Online Warsaw Jewish food festival highlights Dutch-Jewish cuisine

Image by Polin Museum

By Rukhl Schaechter September 23, 2021

A popular tradition for the intermediate days of Sukkot, called khol hamoyed sukes in Yiddish, is to take free from work and participate in activities in spirit with the week-long Jewish harvest festival.

For the past several years, the Polin Museum in Warsaw has led a Jewish food festival, known simply as TISH, the Yiddish word for table. This year it’s happening online. In contrast with standard food festivals when participants go from booth to booth, tasting a little of this and a little of that, the museum has organized a series of activities that enable viewers to participate from the comfort of their own home.

The theme of this year’s festival, which ends on Sunday, September 26, is “Neighbors”. In that spirit, sessions will include not only the mutual influence of Jewish and Polish cuisine throughout history, but also about the culinary traditions of other ethnic communities in Warsaw today.

Activities include learning the history of Dutch-Jewish cuisine; embroidering a tablecloth for the holiday; braiding challah; learning some Yiddish vocabulary; hearing about the influence of Vietnamese cuisine on Warsaw’s current food scene, and even how to become a co-author of a future exhibit about Jewish cuisine, coordinated by the Polin Museum.

In order to participate in one or more activities at the TISH Festival, click here.

Rukhl Schaechter is the Yiddish editor of the Forward and the producer of the YouTube series, “Yiddish Word of the Day.” She loves cooking, Israeli folk-dancing and talking to her grandchildren.

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