and poultry?

No question. There are a lot of people out there who buy kosher meat only for health or personal reasons.

I do some work at the kosher chicken slaughterhouse in Toronto, where they use only free-range, barn-raised, and grain-fed chickens. In my experience, the quality of poultry coming out of that plant is amongst the best available. I consider myself privileged to eat chicken from there.

Kosher-certification organizations say kosher meat is a healthier alternative than non-kosher certified meat (stricter standards than the USDA,

Photo provided by Shimon Ochs

The very fact that all ingredients are checked over, and monitored, helps ensure that what I eat is actually what I am told I am eating.

If keeping kosher can provide healthier eating alternatives, should more people, beyond observant Jews, also keep kosher?

It would be hard to encourage others to buy kosher foods—with the higher costs associated with it and the limits to its availability. presentense.org/magazine here & now

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egan, vegetarian, gluten-free, kosher, restrictive diets—all prevent their followers from partaking indiscriminately of the gastronomical wonderland of the culinary arts. But what if following a kosher regimen was much more than just what your rabbi said you couldn’t eat? What if the principles and concepts behind kosher food were to make one healthier and live longer? PT sat down with two young professionals in the Jewish world to hear their take on what kosher food is really about.

Matthew Ackerman Matthew Ackerman is a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary and an editor for PresenTense.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “kosher”?

Do you believe kashrut has become more or less relevant over time?

The word “kosher” has taken on a meaning outside its religious significance in contemporary American culture to mean, simply, acceptable. For example, a partisan could ask, regarding a candidate, “Is she kosher?”—and he wouldn’t want to know if he could eat her. That’s the first meaning that comes to mind, for me.

I think its relevance is the same today as it has always been.

What is the relevance of kashrut?

Kashrut is relevant primarily as a principle aspect of the code of conduct that governs life for an observant Jew. It also creates a clear separation between Jews and non-Jews in governing with whom, and under what circumstances, one may engage in the most basic of social tasks: eating.

Do you believe the Bible had health related insights beyond its time in declaring certain foods kosher and others non-kosher based on certain anatomical criteria? For instance, pigs are not kosher and are now known to cause trichinosis?

No. The Bible doesn’t single out pigs as animals not to be eaten. It proscribes animals without cleft hooves who don’t chew their cud. This includes many animals besides pigs, like horses. I think the argument that kashrut has a basis in health is an exercise in apologetics. By that I mean it’s not about Judaism itself, but about how Jews want non-Jews to think about Judaism. Ultimately, Judaism’s best argument for itself is Judaism, even— maybe especially—when it conflicts with non-Jewish conceptions of value.

If there were a mad cow disease outbreak or similar meat or poultry health scare, do you think people would be more inclined to choose kosher meat and poultry?

I don’t think it would affect my decision.

Photo provided by Matthew Ackerman

Kosher certification organizations say kosher meat is a healthier alternative than non-kosher certified meat (stricter standards than the USDA, greater quality control, internal organ inspection, salting, etc.). What is your take on this assertion?

internal organs or salting really make a difference in the quality of meat? I don’t know—could be.

Judaism wants to touch our core, so it reaches also to our stomachs.

What is your understanding of why Judaism regulates its eating habits?

It makes sense that Judaism would regulate eating, as Judaism seeks to regulate many aspects of daily life. Since eating is such a central part of daily routine, it is only natural that Judaism would include it within its sphere of practice. Eating is also, in the most pressing way possible, elemental to our existence. Judaism wants to touch our core, so it reaches also to our stomachs.

(This is to say nothing about the idea that sustenance is provided by God.) If health factors are not the reason for kashrut, then what are?

Jewish practice is about living the best possible life, from the belief that Jewish law was given by God to show us how to live that life. Certain laws appear to be rational—laws that people could have come to understand without God’s help, such as the prohibition of murder. Other aspects do not appear to be rational, like kashrut. But the Jewish assertion is that the totality of Jewish law, of which kashrut is a fundamental part, directs life toward divine perfection—and that is the best way a Jew can live.

Josh Whisler is a freelance writer living in Washington, DC, and is the

It seems to have some merit, but it is based on claims I can’t judge. Does inspecting here & now presentense.org/magazine

author of the Iranian Track blog (www.iraniantrack.blogspot.com). issue seven 2009

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jewish food a-z a smorgasbord for the hungry jewish soul

Apple Dipped in honey on Rosh Hashanah to guarantee a sweet new year. In the words of Moishe Oofnik, Shalom Sesame's resident grouch, we can also dip it in peanut butter, so that the new year will stick to the roof of our mouths. Adam and Eve noshed on apples in the garden of eatin' (or maybe it wasn't apples, not clear).

Bagel While there’s no evidence that the Jews invented bagels, we’ve certainly commandeered them and made them Jewish (much like we did to Hollywood).

Cholent Cholent refers to anything that cooks for 18-20 hours and still tastes delicious. The product of Jewish creativity when confronted with the challenge of serving a hot meal while prohibited from cooking on Shabbat, cholent recipes themselves have been simmering for centuries. Modern cholent aficionados brave new frontiers through experimentation with vegetarian variants and the use of ketchup, beer, and/or hot sauce. One folk etymology derives cholent from the Hebrew "she'lan," "that rested," thought to refer to the old-time practice of putting cholent pots to rest overnight in a communal baker's oven—- but it actually refers to the coma-inducing quality of cholent, which makes it impossible to do anything but rest after ingesting it.

Eggs The round shape of an egg represents the circle of life. Thus, eggs are eaten in a house of mourning and other situations where we are to be reminded of our mortality. Because Jews aren't particularly known for their optimism, no one has yet associated eggs with more lighthearted subjects, like fertility.

The lazy college student's alternative to fine Shabbat cooking: wrap a bunch of deli in puff pastry, bake, and serve. Deli roll goes fast!

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Imitation Crab To adapt a line from Jerry Seinfeld: Some scientists find a suitable alternative to crab, others cure cancer.

Jah'nun Falafel Falafel has become the ugly sibling in those breathless discussions about amazing Israeli cuisine. In the wake of Palestinians and Lebanese accusations of the Zionist Entity of cultural theft, are there reasons yet to consider falafel an Israeli food? The falafel ball, like the sabra fruit, physically manifests Israeli characteristics: hard and crunchy on the outside, soft and flavorful on the inside. As a fast food, falafel also represents another facet of life in Israel: things in Israel can change in an instant. Wouldn’t you rather be eating something you can finish quickly?

Gefilte Fish Of the Eastern European genus, gefilte fish comes in many varieties, including Hungarian, Israeli, frozen, and jarred. Jews can be very discerning about their gefilte fish. As the old Jewish joke goes, how can you tell the gefilte fish from the other fish in the sea? The gefilte is the one with a slice of carrot on its back.

Hydrox Deli Roll

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No one can deny the cataclysmic shift the American kosher world faced when the Oreo went kosher, all but ushering an early end to the Hydrox. Most people don't know, however, that Hydrox predates the Oreo by a few years.

For the traditional sandwich cookie purists, Hydrox were reintroduced this year to win back the Jewish vote, so to speak.

A heavy (really heavy) Yemenite dish, which has been adopted by Israel's mainstream and now comes in the pizza form or frozen from the supermarket. Often eaten by Jewish Yemenite families on Shabbat morning with crushed tomatoes and a boiled egg, what feels like a few pounds of layered dough sits in your stomach like a bowling ball, but for good reason—it kept the Yemenite Jews going for days at a time in tough conditions.

Kiddush We would be remiss to discuss the Jewish culinary world without mentioning that highly unique Jewish food experience: the shul kiddush. Referring to the spread of cakesand if you're lucky, kugels and cholent—at synagogue after Shabbat services, kiddushes are prone to great variation. Discerning kiddush-hoppers always know where there'll be a bar mitzvah in town—with an elaborate kiddush to follow.

Latkes A party to the famed Latke-Hamantash Debate, first initiated at the University of Chicago in 1946 and held annually at various academic institutions ever since in an effort to determine the superior Jewish holiday snack. At press time, the issue remained inconclusive, though Alan Dershowitz, Hanna Gray, and Milton Friedman have all contributed convincing arguments. presentense.org/magazine here & now

Manischewitz Manischewitz A Astaple stapleofofkiddush kiddushtables tablessince sincebiblical biblicaltimes, times, this thispurveyor purveyorofofsyrupy-sweet syrupy-sweetred redpseudo-wine pseudo-wine has hasbecome becomesynonymous synonymouswith withJewish Jewishalcohol alcohol consumpion consumpiondespite despiteitsitsnotoriously notoriouslylow lowalcohol alcohol content, content,itsitsquestionable questionableflavor, flavor,and andthe the existence existenceofofaward-winning award-winningIsraeli Israeliwines. wines.

Non-Dairy Non-Dairy Substitutes Substitutes Parve Parvedesserts desserts(those (thosecontaining containingnonomeat meat orordairy dairyproducts) products)are area alittle littlehit-or-miss—as hit-or-miss—as anyone anyonewho's who'sencountered encounteredthe theabsolutely absolutely disgusting, disgusting,dry, dry,and andPassover-tasting Passover-tastingvariety variety can canattest. attest.Recent Recentheadway headwayininthe thescience science ofofnon-dairy non-dairysubstitutes substitutesincludes includesthe theadvent advent ofofTofutti, Tofutti,convincingly convincinglymarketed marketednot notsimply simply asas"cream "creamcheese" cheese"but but"better "betterthan thancream cream cheese." cheese."A Acounter-movement counter-movementprotests: protests:"If"If you youcan't can'thave havethe thereal realthing, thing,why whyeat eat chemicals chemicalsinstead?" instead?"Others Otherssay, say,"Shh, "Shh,it it tastes tastesgood." good."

Orange Orange The Theiconic iconicfruit fruitofofthe theJewish Jewishstate, state,also also known—somewhat known—somewhatless-commonly—as less-commonly—as the theShamouti Shamoutiorange. orange.AsAsany anyill-informed ill-informed Diaspora DiasporaJew Jewknows, knows,Israel Israelisiscovered coveredinin nothing nothingbut butsand, sand,bunkers, bunkers,archaeologiarchaeological calsites, sites,and andorange orangegroves. groves.IncidenIncidentally, tally,the thefruit fruitthat thatisissosooften oftenassociated associated with withJewish Jewishlabor laborand andthe the"New "NewJew" Jew"isis now nowmost mostcommonly commonlyharvested harvestedbybyThai Thai foreign foreignworkers. workers.Go Gofigure. figure.

Pomelos Pomelos for forPeace Peace Located Locatedononthe theJordanian Jordanianborder, border,Kibbutz Kibbutz Yahel Yaheloffers offers"pomelos "pomelosfor forpeace." peace."

Jordanians Jordanianscross crossthe theborder bordertotocollect collectthe the overgrown-grapefruit-size overgrown-grapefruit-sizefruits, fruits,resulting resulting inina apeaceful, peaceful,and andfruitful, fruitful,relationship. relationship.

Interested Interestedininfostering fosteringpomelo-related pomelo-related peace? peace?With WithKibbutz KibbutzLotan's Lotan's"Pomelos "PomelosFor For Peace" Peace"program, program,you youcan can"rent" "rent"a apomelo pomelo tree treeononthe theIsraeli-Jordanian Israeli-Jordanianborder, border,and and the thekibbutz kibbutzwill willsend sendyou youyour yourvery veryown own crate crateofofpomelos. pomelos.

Quinoa Quinoa Helping Helpingvegetarians vegetarianssurvive survivePesach, Pesach,year yearafter after year. year.True Truetotoform, form,some someconservative conservativerabbis rabbis have havestarted startedquestioning questioningwhether whetherquinoa quinoashould should bebekitniyot kitniyot(and (andtherefore thereforeoff-limits off-limitstotoAshkenazic Ashkenazic Jews) Jews)ororflat-out flat-outhametz hametz(and (andtherefore thereforeoff-limits off-limits totoeveryone), everyone),but butfor fornow nowit's it'sthe thenewest newestaddition addition totothe thePassover Passovermenu. menu.

Rugelach Rugelach Too Toomuch muchdelectable delectableIsraeli Israelifood, food,too toolittle littletime? time?

AtAta abakery bakeryininJerusalem Jerusalemnear nearMahane MahaneYehuda Yehuda called calledMarzipan, Marzipan,you youcan canbuy buyrugelach rugelachpacked packedinin a aStyrofoam Styrofoambox, box,ready readytototake takeonona aplane planeback back totowherever whereveryou youcame camefrom. from.

Sushi Sushi It Itisisdifficult difficulttotodetermine determinethe theorigin originofofthe the Jewish Jewishobsession obsessionwith withsushi. sushi.Any Anykosher kosher restaurant restaurantininBrooklyn Brooklynthat thatdoes doesnot notserve servesushi sushi will willnot notstay stayininbusiness businesslong—or long—oratatleast leastthat's that's the thecurrent currenttheory. theory.The Therestaurant's restaurant'sbilled billedfood food style styleisisirrelevant: irrelevant:sushi sushiisisa abasic basicstaple staplefor for dairy dairyrestaurants, restaurants,Italian Italianrestaurants, restaurants,and andIsraeli Israeli restaurants restaurantsalike. alike.Can't Can'tsee seethe theconnection? connection?

Then Thenyou youprobably probablyhaven't haven'theard heardofofshawarma shawarma sushi—the sushi—theultimate ultimateininfusion fusioncuisine. cuisine.

Varnishkes Varnishkes Kasha Kashaand andVarnishkes Varnishkesmay maybebeone oneofof the themost mostenjoyable enjoyabledishes dishesfrom fromold old world worldEurope.

Europe.But Butdid didour ourancestors ancestors ininEurope Europereally reallycook cookwith withbowtie bowtie shaped shapedpasta? pasta?

Wine Wine When Whenwe're we'rereally reallylucky luckywe weget gettotohave have more morethan thanone onecup, cup,like likeononPurim Purimand and Passover.

Passover.AsAsthe the"Doodle "DoodleFamily Family Haggadah" Haggadah"says, says,we weshould've should'vegiven given the theEgyptians Egyptiansfour fourplagues plaguesand andgiven given ourselves ourselvesten tencups cupsofofwine. wine.

Xmas Xmas Cookies Cookies Pillsbury Pillsburycookie cookiedough doughrolls, rolls,while while generally generallynot notkosher, kosher,have havehekhshers hekhshers ononChristmas, Christmas,Halloween, Halloween,and andEaster Easter editions. editions.Freeze Freezetotoprepare preparePurim Purim hamantaschen, hamantaschen,ororbake bakeasasthe theperfect perfect compliment complimenttotoChristmas Christmaslolomein. mein.

Yaprak Yaprak Dolma Dolma Turkey Turkey Israel Israelhas hasthe thehighest highestconsumption consumptionofofturkey turkey ininthe theworld—34.6 world—34.6pounds poundsper peryear yearper per person, person,according accordingtotoNational NationalGeographic Geographicinin 2007.

2007.Americans Americansmay mayhave havetheir theirThanksgiv Thanksgiv- ing, ing,but butwhy whysquare squareoff offany anyspecial specialday dayfor for turkey turkeywhen whenyou youcan caneat eatschwarma, schwarma,turkey turkey kabobs, kabobs,and andturkey turkeyschnitzel schnitzelallallyear yearround? round?

The TheOttoman OttomanEmpire Empiremay mayhave havefallen fallen long longago, ago,but butSephardim Sephardimstubbornly stubbornly continue continuetotoprepare preparethese thesestuffed stuffed grape grapeleaves. leaves.AnAnacquired acquiredtaste? taste?

Z’hug Z’hug UU A Acircled circled"U" "U"isisthe thehecksher hecksherororsign signused usedbyby the theOrthodox OrthodoxUnion Uniontotoindicate indicatethat thatthe thefood food isiskosher. kosher.There Thereare aremany manyother otherheckshers heckshersinin use usetoday, today,but butthe theOrthodox OrthodoxUnion Unionisis considered consideredtotobebethe themost moststrict. strict.But, But,asas bubbe bubbeused usedtotosay, say,everything everythingisisrelative. relative.

InIntiny tinyjars, jars,ininevery everystore storeininIsrael, Israel, there thereisisthis thissort sortofof"essence." "essence."It Itgoes goes on/in on/ineverything everythingand andtransforms transformsthe the taste tasteexperience. experience.Carefully Carefullyguarded guarded secret secretrecipes recipesleave leavetasters tastersguessing: guessing: heady headygarlic, garlic,a acool cooltap tapofofcilantro, cilantro, roasted roastedpeppers, peppers,perhaps perhapsa asting stingofof jalapeno? jalapeno?There Thereare arethose thosewho whofeel feel trapped trappedininIsrael—where Israel—whereelse elsecould could they theyget gettheir theirz'hug? z'hug?

What’s in your Jewish Food A-Z? Visit www.presentense.org/food to cook up your own recipe.

Graphics by Laura Solomon. here & now presentense.org/magazine

issue seven 2009

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israelis in india rites and wrongs of passage

T

his past summer, eight years after making aliyah, I decided to prove I was truly Israeli—by traveling to the Subcontinent.

Approximately 50,000 Israelis travel to India every year, and I met hundreds of compatriots as I trekked through Ladakh in the north and made my way across the alpine region of Himachal Pradesh and the Ganges River basin towards Delhi. In some towns, the Israeli presence was so pervasive that nearly every storefront sported a handpainted sign in Hebrew, and the shopkeepers called out to me in bits of Israeli slang they had picked up from their customers. My travel partner noted that one heard more Hebrew on the streets of Leh than on certain streets in the heart of Jerusalem.

Even the recent terror attacks in Mumbai, which targeted a Chabad House (among other tourist locales) and claimed six Israeli lives (and nearly 200 others), seem unlikely to stem this tide. Two weeks after

Chai Masala (Indian Spiced Milk Tea) serves 5

5 tsp of sugar (or sweeter) Add all ingredients except the milk.

Bring to a boil, and add the milk.

Continue boiling for about a minute.

Strain the tea into cups. You can experiment with the spices to taste!

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recipe

3 1/3 cup water 3 1/3 cup milk 5 tsp black or Darjeeling tea leaves 1 1/4 inch piece of ginger, crushed 5 cardamon pods, crushed 10 whole black peppercorns, crushed 1 1/4 cinnamon sticks 5 cloves

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rachel furst

the siege, the Hebrew University branch of the Israeli travel agency Issta reported not a single cancellation or aborted trip to India.

As one recent backpacker told me, “Israelis will always say: the danger of blowing up is greater in Tel Aviv.”

But Israelis are not always as welcome in India as they themselves may feel. Known for traveling in large packs, partying excessively, bargaining aggressively, and occasionally behaving in destructive ways, their lessthan-positive reputation leaves their hosts in a conundrum. Villages such as Bhagsu near Dharamsala, which was the subject of the 2007 Israeli documentary “Hummus Curry,” depend on the annual influx of Israeli tourists for much of their livelihood.

Yet in spite of the income that Israelis represent, some hotel and restaurant owners have become so fed up with their offenses— disturbing other customers, refusing to pay for food ordered, getting into fights—that they categorically reject their patronage.

Certainly, not all Israeli visitors behave badly. Eli and Anat Shvadron—a middle-aged couple from Jerusalem with whom I shared a harrowing three-day jeep ride in the Himalayas—traveled to India for the second time in two years in order to volunteer at an elementary school in a remote Ladakhi village. After watching an Israeli television feature that highlighted the Buddhist-run institution, the Shvadrons, both artists, contacted the administration, offering to share their expertise in art therapy and education. Several months later, they headed to Shey and spent two weeks working and touring the area with the students and their teachers.

But anthropologist Darya Maoz of Ben Gurion and Hebrew Universities, who has been studying the Israeli backpacking phenomenon for more than a decade, warns that stereotypes can be hard to overcome.

Noting that negative perceptions run in both directions—a phenomenon she has coined “the mutual gaze”—Maoz observes that even individual interactions between Israelis and Indians, which present a more multi-faceted reality, do little to dispel the preconceptions. Most Israelis tourists, who are in their 20s or 30s, travel in search of either freedom and fun or spirituality and self-knowledge; but

whether they are disgusted by India’s heat and grime or enamored of Indian clothing and cuisine, the backpackers often exhibit neo-colonialist attitudes towards the local population, treating their hosts with either disdain or romantic idealization. On their part, Indian hosts are saddled with an impression of Israelis as rude, aggressive, shallow, and easy to deceive, desperate for quick spiritual fixes without understanding or commitment. Many locals tolerate rude and offensive behavior in order to avert hostility, or because they need the money,

Vignettes of Jewish life in India. Clockwise from top left: Photos by Rachel Furst, Yaniv Nahoum, Koshy Sahab, Daniel Ersdel.

but they manage to provide services while maintaining a tight zone of privacy.

Bradley Cohen, a Jerusalem-based PresenTense fellow who has spent six years living throughout Asia, believes positive interactions between Israelis and Indians are the key to alleviating current tensions. In the coming months, he plans to launch All for the Kids, a program that will recruit Israeli backpackers for 10-day volunteer courses aimed at promoting cultural sensitivity while contributing to local communities.

Participants will sign up for the program much in the way they might join a meditation retreat or a yoga seminar, two popular backpacker pastimes. Ultimately, Cohen hopes that his program will inspire participants to explore further connections between Judaism and social justice, both abroad and at home.

Rachel Furst is a Jerusalem-based Talmud teacher, doctoral candidate, and travel enthusiast who discovered that her Israeli identity was more transparent in India than in Israel itself. presentense.org/magazine around the world

roaming rome viva israele

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elina korshukin

Order Jewish fried artichokes at this kosher taverno in the Jewish ghetto in Rome. Photo by Mike Simons.

is distributed to accommodate the community’s needs—synagogue repair, for example. In a country where you are different just by being a Jew, all Jews are valued and included.

As a tour guide told me, il ghetto Ebraico was built on the banks of the Tiber River (forcing Jews to live in the part of the city that most often flooded).

Today it is flanked by breathtaking ruins, piazzas, and fountains. The neighborhood’s main street is lined with Jewish-owned restaurants, both kosher and non-kosher, serving up some of Rome’s best food—and for the capital of a country that’s nothing short of gastronomic heaven, that’s saying a lot!

A large Israeli flag greets visitors to one of my favorite spots, Pasticceria Ebraica Boccione, where an Italian Jewish bubbe serves up delicious torta di ricotta. Just down the block is the local pizzeria with the words “Viva Israele” graffitied on its wall. The main synagogue, which celebrated its centennial in 2004, stands at the end of the street. Entering this stunning building is well worth wading through the heavy security, provided by the Italian police ever since an attack on the synagogue in the 1980s left a toddler dead. The ceiling of the main sanctuary is painted with bright-gold stars and could be the Jewish answer to the Sistine Chapel.

Under the real stars outside, life beats on. In the evenings, the ghetto streets are overrun with soccer-playing boys and happily-observing grandparents. And this ancient place becomes awakened with the fresh noises of life.

Jewish-Style Fried Artichokes 6 to 8 servings Juice of 1 lemon 6 to 8 small artichokes Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste Olive or vegetable oil Water 1. Add the lemon juice to a bowl of cold water. Cut off about 1 inch from the top of each artichoke. Remove the loose, tough outer leaves around the bottom. Scoop out the choke, leaving the leaves and heart intact. Trim the dark green exterior from the bottom and stem, leaving the stem intact.

Place the artichoke in the lemon water to prevent discoloration.

2. Holding each artichoke by the stem, place top side down on a flat surface, and press to loosen the leaves without breaking. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Heat at least 1 1/2 inches of oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Working in batches, add the artichokes and fry, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 20 minutes. During frying, occasionally moisten the tops of the artichokes with cold water, producing steam that helps to cook the interior.

recipe

O

nly a few miles away from the Vatican and poignantly close to the Arch of Titus, the monument to the defeat and enslavement of the Jews of Jerusalem, is the center of Rome’s Jewish community, “il ghetto Ebraico,” the Jewish ghetto. Before I first visited the neighborhood, I braced myself for the sadness that accompanies an encounter with the empty shells of Europe’s once-thriving Jewish community. Instead, I found a lively community that prides itself on its gorgeous Sephardic-style synagogue, revels in the deliciousness of Roman Jewish cuisine, enriches its children with a Jewish education, and partakes in the Italian art of living life simply and to the fullest.

One day, as I was admiring the beauty of the worn-out buildings and ancient streets, I heard the sounds of children.

I approached to find a Jewish school full of bubbly children selling books titled “Rome—A Jewish Community since… over 2,000 years.” The children proudly explained that this book of their own colorful drawings told the story of their community from the times of the ancient republic all the way to today. I was moved by this effort toward continuity and connection told through the voices of living children instead of via faint historical whispers. Given Italy’s ethnic and religious homogeneity, the temptation to assimilate must be high. I found the enthusiasm of these children for their Jewishness reassuring.

The Roman Jewish community is also strongly unified. This small community of approximately 15,000 Jews is not concerned with the delineations of Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox.

All Jewish Romans are seen as equal participants in one community. Those who choose to affiliate pay a sum that

4. Drain the artichokes on paper towels.

Place on a plate, top side down, and let stand for at least 1 hour.

5. Reheat the oil. Holding each artichoke by the stem, dip into the oil, pressing the leaves against the bottom of the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Adapted from The World of Jewish Cooking,

by Gil Marks

Elina Korshukin was born in Azerbaijan, grew up in Texas, now lives in New York City, and has a special place in her heart for Rome.

around the world presentense.org/magazine

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The author picnics in front of the Eiffel Tower. Photo by Anne Ellyse Kania.

In a Passover gathering of both Eastern European Ashkenazi and Moroccan Sephardic Jews, how do you choose a Charoset recipe that satisfies everyone?

Answer: Combine them!

The AshkeSephardic Charoset 8-10 finely chopped apples, skin on A package of date paste—this can be hard to find, but it’s usually available at this time of year in the baking section or at a cheese shop. If unable to find the paste, soft dates or chopped dates work too.

1/4 cup finely chopped figs 1/2 cup of sweet wine, or more to taste 1/4 tsp ground clove 1/4 tsp cinnamon 1/4 cup chopped nuts: walnuts, pecans, or cashews (or all three!)

Honey

recipe

Mix the date paste and figs with the sweet wine. You will need more wine if using chopped or whole dates. Add ground clove and / or cinnamon. Cook over low heat until you get a rough paste.

Let it cool and mix in 1 cup of chopped nuts, preferably toasted. Combine in large mixing bowl with apples and add honey to taste.

A parisian passover a celebration of strangers in a strange land

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eleanor kagan

“H

ow do you say ‘matzah’ in French?” Sarah asked me.

“It’s ‘matzah,’ but in a French accent, the emphasis on the last syllable like ‘mat-ZAH’.”

“Thanks,” she said and ran off down the supermarché’s single aisle

of Jewish food.

We were preparing to celebrate Passover during our semester abroad in Paris. The French call it “Pâque Juive,” which literally translates to “Jewish Easter.” It was our first Passover away from our families, and we’d only lived there for three months. Between demanding internships, schoolwork, and our constant fascination with the city, the two of us somehow were given the afternoon off to plan a Seder for all of our friends. We readily accepted the challenge of blending our new French lifestyle with our old Jewish traditions.

I never realized how much work a Seder involved until we tried to plan our own in a foreign country. Asking for the day off from my internship became a history lesson lost in translation. My maître de stage didn’t quite understand why I needed to leave; of the six people who worked with me, I was the only Jew. I tried explaining Passover. “It celebrates the story of how Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt. It also welcomes springtime.” I said “Passover” in a French accent and tried describing the Angel of Death passing over the houses of the Jews during the 10 plagues. They looked at me blankly, most likely because I mixed up the word for ‘plague’ with the word for ‘joke.’

How could I explain to my boss that the afternoon hours would be easier if there were three of me? The neighborhoods of Paris, called arrondissements, lay in a spiral, a mathematical arrangement that had me twisting and backtracking in a way only possible in Europe. I had to make it somehow from the outskirts of the 16th arrondissement all the way to the Marais in the 3rd, then to the grocery store in the 7th, and back to the 15th in time to start cooking dinner.

One thing was certain: we needed lots of kosher wine.

Completing the Seder plate was like a scavenger hunt. How do I roast an egg correctly?

I watched my mother do it every year when I was a kid, as I diligently ground salt into bowls of water. I delighted in the relatively easy tasks that were all mine, culminating in my proud recitation of the Four Questions.

Now that it was my turn, the task seemed daunting. There were no 24-hour Target-sized grocery stores in Paris; everything was small and locally owned, closing at the first sign of dusk as families sat down for dinner. The outdoor markets boasted the freshest local produce but were usually picked over by the time I left my job. We scoured three grocery stores before finding a box of matzah ball mix. Are all the boucheries closed already? We need a lamb shank!

Once we started cooking, however, all the day’s worries melted away like fat off the chicken that sat stewing in a giant pot on the stove. Sarah made her family’s famous Hungarian chicken soup with aromas so delightful that passersby stopped to catch a whiff of the air in front of our open window. Our friends slathered creamy chopped liver from a small deli in the Marais on crunchy matzah as I hand-rolled dough into lopsided matzah balls. I had even found Kosher for Passover gum.

Shulchan Orech (the meal) being everyone’s favorite part, we arranged our Seder to match the geography of Paris: starting in the middle and working our way out. Telling the story of Passover in half-French, half-English, or “Franglais,” eight of us gathered in a cozy Parisian flat and spoke of what it meant to be strangers in a foreign land. Our Seder plate overflowed with the symbols of our celebration: hefty spoonfuls of charoset, bright bitter herbs, leafy karpas, a perfectly-browned egg and a kosher lamb shank, all glowing triumphantly from my laptop in the center of the table. That image became iconic in my memory of my first Passover on my own, with a stomach full of sweet charoset and pure joie de vivre in the air.

Eleanor Kagan is a freelance writer and graduate of Boston University, where she studied film and television. Contrary to popular belief, this major does not enable her to repair your television.

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presentense.org/magazine around the world

who's hungry? we won: let's eat

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benji lovitt

Photo by Mark Anbinder

L

oosen up that belt buckle, because this is the food issue. Or haven’t you heard?

Apparently the Jewish people have a long and beautiful relationship with food. In other news, the sun rises in the east. Somewhere between King David and the Upper West Side, some wise Jew decided that if we’re going to suffer through generations of persecution, we might as well enjoy ourselves along the way. Whether residing in America or Israel, make no mistake, we Jews love our ritualistic foods.

Take Hanukkah, for instance—a holiday rich with tradition and delicious delicacies.

What’s a game of dreidel without sweet chocolate gelt? (Gambling for play money: now there’s a great lesson for the kids.) And those without a sweet tooth can enjoy latkes, potato pancakes deep-fried in oil and smothered with sour cream. The real miracle of Hanukkah is that any HMO would agree to insure these people. I’ll have mine with apple sauce, thanks.

After eight crazy nights behind us, it’s only a few months from Passover, a holiday with some baffling elements. The grocery stores always have the special section of “kosher for Passover” food set up on the side of the store, quarantined so it doesn’t infect the good food. And what in the world is the purpose of the boxes of unleavened bread which read “Matzah: Not Kosher for Passover”? Who in God’s name is eating that? That’s like finding medicine at the pharmacist that says “Insulin: Not Suitable for Diabetics.”

For every culinary abstention, it seems, we Jews have allotted for an equal and opposite indulgence. On Shavuot, we commemorate God giving us the Torah at Mt. Sinai by eating cheesecake. Who started this brilliant custom? Studies have shown that a high incidence of lactose intolerance exists among both North American and Israeli Jews. So dig in...and try to avoid long car rides.

While Jewish foods are to be appreciated, the manners employed around the world presentense.org/magazine

while eating are no less important.

Israelis love one thing more than food, and that’s wishing someone else a good eating experience. Sadly, English has no equivalent for the Hebrew “b’tayavon,” which means “good appetite.” When an Israeli sees someone eating, they instinctively drop everything and say “b’tayavon.” Like birds flying south for the winter, this is completely involuntary.

I imagine some guy from the Mossad interrogating a suspect during lunch: “Geev me deh information. GEEV ME DEH INFORMATION!....(sees coworker out of corner of eye, smiles)…what eez that, shnitzel? B’tayavon, achi! (looks back) “GEEV IT TO ME!!!!!!!”

Israelis have reason for good appetite.

Like Israel’s populace, its cuisine is a veritable melting pot of delicious delights.

With immigrants flooding in over the last 100 years from Europe, Arab nations, and around the world, there is no shortage of new and succulent foods for the adventurous eater to try. Israel and the Mediterranean nations are known for their healthy diet, juicy and exotic fruits and vegetables packed with taste, cheeses such as labane or bulgarit, and seasoned meats. My Israeli friend Eitan marvels at the American breakfast found at IHOP: “I never understood the combination of bacon and pancakes! Salty and sweet together?

That’s like putting whipped cream on your hamburger!” Don’t give us any ideas, my healthy friend. Necessity is the mother of Cool Whip.

While I like my Jewish foods, and appreciate the customs from which they sprang, it’s just a shame our ancestors in bondage had to be baking bread before they hurried out of Egypt. If they were cooking fish, we’d now be spending eight days eating sushi.

Horseradish? Pass the wasabi! B’tayavon!

Join Drisha’s Learning Community See for yourself why the Slingshot resource guide cited Drisha for innovation and impact in Jewish adult learning.

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212.595.0307 inquiry@drisha.org www.drisha.org

When Benji Lovitt isn’t planning youth trips to Israel, he makes his fellow Jews laugh through his writing and stand-up comedy. You can read about his hilarious immigrant antics at www.whatwarzone.com or www.benjilovitt.com. issue seven 2009

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pitch an idea mooshy: balancing morals and morsels

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aaron potek

Have an idea for a new project or initiative that can change the Jewish world for the better? Pitch it to us here at PresenTense in 600 words, and we’ll share your idea with the world. Email us at pitch @presentense.org.

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he tension is so thick, you can cut it with a steak knife. On the one hand, meat contains many unhealthy chemicals, its mass consumption significantly contributes to global warming, and its production is associated with terrible cases of abuse of both animals and workers.

On the other hand, meat is really delicious.

Traditional Jewish practice requires Jews to be conscious of what we eat.

The Torah pushes us to hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard, a challenge which has clear implications for the current meat market. But what would we do at a Shabbat dinner without chicken or at a Passover Seder without brisket?

Some Jews have weighed the scales and decided vegetarianism is a more moral option. But while that may be an ideal state for the future—Rav Kook once wrote that we’ll all be vegetarians after our Final Redemption—for many, that solution seems to be beside the point. After all, being Jewish is about working toward achieving the proper balance in all aspects of life, elevating what has the potential to debase, and creating a paradigm by which others can measure their own behavior.

For this reason, I think all Jews should eat meat according to a simple code: MOOSHY, or Meat On Only Shabbat, Happy Occasions, and Yom Tov. The idea behind it is simple: limit the amount of meat you eat, and sanctify the meat you do eat.

Beyond various ethical reasons for reducing meat consumption, it’s clear that Jews were once more connected to animals and viewed meat more as a luxury than they do now. This doesn’t mean that a person shouldn’t eat meat at all. Rather, we should heighten our awareness in order to ensure that meat is consumed in a holy way. Given the proper situation, eating meat is actually encouraged. This idea is reflected in the

Talmudic idea of ein simcha elah bebasar (there’s no happiness without meat).

That is why we are encouraged to eat meat at festive occasions, like Shabbat, holidays, and weddings.

Beyond any logical or financial arguments for reducing meat consumption, I find this approach extremely meaningful and fulfilling in my daily life. Since adopting this practice over a year ago, I have a greater appreciation both for the meat I eat and for the festive days on which I eat it. Specifically with regard to Shabbat, when all the restrictions seem at times overbearing, having something to contribute to oneg Shabbat (the delight of Shabbat) brings a new dimension to the spirituality of the day. It also helps me find a balance between the commandment to control the world and the importance of appreciating it and all of God’s creations.

Still, this cause doesn’t stop with the individual. MOOSHY is more than an approach to a more rewarding eating practice. As a movement, we hope to advocate for ethical treatment of animals as well as to provide resources for ways to purchase kosher meat prepared in an ethical manner.

The more people that sign on, the stronger the statement against overconsumption of meat. It could even lead to a diversification of production through smaller companies with potentially more humane facilities.

This would in turn allow us to feel even better about the meat that we do eat.

Declining to eat meat on most days won’t solve the world’s food problems.

But with the help of a growing number of passionate and compassionate Jews, we can begin to improve our world and act in a way I believe God intended.

Aaron Potek is the founder of MOOSHY and a full-time student at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem.

He can be reached at adpotek@gmail.com.

Photo by Sara Saalwaechter

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a friend in knead

LOL’Chaim

challah for hunger

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rachel hamburg

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The atrocities of the genocide in Darfur are painful and frustrating to confront. I’ve seen the photographs of starving children, read the accounts of rape, and watched helplessly as the death count grows. How do we combat such hate? Cure hunger? Stop wars? When I make challah each week, I do not find definitive answers to these questions, but, as I work with the members of my challah team, I find a renewed faith in the power of community action.

Rachel Hamburg is the volunteer Challah for Hunger coordinator at Pomona College.

Challah for Hunger sells challah on college campuses to raise awareness of the crisis in Sudan and the refugees displaced by genocide there. Challah for Hunger was started at Scipps College in Claremont, California in 2004 by Eli Winkelman, who developed the idea as a PresenTense Fellow. Challah for Hunger now boasts 15 chapters around the country and is a new program of Hazon. Each chapter donates half of its profits from challah sales to the national cause, currently the American Jewish World Service’s Sudan Relief and Advocacy Fund. The other half of its profits go to an organization of the chapter’s choosing. So far this semester, challah sales have brought in more than $15,000.

For more information on Challah for Hunger and its challah recipe, visit: www.presentense.org/food. ideas & innovation presentense.org/magazine

Photo by Yehoshua Halevi/Golden Light Images

Winkelman baking loaves for Challah for Hunger. Photos provided by Eli Winkelman.

ver find yourself at an Israeli wine tasting wishing you could buy a case of the stuff on the spot without having to fill out any paperwork or actually lug the bottles home?

Leah Jones and Richard Shaffer hope so. They just started MyWineTxt.com, a business that puts cell-phone-toting oenophiles one text message away from a shipment of their favorite boutique wines from the Golan Heights or Judean Hills.

Taking orders during tastings was a real problem for Shaffer, who imports wines from Israel and sells them directly to customers and restaurants. At a wine event, everyone has their hands full, plus red wine can stain order sheets and filling out paperwork can be a bit of a buzz kill.

Jones and Shaffer were discussing this problem one night when Jones realized that everyone at those events carries a cell phone, so, “What if you could text the order in?”

The idea is that interested wine lovers register at the MyWineTxt site (providing proof of age, of course, plus billing and shipping information). Then they’re ready to order wine via SMS the next time they taste, say, a 2006 Flam Classico at one of Shaffer’s tastings. His Israeli Wine Direct is MyWineTxt’s first client and specializes in fine wines from small, mainly family-run wineries.

Yep, Israel produces some real deal wine—not just the sweet kosher stuff.

“The key thing to know about Israel when it comes to wine is that wine was born there,” Shaffer said. “The eastern Mediterranean has been producing wine for literally 5,000 years.” Though all of Israel’s indigenous grape varieties were lost in the seventh century, in the last 15 years a burgeoning boutique wine industry has been thriving there.

Eventually, the pair hopes to expand the text-to-drink system to other distributors. For now, Jones and Shaffer hope to make it easier for folks to buy wines from Israel.

Josh Wein is Ideas & Innovation Editor at PresenTense. He lives in Washington, DC and writes about the media industry.

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sustainability off the vine Photo by Darwin Bell

center for healthy living in tzfat

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ueled by their love of sustainable holistic living, a small team of visionaries came together in Moshe Tov Kreps’ home to create a grassroots organization dedicated to making this love a reality in Tzfat. From organizing and managing community compost to harvesting local fruit to providing recycling services with the local Breslov community, Halevav, The Center for Healthy Living in Tzfat, is striving to transform Tzfat. Their vision is a sustainable city that supports the

physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and wellness of its individuals, communities, and environment.

PresenTense spoke with Gavriel Strauss, advisor and yoga instructor at Halevav, about its “Fruits of the Season” endeavor. In this project, olive harvesting and olive oil production, as well as grape harvesting and wine-making, are turned into opportunities for the community to gather and help one another while tasting the fruits of their labor. In true social networking form, Halevav asks the community to join in the grape harvest,

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working together to gather the fruit and press it. After it has fermented, Halevav distributes the wine to the community, giving those who helped a taste of their efforts. During the olive harvest, Halevav involves local children in the gathering of the olives. After the olives are pressed, the children take the olive oil home with them.

Thus children are able to experience the food cycle with their own hands and enjoy the bounty with their families.

Laura Chizzali eats globally and buys locally.

a blintz by any other name do i know you from somewhere?

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ecently, I went to dinner at one of the Boston area’s many great restaurants, an establishment of the Turkish persuasion whose menu was truly lovely but whose overall schtick seemed, in my opinion, to comprise a fair amount of pomp and circumstance.

My dinner companion and I ordered a tasting menu, and when the server set down our penultimate delectability, he said something like: “and this is a Macomber ricotta and labne dosa alongside spicy fideos and tamarind glazed chick peas, served over green chard, black kale and orange aioli, all dusted with za’atar, blah blah blah...” (Note to the reader: I made that up, but doing so may have taken me less time that it took the server to get out the real description.)

We thanked him, and he walked away. I looked down at the item he’d left, ready to be dazzled by a variegated configuration of plant matter and dairy products like nothing I’d ever seen. But something was off, and it took me a moment to realize what.

“This is a blintz,” I said, finally.

“What?” said my dinner companion, a non-member (of—you 22

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know—the Tribe).

“This thing.” I pointed. “It’s just a blintz.”

The guy at the next table, approximately seven centimeters away, looked over.

“Whoa,” he said. “Do they have blintzes here? I didn’t see that on the menu.

I definitely would have gotten blintzes instead of this.” He gestured toward his steak, looking suddenly dubious.

And immediately, I was smiling appreciatively at him, taking mental bets on whether he was more of an ADL or AJC kind of guy, and sizing him up as a potential basherte for anyone I could think of. I didn’t happen to have a child or even a laptop computer on my person—I tend to leave my iBook and unborn children at home when I go out foodie-ing—but if I had, I’d definitely have trusted him to keep an eye on it while I went to make a phone call or some such thing.

If I’m honest with myself, I’ll admit that the cuisines of virtually all cultures include some variation on the thin-pancake-wrapped-aroundsomething-else theme, and also that the aforementioned pomp and circumstance are a big part of the restaurant

“...and this is a Macomber ricotta and labne dosa alongside spicy fideos and tamarind glazed chick peas...” commodity. (If all I wanted was a great blintz, hold the atmosphere, I’d pick up some decorative black kale and swing

by Grandma’s place.) But it was nice to be reminded for just a moment that no matter where we are or what we’re doing, Jews can always find each other through—and bond over—food.

Rachel Lieff Axelbank is a freelance writer and aspiring foodie. She lives and works in Boston. presentense.org/magazine ideas & innovation

innovative hunger solutions table to table

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able to Table’s mission is twofold: to reduce the waste of food throughout Israel, and to feed those unable to provide for

themselves.

“Western societies throw out approximately one-third of the total food produced,” explains Executive Director of Table to Table Joseph Gitler.

What should we do to offset this waste?

Table to Table has a creative solution: rescue unused but edible food and redirect it to people in need. Every week, Table to Table collects nearly 50 tons of food and distributes

it to over 100 soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and other social service centers.

Founded in 2003, Gitler realized that there was a gaping hole in the Israeli support system that provides food to those without it. He saw food being wasted and people going to bed hungry. He knew that a solution must exist. Table to Table became the perfect solution.

Gitler believes that Table to Table’s mission of rescuing food is necessary for Israeli society. He realized that rescuing healthy food from destruction “reduces the environmental impact of wasting food

and serves as a bridge between increased demand and the impact of difficult economic times.”

Table to Table will be the featured charity in the fifth annual Jerusalem Winter Ball, which raises money and support for Israeli-community based charities.

Eli Gurock is an experienced journalist, marketing manager, and political consultant.

He recently worked as an advisor on Nir Barkat’s mayoral campaign and is currently working on the 2009 Jerusalem Winter Ball.

the jewish farmer reclaiming a deep-rooted profession

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awyer? Jewish. Doctor? Jewish. Artsy non-profit social justice changer-of-the world? Jewish.

Farmer?

Well, as it turns out…also Jewish. In fact, our ancestors were intimate with farming, and their lives (and the religious tradition that grew out of them) were bound with the seasonal rhythms of growing food in ways that contemporary folks can only dream about—until they becomes farmers, at which point Jewish experience takes on a whole new (old) dimension. What does it feel like to celebrate a harvest? How are Jewish rituals a response to awe at the natural world? Since becoming a Jewish farmer, I’ve found that Jewish tradition has deep roots.

For instance: Shavuot, the holiday of first fruits.

The spring had been cold and wet. I was getting sick of the stored root crops. The potatoes, beets, and carrots from last season were still good, but getting soft. After a while, their fleshy texture got to me, and the thought of another pyrex dish of roasted root vegetables or a batch of butternut squash soup made me long for summer even more. Something fresh, please.

Something green, growing, and alive!

When you grow most of what you eat, you have to wait.

Everything comes in its time. Throughout the spring, we’d been tilling, preparing beds, and transplanting plants from the greenhouse to the field. Tiny wisps of onion, no bigger than a blade of grass, were the first to stand bravely against the dark earth. Then came kale, cabbage, beets, and chard—bright, hopeful, and new. By the end of May, I was ready for some leafy greens…maybe with a little sautéed garlic…

But at Adamah, even when the vegetables are ready, we don’t immediately dive in. Guided by the Torah’s agricultural laws, we offer up our first fruits, placing the first full-sized leaf of kale, or first ripe tomato, on the altar (a sculptural piece of driftwood we hauled out of the Hollenbeck River for this purpose). We do this all season, but when our first harvest coincided with Shavuot, I experienced the holiday in a much more visceral way. Offering your first fruits on an altar— essentially saying, “This is not mine; I do not take credit for it, and I am grateful for it”—isn’t quite as drastic as offering up your first-born child, but it really does make you pause. At the moment when we are most likely to pounce on the food on the table and take the harvest for granted, Jewish tradition asks us to pause, acknowledge the miracle, and give thanks.

This happens on a daily basis, too. The brachot (food blessings) are an everyday expression of thanks. Since I’ve begun growing vegetables, I’ve gained a clearer sense of their purpose. They are about being grateful, but on another level they are a way to translate, or even sanctify, something that is nothing short of a miracle. We work hard to grow vegetables, it’s true, but the plants do the actual growing, in a mysterious and unfathomable dance with sunlight and soil to which we are merely handmaidens. When you sit down to a meal of steaming

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fresh vegetables that you’ve watched and helped grow, you need a mechanism to express awe and gratitude in a meaningful way (yet also in a way that lets you eat the food before it gets cold!).

Jewish tradition offers a short list of blessings for before and after the meal. Sometimes we use ‘traditional’ wording; sometimes we speak from our hearts. Either way, it’s impossible to think of farming—and eating—without brachot.

And it’s impossible to think of farming without Shabbat.

For one thing, physical labor is exhausting. Even non-Jewish farmers recognize how important it is to take a day to rest. On another level, farming is like creating the world, and when your to-do list is endless, it’s comforting to remember that God created the entire world in six days and rested on the seventh, because on the seventh day, creation was perfect. On our farm too, one day a week, creation is perfect. We walk the field with “Shabbat eyes,” appreciating the beauty rather than seeing the things that need fixing. This is both a great challenge and a great blessing.

Being a farmer is humbling and inspiring. Being a Jewish farmer is even more. It’s a comforting, all-encompassing whole, where the miracles of everyday life find a mode of expression, and the rituals of spiritual practice are grounded in everyday experiences. It’s a Judaism far removed from the Hebrew schools

Being a farmer is humbling and inspiring. Being a Jewish farmer is even more so. many of us grew up in, because it is so much closer to the original.

Jewish tradition was, at least in part, a response to our ancestors’ feelings of awe at the natural world and to their realization of our tenuous hold on the earth, which is subject to the capriciousness of nature. When you’re a farmer, you actually experience these things! Farming becomes even more meaningful when I realize that as a Jewish farmer, I’ve got a vocabulary around which to frame my experience and that this is what all those holidays and prayers are actually about. One mantra of sustainable design is, “you know you’re on the right track when your solution to one problem accidentally solves several others” (Michael Corbett).

The intersection of farming and Jewish tradition does exactly this by making farming more meaningful and Jewish tradition more accessible. I can’t imagine a more “Jewish” job, or a more fulfilling way to live.

Anna Stevenson is the Farm Manager at the Adamah. Future plans include running an organic CSA farm with her family, owning a cow and a large pantry, and feeding people good food.

Photo by Rebecca Zimmerman

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ethnic foOD the power of diversity

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ronit scheyer

Yet the term ‘ethnic’, despite its seeming neutrality in today’s cosmopolitan world, was not always so harmless. As recently as the 19th century, ‘ethnic’ was used exclusively to describe anyone ‘different’—that is, different from the word’s progenitors, namely white, English-speaking Christians and Jews.

In this worldview, anyone who didn’t fit into the definition of MacDavid’s, fast food in Eilat. Photo by Brian Goldfarb. what was considered ‘normal’ was ood is more than the principle unequivocally identified as the ‘other’. source of energy for human One need only consider historical beings. It is also an enormously events such as the Inquisition, the powerful tool for building Crusades, the Holocaust, the Albanian, bridges between peoples, cultures, Rwandan, and Sudanese genocides, or, languages, and nationalities. more recently, the Mumbai attacks, to From an anthropological understand where this kind of xenophobic standpoint, the elaborate eating rituals thinking can lead in its most extreme and of humankind may be the most striking violent incarnations. differences separating humans from the While humanity’s fear of what is animal kingdom. different has caused a world of suffering I know of no animals that invest and pain, our shared love of the ritual such time and energy and take such great of food—and the food itself—has pleasure in the act of dining as their biped the power to allow us a pleasurable, counterparts. I have found no great winedelightful, and sensuous avenue to tasting encyclopedias or culinary institutes connect to cultures and peoples different run by spider monkeys, nor any dolphin from our own. nutritionists. And though he eats with How many American Jewish kids on unparalleled gusto and enthusiasm, I have their Birthright trip, for example, have never known my yellow Labrador to call his paid a visit to a Bedouin tent, complete friends and invite them over for a gourmet, with enormous platters of spiced meat, seven-course gastronomic experience. On savory rice, warm pita bread, and some of the contrary, I’m sure he wonders what on the best hummus on the planet? For many earth could possibly make me want to share kids, this will be their only contact with my food with anyone. indigenous Arab residents of the Jewish Dining, as opposed to mere feeding, state. It will be an unforgettable experience defines us as members of the human race. for many because of the lasting memory Humanity itself is rich and varied diversity of unparalleled hospitality—which would mirrored in what we eat and how we eat it. be incomplete without the experience and Defining ethnic food as ‘what connection with another culture through the other person is eating’ is a simple food and drink. explanation of what we mean when we are Food is such a powerful tool for trying to talk about anything from chili cross-cultural connection that, for rellenos to sushi. many, their primary, or perhaps one of

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their most memorable, association with another culture may be through their relationship to and memory of the food of that culture. This can be seen in such cases as Israelis’ obsession with sushi, non-Jews’ obsession with matzah ball soup and challah, and the little blue-andwhite falafel cart on the campus of my alma mater, which provides authentically tasty Israeli falafel to Jewish, Israeli, Arab, American, and overseas students.

The diversity of humanity on our increasingly globalized planet—and the myriad of nontraditional food choices it brings to our cities and neighborhoods— presents us with an opportunity. We

Defining ethnic food as ‘what the other person is eating’ is a simple explanation of what we mean when we are trying to talk about anything from chili rellenos to sushi. can challenge ourselves to refrain from seeing the world as one polarized into ‘us’ and ‘them’ and black and white, and to see it as a delightful smorgasbord of possibility, in all different colors, spices, and shades.

Ronit Scheyer is a foodie, runner, writer, and editor living in Portland, Oregon. She is currently writing, eating, and calculating her way through pre-med school. issue seven 2009

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and allegations. Across the denominational spectrum, Jews raised their voices, through editorials, petitions, and blogs, as they condemned, contextualized, or simply contemplated these events. This conversation continues to unfold, most recently in the New York Times and a student-organized event at Yeshiva University, “the Kosher Quandary.”

Jewish Groups Respond Photo provided by Hillel Smith

when kosher isn't kosher agriprocessors and the aftermath

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aaron finkelstein

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t seemed like it could get no worse for Agriprocessors, the largest kosher meat producer in America. It had survived a scandal with PETA in 2004 and an exposé

by The Forward, revealing dangerous labor practices in 2006. Finally, last May, Agriprocessors found itself in its worst quagmire yet, as America watched it become the site of the largest roundup of illegal immigrants to date, with 389 employees detained, including 24 underage workers.

Since then, the situation further deteriorated for the kosher meat producer.

After an “uneventful” summer, various verdicts and penalties came down swiftly. In September, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office filed a criminal affidavit alleging 9311 individual counts of child labor violations. In October, Iowa’s labor commission fined Agriprocessors nearly 10 million dollars in civil penalties, including more than $250,000 in back wages.

Finally, in November, Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy.

The Jewish world recognized the magnitude of the spring-time round-up 26

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The Jewish community, for all of its diversity, produced three main responses. The Reform and Conservative movements in general, and select groups within Modern Orthodoxy, censured Agriprocessors, calling for a nation-wide boycott of Agriprocessors products, immediate reform, and direct aid for those directly affected by the raid. As a director of Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox social justice organization, I joined these voices and helped circulate a nationwide petition. The centrist Orthodox community, most notably represented by the OU and the Rabbinical Council of America, proceeded cautiously, calling for patience regarding due process and cautioning against capricious indictment. The owners of Agriprocessors, the Rubashkin family, were supported only by the Lubavitch community, which cried unfair treatment and misplaced culpability in defense of their stalwart philanthropist.

Moving Forward and Reflecting Back While we are in the throes of this stillunfolding incident, we can reflect on some of the implications of the case.

Is this the end of the story for Agriprocessors? After filing for bankruptcy, can they rebuild their company in a way that is compliant with the USDA standards? Have they learned their lesson and are they on the path to some kind of teshuva, evaluating their wrongdoings and committing to substantive change? I remain hopeful that Agriprocessors will make changes in both labor practices and ethical standards, but its history makes me skeptical. Time will tell.

What accounted for the difference in responses throughout the Jewish community and the kosher meat industry?

Each response corresponded to a different approach toward the balance between traditional Jewish values and an external set of ethics. I believe the Agriprocessors incident represents the latest installment

of an ongoing debate about the degree to which we, as Jews, ought to integrate traditional Jewish values and external humanistic values.

Finally, we must examine the effects of the Agriprocessors scandal beyond the Jewish community. It is unsurprising that this incident galvanized strong responses. The reputation of the Jewish community was at stake. Recently, increasing numbers of consumers began to view kosher food as healthier and cleaner, and perhaps linked to the larger socially conscious food movement. To have such a reprehensible violation of the very ethics that the kosher industry represented must have felt totally inexcusable. Perhaps, kosher consumers want to believe what the larger society has ingested: that kosher does incorporate higher standards of ethics regarding both animals and humans.

In a situation where we feel that our values, Jewish or not, challenge the standards set by society or the US government, how should we respond? In the 1960s, Jews took prominent roles in the civil-rights movement; more recently, Jews have rallied around Darfur, claiming that the Jewish community has a unique call to respond to such events. Following the Agriprocessors raid, numerous Jewish organizations rallied to gather funds for the detained workers and their families; some groups, including Uri L’Tzedek, even made a trip to Postville to support those affected by the raid.

Following the raid, I was overwhelmed by how many people felt obligated to help the workers involved. Perhaps the reputation of the kosher industry was also at stake, but the empathy and passion to assist those beyond our community was palpable and powerful.

The ongoing Agriprocessors situation continues to captivate and challenge the American Jewish community. Whether it gave a platform for a new Jewish socially-conscious food movement or it simply reignited denominational tensions remains to be seen. How will we continue to respond to social justice crises? What if a situation implicates fellow Jews? Of course, we are left with more questions than answers— an exceedingly traditional Jewish response. As the saying goes, it’s food for thought.

Aaron Finkelstein is director of Uri L’Tzedek. presentense.org/magazine society

free-range organic wisdom eating local in israel

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ick a nouveau foodie term, and this micro-farm and shop in Zichron Ya’akov personifies it.

Rather than the expected young people clad in organic cotton, however, the proprietors Ruti and Bension Berkovitch are 70- and 80-something respectively and are generally clad in, well, whatever they pulled out of the drawer that morning. For them, it is not about designer lettuce or the pedigree of the pear, but rather a way of pure, localized eating that harkens to the days of Israel’s reestablishment. Their customers range from the ultra-groovy New Age sect who “must have an organic diet,” to the ultra-Orthodox who love the uber-kosher environment at the farm (no meat ever in this dairy-land), to the local Germans from Christian community of Beit-El, who will only eat “whole foods.”

Then there are those who simply love the taste and texture of what the Berkovitches sell, or simply enjoy the people who sell it, which in Israel is a reason to buy anything.

Israel is so steeped in food culture that the first Hebrew words people learn here are about food, how to ask for it, where to get it, what it is called, and most importantly, how to describe whether it is good to eat or not. While Ruti and Bension speak Hebrew, German, Arabic, French, Yiddish, and some English, I only speak English, and can ask “Where is the cheese?” in Hebrew, but do not always understand the answer. My 15-yearold translator has only been speaking Hebrew for three years, and speaks some German— opening a sometimes foggy window into Israel itself, the multi-cultural morass attempting to communicate on a daily basis in our ancient language with varying degrees of fun and frustration.

How did you come to be in Zichron Ya’akov?

My grandfather came here in the 1880s with his village in Romania to work the land.

Zichron seemed like a good place.

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homeland. A rabbi came too, and also said it would be good to live in the homeland, so they came. It was hard in Romania for Jews, with pogroms and such, so, why not?

My father and mother came here in 1933 from Switzerland. My father wanted to “go home”; he was a Zionist. He was an optometrist and a conductor, and she was a writer. We came to Haifa.

A goat meanders by on the Yichron Ya’akov farm. Photo by Laura Chizzali.

And everyone ended up in the farming business?

So you have goat milk products, olives, olive oil, honey…

We all came to make the land sprout food.

My father started an orchestra too. My parents worked alongside the Arabs to learn farming.

The Arabs made money and learned many things from us, so it worked. When I was older, I went to agricultural school, an honor back then.

We also grow bananas, papayas, oranges, limes, and different greens in the back. Our family eats that.

We are then interrupted by a customer, Edna, a sabra (Israeli native), who teaches yoga and practices Chinese medicine. When I ask her why she buys here, she says simply, “The food is delicious and healthy, made in an unadulterated way, priced reasonably, and made by friends.”

In walks another customer, Rachel, another sabra who lives part-time in Spain, and who gave up her holistic medicine practice to volunteer at an orphanage in India. Rachel declares, “This is the best cheese! I even get requests for it in Holland!

I come to Ruti and Bension whenever I can.” She buys cheese, eggs, milk, and yogurt while she spends time visiting with the proprietors. Purchases are not about efficiency here, but interaction.

Why are you vegetarians?

His “village”? The whole village came?

Yes. A Catholic priest had come to the village, and told all the people to come to Palestine, our society presentense.org/magazine

My father said he would never eat meat again after he saw a chicken slaughtered. So our family became vegetarian. Of course Bension became one when we got married.

What do you fertilize the garden with?

Compost.

Nothing from a bottle, can, bag...?

Why? Who needs something from a bottle?

In walks their daughter, Yael. She is tall, with a coif of hair like her father, except hers is dark brown. She helps out at the farm and is also an art teacher. All three generations live on the farm; Yael and her son Yuval live in the house in the rear of the farm, but they have to walk through the front house and store to get there.

I ask to buy eggs and honey. I go with Bension as he starts collecting the eggs from various places around the farmyard. He hands eggs to me as he finds them, still warm.

Laura Chizzali writes in the bountiful Carmel region of Israel, where bananas and lemons grow by the side of the road.

At night she dreams of the perfect z'hug. issue seven 2009

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Jerusalem food beat tips for international bites

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raeefa shams

the Phnom Penh: beef, eggplant, and peppers in a chili sauce. There is also Soya, a chain restaurant, which one should avoid like the plague. The noodle dish I ordered included overcooked chicken and vegetables and, as the restaurant’s name might suggest, too much soy sauce. Among the choices for sauces was “peanut butter,” which, according to the man at the counter, was not the combination of peanut sauce and butter that I assumed it to be, but instead the Israeli version of Skippy.

Sushi

Patrons anticipate an Indian meal at Ichikidana in Mahane Yehuda. Photo by Adiella Jones.

F

or those who come to Jerusalem, there are the usual culinary requirements: pushing through the crowd of yeshiva students for the orgasmic chocolate rugelach at the Marzipan Bakery, picking a side in the great Pinati-Taami hummus rivalry, and partaking in the consumption of a satisfactory amount of falafel, shawarma, schnitzel, and sabich sandwiches. But for those visitors to the Holy City who are of the foodie persuasion and crave more exotic cuisine, there are a wide variety of options. This admittedly limited guide is intended to provide a glimpse into the some of the many international restaurants that Jerusalem has to offer. With the exception of Sakura, all of these restaurants are kosher, though not all of them are good.

Ethiopian If only for the fact that you can eat your own utenstils (the spongy injera bread used to scoop up the entrees), an Ethiopian restaurant is always a fun choice for a group meal. Ethio-Israel, tucked away in an alley behind Jaffa Street, has delicious food and attentive service from hip, young Ethiopians. I recommend the doro wat, tender pieces of chicken and a hard-boiled egg stewed in a red pepper, cardamom, and nutmeg sauce. Many appetizing vegetarian dishes are also offered. Note to those with weak stomachs and sensitive palates: the dishes run very spicy, and asking your server for a jug of water is highly recommended.

Pan-Asian The term “Pan-Asian” implies a veritable smorgasbord of Asian goodness and can refer to any combination of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Malaysian dishes under one roof. Yoja is a sleekly-appointed restaurant on the trendy Emek Refaim, a street in the German Colony neighborhood. There is a nice selection of appetizers and dim sum, such as tempura-battered zucchini and mushrooms and chicken gyoza, as well as delicious entrees such as 28

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With Tel Aviv reported to have the third-highest per capita consumption of sushi in the world, sushi aficionados will have no less trouble in Jerusalem, where dozens of Japanese restaurants have blossomed in recent years. Located in the pleasant Feingold Courtyard, Sakura offers excellent, extremely fresh sushi and sashimi in a very elegant atmosphere. The quality of the food at Sushi Bar Rehavia equals that of Sakura’s but comes at more reasonable prices. It’s good option if you’re seeking a more casual meal. I also recommend Japanika on Jaffa Street, as much for its in-crowd diners as for its food. Domo, on Shamai Street, has an attractive interior but painfully mediocre food (the sushi rolls were literally falling apart).

Indian Seemingly run by Israeli hippies who got hooked on India from post-army treks in the East, Ichikidana is a hole-in-thewall eatery in the Mahane Yehuda market with surprisingly authentic, vegetarian Indian food. I had the small tali platter, which consisted of rice, lentils, mashed eggplant, and potatoes.

Though the portions were small, everything was well prepared and delicately spiced.

Moroccan For those whose exposure to Moroccan cuisine is limited to instant couscous and those potato and beef-filled cigars in the shuk, Darna, possibly one of the best dining experiences in Jerusalem, will be a pleasant change of pace. Its beautifully decorated interior—complete with elegant paintings, brocaded lounge cushions, and walls painted in warm shades of yellow and orange—evokes the splendor of palaces in Fez and Marrakesh. Choose one of several pastilla, phyllo pastries stuffed with goodies such as meat, fish, vegetables, and almonds, or try the m’charmel tagine, a lemony Cornish hen with olives cooked in a clay pot. Top it all off with a variety of delicious (and diabetic coma-inducing) desserts. The sights, smells, and tastes of Darna will remain with you long after your visit.

Raeefa Shams, a recent graduate of Wellesley College, is a dedicated foodie Zionist and is always looking forward to opportunities to combine these passions. She lives in the Washington, DC area, but misses Israel (and its food) greatly. presentense.org/magazine society

organic zionism

and the roots of a new jewish agriculture

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yoav fisher

While organic farming per se is relatively new in Israel, the concept of working the land dates back to the initial foundations of Zionism.

Documentary maker Sasha Perry sets out to capture the Israeli organic farming movement. Photo by Isaac Hametz. watch them presentense.org/magazine

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O

fir Kehat is a measured, modest, and softspoken city planner from Hadera, about 30 minutes’ drive north of Tel Aviv.

Three years ago, his second child was diagnosed with atopic dermatitus, more commonly known as eczema, a non-contagious disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the skin due to exposure to irritants, food, and environmental Kibbutz Degania. Photos by Sarah Glidden. allergens. The most common treatment involves ointments or injections of corticosteroids. Kehat, skeptical of injecting his threemonth-old baby with steroids, decided to mitigate the exposure to food allergens by going organic.

Two years later, Kehat’s good friend Yaniv Gelnik was having dinner with Kehat’s family and noticed a box of organic produce sitting on the kitchen counter. The charming and rambunctious Gelnik, dissatistfied with his string of corporate jobs, suggested on a whim that they start a CSA (community supported agriculture).

After some deliberation and convincing, they went forward and cofounded OrGani on a small, leased plot of land just south of Hadera.

A CSA is a way for consumers to create a relationship with a farm by making a finanical commitment to become its “members.”

In turn, members receive weekly deliveries of produce. Kehat and Gelnik decided to update the classic CSA model by offering more flexibility to their customers regarding the contents and the frequency of the deliveries. They also hired a full-time agronomist and opened their farm to volunteers.

OrGani is unique because it was founded by non-farmers, and Kehat believes his interest in organic farming is deeply emotional, as opposed to generational. “Israelis haven’t done work with their hands for a long time,” Kehat stated while being interviewed next to long, parallel rows of celery on OrGani’s newly cultivated field. He feels that young Israelis today are looking to make any type of emotional connection “away from the computer screen.” He added that organic farming not only allows people to make personal connections with the land, but also gives them a personal connection to their local farmer. Thus the high cost of organic goods is justified by knowing that the money goes directly to a “good place” that not only takes proper care of food but also proper care of the land.

Organic farming was first attempted in Israel in 1974, when Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, in the Beit Shean Valley, first decided to experiment with organic produce. The practice did not become mainstream until eight years later, in 1982, when Kibbutz Harduf was founded in the Lower Galilee, solely based on organic agriculture and the spirit of Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner.

Since then, organic agriculture in Israel has grown tremendously and become institutionalized.

In Israel today, organic consumption represents a small portion of total consumption, but it is growing every year.

Production is rapidly increasing every year as well, with 95% of organic production in Israel going to Europe, the UK, and the United States. In addition, the 400-plus organic farms in Israel have a healthy symbiotic relationship with both the Ministry of 30

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Agriculture and with larger conventional farms. They have adopted international standards and guidelines in conjunction with IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) and the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).

More importantly, organic farmers in Israel have figured out the economic aspects as well, ensuring sustained profitability that allows them to stay in business. They produced over one billion shekels of produce in 2007, according to the Israel Bio-Organic Agriculture Association (IBOAA), reflecting a 30% rise in domestic sales and a 60% increase in exports from the previous year. Israel exported over 60 tons of organic food in 2007, and trends for the coming years indicate a continued growth of sales, both domestically and internationally. The Israeli version of Whole Foods, called Eden Teva Market, now has four large branches, all clean and attractive, dedicated to organic food in Israel, and more branches are planned for the future.

These Israeli farms joined an organic movement that began in the 1930s and 1940s as a reaction to agriculture’ s growing reliance on synthetic fertilizers. Artificial fertilizers were created during the 19th century, and grew to widespread use because they were cheap, powerful, and easy to transport. The 1940s, sometimes referred to as “the pesticide era,” saw almost worldwide use of the nowinfamous DDT, following its widespread use in World War II as a way to control the spread of typhus and other diseases. Organic farming grew as a countermovement, championed initially by British botanist Sir Albert Howard and Steiner, and made mainstream in 1962 with Rachel Carson’s bestselling book Silent Spring, which documented the carcinogenic aspects of DDT. While organic farming per se is relatively new in Israel, the concept of working the land dates back to the initial foundations of Zionism.

Back at the turn of the 20th century, when the Second Aliyah established organized agriculture in Israel, the reasons were ideological. Early Zionist thinkers like Moshe Hess, A.D. Gordon, and Ber Borochov believed that solving the national question of Diaspora Jewry and saving the Jewish soul would only be achieved through a return to the land. They proposed an agrarian society as a way of connecting the Jewish people to their homeland and justifying their continued existence. They pushed the idea of the “New Jew” who was self-sufficient, strong, and largely secularized. Their ideology was the driving force for the first pioneers, who established Kibbutz Degania on a tiny plot of land on the southern tip of the Kinneret, purchased from a Persian family in Beirut.

Over the last century, since Degania was established in 1910, agriculture in Israel has generally taken the path of agriculture everywhere: industrialization, commercialization, and mechanization. In addition, the original socialist ethos of early presentense.org/magazine features

Labor Zionist thinkers has become passé, and the kibbutzim of old have largely abandoned their original ideology over the years in favor of privatization and high-tech jobs.

Then, during the mid-’80s, right when the traditional kibbutz movement was hitting crisis mode, organic farms like Harduf were starting to pop up around the country. They grew in numbers gradually over the ’90s, but increased rapidly over the last decade.

What is unique about these organic farms is that the underlying motivation behind their growth is not nationalistic ideology like in the kibbutzim a century before, but is driven by various individual ideals and reasons, all of which converge on the one goal of organic farming.

Hagai Raban, CEO of Agri-Or, one of the companies that does organic inspection and certification in Israel, has his own theory as to why young people are returning to the land today.

Raban comes from a long line of farmers in Israel, and his demeanor and appearance hint at an underlying need to be outside rather than under florescent lights. While being interviewed in his small office in the industrial section of Rishon LeTzion, he stated, “Youth are returning to agriculture for personal, not national, reasons.” He noted that the groundswell has not been connected to any specific political, religious, or ethnic sect, and that organic consumers in Israel represent a wide spectrum of ideologies and leanings.

As Raban stated, some organic farmers and consumers are strictly interested in the health benefits, like Kehat; some emphasized the need to feel connected to the land and involved in ways that don’t exist in modern day commercialism, like Gelnik; and some, like

The Making of a Documentary Isaac Hametz and Sasha Perry, two people who seem like complete opposites, wanted to chronicle the growth of the organic movement in Israel. Working off the premise that a documentary would serve as an innovative means of exchange, the initial goal was to create a stronger connection between organic farmers and their consumers. What developed was broader insight into the driving forces behind the naissance of organic farming in Israel, how it differs from the first Jewish farms of a century earlier, and how it differs from the organic movement of the mid-'60s.

Hametz, founder and executive director of Shvuat ha-Adamah/Earth’s Promise (www. earthspromise.org), grew up in an Orthodox household in the well-trimmed suburban lawns off exit 9 of the New Jersey Turnpike. His adolescence was spent amidst other practicing Jews in Sunday Schools and summer camps.

features presentense.org/magazine

In Israel today, organic consumption represents a small portion of total consumption, but it is growing every year.

Raban himself, come from farming families and became organic because of economic and industry trends. Still others return to organic farming because of the strong religious underpinnings, like when God gives Adam free reign to eat anything in the Garden of Eden (except for fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, of course), under the condition that he protect the land.

Maybe organic farming is effectively a form of metaZionism— allowing people to relate to Israel on their own terms without the strict compartmentalization of politicized dogma. The strict adherence to outmoded socialist practices were a large part of the reason why the original models for kibbutzim ultimately failed, whereas organic farming unites the entire spectrum of Israeli society without ideological statutes. There is an organic community for every walk of life in Israel, and the movement as a whole serves as a galvanizing force for all involved. It allows Orthodox and secular, Ashkenazi and Mizrachi, to work together for a greater good. It is a reason people who lead completely different existences can connect on such a deep and personal level.

Yoav Fisher is a graduate student in Economics at Tel Aviv University and a freelance journalist.

Throughout his youth, he felt increasing disenfranchisement with strict Orthodoxy and sought out new ways to connect to the religion.

Now he is a self-described secular-traditionalist who lives in Be’er Sheva.

Perry, who is a documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Root Force—an antiinfrastructure movement—had a completely secular upbringing in the arid plateau of Las Vegas, back in the early 90s when there were only a handful of Jews in the area. As a self-described “activist,” her formative years were spent fighting the good fights as we all wish we had the guts to do, gaining piercings and tattoos along the way. Somewhere in the Southwest, on a hunt-sabotage trip, she was unexpectedly invited to light Shabbat candles. There began her renewed interest in the religion, and Perry now lives an Orthodox lifestyle in Jerusalem.

Hametz and Perry’s interviews reveal a wide range of ideals, opinions, and outlooks.

Each had his or her own reasons for returning to the land. They both moved towards organic farming at their own pace, wanting to connect

with their homeland on a deeper level than that offered by coffee shops or bar-hopping.

Hametz believes organic farming transcends all categorization. “[It is the] basis for uniting people, because it is the foundation for all human existence. The land of Israel, its environment, and the food that we all eat can be a rallying point for us to come to the table and shed our fears. In a nutshell, it’s the tie that binds us all,” he says.

Perry further expands on Hametz’s thoughts, stating, “Agriculture is one of the oldest parts of Judaism. It’s been going on for centuries. We’ve just removed ourselves so far from our roots, trying to play a catch-up game in the industrialized Western world, that we forgot where we came from, forgot where our food comes from, forgot our responsibility to this planet that we were given. So now, after all this time, we’re playing catch-up with our own roots, doing teshuvah, returning to our original connection to this world by digging in the soil.”

Perry and Hametz presented their documentary at the Hazon Food Conference at the end of December.

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The Swine of the Times taking on taboos of the other white meat

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jeffrey yoskowitz

Modern-day Israeli pig farming. Photo by Jeffrey Yoskowitz.

for many years, and the store that sells it has struck a nerve with many Israelis. Despite it all, though, Tiv Tam has become the fastest growing supermarket chain in Israel, and pork—or “white meat” as it is euphemistically called—has become a more mainstream fixture in Israeli society, as old taboos are being rejected by secular Israelis.

Right up there with praying to one God, the pork taboo may be the most identifiable

that banned the raising and selling of pig in Israel (except in two designated Christian Arab zones) saw broad public support.

So what changed? For starters, the Russian aliyah in the ’90s transformed the role of pork in Israel, bringing over one million new immigrants, some with little or no Jewish practice and a cultural proclivity to pig meat. The owner of a pork-processing factory in Haifa, David “Dadi” Marom, called the ’90s the “boom years” for pork, aided by a supreme court ruling legalizing the public sale of swine.

The rise of pork consumption can also be attributed to the rise of chains such as Mania and Tiv Tam, privatelyowned stores that stay open on Shabbat.

The latter’s reputation as an anti-religious establishment has given it an impressive status in the secular Israeli community. Yael Katz, a secular Israeli businesswoman who decries the role of religion in government, put it best when she explained: “Tiv Tam gives me freedom that nobody else foodrelated does…. I don’t even compare prices.

If I’m gonna [sic] buy food, this is the food chain that I want to support [because of] what they do to express freedom of choice.”

In 2005, Tiv Tam acquired the nation’s largest and most symbolic pork-processing

Today hog meat has become a commercially legitimate business, and many pork products are served throughout the country—even at various spots in Jerusalem.

Y

oung, smiling Russian women hand out Swiss chocolate bars to customers checking out from the gourmet supermarket at the corner of Ben Yehudah and Allenby streets in Tel Aviv. This particular shop, Tiv Tam, is just one among a chain of grocery stores whose façade and interior resemble a Whole Foods or a Zabar’s; baskets line the ceilings, the products are packaged beautifully and displayed on wooden shelves, and track lighting is used in place of the fluorescents of most other supermarkets. The store specializes in cheeses from around the world, canned fishes from the Baltic, and an impressive array of Israeli grown pork products.

Pork and frozen shrimp at a specialty foods store wouldn’t so much as raise an eyebrow anywhere else in the West, but in Israel pork has been a point of provocation 32

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characteristic of the Jewish people. It is for precisely this reason that the rejection and reinvention of the pork taboo in modern Israel is so intriguing.

Pork has always played a negative role in Jewish history. The swine “is unclean to you,” goes the verse from Leviticus. At first no different than camel or shrimp, the pig was later set apart by its role in the oppression of the Jews—whether forcing Jews to sacrifice pigs in the first Temple, the Roman legions adorned with a wild boar insignia destroying the second Temple, or Spanish inquisitors labeling crypto-Jews marranos, Ladino for pig.

Pork was once a unifying negative national symbol. In the ‘50s, the mayor of Tiberias hosted bonfires in the street, burning the city’s pork as a unifying gesture.

The legislation of the late ’50s and early ’60s

facility, located on Kibbutz Mizra. They consolidated their grip on the market and provided the much-needed shelf space for Mizra’s products. Today there are 30-plus active pig farms breeding roughly 150,000 pigs a year, according to Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture. These farms are mostly located in Ibilin, a region dominated by Christian Arabs and one of the regions permitted to grow swine according to the 1962 law. All of the “white meat” sold in Israel is grown domestically (due to a law banning import of treyf meat), thus ironically making only Israeli-raised swine permissible.

That’s not to say that swine is fully accepted in Israel. Avraham Azulus, the gregarious owner of Five Brothers Plus in Ashdod that carries pig meat, explains that he doesn’t “advertise in the newspaper at all…we just have a small sign,” hoping to avoid confrontation with the Haredi community. presentense.org/magazine features

Left: In the market in Tel Aviv: a Chinese pork shop. Photo by Jeffrey Yoskowitz. Right: Kingdom of Pork is right across from the Central Bus station in Tel Aviv. Photo by Mark Furman.

Others are not so lucky. Employing aggressive tactics, such as arson and political clout, ultraOrthodox extremists have been attacking pork-selling establishments since the dawn of the state and targeted at least three establishments between 2007 and 2008. As recently as 2007, Russian Billionaire Arcadi Gaydamak—who sought religious support for his mayoral bid in Jerusalem—attempted to purchase Tiv Tam to make it kosher.

Today hog meat has become a commercially legitimate business, and many pork products are served throughout the country—even at various spots in Jerusalem—to Israelis who have traveled and tasted local cuisines worldwide. Many

watch them presentense.org/magazine

restaurants around Israel offer all sorts of prosciuttos and hams, and at certain chic bars, secular, young Tel Avivians eat chorizo with a glass of champagne.

The pig has come to represent far more than a treyf meal —eating pork has become a metaphor for political and cultural resistance. According to Katz, “freedom about food is just as important as freedom about anything else.” An elderly member of Kibbutz Mizra, Zvi “Chibi” Harel, has always seen his kibbutz as one of the few bastions of “free Judaism,” serving as “the barrier against the compulsion of Orthodoxy.” An illicit pork economy thrived for many years for just that reason.

In 1985, Thomas Friedman reported on Kibbutz Mizra’s deliveries in unmarked trucks, likening the white meat to another white substance: cocaine.

The legal scholar Daphne Barak-Erez sums up the whole debate over pig meat in Israel as “a struggle to define Israel’s Jewish character”—or in other words, a Jewish country is indeed what a Jewish country eats.

Jeffrey Yoskowitz is a freelance writer based in the New York area. He often writes about food and culture and where the two intersect, and spent 2007-8 based out of Tel Aviv researching the pork industry in Israel.

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33

produce aisle in the backyard watch your veggies grow

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natasha rosenstock Raw Vegetable Garden Soup Yield: 2 cups, 2 servings

Place the lettuce, cucumber, water, lemon juice, garlic, and salt in a blender and process until smooth. Add the avocado and olive oil and blend again until smooth. Add the herbs and blend briefly to mix. Serve immediately. For a chilled soup, refrigerate for 2 hours before serving.

From Raw Food Made Easy,

by Jennifer Cornbleet.

recipe

4 romaine lettuce leaves, chopped (about 1/2 cup) 1 cucumber, peeled and seeded if desired, and chopped 1/2 cup water 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice 1/2 tsp crushed garlic (1 clove) 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 ripe avocado, chopped 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 tbsp minced fresh herbs (dill, mint, tarragon, or cilantro), or 1 tsp if using dried

Photo provided by Joshua Wenz

While a desire to eat more raw food for her health was Wallace’s top motivation, she thinks we should all be growing our own food to offset carbon emissions and help stop global warming.

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A

s consciousness of global warming grows and gas prices fluctuate, many Americans are turning to local, organic produce. And what could be more local than your own backyard? Americans are planting their own gardens at a rate not seen since the World War I and II-era “Victory Gardens”—when citizens were encouraged to grow much of their own produce to take pressure off the world food supply and lower the price of produce needed to feed the troops.

Having lived for the last 10 years in city apartments, where I couldn’t even keep a rosemary plant alive on my balcony or kitchen table, I sought help to plant an organic garden of my own in my new suburban backyard. A friend sent me information about a DC area company, My Organic Garden, which specializes in helping homeowners create their own sustainable organic gardens. Owner Joshua Wenz, 34, grew up gardening with his father and spent summers preserving food by canning and drying it with his mother.

Wenz says that growing your own food adds a certain connection and makes your food more human and less machine—even if the growing process involves just a couple of containers on your balcony. “Growing up, you don’t think about what things you eat every day, like corn and wheat, look like on the plant. Sometimes it’s fun to grow things just to see what they look like growing,” says Wenz. In fact, some Jews do picture what certain foods look like growing when trying to remember the proper blessing for a particular fruit or vegetable— which hinges on whether it is ha’adamah, from the ground, or ha’etz, from the tree.

Suzan Richmond, co-owner of the web development and design firm Team Media, keeps a large backyard in what she describes as a “pretty undeveloped” area of Bethesda, Maryland. She started her garden when she realized that gardening in her backyard would create much more productive value than the landscaping she had planned.

Richmond values her ability to grow fresh food for her family and to grab herbs from the backyard at her convenience. “We were eating off of [the garden] all summer. We would bring tomato and basil with mozzarella to potlucks. When we went to a sukkah, we brought vines with Turkish eggplants hanging down.”

Richmond belongs to Adat Shalom, a suburban DC synagogue known for its environmental consciousness, including cork floors in the sanctuary. Richmond says the synagogue list-serve is regularly filled with congregants discussing their home garden efforts. presentense.org/magazine features

Nancy Wallace, 52, another resident of Bethesda, lives in a townhouse with strict rules for use of the grounds. Even given the rules, Wenz managed to plant 35 pots on platforms in her backyard and on her patio. She is now on the landscape committee and tries to encourage other townhouse owners to garden using common spaces.

While a desire to eat more raw food for her health was Wallace’s top motivation, she thinks we should all be growing our own food to offset carbon emissions and help stop global warming. She has also used the growing process to find insights into her practice of Judaism, as a “Jew-by-Choice” who has decided not to convert despite 18 years of observing mitzvot. “The link for me is a sense of taking responsibility, doing the right thing, not waiting for others to do it,” she says. “It’s a very activist approach to solving problems and improving the world.”

This summer Wallace enjoyed walking out the kitchen door and picking fresh carrots to put in salad, or tomatoes, parsley, and basil to put in a vegetable blender for raw soup. Some of the plants were so pretty that she didn’t want to pick them. “I live one block inside the beltway, and to have that lush greenery to wake up to and come home to every night was wonderful.”

Wallace also belongs to a congregation she describes as “very green,” Kol Shalom, in Rockville, Maryland. In fact, the

congregation is currently working with a green architect to design and construct its first building on almost five acres of wooded land.

“There are so many metaphors for God’s relationship to the Jewish people in flowers and dew and rain,” says Wallace. “God says, ‘If you do my commandments I will bring you dew and rain.’

Having a garden this year really put that in perspective. If you don’t have rain you wither and die. That’s the foundation of human civilization: having dew and rain in its proper season.”

A home garden is a tangible way to connect to the food on my dinner table, both through the amount of effort it takes to grow a seed into a beautiful meal and through the delicate ecosystem necessary for a successful outcome. Whether a good crop is attributed to God or human effort, I am looking forward to the opportunity to take responsibility for my internal and external environment.

Natasha Rosenstock is a freelance writer specializing in food issues, the environment and other community trend reporting, including a focus on the Jewish community. She lives in Potomac, MD with her husband and daughter.

how to make your congregation grow top 10 reasons to start a garden

H 1

ere are 10 reasons why communities of faith and horticulture are a match made in heaven.

It’s a Mitzvah!

The Jewish value of tikkun olam (repairing the world) emphasizes caring for the earth and the environment. In the book of Genesis, Adam is created by God in order to “till and tend” the Garden of Eden. Gardening thus represents fulfilling mankind’s ultimate purpose: to be caretakers of God’s creations. Ecclesiastes Rabbah states, “When God created Adam, he showed him all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him: See my works, how lovely they are, how fine they are. All I have created, I created for you. Take care not to corrupt and destroy my universe, for if you destroy it, no one will come after you to put it right.” With so many environmental crises facing us today, gardening offers a positive and practical alternative.

2

Beautification

Gardens are places of beauty, bringing life and vitality to their surroundings. By planting a garden in a features presentense.org/magazine

previously unused or under-used space, you bring color and attention to your synagogue. This makes your congregation, and the community as a whole, a more welcoming and hospitable place.

3

Connection to the Earth

Raising plants requires paying attention to the earth. Building healthy soil, watering, weeding, and preventing pests all develop our connections to the natural world. In Genesis 24:63, Isaac goes out into the fields to pray in order to connect with God. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a Hasidic master, similarly encouraged his followers to do outdoor worship, or hitbodedut, in order to open their hearts to God. So, too, when we work with the earth, we become more aware of our connection to God’s handiwork.

4

Connection to People

Gardening at a house of worship is a great way to build community. Working together in a garden teaches teamwork, cooperation, and shared responsibility in a fun and healthy setting.

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rafael bratman

5

Learning / Teaching Opportunities

6

Grow Food

7

Exercise

A garden can serve as an outdoor classroom for a wide variety of lessons.

Environmental education, community building, volunteerism, care for the needy, health education, and nutrition are just a few examples of themes that connect to gardening. Students often become more eager to learn when engaged with a ‘handson’ and active approach.

Your garden can be a source of sustenance for you and your community when you grow food plants.

Besides adding important nutrients to your diet, some plants even have ritual uses.

Growing biblical plants or plants used for religious ceremonies (such as horseradish for maror and parsley for karpas, both used for Passover) are an excellent way to give your garden a Jewish feel.

Gardening provides both cardio and aerobic exercise. Studies show that an hour of moderate gardening can burn between 300 and 400 calories.

Bending and stretching to plant or harvest a garden compares to an exercise class, issue seven 2009

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No matter if your synagogue is located in the country, suburbs, or in the middle of a city, starting a garden at your place of worship offers a myriad of benefits.

Here are a few tips to help you get started:

Find a location Lawns can be turned into garden areas by removing or tilling under the sod. For urban congregations with a shortage of space, container gardens or rooftop gardening may be your best options. Access to sunlight and water are also key considerations when choosing your garden plot.

while hauling plants and soil is similar to weightlifting.

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Fun!

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To Be Creative

Despite all the hard work involved, gardening is a fun and healthy pastime. People of all ages enjoy gardening, from the very young to the very old. There is something extremely satisfying about planting a seed, caring for its growth, and harvesting its product. A gardener’s sense of accomplishment and pride is hard to match.

Gardening provides an outlet for creative and artistic expression. A garden’s design can reflect a personal sense of style, as well as provide a showcase for art and sculpture. For people with a competitive streak, gardening is a friendly way to show off their skills.

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Build Membership / Volunteerism

A synagogue garden will not only beautify your landscape, it will also build a sense of belonging and commitment. Community mitzvah days, landscaping volunteer groups, and youth groups can all contribute to the sense of community participation by working in the garden. Classes or workshops that incorporate gardening into their curriculum are also likely to boost enrollment and make more engaged and enthusiastic students.

Rafael Bratman teaches Jewish gardening to students at Emanuel Congregation in Chicago. He is available for consultation, referrals, and networking at rbratman@gmail.com.

Pick your plants Vegetables or flowers? Biblical plants or native plants?

Perennials (plants that live for more than one year) or annuals (plants that live for one year or less)? Start from seeds or from seedlings? Garden centers, gardening clubs, or other gardeners at your synagogue are all good resources to help you sort through these many choices.

Grow!

Gardening requires a lot of work. Planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, fertilizing, and pruning are just some of the many tasks you will be doing. Make a list of volunteers who are committed to the garden. Divide up the tasks, or decide on a regular community gardening day, when everyone can meet up to share in the joy of working together toward a common purpose.

Students at work in the synagogue garden of Emanuel Congregation, Chicago. Photo by Rafael Bratman.

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issue seven 2009

presentense.org/magazine features

kitchen judaism a new recipe for today

jessy gross

features paradigm shift

ulture is a recipe. The key ingredients include language, art, music, shared symbols, values, and, of course, food. It is the transmission of recipes from generation to generation that creates lasting tradition.

Yet each new generation improvises with certain substitutes for ingredients that were vital to last generation’s recipe.

The academies of Baghdad, the centers of learning in North Africa, and the yeshivot of Europe have been largely credited as the places where Jewish learning happened. Meanwhile, the kitchen has been forgotten as a place where Jewish values and traditions are transmitted from one generation to the next.

The Mishnah and the Talmud did not share the same bookshelf as the cookbooks in my grandmother’s kitchen. Yet the kitchen was the classroom for my earliest Jewish teachers: the women in my family. Overseeing these kitchens, these great educators shaped Judaism just as they shaped their stuffed cabbage.

More than the cabbage and potato kugel that my grandmother still cooks for every family event, it is the conversations I remember while these dishes were being prepared that lay at the foundation of my Judaism.

The power of food lies in its symbolic meaning. Women’s “ability to manipulate [the] symbolic content of food enables them to influence the behavior of their families,” as Paulette

The power of food lies in its symbolic meaning.

Kershenovich argues in Evoking the Essence of the Divine: Food in the Syrian Jewish community in Mexico. A woman’s traditional role in the kitchen has “[fortified her] connection to others and [her] inf luence over them.” Thus, the preparation of a Passover meal was the opportunity for a mother to convey to her daughter an expectation that she would always understand the value of freedom.

In forming matzah balls alongside one another, stories are told and laughter is shared. Without having to explicitly sanctify a moment, Judaism becomes an important part of a young person’s identity. In the kitchen, Judaism can be served up with every meal, where our sacred texts are the stories of our people, the tales of our past, and a commitment to continuity.

We are a new generation that needs to remake symbols so that they speak to us. We are not the first generation to ask how Judaism is to be relevant in our time, but if we fail to search for answers to this crucial question, we risk losing the recipe. Today, the influence

Paradigm shift

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Stuffed Cabbage

1. The day before you plan to cook, put cabbage in the freezer. Take it out when ready

to start making the recipe, put it in the sink, and peel off leaves.

2. Heat oil in pot and add chopped onion.

Saute until browned.

3. Add tomatoes and sauce or paste, 1 tbsp lemon juice, sugar, and 8 oz (1 can) of water.

Bring to a boil.

4. Taste and balance. If too much taste, add a bit of water. If too little, add more lemon juice and/or sugar.

5. In a bowl: combine 2 - 3 spoonfuls of sauce into your protein of choice. Add rice, garlic (can choose to saute before or not), and salt and pepper.

In the kitchen, Judaism can be served up with every meal, where our sacred texts are the stories of our people, the tales of our past, and a commitment to continuity. of women extends far beyond the kitchen. Unlike previous generations, most women have little time to spend in the kitchen.

We have to reclaim “Kitchen Judaism.” We may have to work harder now to make time for the kitchen, but there is just as much potential for learning in this traditional space as in generations past.

We must be willing to take risks to reinvent the synagogue.

Can students talk about the meaning of Shabbat while braiding challah in the temple kitchen? Could we remodel our social hall to feel more like a coffee shop? Could this be a place where people might spend hours, either in personal reflection or in hevruta (group study), debating and considering ancient texts, and the newfound meanings relevant to life today?

Future Jewish leadership must also find a way to make Judaism relevant outside the walls of the synagogue. Dwindling numbers in synagogue membership do not have to mean that we are losing Jews. Rather, it means that we have been charged in the

6. Form small balls of protein mixture (slightly bigger than a ping pong ball). Take a piece of cabbage and wrap it around the mixture. Place mixture in the middle of a cabbage leaf. Best technique I’ve found is to fold two sides in and then roll from top to bottom. It keeps the protein inside as it cooks and makes for easier service later.

7. Place in pot, add any extra cabbage on top.

Make sure everything is covered by the sauce.

8. Cover and cook on medium – low heat for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Recipe courtesy of Jessy Gross’s Grandma Florry

rec ipe

1 28 oz can of crushed pureed tomatoes 1 8 oz can tomato sauce or paste 2 tsp olive oil 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp sugar 1 large medium onion, chopped 1 lb ground beef OR soy protein crumbles (I like Morningstar best) 2 handfuls of raw rice 1 clove of garlic salt and pepper

Photo by Christian Guthier

coming generation to be more creative to cook up some new recipes for Jewish identity.

Let us bring together parent-child chaverot (study partners) to cook one another’s famous family recipes for the holidays, sharing stories of where they came from and why a recipe is special. We can gather young people together to cook their favorite foods and then help serve them at a local food shelter on a wintry day.

On Hanukkah, let us host a party and ask every person to bring something to fry.

The scholars who emerge from Jewish academies, yeshivot, and modern seminaries have been great contributors to Jewish tradition and practice. In overlooking the kitchen, however, we have overlooked the place where cultural Judaism has been kneaded and formed. In this space, generations have learned what being Jewish is. They have come to understand the commitment to teaching love and responsibility from one to the other. They have transmitted recipes of heritage and tradition.

As part of my rabbinic studies, I spend significantly more time in the Beit Midrash than I do my kitchen. But when I come home, I prepare my grandma’s famous stuffed cabbage recipe—except that I replace the ground beef with soy crumbles, so that I can make it in my milchig (dairy) kitchen. This family recipe has travelled from Europe to Brooklyn. Now, with my changes, I can serve it at dairy potlucks throughout West L.A. As I grow into the rabbinate, I am committed to adding some new ingredients to Jewish continuity. I envision a new kind of Jewish gathering place—one that I hope will continue the tradition as hands-on and thought-provoking.

Jessy Gross is 28 and lives in Los Angeles, by way of Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Jerusalem. She is a third-year rabbinic student at HUC – JIR.

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presentense.org/magazine features

it's in the air visions of food encounters in a poisoned world

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brian goldfarb

Several years ago while walking the streets of Tel Aviv, I noticed the work of a graffiti artist whose art depicts people performing everyday activities (playing the cello, going to the office, dancing in a ballet) while wearing gas masks. Inspired by this artist’s work, I began to wonder about a world in which people tried to live normally even though their air, food, and water supplies were poisoned. issue seven 2009

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issue seven 2009

presentense.org/magazine features

Since this current PresenTense issue focused on food—not to mention that I found two old gas masks in a prop shop—I decided to do an environmental photo essay. These six images show people attempting to interact with food in a poisoned world. Whether they are giving food as a gift to their neighbor, or walking through a cornfield on a farm, these people live in a world that is both alien and terrifyingly similar to our own.

As the world becomes more conscious of our impact on the environment and our food supply, it is my hope that we can avoid the vision of the future that that graffiti artist painted years ago on the walls in Tel Aviv.

Special Thanks to the Crouse and the Wagner Families.

Brian Goldfarb is a Chicago-based freelance photographer whose work has appeared at the Around The Coyote art fair and in the Chicago Sun Times. The Photo Director of PresenTense, he received a B.S. in Photography at Bradley University. View his work at www.goldenjb.deviantart.com/gallery/. issue seven 2009

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what's for dinner? omnivore's dilemma

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miriam bader

a mystery. Pollan’s forage into the food chains that each of us buys into—be it industrial farming, organic and sustainable agriculture, or hunting and gathering—elucidates this disconnect with the source of our food supply. From the vast Iowa cornfields, to Whole Foods, feedlots, family farms, and what’s growing in the backyard, Pollan’s investigative journey is filled with fascinating and often

arts books

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hat’s for dinner?

Somehow this simple question asked in homes around the world does not seem so simple anymore. If you happen to be Jewish, your relationship with food is likely to be quite complex already. Food is the mainstay of much of my cultural traditions, ranging from the tasty Shabbat challah to Hanukkah’s crisp potato latkes and my mom’s perfect Purim hamantaschen. In addition, kosher dietary laws place restrictions on which foods can be brought into my home and Jewish values of responsibility and social justice color much of my attitude towards the food that ends up on my table.

Because diets are so laden with ethical questions as well as concerns about health, The Omnivore’s Dilemma

by Michael Pollan proved to be quite a revelation.

While I knew food originates on a farm, its process and journey to the supermarket where I purchase it in a neat plastic-wrapped package was

issue seven 2009

Being a responsible eater is challenging. frightening facts about food and our complex relationship with it.

Take corn, for example.

Amazingly, the great variety offered in the supermarket is primarily founded upon one species. The advent of cheap, federally subsided corn dates back to World War II and the invention of synthetic fertilizer, which is based upon the same science used to create bombs. (Interestingly, Fritz Haber, the scientist responsible for the discovery, also invented Zyklon B, the gas used in Hitler’s concentration camps.) In order to utilize the surplus of corn, ruminants or animals designed to eat grass are adapted to live on corn. This transformation necessitates the addition of antibiotics into animal diets and currently most antibiotics sold in America

end up in animal feed. In the same way that cows are ill adapted to eat corn, it turns out that human beings are poorly adapted to eat cows that eat corn since their meat contains more saturated fat, less omega-3 fatty acids, and large amounts of antibiotics.

This explains why many of today’s health problems trace back to things that happen on the farm: by subsidizing cheap corn, farm bills guarantee that the cheapest foods in the supermarket are also the unhealthiest. So who exactly benefits from the corn surplus—as its existence is to the detriment of the farmers who grow it, the health of the animals who are fed it, as well as the consumers who purchase the products made with it?

In addition to illuminating corn’s supermarket triumph, Pollan raises an array of issues which not only initiated my awareness of my role within the food system as a consumer, but also as a Jew. Here is some food for thought:

• We don’t allow the

government to dictate the religion we follow; why should they be able to dictate what food we eat?

• Is a cow entitled to feed on pasture?

• Should we ship lettuce from California and asparagus in December from Chile, just because we can?

• How exactly are the terms

‘organic’, ‘local’, ‘industrial’, and ‘sustainable’ defined?

Which is better? Better for whom? Better for what?

• Is the unwillingness to pay more for food a product of affordability or priority?

Sometimes I wish I never read the book and could continue to ravage and reap the benefits of industrial farming. It would be easier to shop and eat whatever I was in the mood for if I hadn’t researched what life is like for the chicken I serve with Shabbat dinner or the one that laid my eggs. In addition, my expenses would likely be smaller and local, seasonal foods would not be the mainstay of my shopping list.

While my pre-Pollan ignorance was blissful, being able to choose and develop deeper ethics when it comes to food is not only healthy, but greatly satisfying as well. Being a responsible eater is challenging and it makes the dinner question all the more taxing, but it also makes each bite more enjoyable.

Miriam Bader is a museum educator and proud supporter of community supported agriculture in New York.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

by Michael Pollan Penguin 464 pp 2007 $16.00

presentense.org/magazine ar ts

golda the iron lady

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abigail pickus

H

ar ts presentense.org/magazine

boys’ club. As Ben-Gurion once famously quipped (to Meir’s annoyance), Meir “is the best man in the government.” Despite this (or perhaps because of this), she never publicly aligned herself with women’s rights. Burkett probes at length Meir’s knotty relationship to women and feminism, but in retrospect what seems more revealing is the way everyone tried to define her. Because she lived her life on her own terms, in a society where gender roles are deeply rooted, this often meant that she lived as a “man” but was judged as a “woman.”

What becomes clear in reading about Meir’s life was how the very same qualities that were her strengths were

who, unlike their Ashkenazi Jewish counterparts, were relegated to the lower rungs of the social and economic ladder.

Meir lives on in Israel as both a lionized and vilified figure. Her downfall was the Yom Kippur war when, misadvised mostly by then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Israel suffered catastrophically. In less than three weeks, more than 2,600 Israelis died, which, per capita, was three times America’s losses during ten years of fighting in Vietnam.

Even though Burkett spends too much time asserting that Meir was misjudged by history—instead of presenting the facts and letting readers draw their own conclusions—

Golda Elinor Burkett Harper 496 pp 2008 $27.95

also her weaknesses. Her devotion to her people, for example, enabled her to raise the $50 million in 1948 to literally make Israel a reality.

Yet the same single-mindedness that worked so well in the beginning of statehood did not serve her well as Israel outgrew its socialist roots and demanded more individual rights. As one opponent said, Meir had “complete intolerance, complete disdain for any other opinion, a kind of primitiveness….” An example of this was her indifference to the plight of the Mizrahim,

for a generation which came of age long after Meir departed from the world stage, this is an informative and worthwhile read. For, whatever one’s political bent, to read Meir is to read about a determined and idealistic generation that built a new country as a refuge for the Jewish people.

To understand Israel today, it is vital to understand its beginnings, which are intricately bound together with a woman named Golda.

arts books

Meir was the lone woman in a very exclusive boys’ club. As Ben-Gurion once famously quipped (to Meir’s annoyance), Meir “ is the best man in the government.”

er craggy face lined with the suffering of the Jewish people, gray bun, orthopedic shoes and thick ankles, the “iron lady” Golda Meir was one of the 20th century’s most important figures.

As biographer Elinor Burkett suggests in her new book, Golda, Meir was a complex and powerful woman who has left behind a complicated legacy.

Israel’s Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister and, at the age of 71, Prime Minister, from 1969 to 1974, was born at the tail end of the 19th century in a Russia so anti-Semitic, that her earliest memories were of her father boarding up their home to guard against a pogrom. Such conditioning informed her worldview for the rest of her life; this “us against them” mentality continued long after Israel ceased being a vulnerable, nascent state.

Much has been written about Meir (including her own autobiography), and this latest biography takes pains to cover all aspects of her life: her young adulthood in Milwaukee, her mismatched marriage, her attraction to labor Zionism, which brought her to Palestine in 1921 where she aligned herself with key leaders, and her rise up in the ranks.

As part of the “old guard” who helped create and build Israel, Meir was the lone woman in a very exclusive

Abigail Pickus is a writer based in Chicago. issue seven 2009

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Too Close for Comfort the danger of knowing your food

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I

b egan working on farms when I was 16, but my initial interest in farming developed much earlier. When asked as a kindergartner what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered “farmer” without hesitation.

For 13 years I also called myself a vegetarian. My vegetarianism was a statement about the treatment of animals and the toll that raising meat takes on the earth. I became committed to buying food locally and from people I knew, sometimes also growing the food myself.

I relished the experience of preparing fresh foods in season and grown nearby. When my body started to crave meat, I began thinking about what meat I could reconcile myself to eating, given the reasons for my vegetarianism. I looked to small-scale farms to see if coming closer to the source of meat might allow me to eat meat with personal impunity.

Having had the experience of witnessing three goat slaughters at the Hazon Food Conference the previous year, I knew what to expect at

tiferet zimmern-kahan

the slaughter of the previous year, in this case I knew the animals that were about to be killed; I had spent my summer at Surprise Lake Camp caring for the three goats: Chips, Chummus, and Blue.

The goats were born late in the season to Angie, a well-loved doe, and possessed three distinct personalities. Chips was clearly the alpha male, the friendliest, the strongest, and always the first to eat and come out for walks. He and Chummus would play-fight, pushing each other out of the way at meals, and spending most of their time together. Blue was clearly the runt of the litter, being the smallest and the most timid.

When illness made him unable to eat and walk, I spoon-fed him oatmeal and syrup and petted him until he recovered. I would watch the goats and think about how I’d miss them the most when I left camp. Yet, these were the animals whose deaths I would partake in.

At Surprise Lake Camp, we had kept the three little brothers of the herd like pets. Campers came to admire them, scratch

teaching point, since kids aren’t often prompted to think about it.

It was also an opportunity for me to come closer to a potential food source and monitor my reaction to raising animals for food. I wondered if I would be able to eat them myself, if offered.

The campers were initially upset to imagine the goats being killed, but I tried to comfort them by emphasizing the happy life the goats led before becoming someone’s dinner. I was surprisingly comfortable with the notion of raising goats for meat and felt no regret about their fate the entire summer; however this sentiment shifted as I faced the physicality of their slaughter.

The fire had gone out but the smoke still lingered in the warming morning air. It was Chummus’s turn to approach the bench, which was by now stained by the blood of his two brothers. The goatherder invited me to hold Chummus during the cut. Participating in this animal’s death didn’t strike me as strange or unappealing. I harbored a sense of responsibility to the campers and to myself

The emotional attachment I developed to Chips, Chummus, and Blue, prevented me from being able to see them as food.

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issue seven 2009

them on the neck and face, and receive playful licks and nibbles in return. It was important for me to tell the campers what the fate of the goats would be.

Raising the question of where meat came from was a valuable

to be present and active in the slaughter after having been undisturbed by the notion.

I was positioned at the animal’s fore-quarters, to hold his chest and front legs. One friend held his hind-quarters,

Tiferet Zimmern-Kahan is 5’4” and has just concluded a season of educating children to love nature more. She teaches by example. presentense.org/magazine ar ts

Photo by Laura Chizzali

the Adamah gathering on a Monday morning. Standing outside in the dew-soaked field, I anticipated how I might react physically, emotionally, and intellectually to seeing a living creature become lifeless. Unlike

and another held his head, exposing the area where the cut would be made, right under the bulge of the trachea. I felt oddly connected to the people who were also holding the goat as it was being readied to die.

The knife sliced through, and I watched Chummus’s neck split open and blood pour down his face. I held him tighter and watched the trachea collapse and expand, searching for air.

Chummus’s body remained warm, and his legs kicked involuntarily as his muscles contracted and then relaxed.

As I watched his body go limp, I realized I had no desire to partake in his meat.

In searching for a deeper connection to meat that I could eat, I discovered that I require a certain distance from its source. The emotional attachment I developed to Chips, Chummus, and Blue, prevented me from being able to see them as food. I recognize that the way they were raised and treated in their life is the best alternative to conventional factory farms and industrial meat production. However, through this experience I discovered that my environmental and political motives for seeking alternative sources of meat are undercut by my emotional connection to animals I raise. If wanting to be a farmer is about growing my own food, maybe I am not yet ready for animal husbandry.

food for the soul an interview with artist mel alexenberg

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I

t isn’t hard to spot Mel Alexenberg. Tall and lean with a full white beard and a trademark white Stetson, he’s a unique cross between a cowboy and a rabbi.

A scientist by training, and artist by practice, Alexenberg’s career spans five decades, with artwork exploring digital technologies and global systems in the collections of more than 40 museums worldwide. ar ts presentense.org/magazine

“My parents had a summer house in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York, and I spent every summer there as a child,” Alexenberg recalled. “I loved exploring the outdoors and was fascinated by animals. I used to spend hours drawing them, sculpting them, studying them. I never consciously realized that science and art were two different worlds.

To me, they were one and the same.”

As a biologist, Alexenberg had access to computers in the early 1960s. Very early on, he saw the potential for those at-thetime giant machines to create art. Today, some of his earliest computer-generated art is in the world-renowned Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

In 1969, following his degrees from Queens College and Yeshiva University, Mel went on to complete his PhD at New York University. Unusually for the time, he was permitted to do an interdisciplinary doctorate program in art, science, and psychology. Upon its completion, Mel, his artist wife Miriam Benjamin, and their three young children swapped New York for an orange grove in Israel in 1969.

From cyberspace to real space, Alexenberg has explored the relationship between food and spirituality. Recounting a story from the Gemarah, a collection of the Jewish law and lore, Alexenberg tells: “Rufus, a Roman governor, approaches the great Rabbi Akiva and asks him, ‘Rabbi, whose creations are greater— God’s creations or man’s creations?’

“Rabbi Akiva replies, ‘Why, man’s creations, of course.’

“Astounded, Rufus questions the rabbi further. ‘But Rabbi, how can you say that?

How can you possibly say that man’s creations are better than God’s? What about the sky, the oceans, the sun, and the moon? Are they not greater than anything man could ever create?’

“The two men sit down together, and Rabbi Akiva gives Rufus a plate of wheat grain and takes for himself a plate of cakes.

As Rabbi Akiva starts eating one of the cakes, Rufus says, ‘Why do you get cakes and I get tasteless wheat grain?’

“The Rabbi smiles and says to Rufus, ‘Well, I prefer man’s creations…’ ” “What this story is telling us,” explains

Alexenberg, “is that God intended for us to take his creations and continue his good work. On Shabbat when we say the blessing over the challah, we say at the end, ‘hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz’—blessed is God who brings bread out of the land.

“But of course, the bread doesn’t come from the land—the wheat that was ground into flour then became bread. The same can be said for the blessing over the wine. The wine doesn’t grow on a tree—the grapes must first be pressed to produce the wine.”

This spiritual connection to food is central to Judaism, where we strive to take the spiritual and bring it down to earth, directly into our lives and into our consciousness.

This connection is deeply set in the Hebrew language as well. For example, the words ‘malakh,’ which means “angel,” and ‘ma’akhal,’ which means “food,” contain exactly the same letters. This connection is hidden in plain sight in the stories of the Biblical forefathers.

As Alexenberg recalls, in a story told about Abraham, “Avram sees three malakhim in the desert and immediately tells Sarai to bake bread for their impending guests. While Sarai prepares the bread, Avram runs off in chase of a calf to barbeque. The calf runs into a cave and Avram follows it. Inside the cave there is an intense light which draws Avram deeper and deeper inside the cave.

“He realizes that he has discovered the graves of Adam and Eve. Suddenly, he sees an opening at the back of the cave—he’s discovered Gan Eden—Paradise! He’s about to walk through when he suddenly remembers his wife and the waiting strangers.

He turns his back on the entrance to Gan Eden and returns to his wife and guests.

“Did Avram give up Gan Eden? Quite the opposite. What he saw was merely a mirage. The reality was his wife Sarai, his life with her and welcoming the strangers— breaking bread with them and enjoying a tasty barbeque. That was the real Gan Eden.”

Tanya Strusberg is a writer and Director of Arts Management for Omanoot, a non-profit arts and

arts visual

From top to bottom: Subway Jet. Subway Muffin. Pixel Painting.

Art by Mel Alexenberg.

tanya strusberg

education organization. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband and mildly neurotic cat. issue seven 2009

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out with the s.a.d. the mediterranean invasion

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lisa benjamin goodgame

arts food

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ast month I went to a kosher ladies’ luncheon featuring The Jewish Princess Cookbook authors Tracey Fine and Georgie Tarn. While represented as contemporary cuisine in a kosher environment, it instead was boring in a kosher environment—the main dish was a salmon cake just like my mom made 20 years ago. In their book, Fine and Tarn attempt what many young Jews, women especially, are trying to do today —reclaim a food heritage that we risk losing by not being slaves in the kitchen.

Most American Jews are descended from an Ashkenazi background and our grandmothers’ recipe collections reflect that heritage. Synagogues continue to distribute their sisterhood cookbooks to brides-to-be. The bubbe collection my rabbi gave me was the same one that sat next to my Mama Gertrude’s phone in the kitchen. While it has its merits, especially in terms of comfort foods, this esteemed volume contains 10 gelatin mold recipes in the salad section—hardly reflective of the “my CSA is better / more organic / more exclusive than your CSA” era that we live in today.

My friends observe all sorts of special diets from basic vegetarian to gluten-free vegan. Others are omnivores who try to eat conscientiously, inspired by articles and books such as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. And a bunch of them don’t (I mean can’t) cook. I would count myself among this group, except that my favorite toy as a child was my Easy-Bake oven. The S.A.D.— Standard Ashkenazi Diet—has fallen out of favor as it has become unfashionable to eat meat, dairy, noodles, bread, potatoes, sugar, or any of the other foods that also make up the Standard American Diet.

Today we are so conscious of what we eat, whether it’s for health, spiritual, or ethical reasons. And some of us just don’t seem to be built to digest the food of our ancestors. While some foodways are being lost, this shift away from the Standard Ashkenazi/ American Diet has led to an awakening of the Jewish palate to the more varied culinary history of our Mediterranean ancestry.

Sephardic foods seem to hit all the right notes—many of them are gluten-free, they rely on an abundance of vegetables and legumes, and the primary fat is heart-healthy olive oil. Unlike the pallid

issue seven 2009

Falafel from Moshikosin Jerusalem. Photos by Daniel Dreifuss.

tastes of the creamy, beige Ashkenazi menu, Sephardic foods often are full of spicy and exotic flavors.

Food historian Claudia Roden (The Book of Jewish Food) generalizes that Ashkenazi food is cold, poor, and rural, while Sephardic food is warm, urban, and sophisticated. Jewish foods reflected the minimal assimilation in Eastern Europe vs. the more integrated Sephardic world, generally ruled by the Ottomans.

In adapting the cooking of the Iberian Peninsula to suit the laws of kashrut, Jews used oil to replace the rendered pork fat used by Christians and the clarified butter of Arab cuisine. During and after the Inquisition, conversos continued to observe the practice of cooking with oil, creating a sort of reverse assimilation of Jewish cooking practices into the larger culture. Thus the modern reliance on olive oil in the Mediterranean diet is a gift from the Jews.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why the ancient flavors of the Sephardic kitchen are increasingly influencing a transition away from the bubbe collections of yore, but pick up any contemporary cooking magazine from Cooking Light to Gourmet and you’ll find the foods of the Mediterranean in almost every issue. Some of their recipes may still use butter, but most of them rely on olive oil.

While some traditional foods can be complex, the “weeknight” and “quick-and-easy” sections of these food magazines are filled with Mediterranean flavors. The ingredient lists may seem long because of the numerous spices. But at the core of the recipes are the fresh, healthy fare that so many of us want today.

As a part-time vegetarian with a more-than-full-time job, I try to honor my heritage in traditional ways that are new to me. Mama Gert preferred grinding chicken livers to chickpeas. A luxury of our place and time is that we can choose to keep what we love about the old traditions and update where we need or want to. Here is one idea for a meal informed by Sephardic flavors, which takes only a little time to prepare if you’re armed with a good knife.

Lisa Benjamin Goodgame learned to cook when she became a vegetarian in high school. Passover is her favorite Jewish holiday, partly because of the caramel matzah crunch. presentense.org/magazine ar ts

Peter Orosz is a writer, editor, and dilettante based in Budapest, Hungary.

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THE JEWISH FOOD PYRAMID.

Dov Abramson (www.dovabramson.com) is a Jerusalem-based artist and graphic designer who explores the tensions in form, color, language and type in contemporary Jewish & Israeli society.

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issue seven 2009

Holy Cholent, dish celestial/ Daughter of Elysium/ If he’d only tasted Cholent/ Schiller would have changed his hymn.

God devised and God delivered/ Unto Moses from on high/ And commanded us to savor Cholent for eternity.

– Heinrich Heine, see A-Z, p.14

Blintz: A crepe with a superiority complex.

– Ruth and Bob Grossman, The French-Kosher Cookbook, see Axelbank, p. 22

Morocco’s Sephardic cooks follow the maxim, ‘First, you eat with your eyes.’

– Kitty Morse, The Scent of Orange Blossoms, see Goodgame, p. 46

In the Jewish Italian kitchen the repertoire of dishes made with artichokes is particularly large. When I asked a woman at the ghetto market why this is the case she said, ‘Well, artichokes are bitter, and that’s part of our heritage.’

– Joyce Goldstein, Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen, see Korshukin, p. 17

How does our generation connect with our glorious Jewish culinary tradition?

What new flavors do we add into the mix?

“Who is a Jew?” has been a recurrent question in philosophy, politics and literature for centuries, and a definitive answer hardly seems imminent.

“What is Jewish food?” is a less critical and weighty question, but one that runs paralleled. It too revolves around a history of wandering and settling, of maintaining religious observances in strange and often hostile cultures and of the emotional tugs between assimilation and memory.

– From Introduction by Mimi Sheraton, The New York Times Jewish Cookbook, edited by Linda Amster.

Although it is doubtful that any holiday foods derive from the ancient kitchen of Judea, the holidays themselves, the laws governing their observance, the dietary laws governing the preparation of food, and the symbolic significance of certain foods, provide a certain consistency in international Jewish holiday cooking. These constants determine the manner in which national dishes absorbed from other people became distinctly Jewish.

– Nicholas Stavroulakis, Cookbook of the Jews of Greece, see Lovitt, p. 19

Throughout the generations, the Jewish people saw food as inspiration for community growth and connection. Using the magazine as a guide, PresenTense created the Creative Zionist Circle, an international forum wherein the next generation of Jewish leaders seeks questions and answers about Jewish identity and the perpetuation of the Jewish people in the digital age. Interested in exploring a new, actionable vision for the Jewish people? PresenTense encourages readership discussion around the above excerpts and their related articles amongst friends and communal circles, in coffee shops and salons.

The Ashkenazic challah is the best. When I was in the army, I could smell newly baked challah two miles away. It was pouring rain, we walked to the bakery in town and knocked on the door. We were dripping wet, but the baker gave each of us a fresh challah and we walked back to the Wadi.

What else on earth tempts you like that? The smell of bread gave us power and comfort.

– Meir Shalev, see Hamburg, p. 21

Aleppian Jewish women take pride in being savvy food shoppers, excellent cooks, and warm hostesses.

These qualities are embodied in the concept of suffeh, which literally means “orderliness”... Suf feh capitalizes on a woman’s sixth sense, or divine intuition, into matters of familial and communal significance... A woman with suffeh is awe-inspiring to her guests as she serenades and satiates their appetites with the bountiful delicacies before them.” Poopa Dweck, Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews, see Gross, p. 37

Contact czc@presentense.org for more information on joining or starting a Circle in your community. community presentense.org/magazine

issue seven 2009

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