Time Mag’s Attack Against ‘Jewish Food’

By Nathan Burstein May 2, 2011

Criticize any national or ethnic cuisine and you’re spoiling for a fight.

So writer Josh Ozersky knows he’s stepping on a land mine when he writes, on the Web site of Time, that “Jewish food is awful.”

Having launched his attack, however, the Jewish Ozersky quickly retreats, clarifying that he’s limiting his discussion to “the familiar Eastern European Jewish food that most American Jews of my generation grew up eating: dry and flavorless brisket … [and] tasteless matzoh balls,” among other alleged atrocities. The piece goes on to explore what Ozersky sees as a paradox — Jews’ famous obsession with food and the fact that their own cuisine supposedly isn’t much good.

The Shmooze is tempted to nitpick, noting Ozersky’s strange reference to “what Jews eat in Spain,” as though the country has played any serious role in Jewish cultural life since, oh, say, the Inquisition. (He appears to mean Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews, who of course have spent recent centuries spread across the Middle East, and are now concentrated in Israel.)

Still, Ozersky hints at interesting questions about the future of Ashkenazi food, which doesn’t look too promising. One of American Jews’ greatest culinary contributions, the deli, still has its defenders, despite a steep decline in popularity and influence. Advocates of lokshon kugel may be harder to find.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO