Passover preparation has always been a heavy-duty task. For thousands of years, Jews throughout the world, in every Sephardic and Ashkenazic community, invested serious amounts of time and effort cleaning their homes, kashering their kitchens and sealing away utensils used for chametz (leavened grain products). The Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) devotes approximately 40…
Chances are you are just a tiny breadcrumb trying to make a life in New York, one of the most expensive cities in the world. You never hurt a fly. You did all the right things. But you somehow failed: You found your way into the house of a nice Jewish family, you got a…
Zak DeOssie of the New York Giants pays a Passover visit to Congregation Ansche Chesed. Courtesy of Jeremy Kalmanofsky For many a year, on the day before Passover, Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of Congregation Ansche Chesed on Manhattan’s Upper West Side inked a sales contract with his synagogue’s non-Jewish custodian, Tony Visioso. According to tradition, Visioso…
When is a legume not necessarily a legume? When it’s a min kitniyes, might be the Yiddish answer, which could be translated as, “When it’s a whatchamacallit.” And why is that? The week of Passover is a good time to ask. As the more ritually meticulous among you are aware, legumes — which is to…
Our definition of hametz is expanding. The pun is intentional. But here’s my point: Many Jews go to ridiculous extremes to redefine and root out hametz for Passover, losing sight of the simplicity and subtlety of this extraordinary holiday. Hametz is narrowly defined as leavened bread, and Jews are not supposed to own, eat or…
Since I started working on “The Sacred Table: Creating a Jewish Food Ethic” over a year ago, I have noticed something interesting about people’s reaction to this anthology which explores the Reform Jewish approach to food and food production. Upon viewing the wide range of topics discussed in the book (essays subjects range from ritual…
Matzo is bread made from flour of members of the wheat and barley families mixed with water and then, to avoid engendering hametz, baked within 18 minutes of mixing. Historically, it was customary for each household to bake their own matzos. The result would be virtually unrecognizable to modern American Jews, it was a relatively…
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