Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
In 9th grade global history, one of the universal, all-encompassing answers that gets you at least partial credit on any question is ‘cultural diffusion’, or the process by which different groups assimilate the other’s practices and beliefs into their own milieu. On Friday evening, as the scent of lemon pledge radiates from every surface of…
Of all my food memories, the ones that tug most deeply at my heartstrings are dishes I attribute to my maternal grandmother, Inka Bruck. There was the cake she made for my birthday every year, Hedgehog cake (decorated with M&Ms for eyes and slivered almonds for quills!), the Andes mints she kept in the glass…
My parents grew up in Israel, but they immigrated to the United States in their late teens and had me when they were 20. So they have spent most of their adult lives here and raised me and my two sisters in a place very different than the 1960s Israel where they were brought up…
Esther Kessler, my paternal grandmother, cooked with the precision of a diamond cutter, methodical, deliberate, and composed. Her hair professionally coiffed, a silk-scarf jauntily tied at the neck, she brought those same qualities to her personal style. Esther immigrated to the U.S. from Poland in 1938 and settled in the Bronx. A single mother of…
In my family, there is one dish that is quintessentially for Shavuot, affectionately known as the “Big Blintze,” which takes the central ingredients of a cheese blintze and turns them into a delectable casserole. I try to make it every year for the holiday, or for the Shabbat closest to it, a creamy reminder of…
Yoshie and I arrived in New Orleans on a Friday morning. We were newlyweds on vacation, staying with our friend Josh for the Sabbath before spending a few days exploring the city. Early in our relationship, the Sabbath had been a point of contention between Yoshie and me in that he observed it and I…
Peer into a Jewish household on a Friday night, and you’ll have an instant window into that family’s food legacy. The Syrian table is piled high with zucchinis and eggplants stuffed with lamb and beef, beautiful rice dishes, and my favorite, lahmacun, those wonderful flatbreads topped with tamarind-and-tomato drenched ground meat. The Eastern Europeans have…
I’d usually get the call on Thursday night or Friday morning from my Israeli relatives Ariella and Yehudit. “Come over for Shabbat,” they’d say to me, not asking so much as insisting. With family in Israel, I found, there’s no need for prior notice or formal invitations to a meal. Family, like everything in Israel…
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