Jews and Their Foodways (Studies in Contemporary Jewry) 9780190265427, 0190265426

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studies in contemporary jewry

The publication of Studies in Contemporary Jewry has been made possible through the generous assistance of the Samuel and Althea Stroum Philanthropic Fund, Seattle, Washington

THE AVRAHAM HARMAN INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY JEWRY THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM

Jews and their Foodways Studies in Contemporary Jewry an Annual XXVIII

2015 Edited by Anat Helman

Published for the Institute by

1

1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford  New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jews and their foodways / edited by Anat Helman. pages cm. — (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, an annual, ISSN 0740-8625 ; 28)  ISBN 978-0-19-026542-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Food—Religious aspects—Judaism.  2. Jews—Food—History.  3. Jewish cooking—History. I. Helman, Anat, editor. BM729.F66J49 2015 641.30089'924—dc23  2015022384

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Typeset in Times LT std Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY Founding Editors Jonathan Frankel (1935–2008) Peter Y. Medding Ezra Mendelsohn (1940–2015) Editors Richard I. Cohen Anat Helman Eli Lederhendler Uzi Rebhun Institute Editorial Board Michel Abitbol, Mordechai Altshuler, Haim Avni, Yehuda Bauer, Daniel Blatman, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, Sergio DellaPergola, Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Amos Goldberg, Hagit Lavsky, Pnina Morag-Talmon, Dalia Ofer, Gideon Shimoni, Dimitry Shumsky, Yfaat Weiss Managing Editors Laurie E. Fialkoff Hannah Levinsky-Koevary

Preface

Volume XXVIII of Studies in Contemporary Jewry is dedicated to the topic of food. As a repetitive daily practice, eating might seem banal, but as Sidney Mintz notes, “no other fundamental aspect of our behavior as a species except sexuality is so encumbered by ideas as eating.”1 Furthermore, “few ethnic groups have issues of identity, of membership, and of food practices cast in so clear and formalized terms as the Jews.”2 It should be noted that this interdisciplinary volume is about Jews and their foodways rather than about Judaism and food. The following essays cover a wide range of historical, sociological, and anthropological issues related to food and eating among Jews, not solely those that are tied to Judaic religion, tradition, and thought. For both modern Jews who maintain kashrut (either in its Orthodox form or in other guises) and for those who do not, food choices play a considerable role in their self-definition. Food also outlines the limits of their groups and sub-groups, whether these are defined in religious, ethnic, cultural, or national terms. As the essays in this volume reveal, “Jewish food” is a dynamic and porous hybrid, constantly evolving not just according to what Jews eat in different places during different times, but also in relation to the shifting meanings of the very term “Jewish” in contemporary societies. It is a pleasant duty to thank the Nachum Ben-Eli Honig Fund, the Samuel and Althea Stroum Fund, and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, whose continuous generosity to Studies makes the publication of this volume possible. Special thanks are due to Laurie Fialkoff and Hannah Levinsky-Koevary, whose talent, professionalism, and dedication are tireless engines that turn the wheels of this prestigious annual harmoniously as well as efficiently. For their valuable help and sound advice, I am also grateful to my colleagues Richard I. Cohen, Eli Lederhendler, and Uzi Rebhun. This volume is dedicated to the memory of Ezra Mendelsohn, our illustrious colleague and dear friend, who was a founding editor of Studies in Contemporary Jewry. Ezra died just as this volume was going to press, and a few lines cannot begin to do justice to his life and work. In our next volume, we plan to include a proper tribute. A.H.

Notes 1.  Sidney W. Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past (Boston: 1996), 8. 2. Andrew Buckser, “Keeping Kosher: Eating and Social Identity among the Jews of Denmark,” Ethnology 38, no. 3 (1999), 206. vii

Contents

Symposium Jews and Their Foodways Sidney Mintz, Introduction3 Anna Shternshis, Salo on Challah: Soviet Jews’ Experience of Food in the 1920s–1950s 

10

Hagit Lavsky, In the Wake of Starvation: Jewish Displaced Persons and Food in Post-Holocaust Germany 

28

Ofra Tene, “The New Immigrant Must Not Only Learn, He Must Also Forget”: The Making of Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi Cuisine 

46

Orit Rozin, Craving Meat during Israel’s Austerity Period, 1947–1953 

65

Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad: Food, Emigration, and Transformation in the Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel in the 1950s 

89

Hagar Salamon, Cutting into the Flesh of the Community: Ritual Slaughter, Meat Consumption, and the Transition from Ethiopia to Israel 

110

Liora Gvion, Two Narratives of Israeli Food: “Jewish” versus “Ethnic” 

126

Nir Avieli, Size Matters: Israeli Chefs Cooking Up a Nation 

142

Paulette Kershenovich Schuster, A Tapestry of Tastes: Jewish Women of Syrian Descent and Their Cooking in Mexico and Israel 

160

Shaul Stampfer, Bagel and Falafel: Two Iconic Jewish Foods and One Modern Jewish Identity 

177

Andrea Most, The Contemporary Jewish Food Movement in North America: A Report from the Field(s) 

204

Sander L. Gilman, Jews and Fat: Thoughts toward a History of an Image in the Second Age of Biology 

218

Richard Wilk, Paradoxes of Jews and Their Foods 

231

ix

x

Contents

Review Essays Kim Wünschmann, Exploring the Universe of Camps and Ghettos: Classifications and Interpretations of the Nazi Topography of Terror 

251

Amir Banbaji, The Literary Character of the Haskalah 

264

Book Reviews Antisemitism, Holocaust, and Genocide Evan Burr Bukey, Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria, Barbara F. Okun  273 Geoffrey P. Megargee (ed.), The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, vol. 1, Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business and Administration Main Office (WVHA), Kim Wünschmann 

251

Dan Michman, The Emergence of Jewish Ghettos during the Holocaust, trans. Lenn J. Schramm, Kim Wünschmann 

251

Guy Miron and Shlomit Shulhani (eds.), The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust, Kim Wünschmann 

251

Biography, History, and the Social Sciences Pierre Birnbaum, La République et le cochon, David Weinberg 

275

Yossi Goldstein, Golda: biografiyah, Matthew Silver 

277

Sebastian Hoepfner, Jewish Organizations in Transatlantic Perspective: Patterns of Contemporary Jewish Politics in Germany and the United States, Tobias Brinkmann 

278

Alice Kessler-Harris, A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman, Nancy Sinkoff 

280

Guy Miron, The Waning of Emancipation: Jewish History, Memory and the Rise of Fascism in Germany, France and Hungary, Pierre Birnbaum 

283

Stephen Sharot, Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities, Eliezer Ben-Rafael 

285

Azriel Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, ed. Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman; trans. Faigie Tropper and Moshe Rosman, Antony Polonsky 

287

Gerald Sorin, Howard Fast: Life and Literature in the Left Lane, Stephen J. Whitfield 

290

xi

Contents

Scott Ury, Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry, Brian Horowitz 

293

Kalman Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation: Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in Poland, Gali Drucker Bar-Am 

295

Religion, Thought, and Culture Nathan Abrams, The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema, Aharon Feuerstein 

298

Hamutal Bar-Yosef, Mysticism in Twentieth Century Hebrew Literature, Galili Shahar 

299

Aliza Cohen-Mushlin et al., Synagogues in Lithuania: A Catalogue, Sharman Kadish 

302

David Ellenson and Daniel Gordis, Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa, Shmuel Shilo 

304

Sharman Kadish, The Synagogues of Britain and Ireland: An Architectural and Social History, Vladimir Levin 

308

Olga Litvak, Haskalah: The Romantic Movement in Judaism, Amir Banbaji 

264

Zionism, Israel, and the Middle East Yoel Cohen, God, Jews and the Media: Religion and Israel’s Media, Kimmy Caplan 

311

Beverly Mizrachi, Paths to Middle-Class Mobility among Second-Generation Moroccan Immigrant Women in Israel, Henriette Dahan Kalev 

314

Anita Shapira, Israel: A History, Gideon Shimoni 

316

Ari Shavit, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, Gideon Shimoni 

316

Contents for Volume XXIX 

321

Note on Editorial Policy 

323

Symposium Jews and Their Foodways

Introduction Sidney Mintz (Johns Hopkins University)

I was pleased to be invited to take part in this special issue, but at first felt that I ought to refuse. There was nothing, I thought, that I really could write about. My father had owned a diner and was the cook, and I helped out as a child. But beyond that and being a Jew, nothing qualified me. It is true that I wrote a book about the history of sugar (based in part on my field experience as an anthropologist of the Caribbean region) that was well received. When it appeared, it was mistakenly taken to have been written by an expert on food. Subsequently I published a collection of papers written by me that treat food in one way or another. But in actuality, that book, too, is not really about food. I have had no formal training in the subject. When I thought more about the invitation, I had to ask myself why a much respected journal, even one about Jews in the world today, would want to have a special volume on the topic of Jews and food. On reflection, it sounded like an instance of coals to Newcastle. I find it difficult to think of a single fellow Jew whom I know who does not wax lyrical about food. My Dad loved food—loved to make it, loved to talk about it. As a little boy, when I first came to know my father, he was the sole owner of the town’s only white-tablecloth restaurant and modest hotel, a dizzying three-story edifice, where he presided proudly over his success. In October 1929, the global economic crash returned him to an earlier, more familiar reality, one from which he had quite recently escaped—behind the gas range and grill in a tiny diner. By that time, when I was about eight or nine, he and my mother were sadly eking out our living, amid the ruins of former glory. All the same, on Sundays he would cook for us. He was an enthusiastic, albeit careful, eater as well as cook. He would make us weekend matzah brei, or serve us lox, or (rarely) salmon eggs, with black bread, capers, and chopped red onions. At dinner there might be marvelous p’tcha or one of his cold soups. His chlodnik was glorious when paired with perfectly boiled potatoes, rolled in butter and chopped dill. They said he had golden hands, and those hands wrought miracles, even when the means were scant. And so on: I could rave at length about his culinary art. But my reminiscences of him are not quite relevant in an introduction to this splendid collection. Now, if I did know enough to write a scholarly introduction, I would begin with a few remarks about Jews and food. From early on, it appears, the ancient Hebrews 3

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Sidney Mintz

were determined to employ food taboos by which they could make themselves more alike, and mark themselves off from others. Good enough. But in the long run, such rules meant that for non-Jews to eat with them (whether as hosts or as guests), they had to accept Jewish rules regarding which foods were ritually clean and which were not. In either case, the non-Jews had to agree to Jewish definitions of acceptable food. And even that might not work, given the myriad complexities of kashrut observance. As no doubt many readers know, there have been several powerful analyses of those rules, including those by the late Mary Douglas, an astute early anthropologist of food.1 Douglas analyzed the characteristics of the tabooed foods, and created an explanatory design that was aesthetically as well as taxonomically pleasing to help explain why the Jews chose not to eat those foods. It enabled her to specify why many of the rules of kashrut made logical sense, even if they seemed to make less sense otherwise. (As Douglas herself writes somewhere, Moses was not a commissioner of public health; pigs are no dirtier than any other animal in the barnyard.) But at the time Douglas was less interested in the ways that taboos make social boundaries. Only later did she add that the Hebrews had used food to create affective distinctions that made clear exactly who was and who was not a member of the tribe. We know that many Jews in a variety of locales clove faithfully to the permitted foods on the permitted plates, often at the risk of their very lives. We have chilling descriptions of what happened to the Jews of Spain who converted to Christianity but persisted in their dietary customs, and who, when caught, might be burned at the stake. But in many other places, some Jews undertook in the course of time to dress and cut their hair—and yes, even to eat—in the fashion of their hosts while others continued to draw and redraw the culinary markers of separation. The significance of these distinctions, which seem, on the one hand, so everyday and prosaic, is immense, precisely because eating is so powerful a mark of our behavior, and hunger the most powerful drive of all life. Wherever the Jews went, their food habits were subject to change (do we really think that kugel, tzimmes, and lox came with the Jews from the ancient land of Israel?). Not all foods are available everywhere: climates differ, and plants and animals with them. Jews were often obliged to bow to these facts of life. They also had to make a living, and that might mean frequent interaction with non-Jews. Interaction means more than encounter. Even silent trade is not that silent. People need a common language or at least interpreters; they must see and react to each other in order to have a common existence. In the last half century or so, the study of food has been a highly fashionable undertaking, made visible in apposite literatures and—overwhelmingly in “western” societies—in the electronic media. Once consigned mostly to cookbooks and the arcane writings of gourmands and gourmets, the subject has become dignified and worthy. Some years ago, I quoted an eloquent commentator’s demure alarm, first set forth in 1978, concerning the immense importance then being accorded food.2 Writing under the pen name Aristides, Joseph Epstein told us: [T]en years ago I should have said that any fuss about food was too great….[J]udging from the space given to it in the media, the great number of cookbooks and restaurant

Introduction

5

guides published annually, the conversations of friends—it is very nearly topic number one. Restaurants today are talked about with the kind of excitement that ten years ago was expended on movies. Kitchen technology—blenders, grinders, vegetable steamers, microwave ovens and the rest—arouses something akin to the interest once reserved for cars. . . . The time may be exactly right to hit the best-seller lists with a killer who disposes of his victims in a Cuisinart.3

I suggested then that what Epstein was seeing was, as it were, only the first swallow. How did this frenzy about food take shape, and what does it mean? Although the room for retrospection is still too confined to provide a wholly persuasive answer, high on my list of guesses about why food has become such a popu­ lar subject is increasing global affluence. Food can be an important marker of status, one used to validate or deny membership. Probably ever since socially stratified socie­ ties came into existence, food has served as a coefficient of social and economic status. The chiefs of the tribes of the Northwest Pacific coast would humiliate their invited guests at big salmon feasts by overfeeding them delicacies. In contrast, both the Roman and Chinese empires had laws that served to control the consumption of particular foods, clothing, and other goods and services by persons of common descent or by workers in lowly occupations. These sumptuary laws restricted the consumption of rare goods to the nobility, clergy, and state. The extreme versions of such regulation, such as the Indian caste system, limited access to particular foods or methods of food preparation to specific castes, and this access could be fiercely enforced to prevent spiritual pollution. (An odd instance: for a lengthy period in much of medieval Europe, swans could be eaten only by royalty, not by commoners. Swans, it appears, were not very tasty, but that was not the point.) Such examples underline the utility of food as a way of flaunting wealth and power, and also confining consumption as a means of displaying that power. But in modern or modernizing societies in which increasing consumption has become a widely accepted goal of the society as a whole, the rules for limiting such consumption lose their power. In England of the 18th century, for example, the consumption of sugar, tea, coffee, and many other luxuries by the wealthy and powerful rose sharply. These products first trickled, and then flooded, downward to members of the more modest social ranks. The state had found that realizing a profit from increasing consumption, in the form of taxes, licensing fees, and tariffs, was far preferable to restricting consumption. Moreover, when people are able to experiment with the food and other consumption preferences of the privileged, an increasing number usually prove able and eager to do so.4 Restaurants have become, over time, a sort of laboratory for studying the relationship between social position and the foods that we eat. In them, we can discern changes in the ways that people manage the social meanings attached to food. Separating the act of eating from the home makes food thinkable in a different way, for it becomes public, and its production is cut off from its consumption. Public eating can become commonplace when the division of labor in society creates categories of persons who cannot feed themselves, almost always because their economic activities—where they live and where and when they work—limit their opportunities to be fed at home. The emergence of restaurants as an institution is linked to travel, migration, and

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Sidney Mintz

changing economic patterns, and to the gradually changing nature of home labor. But of course restaurants can emerge and be patronized only if people can make a living from running and supplying them, even while others must be able to afford to eat in them.5 The restaurant business in the West declined radically during the worldwide depression of the 1930s and remained stunted during the Second World War. However, with the gradual recovery of economic stability, restaurants blossomed anew and have continued to do so, even in leaner years. More income translates partly into more eating out, partly into a greater amount of traveling—and this in turn prompts more eating out, for travelers can rarely arrange to prepare their own food. But beyond the two prime movers of growing wealth and vastly increased travel, interest in food has also been aroused by education. Since the end of the Second World War, people have learned increasingly about the global history of food and the diversity of food production and consumption. There has been another kind of education, too: the enlightenment of those males raised to believe that all women perceive their familial role in the kitchen as creative, God-given, and unendingly joyful. Cooking and the significance of food would be radically altered by the rise of the two-income family in Europe, the United States, and in noticeably Anglophone former European colonies in temperate zones such as Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Canada. Not all of that education was at the cost of less interest in food. (Indeed, some of the essays in this volume indicate that such changes are still in progress, at times ambivalent or contested.) If we lift our gaze to the breadth and basic importance of the subject, it becomes clear that in the history of human society, food has always been vital, even if its joys were not always effusively recorded. In the United States, at least, there was at one time a definite feeling that a too visible joy in food and eating, while fetchingly feminine, might also border on the sinful. There was a widely shared American credo of good, solid, down-to-earth food, blessedly free from piquancy, rich sauces, and fuss. It may or may not have been justifiably attributed to the Puritan past, but it was a widely held opinion. Such foods as garlic, anchovies, and “hot” peppers were not quite American; pasta, once known only as “Italian spaghetti,” was supposed to come in cans, not boxes; and the notion of snails and frogs’ legs as food made many of us Americans shudder. Pleasure in difference, the adventure of novelty in food, a respectful interest in how “foreigners” ate, only spread widely—at least among Americans— after the Second World War. Another issue is defining what should be considered food-related. Certainly a good deal has always been written about agriculture; about domesticated animals; about the food products people consume. For quite some time, Americans and Europeans have also been keenly aware of world hunger, and to their credit, a great many citizens have been forking over significant amounts of money to help supply food for others less fortunate than they. What seems largely to have been missing is interest in what other peoples ate, how it tasted, and how it was prepared, from beginning to end. Although there is huge space between the deplorably real fear of dying of hunger, on the one hand, and arguments concerning black and white truffles, on the other, both matters are emphatically about food. Moreover, there have always been people (among others, farmers, anthropologists, historians of food, and writers of cookbooks) for

Introduction

7

whom studying food—in contrast to, say, simply eating it—was important. Written records, of course, cannot carry us back to or before that astonishing period when the first plants and animals were domesticated, approximately twelve thousand years ago. But it would be laughable to doubt that our human ancestors in those times had a lifeand-death interest in food. The phenomenon of domestication was the single greatest capture of energy ever achieved by our species; and human beings all over the globe participated in that achievement. What is more, they did it all—the selection, the planting, the cultivation, and much more—all of it without schools of agriculture, college degrees, white coats, or corporate agriculture. The great Russian geneticist N.V. Vavilov concluded that there were seven centers of plant domestication, including the Abyssinian, Mediterranean, and tropical South Asian in Eurasia, and two “hearths” in the New World. These hearths would eventually give rise to cities, to writing, to politi­cal states, and to the exact sciences—that is, to what we (somewhat quaintly) call “civilization.” Even before all that, though, we can be sure that our hominid ancestors were busily talking and thinking about food and, insofar as they had to feed themselves, undoubtedly studying it. Food is so vital to life, so frequently and urgently needed, so often consumed in the company of others, that it has doubtless been symbolically powerful ever since we became symbol-using animals. As creatures who know much of our own history, we are immersed in metaphors in our daily utterances, in the songs we create, the words we write, the pictures we paint, the movies we make. Because food is so intimately tied to our social and symbol-using nature, it has the power to carry our thoughts anywhere—where we last ate it, while listening to what music, by being with what person, by the fragrance of what place or person. We are the animals that undertook to domesticate other animals, some of which we chose to eat; and we cook our food. (Many of the world’s peoples, when asked what made them different from other animals, told the ethnographers, “we cook.”) For uncountable millennia—though always under constraints of nature and of society—we humans have been choosing what we eat. That we do so is unlike nearly all other living things, because most animals “know” what to eat. That we do not has something to do with what anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called “the overthrow of human primate nature.”6 He had in mind the apparent decline in our species of those built-in responses to stimuli that serve to govern so much of the behavior of other forms of life. In the human case, such events as the mastery of fire changed forever the “naturalness” of what we ate. The domestication of plants and animals transformed potential foods into what were at least partly “cultural” products; fire made many formerly inedible foods fit to eat. We are also the only animals that rendered ourselves different from each other by social interaction. By this I mean that we humans seem predisposed to form ourselves into groups—usually groups that are to some degree mutually perceived as different from one another. Such differences commonly have to do with the foods that we eat, how we eat them, and what meanings we aim to convey with them. From birth and onward for about a year (in some societies for longer), we are likely, like other mammals, to be kept alive with food that has been produced by our mothers’ own bodies. If we are fortunate, we receive our food, as infants, with love and warmth. The affective significance of these facts probably never wholly vanishes. We

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Sidney Mintz

use food to mark every life event, every holiday, every occasion we can think of, and we prescribe and proscribe what we eat, thereby defining and denying membership with our choices. We gorge ourselves upon food, starve ourselves to death by not eating it, and—in many places—obsess about it, either because there is never enough, or always too much. We carry on our lives, swimming in oceans of meaning, and an odd quality of our social life is how commonly—and how often richly—those meanings are clothed in the imagery of food. The symposium of this volume deals with the social circumstances of cooking and eating. Its essays raise questions about appetite; look at several different favorite ethnic foods—falafel, bagels, challah; and ask a variety of thought-provoking questions. Gluttony, obesity, portion size, and the definition of Jewish food all turn up in the material that follows. In making their case, nearly all the authors deal with ethnic identities, whether in Israel or in contemporary Jewish communities elsewhere. I was particularly struck by those essays that draw upon the ways that food and eating fit into the tragedies of war and forced migration. As I once noted: In time of war, both civilians and soldiers are regimented—in modern times, more even than before. There can occur at the same time terrible disorganization and (some would say) terrible organization. Food resources are mobilized, along with other sorts of resources. Large numbers of persons are assembled to do things together—ultimately to kill together. While learning how, they must eat together.7

This refers to armies, though ethnic conflict often involves factions, militias, and robber bands. All of these groups eat differently, while the people whom they oppress may hardly eat at all. In circumstances of conflict, many try to flee, and this can occasion hunger and fear of hunger on a terrifying scale. When people are dislodged from their homes—whether by bombs or the theft of their food supplies, the destruction of their fields, or some other disaster—they realize, sometimes with awful suddenness, the terrible power of hunger. Being human, they often demonstrate an indomitable will to live. Yet they are often compelled to live on drastically different terms, quite remote from their lives before. This point comes out poignantly in the essay by Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, which describes the mass migration of Iraqi Jews to Israel in the 1950s. Meir-Glizenstein recalls their encounter with such East European Ashkenazi delicacies as herring, which “symbolized their ambivalent contact with the new land.” As she goes on to explain, the expression of ridicule and disgust toward such food was an act of opposition in response to their drastically reduced social status in Israel. Food in all its symbolic power to remind, to validate, to stand for, to communicate, stays invisibly but ineradicably in the minds of those who know that they have lost something they will never get back. Enjoy, reader; these stories will make you think.

Notes I would like to express my thanks to two excellent assistants, Katherine Magruder and my wife, Jackie Mintz; and to the gracious and skillful editors of the journal.

Introduction

9

1. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: 1966); idem, “Deciphering a Meal,” Daedalus 101, no. 1 (1972), 61–81. Douglas and her critics dealt with food prohibitions at length, and in great detail. This is not the place for a lengthy review of that controversy. 2. Sidney Mintz and Christine DuBois, “The Anthropology of Food and Eating,” Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (2002), 99–117. 3. Aristides [Joseph Epstein], “Foodstuff and Nonsense,” American Scholar 47, no. 2 (Spring 1978), 157–158. 4. Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: 1985). 5. Those who travel widely know how elastic the definition of “a restaurant” can be. I have watched a busy morning worker in an Indian city enjoy a breakfast cooked by a chef crouching at curbside with his tiny stove, amid heavy traffic, and calmly preparing—and serving—an omelet with toast. Some Haitian “restaurants” at which I ate in the countryside had room for only two customers at a time. And I saw tourists in Xochimilco savoring deep-fried chicken in their boat, chicken cooked for them in a boat like their own by a lady who put down her oars to do the deep-frying and serving. Americans who believe that “fast food” began in the United States really need to travel more. 6. Marshall Sahlins, “The Origin of Society,” Scientific American 203, no. 3 (September 1960), 76–87. 7. Sidney W. Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom (Boston: 1996), 25.

Salo on Challah: Soviet Jews’ Experience of Food in the 1920s–1950s Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto)

Is food relevant to the study of Russian Jewish culture? Do memories of food, popular recipes, eating practices, and stories about meals represent only a layer of the “thin” culture of Russian Jews, based on feeling, memory, and shared experiences without much “thick culture” complete with language, customs, rituals, music and ethnic neighborhoods?1 Is there a larger story told by food memories? Or is any study analyzing such questions nothing more than a fashionable, jargon-filled piece that offers no real contribution toward a better understanding of Soviet Jewish culture? Anthropologists have long argued that discussions of food consumption and preparation can trigger memories of landscapes, boundary markers, particular ceremonial or personal objects, habits, and social relations.2 In addition, studies of the senses— inseparable from memories of food—may provide keys to the “counter-memories” of an official narrative. In conducting my research on Jewish culture in the Soviet Union, focusing on the first generation of Soviet-educated Jews who were mostly born in the 1920s,3 I  intended to learn just that: history from the point of view of individuals, the counter-memories of the official narrative of Soviet history produced both in Russia and in the West. I interviewed 474 individuals over the course of twelve years. During these interviews, I frequently heard stories about food in different contexts, ranging from memories of the interviewees’ parents; the hardships of the 1930s and the Second World War; descriptions of feasts, weddings, and holiday celebrations in the 1960s; and details concerning post-Soviet changes in food consumption. I often initiated conversations about food as icebreakers, and also in order to evoke memories of parents, celebratory practices, and daily life. Postfactum, I realized that I was collecting a large inventory of recipes, including those of rare dishes, and also quantitatively significant data on this generation’s associations with food. In fact, after giving the matter more thought, I realized that the stories about food were central to uncovering crucial aspects of the identity and culture of my respondents, which could not be appreciated without an understanding of what, when, and how they ate. 10

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Method and Basic Data Collection Over the years 1999–2011, I interviewed 474 people born in the Russian Empire or in the Soviet Union between 1899 and 1928. The interviews were conducted in the United States (New York and Philadelphia), Germany, Russia, and Canada. In the earlier period of 1999–2004, the subjects were interviewed about Jewish daily life in pre-Second World War Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Russia. Later, I became more interested in the Second World War and late Soviet and post-Soviet experiences. The interviews consisted of open-ended questions about respondents’ experiences during their lives.4 I used a combination of an open call for volunteers (in the form of a letter to the editors of Russian-language newspapers) and, at a later stage, the snowball method for obtaining interviews. While the study was not designed as quantitative, I tried to ensure equal representation of gender as well as countries of origin, experiences, backgrounds, and varieties of educational experience (see Table 2.1). No significant variation in the respondents’ backgrounds was noted by country. The respondents were highly educated (slightly more than half had the equivalent of a college degree) and almost all had completed high school. All respondents spoke Russian, and quite a high percentage of interviews were recorded, at least partially, in Yiddish. This was done intentionally, because an important incentive in collecting the testimonies was my desire to record Yiddish as spoken by native speakers from Ukraine and Byelorussia. I thought that Yiddish speakers would have a better knowledge of Jewish customs and traditions, or at least would be more aware of their Jewish identity, compared with those who did not speak the language. In selecting the respondents, I always preferred to interview those who said that they spoke Yiddish and claimed to be able to have the entire conversation in that language. Of all my respondents, only 68 could handle the entire interview in Yiddish; the rest of the interviews listed as Yiddishlanguage have more than 50 percent of content in Yiddish. In addition, many respondents with a weaker knowledge of the language chose to speak about some issues in Yiddish, and many inserted Yiddish words and expressions where they thought it was necessary. Inspired by the experience of Yiddish ethnographers such as Rakhmiel Peltz, I encouraged respondents to speak as much Yiddish as possible, sometimes asking them questions in Yiddish, in the hope that the sound of the language would trigger memories they associated with their childhood.5 As an oral historian who is also a literary scholar, I apply methods of textual analy­ sis to the data that I collect. In analyzing self-representation, I treat the testimonies as literary texts that fit into the story genre, which therefore include villains, heroes, obstacles, and methods of overcoming these obstacles. I am less concerned with factchecking or with “what really happened” in the respondents’ lives, but rather see their stories as narratives of construction of identity and as discussions of successful coping mechanisms and strategies of acclimatization to different political systems and ideologies. I scrutinize the wording that respondents choose to express ideas and the structure of their narratives, attempting to understand the meanings behind their formulation of answers, how they move from one topic to another, and how they understand and interpret my questions.

Table 2.1.  Statistical Data on Respondents Place of Residence

No. Respondents

Men

Women

Place of Birth Ukraine

Post-Secondary Education Byelorussia

Russia

Poland, Lithuania, Romania

  New York Toronto

Yiddish speakers*

157

81

76

76

52

11

18

72

87

99

41

58

48

23

19

9

56

36

Philadelphia

64

31

33

31

9

11

13

28

41

Berlin (inc. Potsdam)

102

61

41

55

27

12

8

60

25

Moscow Total

52

19

33

39

3

10

0

43

18

474

233

241

249

114

63

48

259

207

* Defined as those participating in an interview in which more than half the conversation was conducted in Yiddish.

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Notes from the “Food File” Each interview was recorded and transcribed in its original language, and each yielded between ten and fifty pages of double-spaced text. As I was working on specific topics, I highlighted and pasted all the relevant sections of interviews dealing with the subject I was working on into a separate file. For example, everything relevant to Jewish observances went into one file, religious faith into another, career choices into a third, gender relations into a fourth, and the post-Soviet experience into a fifth. Separate files were created both for memories of parents and family structures and the memories of important historical events, such as the Doctor’s Plot, the destruction of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and the Six-Day War. Each file ran from 500 to 3,000 pages in length. When asked to write this essay, I decided to create a separate file on everything my respondents had said about food, ranging from what they remembered eating in the 1930s and 1940s to methods of food preparation, general discussions about food shortages, and specific stories about resourcefulness in obtaining and preparing food for their families. All in all, the excerpts came to almost 700 pages. In my discussion of the testimonies of food, I utilize and contextualize the background of each respondent, but it seems useful to discuss the food file in its entirety before we proceed. First, the “food file” has the highest proportion of Yiddish compared with any other thematic file. Even if the respondents spoke in Russian for the largest part of the interview, they were more likely to switch to Yiddish when they spoke about the food from their childhood. In fact, as I was observing this tendency, I often asked questions about food in Yiddish in order to stimulate a discussion on other topics related to Jewish ways of life that the respondents might have associated with the Yiddish language. As a result, I was sometimes rewarded with treasures of Yiddish folklore associated with cooking and names of dishes. For example, one respondent explained that his mother called the lumps in a bowl of cream of wheat “shikselekh”— literally, little pieces of non-Jewish women. A second observation, closely connected to the first, is that almost all excerpts from the “Jewish religious observances” file ended up in the food file as well. In other words, the absolute majority of respondents who elaborated on the questions regarding their memory of Jewish tradition as practiced in their families, or how they understood it, chose to frame their answers through the prism of food stories. Moreover, those respondents who did not speak about food usually did not share anything about their families’ attachments to Jewish traditions and rituals. Curiously, the spontaneous descriptions of celebrations of Soviet holidays such as May Day, November 7 (the anniversary of the Russian Revolution), and May 9 (Victory Day in the Soviet Great Patriotic War) rarely include celebratory foods. Instead, the holidays are associated with days off, spending time with family, and alcohol consumption. Third, the food file turned out to be very similar to the file devoted to respondents’ recollections of their mothers and grandmothers. Stories about mothers as homemakers and as guardians of “normalcy” during prewar turbulence, wartime deprivation, and postwar chaos inevitably turned into stories about getting and preparing food, and sometimes also about sharing recipes. While the association of cooking with the “female sphere” is not entirely surprising, it is remarkable how little else respondents

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remember about their older female family members, at least without prompting. In other words, if asked about a mother or a grandmother, the chances were high that the male respondents would begin speaking about food and would not mention too many other things, unless specifically asked about their mothers’ and grandmothers’ professions and character, and the nature of their relationship with them. While female respondents usually did not limit their own life story to homemaking or cooking, they nonetheless paid more attention than men to food preparation and shopping for food. Fourth, the food file reveals that, with regard to what is considered “Jewish” food, there is almost no difference between respondents who immigrated after the Soviet Union collapsed and those who did not. However, the way in which they present these memories differs significantly depending on whether they currently live in Germany, the United States, Canada, or the Russian Federation.6 In addition, immigrant respondents seemed to be acutely aware of the differences between what is considered to be “Jewish food” in their adopted homes and the “Jewish” food from their childhood. This awareness, as will be seen, influenced how and when respondents spoke about food.

To be a Jew is to Tolerate Someone Even if They Eat Kosher Food: The Russian Revolution and Kashrut Soviet Jewish identities were transformed by policies of the 1920s that strongly discouraged (while never fully prohibiting) Jewish religious practices, especially the production of kosher meat and baking of matzah for Passover. In addition, the mass exodus of young Jews from the former Pale of Settlement, the arrest and harassment of Jewish religious leaders, and the destruction of the system of Jewish religious education led to a radical transformation of Jewish identity. Among other things, this transformation was marked by a weakening of the connection between Judaism and Jewish identity, including a gradual departure from traditional Jewish food practices. In the 1920s, the younger generation began to associate kosher food consumption with the pre-revolutionary period, considering it irrelevant to their own lives. While most of my respondents were too young to remember the 1920s, many told stories relating to kosher practices, which they had heard as family legends. Quite a significant number of these stories involved family conflicts associated with kashrut. For example, Maya D. (born in 1928 in the little town of Chervonnoy, in the region of Zhitomir, Ukraine) remembered her great-grandfather only very vaguely but did know one story about him, since it was frequently recounted in the family: In my mother’s house one always observed kashrut. Why? Because we always believed that one should respect elders. We never boiled meat in dairy pots and never boiled potatoes in pots for compote. . . . One day, however, my mother received a punch in her face from her grandfather. She was carrying around flyers to some Ukrainian villages. There was nothing to eat there. She came home, and she threw up. And my grandfather noticed that there were pieces of salo [salted fresh lard] in her vomit. And naturally, he hit her. It was the first time he hit her, because it was not a custom in our house to hit children. My mother remembered [this punishment] her whole life. Kashrut was observed in the family all the time, without interruption. That is, everyone tried to eat non-kosher things only when

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the grandparents were not looking or when they were not home. It was all a matter of tactful behavior, no one wanted to offend them.7

This story came in answer to a question about grandparents and the nature of their relationship with the rest of the family. Memories of parental instruction with regard to respecting elders are closely connected to food-related stories. In respondents’ testimony, not observing the laws of kashrut is associated with punishment. In most testimonies, including this one, the negativity is present in describing the meticulous observance of Jewish tradition, especially those aspects associated with food. However, in testimonies of older respondents, this negativity is often veiled by assertions of respect to elders as a strong family value. Separate meat and dairy pots are frequently mentioned in testimonies, and these signify, for the respondent, a Jewish method of housekeeping. However, Maya’s way of understanding the necessity for the separation lacks religious context; thus, she parallels this practice with not boiling vegetables (potatoes) in the pots designed for fruit (compote), though doing so would not contradict the laws of kashrut. Moreover, the presence of a specific “dairy pot” in many Jewish households, which was explained by some elderly respondents as a specifically Jewish tradition, was actually a common practice based on Soviet norms of hygiene. The Soviets believed that even pasteurized milk needed to be boiled before consumption, and dairy pots (which had thicker bottoms in order to avoid fast overheating, which would lead to the milk boiling over) were popular among Jews and non-Jews alike. Similarly, many respondents speak about specific pots for making kasha (hot cereal), which I think is related to the dairy pot, separate cutting boards for meat and non-meat products, and separate pots for making meat (all of which can be and often are explained by reference to hygienic concerns), separate pots for preparing fish, and—most astonishingly and frequently—a separate pan for frying pork. The presence of separate dishes for pork preparation can shock a contemporary Jewish audience outside of the former Soviet Union, because Jews consuming pork as a “Jewish” product signifies breaking a taboo or, at least, a full departure from Jewish tradition. We shall soon see that this was not the case in early 20th-century United States, and the practice seemed natural to my respondents. Many of them expressed sentiments that are similar to the ones voiced by Maya: pork was consumed regularly, but in order to keep things peaceful and respectable in the family, adjustments were made. Similarly, adjustments were made for the consumption of bread during Passover. Mariya M. (born in Voznesensk in 1923) recalls: [Before 1932], we all ate kosher food, except for my father. My father. . . . People called him a tsygan goy [Gypsy-Gentile]. He did not acknowledge anyone or anything. He did not believe in [religious] authority. He was able to come home for Passover and say [to my mother]: “Give me bread, I won’t eat matzah.” My mother fed him in the kitchen, so that Grandfather wouldn’t see.8

This story came in answer to my question about Jewish traditions and holidays that were practiced in the family. As with Maya, Mariya associates the observance of the laws of kashrut with the older generation and, more specifically, with conflicts between her parents and grandparents. The lack of desire of the respondent’s father, born in 1900, to eat matzah is balanced with the wishes of his wife (born in 1901) to

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keep peace in the family. When asked to elaborate on the meaning of her father’s nickname, “Gypsy-Gentile,” Mariya suggested that she understood it as a reference to his lack of education, somewhat rough manner, darker skin color due to manual labor in the open air, and, of course, his lack of observance of Jewish tradition. For this respondent, as for Maya, the story of breaking and observing the laws of kashrut is one of family conflict and old versus new, but also of respect to elders. Her testimony appears to be part of family folklore, the story told to her as an example of how one needs to respect one’s elders (my assumption is that she was too young to witness and make sense of what she had seen). In any case, this was something the respondent considers a “Jewish value,” though it is associated with being accommodating and tolerant to people who live according to Jewish law, as opposed to observing the law itself. Maya’s story about the salo suggests essentially the same interpretation. Maya’s mother told the story not to highlight her lack of religious observance, but rather to emphasize the lesson that she learned about respecting her elders. In fact, Maya’s response was prompted by my question regarding what it was like to live together with grandparents in the same house. In other words, the story was told as an example of how her parents showed respect for Maya’s grandparents, despite different worldviews. The details about kashrut observance came in handy as illustrations; though not the point of the story, the choice of these details signifies that the respondent did witness observance of kashrut and other aspects of a Jewish lifestyle, though the primary knowledge of “cooking kosher” is attributed solely to the older generation. In this sense, the (mis)understanding that fruit is not cooked in the same pot as vegetables, which is similar to that of not boiling meat in the same pot as dairy products, makes sense: the actual story is not about kashrut, but rather about the methods of housekeeping at home, some of which can be traced back to Jewish practices, and others that cannot.

Salo, Ham, Pork Chops: A Little More on “Kosher” Pork When I visited respondents’ homes to record interviews, they often served tea and sometimes a full lunch. In many cases, dishes made out of pork such as bologna sausage (kolbasa), smoked sausage, and sliced ham were served, in addition to smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon, sliced cheese, and numerous sweets. Even if pork was not consumed in front of me, it was often discussed as part of the everyday diet during both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. When I asked about menus for the celebration of Soviet holidays or birthdays, respondents casually mentioned dishes made out of pork. When I attended celebratory events, even more pork was served, often as a main course, but also as parts of salads and snacks—though other staples of Jewish celebratory meals, such as herring with beets, stuffed or boiled fish with carrots, and kugel, were also present. Asked to talk about their favorite foods and recipes, respondents were likely to offer details regarding the methods of preparation of traditional Jewish foods, which I understood to be a concession to the stated subject of the interview, Jewish culture in the Soviet Union. When I asked about methods of pork preparation, I sometimes got recipes and, if I was lucky, stories that reconciled between the consumption of

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pork and respondents’ Jewish (or even kashrut-observant) identities. One such story, by Sara F., a fluent Yiddish speaker from Derazhnya who believed that the pork chops that she prepared with onions and garlic were kosher because she cooked them with a pinch of her Jewish soul (shitkl yidisher neshome),9 inspired the title of my first book, Soviet and Kosher, on Soviet Jewish popular culture of the 1920s and 1930s. In the case of Vladimir P. (born in Odessa in 1922), the subject of pork came up rather unexpectedly. Speaking fondly, in Yiddish, about his mother’s cooking, he vividly described chicken broth, buckwheat, fish, and celery as important staples. He also talked about the celebration of Jewish holidays. Then I asked him whether he ever thought that he could marry a non-Jew. In his reply, he moved to issues regarding pork: No, our family was very strict about it [intermarriage]. However, we all liked khazer [pork]. We all liked salo, pork, everything. A.S.  Even your parents? V.P.  Yes. My father had a special butcher, a shoykhet [ritual slaughterer], who slaughtered pigs. He ate it. Have you not heard of special Jewish butchers? A.S.  Yes, but I have never heard of a shoykhet for pigs. V. P.  Well, we had a special slaughterer who slaughtered pigs especially for Jews. He made kosher pork. Who knows how he did it, exactly. A.S.  So, in your family, you ate it, right? V.P.  Papa could not live without it. He had weak lungs, and doctors prescribed him to eat pork fat. Usually for lunch, when he came home from work, my mother fried some potatoes for him using salo. He ate it. A.S.  Did you like it too? V.P.  Of course! It was delicious. Until now, I love Jewish food, the pork. If someone comes to visit me from Ukraine, I always ask them to bring some Ukrainian salo.10 The mention of special butchers for pigs (and other non-kosher animals such as rabbits) is not uncommon in testimonies. While it is doubtful that such butchers existed, it is possible that some Jews interpreted a doctor’s prescription for increasing the fat in their diet (a common treatment for pneumonia and bronchitis in the 1920s and 1930s) as an acceptable excuse to include pork and even salo, even if they cared enough to consider the rules of kashrut. It is significant that the story about pork came in answer to my question about intermarriage. Despite suggesting that the “pork is kosher,” the respondent nonetheless immediately associates it with matters “non-Jewish,” such as choosing a non-Jewish spouse. As he proceeds with his story, it seems that Vladimir is trying to explain his first reaction: he remembers that consuming pork was actually allowed in his home, which he associates with a Jewish lifestyle. Therefore, the butcher for pigs appears, along with his assertion that pork is a Jewish food, and that he misses it from his childhood. In other words, for Vladimir, Jewish food and Jewish culture are the culture of his parents, and he works to make sense of it by combining his knowledge of kosher practices with the practices that contradict this knowledge. In some ways, he actually walks us through the process of how the pork, even salo (on which more will be said), becomes “kosher” food.

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Another reason for Vladimir’s bringing up his family’s love for pork may be to counter what he perceives to be negative opinions regarding Jews who are not worldly enough to accept intermarriage. It is important for him to show that, despite rejecting intermarriage, his family was nonetheless progressive and open to others. Eating pork, and enjoying it, is the best proof of that. Despite the similarities between Sara’s and Vladimir’s stories, there is a profound difference in how they talk about pork. For Sara, it is a Jewish food because she, a Jew, made it. For Vladimir, it is a signifier of the universal human identity (as opposed to the narrowly Jewish one). I believe that this difference can be explained by the current countries of residence of the respondents. Sara is based in New York, where it is typical for respondents to emphasize their connection, no matter how weak, to Jewish culture.11 Vladimir is in Berlin, where Russian Jews of his generation emphasize the internationalist nature of their identity and often downplay their Jewish roots, despite almost universally belonging to Jewish community organizations. I have never heard a story about kosher pork or rabbits from Russia-based respondents. They eat pork, like other respondents, but they never attempt to connect this practice with kashrut. I believe that this is not because they understand the laws of kashrut better than those respondents who live in Germany or the United States, but simply because they do not perceive the laws of kashrut as an important part of their Jewish identity. Not all pork is perceived as equally neutral. While ham, pork chops, and sliced sausage do not often become the subject of conversation, salo—the slightly processed pork fat—is mentioned frequently in many contexts relevant to Jewish identity. It appears in answers to questions about Jewish culture, Jewish practices, personal identity, relationships with neighbors, and in coming of age stories. Of all the foods discussed by my respondents, salo has the strongest emotional weight, provoking vivid and complex stories. Many respondents, especially the ones from Ukraine, speak about eating or not eating salo as a signifier in their acceptance of the Jewish way of eating. For example, it is common for the respondent who militantly rejects Jewish tradition to emphasize this rejection by saying that he loves and frequently eats salo. Others admit to eating pork without necessarily knowing or acknowledging that this is not a Jewish practice, yet emphasize that they do not eat salo because this is not what Jews do. Many others say that they tried salo, but do not eat it for health reasons. In fact, many respondents describe how they (or their siblings or parents) ate salo as the first (or the final) act of rejecting Jewish tradition, as a rebellion against or a betrayal of their grandparents, or simply as the breaking of an important taboo. As Maya’s testimony regarding her family lore clearly demonstrates, salo served as the trigger of the strongest emotions associated with disobedience, crisis in generational relationships, and, of course, departure from the Jewish way of life. Dina R. (born in 1921, Petroverovka, Ukraine) expresses similar sentiments with even greater clarity: I was in the fifth grade. There was a boy in my school. He was German. I can’t remember his last name. During recess, I stepped outside the school, and looked at the young kids who were playing. Then I saw them, the two boys. A Ukrainian and a German. I r­ emember

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[the Ukrainian one] like it was today. His name was Dimka Zaytsev. The German is telling the Ukrainian boy: Let’s smear her lips with salo. Jews don’t eat salo, because it’s pork. But I could hear him, I always had great hearing, even now. He approaches me from behind, holding salo in his hand. He stretched his arm, with a pointed finger, in order to smear my mouth, but I grabbed the salo from his hands and ate it. I loved salo. Then I said to him: Right, Jews do not eat salo! [laughs] My grandmother, of course did not know that. My grandfather was okay with it, but not my grandmother. She didn’t know that I often ate salo in my girlfriends’ houses.12

Clearly, in the mind of the respondent and her peers, salo was the ultimate nonJewish product, the one that could repel and offend Jews. However, the respondent takes pride in her wit, fast reaction, and, most importantly, her victory over what she sees as a “negative” perception of Jews (too weak to eat salo). She emphasizes that her grandmother does not know about her experiments with pork, and that she does not tell her in order to spare her feelings. However, she also refuses to be identified with her grandmother’s Jewishness, which, for her, calls to mind a weak, powerless Jew as imagined by antisemites. Even as a ten-year old in 1931, she is proud not to be like her grandmother, to shock her tormentors, and to represent the new generation of Jews who proudly eat salo with their peers. In her analysis of American Jewish cookbooks of the 19th and early 20th century, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett takes note of differences between various kinds of pork as “appropriate” for Jewish tables: “For reasons that remain to be explored, some forms of treyf, namely shellfish, cured pork, and the unporged hindquarters of beef, were seductive, while other forms, such as lard, were generally repellent.”13 Similarly, Russian Jews almost universally understand lard to be a non-Jewish product. One possible explanation of this phenomenon is that some respondents learned about practices of not using salo in cooking when they were children in Ukrainian villages, and understood the use of it as a “non-Jewish” practice. Until the 1930s, salo was the most popular and often only available or affordable fat used in cooking and baking in the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, Jewish mothers usually did not teach their daughters to cook with it. This practice alone, though not explicitly connected with the Jewish tradition, was sufficient to establish the firm, “non-Jewish” nature of salo. However, other types of pork, including sausages, chops, and ham, were not consumed as often and were not directly associated with salo, thus not seen as being quite as forbidden. In fact, I would argue that the pork origin of salo plays a less important role in its repulsion for my respondents than the family-based association with its non-Jewish nature.

Soviet Jewish Foods and Practices All but three of the respondents do not observe the laws of kashrut, and many are not even aware of its rules. However, they typically speak of Jewish versus non-Jewish practices in cooking. Some of these practices are informed by the laws of kashrut, though the respondents usually do not discuss them specifically. For example, Lyusya G.

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(born in Vinnitsa in 1924) spoke about fish cholent, a dish her mother taught her to make for special occasions. The recipe calls for stewing a small fish with onions, carrots, and beets for five to six hours on very low heat. Lyusya made it for me when I came to visit her and her husband for a second interview, and she also explained her method of cooking the dish: “Old Jewish women used to leave it overnight in the oven. They just keep the oven on all night on low heat. I am afraid to do that, as it could be unsafe. Instead, I cook it during the day, on low heat, so that I can keep an eye on it. I don’t think you can tell the difference.”14 Lyusya knew that fish cholent was a dish Jews cooked for festive occasions, but did not know that the method of its preparation had anything to do with the prohibition to start fire on the Sabbath, hence the method of cooking it overnight at a low heat. Nor was she exposed to celebrating the Sabbath at home, even as a child (at least she did not mention it in her testimony, either prompted or on her own). When I asked why she thought the method was specifically Jewish, she said that this was what she heard from her mother, and quickly suggested that maybe her mother was mistaken, because she was semi-literate and full of prejudice. I recorded similar stories about the method of cooking cherry dumplings (made with no cheese inside, using a non-dairy dough, and served with cherry syrup instead of sour cream if prepared for dessert rather than the main course); hot Jewish borscht (made either without meat and served with sour cream, or with beef stock and served with dark rye bread smeared with garlic), cold Jewish borscht made for Passover and eaten with matzah, golubtsy (stuffed cabbage leaves prepared with beef rather than pork and served with tomato sauce rather than sour cream), Jewish noodles (prepared with eggs), and similar dishes. To a North American reader, the names of the dishes alone, without the methods of preparation, sound authentically Jewish. However, for Russian Jews this is not the case. Varenikes (dumplings), borscht, and golubtsy are staples of Russian and Ukrainian cuisine. As Alice Nakhimovsky notes, Jewish and Russian (or Ukrainian and Byelorussian) food shares the same geographic space and many of the same ingredients. She argues that what makes the food “Jewish” for Jews is the frequency of its consumption and its emotional significance.15 I agree, but only partially, because while I did find strong evidence concerning the emotional significance of certain foods (especially those consumed on festive occasions), there was almost no evidence regarding more frequent consumption of “Jewish” foods. Yet very often my respondents knew what was “Jewish” and what was “not Jewish” about the foods they ate, and many were able to elaborate on the substance, rather than the cause or the significance, of the differences. In other words, what made the food Jewish was the association of the food with the respondent’s Jewish parents or grandparents who used to cook it.

Foods during the War The stories of the first Soviet generation of Russian Jews are filled with descriptions of horrific experiences such as the Civil War (1918–1920), Holodomor (the orchestrated famine in Ukraine during the 1930s), Stalin’s Great Terror, the Second World

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War, and the purges of 1948–1953. During the Second World War, many respondents experienced military draft, escape from the German military invasion, evacuation to the Soviet rear, imprisonment, and/or ghettoization. They witnessed murders, miraculously escaped death, lived in partisan units, and survived the siege of Leningrad. The memories of hunger, foods consumed in hardship, or food consumed after long periods of hunger fill the stories about these experiences. Talking about eating often triggered memories of other difficulties experienced and tragedies witnessed. In fact, many respondents started their stories about the Second World War, a period of especially memorable hardship, with reminiscences about what they had eaten during traumatic experiences. There are four common themes in the testimonies. The first concerns eating foods that were barely edible—vegetable peels, rotten food, the by-products of processed foods, non-organic substances such as sand, clay, or chalk, or animals not commonly consumed, including horses, dogs, wolves, turtles, and carrion. The second theme relates to the joy associated with eating a semi-normal or a simple food—a fresh loaf of bread or soup, and especially fatty foods. Respondents remember the marvelous taste of these dishes, and some try to recreate it for the rest of their lives, without much success. The third theme deals with the exceptional generosity of others (or exceptional lack thereof) in regard to sharing food during times of distress. Finally, there are the stories focusing on miracles with regard to obtaining food, such as the unimaginable kindness of strangers, luck in obtaining a bread card, finding a piece of food on a street, or an unexpected present. An example of testimony that combines a few of these motifs is that of Bella G. (born in 1913, in Molodechno, Byelorussia), who recalls an episode from her life as an evacuee to the Urals in 1942: I remember vividly the sensation of hunger. If I ever got a piece of bread, I would always give it to my child. In our canteen, we would get some watery soup with one green tomato in it and a piece of potato. I went to get it, but I got dizzy from hunger and weakness, and I fell, but I managed to put the pot with the soup down, so that it did not spill. I remembered it was food. People gathered together, and were afraid to touch me, they thought I had epilepsy. I could hear everything, but could not speak. Someone went to get my sister. She came, got me up, walked me and fed me with the soup, gave me a piece of bread, and I felt better. Then someone told me that my husband had arrived unexpectedly. I began to run around, to look for him. I went into the workshop, saw tons of people, everyone wanted to see a real military officer. . . . I almost fainted again, I hugged him, and we both cried, and our child cried. It was such a reunion. He stayed for ten days. He brought rations. We ate what he brought. But in his suitcase, where he had the grain for us, there was also a bottle of cologne. The bottle broke, and the grain got saturated with it. My husband says: “Throw it out.” And I said: “Can one throw out such a thing? You will leave, and we will need it.” I put all the grains on a newspaper and kept it out for a week, to air it out. But it was such a strong cologne that it would not just go away. When I boiled the grain, it still smelled like cologne, and tasted bitter, but we ate it because we were hungry. He left, and we had to survive. A few months after his visit, two soldiers showed up, they came to pick me up to travel to my husband’s unit. They were surprised that the locals, who thought that Jews had

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horns, were so nice to me (I was actually hiding the fact that I was a Jew, because when those women heard about Jews, they would cross themselves to protect themselves from the devil. They were very backward). To say goodbye, these women brought me gifts for the trip, half a liter of milk, and some carrots. Our soldiers were surprised that I had held such respect among those villains. The train approached, we had to climb into the car. Somehow, I was pushed in, but not the child. We got separated. I was in the car, it was so crowded I could not put the second foot down, but the child remained outside. How he screamed, and how I screamed. One of the soldiers went down, with great difficulty, got my child and got him into the car. Thank God we were on the train, we had food that my husband sent us specifically for the train. We arrived in Moscow, the soldiers called my husband’s office. He asked to take us to his room, in an apartment. It was like a dormitory for officers, many had their own rooms. Everyone came out: “[G’s] wife is here.” They started asking me things, invited me to their rooms until he got there. Then he arrived, and opened the room. In the middle, there was a desk, covered with a red sheet. He had nothing else. A loaf of bread, tea, and cans were waiting for us. I thought that I ended up in a fairy tale, after all the suffering.16

In this abbreviated testimony about the respondent’s life in evacuation, it seems apparent that memories of food help her to reconstruct the sequence of events that took place during that highly stressful time. Her recollections of hardships slip into the descriptions of the food that was consumed. The smell of the cologne that saturated the grain reminds her of what she considered to be the lowest level of dehumanization—having to eat inedible substances. Similarly, being Jewish comes up in the story in the context of food. While she remembers fondly the food that local women brought to her, she is quick to remind the listener that she was different from these women, because they were backward. Ironically, the kind attitude of strangers is associated with antisemitism. While I do not have an explanation for this particular connection, I did notice that the kindness of strangers during the war is often described with an element of surprise, almost as if such kindness was a miracle, given the deep distrust of Gentiles toward Jews. Miracles are often associated, albeit indirectly, with being Jewish. One respondent spoke about rabbits as a miracle food that saved her during the war, while another shared similar sentiments about cabbage. Many described the heavenly taste of dark bread that they obtained under miraculous circumstances during the war, comparing the bread with the best—usually Jewish—food that their mothers made in childhood. In testimonies that deal with degradation, it is not uncommon for respondents to emphasize that their Jewishness was something that hindered them from eating inedible food, such as soup from rotten vegetable peels, turtles, insects, or oil by-products. Some respondents referred to this hesitation as the sign of their “culturedness,” compared to their barbaric neighbors, and many meant or actually used the word “cultured” and “Jewish” interchangeably in this context. All four types of memories of food in times of distress often started with, or led to, discussions related to the Jewish identity or Jewish ethnicity of the respondents. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that Soviet Jews experienced a strong rise in ethnic consciousness during the war, remembering many of their experiences through the prism of an awakening Jewish identity. It is noteworthy, however, that this awakening is not associated with any specific Jewish laws regarding eating, or

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any Jewish food. Instead, the manner, the circumstances of eating, and the emotions associated with food begin to represent a specific “Jewish” manner of eating and continue to define, in many ways, what respondents regard as eating “Jewishly.”

Jewish Foods in Early Postwar Soviet Union The war, which claimed more than 27 million Soviet lives, also devastated the Soviet economy and infrastructure. It destroyed millions of buildings, industrial complexes, wheat fields, vegetable gardens, and farms, ushering in a prolonged period in which Soviet citizens were continually (and often frantically) engaged in obtaining necessary sustenance. According to many respondents, the process of obtaining, preparing, and sharing food during the late 1940s and 1950s consumed the majority of their time. Female respondents emphasized their central role in managing to feed their families in conditions of severe food shortages, often without a stove (many people used a primus stove for cooking in apartments; gas and electric stoves became widely available only in the late 1950s). They prided themselves on being able to feed a large number of people with very limited resources, and shared stories of these achievements in far greater detail than those dealing with their professional accomplishments or even the successes of their children. Incidents involving self-sacrifice and the ability to find a way to impress their husbands’ colleagues, especially those who were non-Jewish, were regarded in the light of major accomplishments and were clearly sources of the greatest pride. The late 1940s and 1950s are also remembered for growing Soviet antisemitism, which led to increasingly negative perceptions of Jews. Recollecting personal resourcefulness is often characterized as an act of both self-assertion and resistance against the negative perceptions of Jews. For instance, a story told by Fira F. (born in 1920 in Pereyaslav, Ukraine) describes the process of her husband’s acceptance into a prestigious military academy in 1949: When my husband found out that he was accepted into the Military Academy, he immediately sent a telegram to me through his local division staff. It stated: “I am enlisted into Academy. Prepare dumplings with sour cherries.” It was his favorite dish. Yes, it was perfect, that dish. It was always seen as a reward in our family. He knew that if he was asking I would make it, of course. But to make it was a separate story. By the time the telegram had reached me, it had many signatures on it. . . . I turned the paper over, and saw that every single member of the division staff had signed the telegram. It meant that they were all coming over. I realized that, oy, oy, oy, I had to buy sour cherries and flour and to make enough dumplings for the entire division staff. I took old children’s clothes and went to the mountains, to Armenian Gypsies, they are called Kurds there. I went to the Kurds to exchange my clothes for cherries and flour. When my husband found out I did that, he almost shot me. He said: “You are crazy for going to the mountains, to the Gypsies, by yourself.” When he sent the telegram he did not know that the entire staff would read it, he thought I would buy a kilo of cherries and a kilo of flour, and would make it for him. But now I needed the entire bucket of cherries and an entire bag of flour. I carried it all home by myself, no one helped me. They gave me the most beautiful cherries. I came home, put the kids to sleep, and spent the entire night pitting the cherries,

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using a hairpin. I did the entire bucket, and made a filling. In the morning I made the dough. My neighbor took the kids, and I made the dumplings. Someone brought me a board, and I put them on the board. I boiled water in huge buckets, and boiled dumplings in them. Then I made the special syrup. I make it like my mother taught me. It is a special way, not with sour cream like Russians and Ukrainians eat. It has the special syrup. First, one rolls all the cherries in flour, then in sugar, and that keeps each berry separate from another. Then I put it on a strainer, let the liquid drip, and use the liquid to make the syrup. After the dumplings are done, I put them on a dish, and cover them with the syrup. The taste of this dish is divine. I only make it on very special occasions: for my son’s birthday, for example. But now I made it for the entire division staff. They all came and ate, one after another. And everyone praised my husband for getting into the Academy. But after we moved to Moscow, we went through hell. It was 1949, no one wanted to rent to Jews. We could find an apartment only in the Moscow region, not in Moscow itself. We lived in terrible conditions, it was hard to get fuel to warm up the house. All of this was my responsibility, because he left for work before dawn, and came back late. Everything about our daily life was my work. And me, with my weak hands, moved all the coal, wood, and fed, and, bathed, and washed. We used a primus stove for cooking because gas stoves were not yet available.17

The respondent describes the process of obtaining the ingredients and the method of preparing dumplings in such great detail because these details emphasize what she saw as the sacrificial nature of her role in the family. In addition, she felt that her spousal duty included ensuring that her husband’s colleagues and bosses appreciated the hospitality and stability of his family. While the choice of dish was her husband’s, it was the respondent’s decision to make dumplings in the “proper” (that is, the most time-consuming) way, despite the large quantity of food involved. One hears the pride, the sense of accomplishment, and also a hint concerning the husband’s lack of appreciation or acknowledgement of her work. She emphasizes repeatedly that she put herself at physical risk in order to obtain the necessary ingredients. Though Fira never directly articulates it, the listener understands that keeping up the appearance of a successful housekeeper was deemed somewhat more important than life for her. The story itself belongs to the quest genre. Reaching the goal requires sacrifice, wit, resourcefulness, and physical endurance. The goal is to feed the entire division staff with the best possible celebratory food—which happens to be cooked according to Jewish custom. In this context, it is quite noteworthy that this was the first time in the entire interview that the respondent brought up the Jewish aspect of her behavior. Her dumplings are prepared according to the special Jewish method. The Jewish method is then associated with the hardships of living in postwar Moscow, in turn immediately associated with antisemitism and with other difficulties. I read the testimony as a statement of close association of hardships with the difficulties of being a Jew, especially a Jewish woman. Even the memories of a celebratory dish, whose recipe had been transmitted from generation to generation, is associated with exhausting labor, deprivation, and an unfairly heavy share of chores. In sum, the testimony tells the story of Jewish ethnicity as a story of suffering and self-sacrifice. Even Jewish food, a marker that is traditionally analyzed as a symbol

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of positive association with Jewish culture, brings up memories of injustice and unfairness. The link between Jewish identity and misfortune appears only in descriptions of the 1950s and 1960s, as opposed to the prewar period or even wartime. Before the 1950s, Jewish food is more likely to be associated with happy childhood memories. In other words, the recollections and stories of the same foods are associated with different emotions depending on when a specific episode took place. Interestingly, for many respondents, even happy stories about Jewish food consumed after the war are often followed by unhappy memories of being Jewish. The question of why Fira cooks Jewish food for her non-Jewish guests remains somewhat unresolved. It is understandable that her husband requested a dish he liked and knew she could make for him. However, she did not change the plans when she realized that she was cooking for a hundred people, almost all of them presumably non-Jews. While Fira did not provide the answer in her testimony, I believe that a testimony by another respondent reveals possible reasons for such behavior. Liza R. (born in 1918, in Romanov, Ukraine) explains: My husband’s colleague was non-Jewish. He and his wife loved coming to our house, because I cooked those very special varnechkes [dumplings]. They loved it. His wife would come to the kitchen with me, and would say: “I love it when you cook this Jewish osek fleysh [sweet and sour meat], and my husband likes when you cook those varnechkes.” But whenever I saw her at the office (we worked together), she would always tell me: “I am so tired of you Jews. When are you going to Israel?” And sometimes she would come to me, and say: “Give me gold, I need to do new teeth.” I would ask: “Why do you ask me?” And she would answer: “Because you Jews always have gold.” A.S. Why did you keep inviting her over to your place, then, if she made such remarks? L.F. Because everyone thought like this. If we took such comments seriously, we wouldn’t ever have any non-Jew over.18

It would seem that preparing Jewish food for antisemitic acquaintances would contradict the desire of Liza or Fira to demonstrate that Jews were making an effort to be integrated and accepted, that they were just “like everyone else.” But perhaps there were no contradictions in such behavior. Cooking Jewish food was meant to demonstrate, perhaps subconsciously, that there was no mystery in how Soviet Jews lived or cooked. While many respondents were not consciously aware of the reasons for their behavior, many emphasized that their guests often commented that they had no idea Jewish food could be so delicious. Sometimes female respondents proudly noted that their cooking changed former antisemites into “friends of the Jewish people.” This perception and behavior is strikingly different from that described by respondents who spoke about the 1930s. There is quite a distance between the story of the Jewish girl proudly eating salo to prove that she was not a stereotypical Jew, to a Jewish wife making Jewish delicacies for antisemitic friends in an effort to create positive associations with Jewish culture among non-Jews. This transformation illustrates larger shifts in the ethnic identity and culture of Soviet Jews. In the 1920s and 1930s, they were quickly abandoning Jewish practices in the hope of becoming full-fledged Soviet citizens. “Universal humanity,” free of religious or ethnic limitations, seemed like an attainable dream for many. Abandoning Jewish food and aggressively embracing non-Jewish practices seemed like an easy way to attain full acceptance and to defeat antisemitic stereotypes. In the postwar period, popular and government-sponsored

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antisemitism was on the rise, despite the fact that many, if not most, Jews had already fully internalized their “universalist” identity. Paradoxically, the antisemitic stereotypes imposed on Jews led them to reconstruct some Jewish practices that they believed would improve their image in Soviet society. I believe that this explains the fact that almost all the stories told about the preparation of Jewish dishes in the 1940s and 1950s are associated, directly or indirectly, with stories of antisemitism.

Conclusions At the beginning of this essay, I asked a number of questions about whether inquiring into the foodways of Russian Jews can enhance our understanding of their culture. The questions reveal my own doubts; as I have learned, these doubts plague many other scholars who have analyzed the relationship between food and memory.19 However, as I kept reading through the texts of the testimonies of the Russian Jews about their identity and culture, I realized that studying Russian Jewish identity is tremendously enriched by studying food. In fact, as I hope I have demonstrated, respondents’ stories about the food consumed in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s reveal the process of transformation of Soviet Jewish identity in its complexity, and with nuances simply unattainable from their stories on different topics. In fact, the process of change in how respondents understand Jewish food illustrates the very process of the transformation of Jewish culture in Russia into a “thin” culture deprived of thick markers of identity such as language, religious identification, and sense of community. The transformation of attitudes from the neutrally optimistic in the 1920s to the fully negative in the 1940s affected Jewish consciousness, and it is also illustrated through the respondents’ stories about Jewish food consumption. The story of food as recorded through the interviews is not solely about Jewish ethnicity. It is also an account of survival during the harshest periods of the 20th century, a tale of resourcefulness, optimism, extraordinary compassion, and the drive to live despite the most horrifying circumstances. The conversation about food consumption helps respondents to remember and, to some extent, understand what they went through, and how this experience affected their lives. That alone makes the inquiry into the food memories a worthwhile exercise for scholars of Soviet Jewish culture.

Notes Research for this article has been conducted with the help of two grants from the Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Education, Research, and Documentation of the Material Claims Conference against Germany (grant 1413 and grant S028); both grants were received jointly with Zvi Gitelman (University of Michigan). Additional funding came from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Connaught New Staff Matching Grant at the University of Toronto. None of these agencies are responsible for the content of the article. 1. Zvi Gitelman, “Thinking about Being Jewish in Russia and Ukraine,” in Jewish Life after the USSR, ed. Zvi Gitelman with Musya Glants and Marshall I. Goldman (Bloomington: 2003), 49. See also Zvi Gitelman, Jewish Identities in Postcommunist Russia and Ukraine: An Uncertain Ethnicity (Cambridge: 2012).

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2. Joanne Rappaport, Cumbe Reborn: An Andean Ethnography of History (Chicago: 1994); Susanne Kuchler, “Landscape as Memory: The Mapping of Process and Its Representation in Melanesian Society,” in Landscape: Politics and Perspectives, ed. Barbara Bender (Oxford: 1993), 85–106; Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: 1984); and Mary Douglas, Food in the Social Order: Studies of Food and Festivities in Three American Communities (Oxford: 1973). 3. Some of the materials have been used for my book on Soviet Jewish popular culture, Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Bloomington: 2006). 4. The questionnaire was roughly based on suggestions by Paul Thompson. See his The Voice of the Past: Oral History, 2nd ed. (New York: 1988). 5. Rakhmiel Peltz, From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture: American Yiddish in South Philadelphia (Stanford: 1998). 6. I found tremendous differences in how respondents speak about their past based on the country in which they currently reside. See, for example, Anna Shternshis, “Between the Red and Yellow Stars: Ethnic and Religious Identity of Soviet Jewish World War II Veterans in New York, Toronto, and Berlin,” Journal of Jewish Identities 4, no. 1 (January 2011), 43–64. 7. Interview with Maya D. (Berlin, 2002). 8. Interview with Mariya M. (New York, 2000). 9. Shternshis, Soviet and Kosher, 1. 10. Interview with Vladimir P. (Berlin, 2002). 11. For more on this, see Shternshis, “Between the Red and Yellow Stars.” 12. Interview with Dina R. (Potsdam, 2002). 13. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Recipes for Creating Community: The Jewish Charity Cookbook in America,” in Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review 9, nos. 1–2 (1987), 13. 14. Interview with Lyusya G. (New York, 2001). 15. Alice Stone Nakhimovsky, “You Are What They Ate: Russian Jews Reclaim Their Foodways,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 25, no. 1 (Fall 2006), 64. 16. Interview with Bella G. (Kiev, 1996); interviewer: Mikhail Gold (Kiev Judaica Institute collection). 17. Interview with Fira F. (Berlin, 2002). 18. Interview with Liza R. (New York, August 1999). 19. David E. Sutton, Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory (Oxford: 2001), 1–4.

In the Wake of Starvation: Jewish Displaced Persons and Food in Post-Holocaust Germany Hagit Lavsky (The Hebrew University)

According to estimates made during the second half of 1945, about 60,000–80,000 Jews were to be found in Germany and Austria. These figures do not take into account the many people who died from starvation, disease, and extreme weakness immediately after liberation, along with many others who managed to return to their homelands before these estimates were made. In addition, the numbers soon changed as thousands of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe, mainly Poland (including Polish Jews who were repatriated from the Soviet Union to Poland in the summer of 1945) began to stream into displaced persons centers in camps, towns, and cities in the Allied occupied zones of Germany and Austria. These refugees had left—or fled—their home countries in the hopes of starting new lives outside of Europe. Their preferred destinations were the United States and Palestine, but the doors to these two countries were largely blocked by rigid immigration policies. For this reason, the refugees found shelter in the displaced persons (DP) centers, hoping for eventual immigration to America or to Palestine. The DP camps and assembly centers, administered by the military occupying powers and by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) were designed to be an interim solution for Jewish and non-Jewish DPs—that is, people who were displaced by the war and were meant to be repatriated to their former home countries. Indeed, many of the nonJewish DPs returned home, and the non-Jewish population soon began to decline. In contrast, the Jewish population in these centers grew in consequence of the refugee flight from Eastern Europe, reaching a peak of about 250,000 (out of a total DP population of 650,000) in the spring of 1947. Following the UN partition decision of November 29, 1947, which opened the way to an easing of immigration restrictions to Palestine, the number of Jewish DPs began to decline; in July of the following year, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation that eventually allowed for some 68,000 Jewish DPs to settle in the United States. Thus, in the first years after war’s end, most Jewish DPs were living in suspension and facing an uncertain future. This fact should be kept in mind when dealing with issues concerning Jewish survivors and food.1 28

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Was there any specifically Jewish dimension to the Jewish survivors’ attitude toward food and eating in the aftermath of the Holocaust? In order to answer this question, one must first distinguish between food as a means of survival, on the one hand, and cooking and eating as specific cultural practices, on the other. Having made this distinction, one is better placed to investigate which responses to poor living conditions and shortages in food are common to all groups facing such conditions and which were cultural responses specific to the Jewish DPs. In what follows, I will be examining four issues that do not seem, at first glance, to have uniquely Jewish traits, apart from being faced by Jews, and one issue that is inherently Jewish: • What was the impact of extreme chronic starvation during the war years on the survivors’ attitude toward food in the immediate postwar period? • How did survivors cope with food shortages and poor quality food (and eating conditions) in the DP camps? • How were food and dining dealt with in the camps, and what part did they subsequently play in the survivors’ memories of their time in the camps? • How significant was the role of women in dealing with food and dining? • What meaning did kosher food hold for Jewish survivors in the camps? To date, research in this area has been hampered by a relative lack of data. The more general issue of food supplies in the immediate postwar period is amply documented, since high priority was given to solving the problem of food shortages. There is much public and private archival material on logistical matters such as what foods, and in what quantities, were supplied to various places. In contrast, there is relatively little documentation concerning “culinary” matters such as how food was cooked, what was served at meals, and what kinds of appetite preferences were apparent among survivors who had undergone a sustained period of starvation and malnutrition. It is likely that such issues were deemed of lesser importance and were not documented; some testimony may also have been lost in the course of time. Nevertheless, among the existing material concerning food and food supply, there is occasional mention of culinary rather than purely existential issues. In the following discussion, Bergen-Belsen will serve as the main point of reference. During the period immediately following liberation, this former prisoner of war and concentration camp became the largest DP camp in Germany, housing the largest group of Jewish DPs in the British zone of occupation.

Impact of the Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Starvation By the time Bergen-Belsen was liberated by British forces on April 15, 1945, the exhausted survivors were almost unable to register the event. Thousands were lying in huts, too weak to go out and greet their saviors. The British military forces were unprepared for what was revealed to them, and they hurried to ask for food supplies, water, and medical care. On the next day, a tank with supplies arrived, but this was a mere drop in the bucket. Meanwhile, British forces were desperately attempting to

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maintain control of the camp in the midst of increasingly chaotic conditions. Prisoners who were strong enough to be on their feet were already invading the kitchen and the food stocks; many of them were shot to death by Hungarian guards who were still in the camp, working now for the British. Prisoners who succeeded in gaining access to food generally wound up gorging themselves, and this, after a long period of starvation, proved to be fatal. Things were not much better for those who were too weak to move. Many of them got hardly any food during the first few days after liberation and succumbed to starvation or illness. Apart from the shortage and ill-management of food supplies, the food itself—mainly consisting of canned meat and vegetables— was inadequate for people suffering from starvation edema (abdominal swelling), typhus, or dysentery. Several days passed before the British understood that the camp inmates were able to digest only light foods such as rice, dry cookies, and fresh milk (it soon became apparent that dried milk was preferable, as it was easier to digest). They decided to adapt the “Bengal famine mixture” that had been successfully used by British medics fighting the terrible famine in Bengal (India) in 1943. This mixture, consisting of dried milk, flour, sugar, salt, and water, was allocated in small portions as a medication. However, it led to diarrhea, and it was also rejected by the survivors. Dr. A.P. Meiklejohn, a nutritionist sent to Bergen-Belsen by UNRRA, wondered aloud why a diet that had worked well in Bengal did not seem to be successful in the camp. Reverend Leslie Hardman, a rabbi serving with the British army, explained that most of the survivors were Jews of East European origin who found the Bengal mixture to be revoltingly sweet.2 Attempts to administer the mixture through tubes inserted into the throat were also unsuccessful, and the idea of supplying proteins in the form of hydrolysates that were injected or inserted in nasal tubes was out of question due to its association with Nazi torture.3 Thus starvation continued to exact a heavy toll, even more so than gorging. During the first two weeks after liberation, close to 500 people died every day, and by June 20, approximately 14,000 persons had died. Among those who survived, the state of continued hunger even after liberation made the long-term effect of starvation all the worse. Sara Eckstein, an emissary of the British Jewish Relief Unit (JRU) later recalled that when she arrived in BergenBelsen in early 1946, many young women were still bald, and their bodies were swollen as if they were pregnant (in fact, they were not menstruating). Moreover, people who were anxious about the uncertainty of food supplies had taken to hiding food. Visiting the camp hospital, for instance, “you’d open the drawer, and you’d find a rotten apple or a rotten piece of bread because of the fear that they wouldn’t have enough. It stayed with them a long time.”4 Even decades later, survivors were still traumatized by their experiences of postHolocaust starvation. In their memories, the unsatisfied hunger had not faded but was rather as painful as their recollections of relatives and fellow survivors who had died following liberation. Many of the survivors also expressed their doubts as  to whether the British had tried hard enough to save the liberated survivors.5 Needless to say, in addition to these psychological scars, many survivors had physical problems that could be attributed to the prolonged period of starvation they had undergone.6

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Problems of Food Supply, Preparation, and Cooking Following the war, Germany was in ruins and the German economy was unable to supply the minimal necessities for its own population, let alone the additional population of refugees and DPs. Thus, the burden of providing food to the survivors fell on the occupying Allied forces. According to UN guidelines, a diet providing 2,000 calories a day would be sufficient to maintain an individual’s health and ability to work. In practice the occupying authorities managed to allocate only 1,500 calories per day, and sometimes even less.7 In the following memo, American military chaplain Abraham Klausner describes the situation in the American zone in southern Germany shortly after liberation: The food situation is in keeping with the general camp complexion. At Mittenwald, two meals were served per day. The morning meal consisted of a piece of bread and coffee. The second meal included soup and beans. The calorie content per day was 900–1,000. A daily menu at Garmisch: Breakfast—bread, 300–350 gm.; butter or margarine once [or] twice per week, 4 oz. per person; coffee. Dinner—bean soup daily; horse meat—1/2 oz. per person. At times canned meat. Supper—1 1/2 liter of soup . . . Often the charge is made [that] “more food was given in the concentration camp.”8

It is noteworthy that Klausner refers to (non-kosher) horse meat without comment. Klausner, a Reform rabbi, may not have been unduly troubled by matters of kashrut. Alternatively, he may have regarded survivors as fragile enough to warrant leniency in the matter. During the Holocaust, even religiously observant Jews were allowed— and even instructed—to ignore problems of kashrut, given the life-threatening circumstances (pikuaḥ nefesh) they were in, and he may have felt that this status continued to be relevant in the immediate postwar period. In late July 1945, before the arrival of emissaries and supplies sent by Jewish welfare organizations, the situation continued to be desperate: The food situation is also very difficult. The order of the Allied authorities that the Germans have to feed their victims resulted in the fixing of 2000 calories per head per day. This would be enough for people who, like the whole German population and even the slave workers, have had up to now [a] normal diet, amounting to 3500-4000 calories, thus allowing them to accumulate physical resources. But the Jews who have been undernourished for five years and who are just recovering from many serious illnesses have no such physical resources and the amount of 2000 calories is not sufficient to restore them to full physical strength, especially as the 2000 calories are not evenly divided, but ­[consist] of 1/4 of a loaf of black-bread, practically uneatable, but [accounting] for 1200 calories, some watery soup, very little sugar, very little fat, no vegetables or fruit.9

Almost a year later, in June 1946, many problems had still not been resolved. Rabbi Mordechai Breuer, an emissary of Poalei Agudat Israel from Palestine, complained that the regular food supplies consisted of canned items without any fresh vegetables, fruits, or meat.10 Although the Jewish DPs were entitled to special allocations, they rarely received them, since the economic situation, particularly in Britain and the British zone of Germany, had not improved significantly. Thus, the daily quota was never fully realized, and only seldom did it include the right ingredients in suitable quality. Fats, proteins, fresh vegetables, fruits, and milk were constantly missing in

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occupied Germany. Jewish survivors were not alone in suffering malnutrition even a year after liberation; the official quotas that were calculated for people living in more or less normal conditions were inadequate for those who suffered from long-term starvation. Notwithstanding, the situation of Jewish survivors of death camps and death marches was even worse than that of other survivors of forced labor camps. Even the full rations would have been insufficient to meet their needs, and the situation was exacerbated by logistical problems that hindered the efficient distribution of rations.11 The one bright spot during this period was the arrival of supplies sent by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), beginning in November 1945. The first shipment of supplies consisted of eggs, butter, jam, noodles, meat, fish, herring, cookies, milk, fruit juice, and soap.12 Supplies continued to be sent over a prolonged period, but even then, the typical obstacles connected with the transportation and distribution of supplies in occupied and divided Germany prevented the Jewish survivors from fully enjoying the goods that were sent.13 In March 1946, a special survey commission sent to the DP camps by the JDC and the British Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad (JCRA) criticized the fact that the rations allocated were under the minimum set by the authorities. They also emphasized two problems beyond technical obstacles. First, it was wrong to base a diet merely on caloric calculations—it was necessary to supply relatively more fat and protein, since “the harmful effects of under-nourishment and malnutrition cannot be remedied, let alone entirely erased, with feeding based only on caloric value.” Second, the official authorities apparently considered the limited quantities of food brought in by Jewish voluntary organizations to be part and parcel of the official ration, which undermined attempts to make up for the scarcity and poor food allocation for the Jewish DPs.14 Conditions surrounding the preparation and cooking of food were also highly problematic. As reported by Alexander Sened, an emissary from Palestine, the sanitary conditions in the camp were intolerable; DPs did not even have plates from which to eat: They ate from tin cans that the [JDC] or other organizations had sent. At gatherings for meals, each would hold a tin can that had been opened with a knife. . . . [and as a result] our lips were always cut. . . . I realized that the first thing I had to do, instead of speaking about Zionism, the kibbutz, or equality, was to get hold of some plates so that people would be able to eat with a plate and spoon. No one even dreamed of having forks or knives.15

Cooked food was distributed in central kitchens and cafeterias (known as canteens). Although it could hardly have been expected that the food would be appetizing or varied in content, DPs and emissaries alike complained that even within the given constraints, much more could have been done had there been proper chefs, cooking utensils, and suitable spices. The following is a description by Bertha Weingreen, one of the chief British emissaries of the JRU in Bergen-Belsen: As in all camps, feeding had of necessity to be communal, since the people lived in large barracks with as many as six sharing one room. To give some idea of the size of the feeding problem, I should mention that we had in our charge one camp of five and a half thousand people and another of three and a half thousand. There were no professional

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caterers at our disposal and the food was lacking in variety. Meals were served to queues of people in several canteens, each of which catered for about 1000 people. I made daily inspection of each canteen and tried to give a little advice here and there, for instance, making kale look like cabbage in the continental way. . . . We had to take account of the conditioned eating habits of these people, as well as of the poor quality and monotony of the food we received.16

Discussing these cooking problems, David B. Wodlinger, the JDC representative in the British zone in Germany, described how he had once been on the scene “when a truck drove up and left what he thought was a garbage pot but which in actual fact was some sort of soup or stew container. A woman said that although she was hungry she could not eat it. She had eaten it daily for years and she had got to the point when she could not stomach it any longer.”17 Indeed, a year had passed since liberation, and the survivors, frustrated by the continued poor conditions in the camp, were no longer putting up with being treated like a herd of animals. To be sure, even immediately after liberation their bodies had resisted being fed with mixtures that were revolting, but now, after somewhat regaining their physical strength, they began to complain and to demand improvements in their living conditions. Henry Lunzer, a JRU representative, noted that there were not enough kitchens in Bergen-Belsen, nor was there enough cooking equipment: “There were only the big pans which must inevitably provide some sort of soup or stew for every meal. Added to that there had not been any appointment of anyone experienced in cooking for such large numbers.”18 Yet the problem went beyond the mere logistics of cooking. Harry Viteles and Alexander G. Brotman (representing, respectively, the JDC and the JCRA) came on an inspection tour in the area in the spring of 1946 and afterwards presented the most comprehensive report on the subject of food conditions in the DP camps: From the cursory visits to the kitchens in the Belsen camps (which cook the food for about 1/2 the total estimated Jewish population of the British Zone [about 20,000]) we came away with the following impressions which were confirmed for the most part by the permanent staffs of the voluntary agencies working in Belsen and by reliable DPs whose first and most important concern in life was not food. There is the general deficiency due to large scale group cooking as compared with private cooking, particularly since the rations are limited as to quantity, quality and variety, and the fact that the proficiency and efficiency of the cooks are questionable. If there was any planning of menus and supervision by trained practical dieticians with knowledge of Jewish tastes this was not brought to our attention and it was not noticeable in any of the kitchens visited. . . . The cooked food samples showed either the absence or inadequacy of certain ingredients used ordinarily to add flavor to food, such as bullion cubes, meat extract, etc. The visits to some of the barracks confirmed the general complaint that the shortage of fuel in Belsen made it difficult for the people to re-heat the food, which was not too hot when distributed, and to prepare their coffee and other food. The cleanliness of the kitchens was not outstanding. In short, we were not satisfied with the arrangements made for the preparation of the food in Belsen, and therefore considered as justified the complaints about the lack of variety, and lack of taste of the food served.19

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The DPs’ complaints about the aesthetics of food and meals and about the absence of variety in the food that was served could be seen as a positive sign, as it indicated a measure of recovery from the state of apathy caused by chronic, pervasive starvation. However, apart from the general problems in the report—associated not only with large-scale cooking but also with lack of professional knowledge, lack of specific supplies, irregularity of basic supplies, and the absence of strict organization and cleanliness—two of Viteles and Brotman’s observations are particularly noteworthy. First, their point that complaints were being made by people “whose first and most important concern in life was not food.” And second, their comment that no attention was being paid to specific Jewish tastes. These remarks emphasize the cultural dimension of the food issue for Jewish DPs.

Coping Strategies How did Jewish DPs cope with the various problems outlined above? To the astonishment of external observers, many of them seemed indifferent: The comparatively few complaints about food by those receiving DP rations should not be interpreted as indicating satisfaction either with the quantity, quality or variety of rations, but acceptance of the inevitable, especially having regard to the less favorable position of other DPs and of the German Jews who receive only about 2/3rd of the DP basic rations. The comparative absence of complaint may also be due to a decrease of psychological hunger, and to the fact that spiritual, cultural and other factors are playing an increasingly more important role in the lives of the DPs.20

Corroborating this impression by the JDC and ICRA emissaries is the fact that, in retrospective memoirs and interviews, the survivors themselves address the food problems only in relation to the initial period following liberation, as indicated above. In due course, the problem of starvation or even the fear of starvation (psychological hunger) was alleviated, although there continued to be poor and primitive living conditions. External observers may have regarded these conditions as close to unbearable, but they were less crucial to survivors who had experienced the Holocaust. Similarly, the quality of food per se was not a major focus of concern. Recent studies have revealed that some starving women in concentration camps left behind written recipes of favorite dishes they remembered from home.21 Recalling favorite foods and how they were prepared and served appears to have been a common tactic in battling hunger. Connecting to their past normal lives by means of food memories was a means of nurturing hope for a restoration of normalcy sometime in the future. To a large extent, these dreams were bitterly dashed against the realities of the post-Holocaust DP camps, but at least the acute hunger was gradually eased, and at this point there was no longer a need to conjure up memories of favorite foods. Moreover, many of the surviving women were very young and had no past experience (as adults) of normal life and cooking traditions. Yet even women who had survived outside the ghetto and concentration camps and who had managed to continue cooking during the war years apparently did not try to interfere with the public kitchens. In any event, no special recipes were kept or mentioned by survivors in the

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DP camps. The main challenge was no longer hunger (or, as Stephen Mennell would define it, appetite),22 but rather how to cope with living conditions in the camp. One strategy for avoiding communal eating was to cook and eat in smaller communal settings—that is, as families or groups of friends in the barracks. Most of the barracks were two-story buildings, with ten rooms on each floor. Each room housed three to six people; until June 1946, rooms could have both families and single individuals together. Each of the barracks had a common kitchen and bathroom. Women would take rationed food items back to the barracks and would put together some semblance of meals, without the luxury of a private kitchen. Michael Klodovsky, who was a young child at the time, had his lunch at the kindergarten, but other meals were eaten with his family: My mother cooked in the block’s shared kitchen, where each woman had her turn. . . . She made several kinds of soup that were common in the region that she came from [including] a liver soup. . . . My father worked in the hospital storage room and each day he would bring home something unusual, such as oranges . . . or special biscuits that apparently came from the Joint.23

Zeev Utitz, an emissary from Palestine, recalled that the DPs “wished to acquire a sense of stability despite the temporary character of the camp. They would improvise table covers and offer even the most modest refreshments.”24 Obviously, there were many difficulties related to living in crowded spaces and being compelled to carry out activities such as cooking, laundry, and bathing in public spaces that were not kept clean. Living conditions improved somewhat during the summer of 1946, when families were allotted private spaces and no longer had to share a room with singles. Even then, however, and for several years thereafter, people had no private kitchens or bathrooms. Another coping strategy involved cheating. Over the course of time, there came to be widespread forgery of lists and identity cards. Many people held more than one rationing card (as had been the case in the ghettos during the war). The most common way to get an extra card was to “inherit” one belonging to a person who had died or who had left the camp. Such cards and lists were referred to as toytenkarte (dead cards) and toyten indeks, and the holders of such cards were nicknamed malokhim (angels).25 Though one can hardly define the system itself as Jewish, the accompanying black humor was typically Jewish.26 The availability of imported commodities—whether sent by welfare agencies or brought in by the army as military supplies—on the one hand, and agricultural produce from the surrounding German farms, on the other, laid the basis for the barter and black market economy (another echo of the ghetto) that developed in response to the severe shortages in occupied Germany. Residents of the DP camps, who were allocated commodities rather than money, sold or bartered their supplies in order to obtain preferred substitutes, whereas German farmers bartered their produce with soldiers and DPs so as to improve the poor rations imposed by the occupation authorities. Cigarettes, coffee, and cocoa, which were imported in large quantities, were used instead of money as means of payment. In the course of time, the packages sent from abroad became a major component in the camp economy.

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The black market and bartering were viewed in very different ways. Harry Viteles of the JDC insisted that bartering was not black marketeering, but rather a means to adjust the variety of supplies to individual appetites and tastes: There is a difference between bartering and black marketeering. A man prefers to eat macaroni to butter—he wants to change butter for macaroni. These people, particularly Jewish DPs, have not eaten normally for many years—they do not know what it is to eat what they want, when they want it. I am sure that if these people were allowed to cook their own food . . . the temptation to go out and buy additional food in an unauthorized market would be less than when you cook for them centrally.27

In contrast, Aharon Zisling, an emissary from Palestine, had a much more negative view of the matter: If the [DP] gets a coupon for his food ration that is not sufficient for his needs, he does everything to get two coupons. This is an act of fraud against UNRRA, and even the Joint. . . . By means of these coupons, the Jew receives American packages that even contain chocolate for the children, more than what you would see in our kibbutz. But this Jew is missing something that is not in the package. Barter begins, first out of necessity, and then becomes a deeply rooted activity. It turns out that a single packet of cigarettes and a can of food—the kind that the surrounding population doesn’t get—is good for barter. Why not take advantage of the Germans? Didn’t they take things from us? In this way the black market develops and becomes part of our lives.28

Zisling, one of the pioneers who immigrated to Palestine in 1914, was a member of Kibbutz Ein Harod and a leading figure in the Zionist labor movement. His unsympathetic description of the DPs as unprincipled connivers reveals his negative view of the “old Jews” of the diaspora, a stereotype that was shared by many Zionists and influenced inadvertently by antisemitic notions. Stereotypes aside, the black market per se was not a uniquely Jewish enterprise. Rather, the economic situation in Germany, and the situation of the DPs, in particular, as outsiders in the German economy who were the beneficiaries of imported merchandise much in demand by the German public, were the nurturing ground on which the black market developed. Since the people living in the DP camps were mainly Jews, it was natural that black marketeering was easily associated with Jews. Moreover, one could argue that there was a Jewish dimension in the sense of the diasporic Jewish tradition of hondl, or commerce, and that Jewish DPs were naturally inclined to black market activity and the corruption inherent in the system. Thus, it triggered fierce opposition and exacerbated antisemitism among the German authorities, the surrounding population, and the occupation administration. In addition, the harsh critique of “Jewish” behavior was apparently also internalized among some of the emissaries from Palestine, who adopted the perceived linkage between the black market and the Jews. Consequently, there were tireless efforts on the part of the camps’ leadership to eradicate the phenomenon.29 As seen, a major factor in improved conditions for the DPs were the relief efforts sponsored by Jewish communities abroad. Food allocations from UNRRA were augmented by additional allocations from the JDC for the sick, pregnant women, children, and workers. In addition, DPs received individual packages that were sent in

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the framework of a relief enterprise in which individuals, communities, and organizations outside of Germany adopted individuals, organizations, and communities from among the survivors. These packages, sent at regular intervals, contained a wide variety of foods, cigarettes, cosmetics, hygienic supplies, stationery, sewing equipment, and toys. At times, they also contained kosher food.

Food and Special Needs Kosher food was an important item for religious Jews, but could also be (and was) demanded as the right of all Jews. This demand led to an overall increase in the amount of available meat in the camps. For instance, meat generally came in cans and was not kosher. Many Jews ate non-kosher meat, but for religious Jews there was only a meagre supply of kosher meat obtained via local kosher slaughtering. However, once a way was found to bring fresh frozen (not canned) kosher meat into the DP camps, the options for kosher meat were expanded, and the overall supply and quality of meat increased. Notwithstanding, there were many obstacles that had to be overcome in the matter of supplying kosher food. The following case, connected with Bergen-Belsen, is illustrative. The Jewish community in Bergen-Belsen (by June 1946, the camp’s population was exclusively Jewish) functioned as a kind of autonomy run by the Central Committee, an elected entity that represented all the Jews in the British zone. The main supplier of kosher food for the British zone was the Chief Rabbinical Religious Emergency Council (CRREC), located in London. In April 1947, Samuel Dallob, the head of the JDC unit in Bergen-Belsen, reported that he had discussed the matter of kosher food with the head of the Jewish Central Committee, Yossel Rosensaft, and the person in charge of the Committee’s supply department, Samuel Weintraub. According to Dallob: [I]t was their opinion that kosher food be preferred. However, they did not feel that kosher food was so sharply in demand that the Jewish people here would be willing to forego other things for it. In other words, if the cost of kosher food is so high that the budget for other food commodities would have to be sharply curtailed, it would be inadvisable to make the change in purchasing.30

In view of the high cost of imported kosher food—especially kosher meat—the alternative of local slaughter was considered. However, this option had its own set of obstacles, as shown in a report based on an interview with Milly Polatchik, the JRU emissary in Celle, in April 1946: Celle slaughter house under the organization [sic] of Rabbi Olevsky [sic] and his two shochetim are supplying kosher meat for a large part of the British zone, and Milly is very worried at the continual deficit in quantities of meat and also on the financial side. She is afraid that the whole business side is quite beyond the Rabbi and his assistants, and that the services of a business man, preferably a wholesale butcher, should be obtained as soon as possible in order to put such matters in order . . . and avoid the . . . crisis which will undoubtedly occur if things are not straightened out. The complicated system of exchanging unkosher meat for kosher, and the temptation to supply social functions, such as weddings, etc. with the meat for the celebration feast, is probably one cause of shortage.31

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What this report indicates—without spelling it out explicitly—is that the system of supplying kosher meat had become corrupt, given the gap between a demand presented by the general public (which exceeded the needs of those who strictly observed the laws of kashrut) as against the shortage and high costs of available supply. The shortage of kosher meat supply brought about another problem—discrimination between observant and non-observant Jews, as reported by Rev. Avraham Greenbaum, a former military chaplain who worked on behalf of the JRU in the British zone: Food—situation has worsened considerably. Whereas previously there had been an allocation of 112 gr. of fresh meat per week, this was now stopped and only those people who did not benefit at all from tinned meat, i.e., those who eat in the kosher kitchen, received any fresh meat. Whereas previously there had been an issue of butter, this was now stopped.32

Whereas Greenbaum complained on behalf of non-observant Jews, Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Meisels, of the Adath She’erith Yisrael Jewish Religious Congregation in the British zone, complained on behalf of the Orthodox: I would like to stress that Orthodox Jews do not receive the same amount of calories as other DPs, because they cannot use the sausages, fat and conserves provided by the authorities and UNRRA, owing to religious reasons. This is in spite of the fact that it is possible now to provide kosher meat. I would therefore be obliged, if provisions can be made, that these food stuffs could be supplied through the Jewish organization for Orthodox DPs, or supplementary vegarian [sic] rations supplied.33

In response to the social problems caused by the inadequate supply of kosher food, the Central Committee strengthened its effort to centralize allocation of all supplies sent by the CRREC. An economic department was established for this purpose, charged with determining the overall allocation of supplies (not just food). The Central Committee also reached an agreement with the JDC according to which all shipments would be directed to the central warehouse of the economic department; from there, supplies would be distributed by the department throughout the British zone. This arrangement, however, entailed difficulties with regard to transportation, and it was also problematic because of the differences between rations designated for German Jews as opposed to those for the DPs. Indeed, centralization was the source of a number of disagreements between various groups, among them the Central Committee, the JDC, the JRU, and the CRREC. One of the groups most strongly opposed to the Central Committee centralization efforts was Agudat Israel, numbering some 1,500 Orthodox Jews, most of them originally from Hungary. This group pulled out of the general organization headed by the Central Committee and established the Adath She’erit Yisrael Congregation. Their action was supported by Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, the head of the CRREC, who claimed that the Central Committee did not truly represent the interests of the Orthodox group. Since Orthodox Jews could not make use of the regular non-kosher food supplies, he argued, their situation was worse than that of other DPs. In January 1947, an agreement was signed between the Central Committee, the JRU and CRREC, Adath She’erith Yisrael, and Hamizrahi, which formed the basis for an Orthodox union and cooperation with the Central Committee.34 This was one of s­ everal instances in which

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disagreements were resolved for the sake of organizational consolidation on behalf of the Jewish survivors. Another main concern was the provision of adequate nutrition for pregnant women, babies, and children. In the immediate aftermath of the war, many of the survivors were young men and women who found themselves alone, their entire families murdered by the Nazis. Great efforts were invested in finding lost relatives, but above all there was a drive to regain a sense of living. The natural way to fight despair, to make the grim present appear to be somewhat brighter, and to face an unclear future, was to seek love and friendship. Thus, young people who had never been married, along with widowers and widows, found partners with whom to share their grief, grievances, and fears. To be sure, not all of them had expectations of finding eternal love in a new marriage: pragmatism and loneliness played a large role in the “marriage boom” that took place, since married couples, as noted, were entitled, as of the summer of 1946, to separate living quarters in the barracks. In consequence of the many marriages involving young people, there was soon a large number of babies in the DP camps—some 1,000 in the British zone during 1946, with the birthrate increasing over time. During this period, moreover, refugees from Eastern Europe were streaming into the DP camps in Germany, among them many Polish Jewish families with children who had been repatriated from the Soviet Union. In Bergen-Belsen alone, infants accounted for 1.7 percent of the population by the end of 1946; at the beginning of 1948, the thousandth baby was born there. Women survivors resumed menstruating and became pregnant before regaining their full strength and health. The growing number of pregnant women and babies was beyond the expectations of medical professionals, and posed a huge challenge to the welfare agencies.35 Pregnant women who had not yet recovered from their prolonged period of suffering and hunger needed augmented food supplies, but these were not always available, and thus they—and their unborn children—were put at risk. Similarly, babies born to weak, undernourished mothers who were incapable of breast feeding were at high risk, since baby food was almost unobtainable. Given these concerns, Jewish leaders made special efforts. For instance, as described by Bertha Weingreen, the emissary from the British Relief Unit, “[f]or pregnant women we opened a special welfare kitchen, where these women could have their meals augmented by special foods and milk which was provided by the army. . . . We organized lectures, or rather courses in simple instruction, in infant welfare.”36 Another initiative of the JDC and JRU, together with the Central Committee, was the opening of children’s convalescent or vacation homes in Blankenese (the Warburg estate), Lüneburg, and in BergenBelsen. These homes accommodated hundreds of children for three or four weeks at a time, providing a substitute for their weak and sometimes hospitalized mothers, and a break from poor camp conditions.37 As reported by the JDC: In the Warburg Children Home, ninety children each month receive the benefit of beautiful surroundings, fine food, sunlight. . . . The average child has gained five pounds in weight during his or her stay. . . . Children, too, are the major focus of the Joint medical staff. . . . Pre-natal and post-natal clinics are maintained and all children in the camp receive regular physical examinations.38

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Jewish Celebrations in the DP Camps Accounts of life in the DP camps contain numerous indications that, despite all obstacles, Jews went to great lengths to observe holidays and festivities in some fashion, whether traditional or nontraditional. As noted, once families received their own living quarters, the wives and mothers tended to put together their own meals rather than eating at communal kitchens. Shabbat, however, was an exception. Young members of Zionist “kibbutzim”—various communal pioneer frameworks organized by emissaries of the Palestinian kibbutz movements with the goal of preparing survivors for kibbutz life in Palestine—sponsored a weekly Shabbat evening celebration (’oneg shabat) that featured candle-lighting, singing, and a festive meal, followed by a lecture, discussion, and dancing.39 These celebrations were extremely popular, attracting many outsiders and essentially competing with one another in terms of which gathering had the largest number of participants.40 The Central Committee allocated extra rations for the Shabbat meals, although they apparently did not contain all the traditional East European Friday night foods (for instance, none of the accounts mention such items as challah, kiddush wine, or gefilte fish). Were these foods missing because the young, secular Zionists did not attribute particular importance to the traditional ceremonial aspects of Shabbat? Or was it simply that these foods, and the accompanying utensils, were not easily obtainable? Whatever the explanation, food does not seem to have been the main focus of these celebrations. Rather, the ’oneg shabat was a means of bringing Jews together in a communal setting that substituted for the traditional Shabbat family meals of the past. Similarly, the importance of Passover went far beyond the special foods associated with the seder. In the aftermath of the war, the festival of freedom took on additional significance, and survivors went to great lengths to organize communal celebrations. Shlomo and Paula Leshman, for instance, described the first Passover after the war: We were liberated just a few days before Passover.41 On Passover, we organized a seder for the entire population—it was an exceptional group effort. We cooked fish, and matzos were brought from America. It is beyond description . . . I can’t understand today how it was organized so quickly. . . . People were so exhausted [but] they wanted simple things, normal everyday things.42

In April 1946, as reported from the DP community at Brunswick: A restaurant was rented for the Pesach holidays and a communal seder was held at which Rabbi Goldfinger presided. Nearly the whole Jewish community was present and some Dutch Jews working in the Censorship near Brunswick and two Jewish Military Government Officers joined in the festivities. Members of the Friends Relief Service and of the Guides International Service [two non-Jewish organizations] also attended the seder. Kosher food was provided at lunch time during the first two ­holidays.43

An emissary from Palestine, Zvia Lahar, described how, in the Hochland DP camp (near Königsdorf in Bavaria) in 1946, a seder was prepared for 800 people. She and others “worked for days on decorations and on the table arrangements. . . . This time there was food. I had spent my nights preparing the menu. Nothing was missing in

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this luxurious, traditional seder meal.”44 Two years later, a report from Munich described the enterprise of baking matzah: [V]ery careful arrangements were made with the Agudath Harabonim for their strict supervision of the flour mills [and] the bakeries, as well as the warehouses used for the storing of the matzoh and matzoh [meal] . . . in accordance with the most orthodox requirements. The wheat was carefully selected and tested. After having been ground, it was placed in new bags especially bought for the purpose. The baking plants, both in Munich and Frankfurt, operated at maximum efficiency and to the entire satisfaction of the supervising Rabbonim and Mashgichim. In order to provide Matzoh Shmuro for the Mehadrim, we exchanged flour for wheat especially grown for this purpose in a kibbutz, and flour was provided for the religious Jews who would eat only matzoth hand-baked by themselves.45

It seems that no matter what the obstacles were, and without distinction between observant and non-observant Jews, the celebration of Passover was cherished as a symbol of Jewish liberation, and as an indication of the restoration of Jewish tradition. From Lahar’s report, it also seems clear that the role of women was crucial in preparing these events. The report captures the sense of women once again taking an active role not only in cooking but in the festive preparations for the holiday, indicating the importance of women in the creation of a sphere of normality even amid abnormal conditions. This description joins many other indications of women’s role in preparing their family meals and in decorating their humble barrack rooms in order to make them look like cozy homes.46 Finally, the DP camps were the site of numerous weddings. In late 1945 and throughout 1946, there were as many as six or seven weddings a day in BergenBelsen. Very often weddings became the main item on the social agenda of the camp. But statistics, as impressive as they may appear, do not convey the atmosphere surrounding these weddings. Getting married had many melancholy as well as joyous aspects, all of which reflected the essence of being a survivor in a DP camp. For instance, there was the question of halakhah (Jewish law). Most couples, whether religious or secular, opted to have a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, since even the secular found significance in a ceremony that was a link to the past, a symbol of overcoming disaster and continuing the family chain. Often, however, halakhic problems had to be resolved before the wedding could take place—most seriously, the issues posed when widows or widowers wished to remarry, but lacked sufficient documentation regarding the death of their spouses. In all such instances, there was also the emotional strain of acknowledging that a lost spouse would never return. Preparing a wedding ceremony was a matter of social and economic enterprise shared by many friends of the couple. It called for preparing invitations, turning old clothes into bridal gowns, furnishing and decorating a wedding hall, and transforming food rations into a gourmet buffet. Here, as with the ’oneg shabat celebrations, the community substituted for missing family members. Invitations found in archives or kept by individuals and presented in interviews are often poignant—many of them are signed by the bride and the bridegroom, in lieu of the traditional format in which parents invite guests to their children’s wedding. Sometimes the name of a single relative such as an uncle or a cousin appears, further emphasizing the tragedy behind

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the scenes. In addition, the ceremony itself was painful in its mention of all those who were missing in the circle of family and friends.47 In retrospect, however, the bright side of the celebration often came to the forefront. Shmuel Shmulewich, a member of one of the Zionist kibbutzim who was married in Bergen-Belsen, recalled: “The Joint sent me a crate of wine for the ­wedding. . . . [which] took place in a canteen. . . . More than 400 people came.” The food was prepared and served by the kibbutz, and the couple got a special allocation from the Central Committee.48

Conclusion In his article “On the Civilizing Appetite,” Stephen Mennell calls attention to the oscillation between fasting and feasting, which applies to the psychological effect of chronic malnutrition (along with the general precariousness of existence) on the behavior of an individual in relation to food. Another dimension discussed by Mannell is the distinction between hunger and appetite. Hunger is a basic human need. Appetite for food, in contrast, is essentially a state of mind, an inner mental awareness of desire and inclination to eat. The link between hunger and appetite is provided by what is sometimes referred to as the “appestat,” a control mechanism (with both physiological and psychological components) regulating food intake. Both matters apply to our discussion. In the immediate postwar period, some of the survivors could not control their need for food while in a state of extreme hunger. They lost the ability to balance their psychological appetite, which exceeded their physiological capacity for food. In this extreme, the issue of “civilized” behavior with regard to food was hardly applicable. It became relevant only with the transition from emergency to more “normal” conditions of shortage and insecurity in the period that followed. Another universal feature is revealed in the crucial role played by Jewish women in overcoming the obstacles of camp life, and in particular the food shortages, by creating a semi-normal environment and atmosphere in their family circles and by taking care of food and aesthetic arrangements for public meals and feasts. Such work, performed not only by women survivors but by women welfare emissaries, serves as further evidence for the argument that women played a key role in coping with the stresses of uprooting and migration. The basic goal was preservation of the family framework, for which preparing family meals was a vital element. In the struggle for rehabilitation, food—as crucial as it was—took second place to the spiritual and social needs of the survivors. These features are universally human—it remains to be seen if there were also uniquely Jewish dimensions to issues of food. Certain devious means of coping with food shortages, such as black marketeering and the acquisition of extra ration cards from individuals who had died or left the camps, were considered “Jewish” (because most DPs were Jews) and thus exacerbated antisemitic attitudes, but such behavior was essentially an outcome of general conditions. Kosher food, in contrast, was an explicitly Jewish issue. There may also have been a specifically Jewish dimension to the solidarity displayed among Jewish organizations abroad and the organized efforts

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to celebrate Jewish holidays and special events in a traditional manner (including the provision of special foods) as a way of restoring Jewish identity and pride. Another aspect of Jewish solidarity can be observed in the priority given to providing proper nutrition to mothers and children, which may be regarded as a means of reconstructing the Jewish family and the Jewish people after the Holocaust. Thus, exploring the ostensibly prosaic issues of food supply and consumption reveals the social, psychological, religious, and cultural patterns of the Jewish DPs as individuals and a community and enables us to better understand the difficult process of post-Holocaust rehabilitation.

Notes I wish to express my gratitude for the helpful comments offered by colleagues and students who took part in the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry seminar discussion of November 8, 2010. I am also extremely obliged to Robert Shapiro of Brooklyn College for his thoughtful comments and suggestions, which helped me in revising my initial draft. Above all I am obliged to the editor and the editorial staff of this volume for their invaluable comments and suggestions, which have been crucial in shaping the final version of this paper. 1. Hagit Lavsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945–1950 (Detroit: 2002), ch. 1. 2. Ibid., ch. 2; Ben Shephard, After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945 (London: 2005), 97–99. 3. Ibid., 101. 4. Interview with Sara Eckstein-Grebenau (14 July 1992), Oral History Division, Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry (henceforth: OHD), 156/5 (pp. 20, 32). 5. See, for example, Yona Immanuel, ’Od yesupar lador: korot mishpaḥah bashoah (Jerusalem: 1994). Over the years, I have had numerous conversations with Yona and other family members. 6. Hagit Lavsky, “Be’ayot beriut veḥoli shel nitzolei hashoah bemaḥanot ha’akurim,” paper delivered at the Nahariya Conference on Morbidity and Medicine during the Holocaust (11 May 2004). 7. On the function of calorie rationing after the war as a measure of human welfare, see Atina Grossmann, “Grams, Calories, and Food: Languages of Victimization, Entitlement, and Human Rights in Occupied Germany, 1945–1949,” Central European History 44, no. 1 (March 2011), 121. 8. Chaplain Abraham J. Klausner, Dachau, to Hechaluz Geneva office (24 June 1945), Pinhas Lavon Gordonia–Young Maccabee Archive (Kibbutz Hulda). 9. S[halom Solomon] Adler-Rudel, “The Situation of the Jews in Germany – Draft of a Memorandum” (23 July 1945), Central Zionist Archive (henceforth: CZA), A140/650. 10. Letter from Mordechai Breuer to his wife (11 June 1946), attached to his interview of 12 May 1992, OHD, 156/3. 11. Lavsky, New Beginnings, 16, 51–52, 144. 12. Y[ossel] [Rosensaft to E[dward] Warburg (11 January 1945), Yad Vashem Archives, 0-70/17. 13. Memorandum by Norbert Wollheim (28 Feburary 1946), Yad Vashem Archives, 0-70/64. 14. Survey on conditions of Jews in the British Zone of Germany in March 1946 (29 March 1946), Yad Vashem Archives, 0-70/6. 15. Alexander Sened on conditions in Austria [no date], in Shliḥut lagolah:1945–1948 [no editor cited] (Ramat Efal: 1989), 349. 16. Transcript of a lecture delivered by Bertha Weingreen in London in 1966, appendix to interview (15 March 1993), OHD 156/12.

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17. Minutes of the Jewish survey meeting (2 April 1946), Public Record Office (henceforth: PRO), Foreign Office files (Henceforth: FO), 1050/1491. 18. Ibid. 19. Survey on conditions of Jews in the British zone of Germany in March 1946 (n. 28; emphasis added). 20. Ibid. 21. One recipe notebook, written in Bergen-Belsen, is preserved in the Massuah Archives at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak. Another notebook was left by a victim of Theresienstadt and was recently published. See Cara De Silva, “In Memory’s Kitchen: Reflections on a Recently Discovered Form of Holocaust Literature,” in Food and Judaism, ed. Leonard J. Greenspoon, Ronald A. Simkins, and Gerald Shapiro (Omaha: 2005), 105–118. 22. Stephen Mennell, “On the Civilizing Appetite,” in Food and Culture: A Reader, ed. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik (New York: 1997), 315–337. I am grateful to Anat Helman for referring me to this article and to the previously cited article by Cara De Silva. 23. Interview with Michael Klodovsky (13 January 1997), OHD, 156/19 (pp. 19–21). 24. Zeev Utitz account in Shliḥ ut lagolah, 371. 25. Lavsky, New Beginnings, 145. 26. See, for example, Elliott Oring, “The People of the Joke: On the Conceptualization of a Jewish Humor,” Western Folklore 42, no. 4 (October 1983), esp. 266–268, where he discusses the ways in which East European Jews used humor as a means of dealing with suffering. 27. Jewish survey meeting (2 April 1946), PRO, FO, 1050/1491. 28. Aharon Zisling account in Shliḥ̣ ut lagolah, 36–37. 29. On efforts made by the Jewish camp police against black marketeering in order to avoid the need for external law enforcement, see Lavsky, New Beginnings, 118–120. 30. Samuel Dallob to AJDC (Paris) (28 April 1947), Givat Joint Archives in Jerusalem (henceforth: GJA), 7A/C-48.013. 31. Interview with Milly Polatchik, signed by Rose L. Henriques (Celle) (19 April 1946), Wiener Library London Archives (henceforth: WLL), Rose Henriques Files (henceforth: Henriques)/Milly Polatchik Reports. See also Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone of Germany, 1945–1947 (Bad Harzburg: 1947), 24–26. 32. Report on Bergen-Belsen by Rev. [Avraham] Greenbaum (22 February 1946), WLL, Henriques/Belsen Reports. 33. Rabbi H[irsch] Meisels to Secretary General CCG [Control Commission for Germany] (London) (23 January 1946), PRO FO, 1491/178663. 34. Lavsky, New Beginnings, 114–115. 35. Ibid., 150–153, 167–168. 36. Transcript of a lecture delivered by Bertha Weingreen (see n. 15). 37. Dr. Hadassa Bimko, Report of the Health Department of the Central Committee, in Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone of Germany 1945–1947, 22. 38. Samuel Dallob, Report of the American Joint Distribution Committee, in ibid., 33. 39. Certain barracks were designated as kibbutzim. Their members lived as a commune, ate communal meals, shared in housekeeping of their barracks, organized lessons and cultural activities, and worked in several farms adjacent to the camp or in workshops in the camp. See Avinoam J. Patt, Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (Detroit: 2009), 107–197. 40. Lavsky, New Beginnings, 160. 41. Actually, the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, occurring on April 15, 1945, came after Passover of that year. The description here refers to the following year, in which the first night of Passover (April 15, 1946) fell out on the first anniversary of the liberation. This explains how it was that the survivors were able to enjoy supplies brought in from America by the JDC. 42. Interview with Paula and Shlomo Leshman (7 September 1992), OHD, 156/7. 43. Report on work during April (24 May 1946), WLL, Henriques/Braunschweig. 44. Zvia Lahar account in Shliḥut lagolah, 402–403. 45. American Joint Distribution Committee (Munich U.S. Zone of Germany), “Report on Activities in the U.S. Zone of Germany for March & April 1948,” 22 (an original copy of the

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document, probably found in one of the JDC archives, was given to me by Prof. Yehuda Bauer, without any specific archival specification). 46. Brotman-Viteles report (29 March 1946), Yad Vashem Archives, 0-70/6; report by Jack Weingreen (25 April 1946), WLL, Henriques/Belsen Reports; letter from Breuer to his wife; lecture by Weingreen. The role of women has been explored in the context of migration, and specifically within the contexts of deportation and concentration camps during the Holocaust. See, for example, Sibylle Quack, “Changing Gender Roles and Emigration: The Example of German Jewish Women and Their Emigration to the United States, 1933–1945,” in People in Transit: German Migrations in Comparative Perspective, ed. Dirk Hoerder and Jörg Nagler (Washington, D.C.:1995), 379–397; Dalia Ofer, “Imahot betzel hashoah,” Yalkut Moreshet 86 (2009), 39–60. 47. Lavsky, New Beginnings, 149–150. 48. Interview with Shmuel Shmulewich (1993), OHD, 156/10 (p. 36).

“The New Immigrant Must Not Only Learn, He Must Also Forget”: The Making of Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi Cuisine Ofra Tene (Tel Aviv) From this distance in culinary time, my mother’s meatballs seem the ultimate in gastronomy. . . . I’ve never managed to make even one meatball that approached those of my mother’s—they must be hot and crispy, made from meat minced in a hand grinder, with just the right proportions of garlic, onion, parsley, and breadcrumbs . . . with just the right kind of mixing between two oil-coated hands . . . and this includes her heavy footfall on the stairs, after a long, exhausting ride on the bus . . . all this to provide her Amos, her beloved eldest son, with some meatballs.1

These are the words of Amos Kenan (1927–2009), gastronome, author, poet, journalist, satirist, and culture hero; he wrote them as an experienced and knowledgeable individual who had come to understand that being able to “make gigot à la Provence” did not mean that he had what it took to make “even one meatball that approached those of my mother’s.”2 Kenan’s nostalgia for his mother’s meatballs highlights the myth of the self-sacrificing yidishe mame continually engaged in ­labor-intensive (and usually dull) cooking, who invariably arouses guilt in her beloved son. Yet his yearning seems to extend beyond nostalgia for his childhood and his mother, reflecting as well a sense that radical changes had taken place in the role and significance of Ashkenazi cooking in Israeli society over the course of his lifetime. Indeed, this cooking is no longer the country’s dominant cuisine. It is now identified with one specific ethnic group; moreover, for a majority of Ashkenazi Jews, it has become a ritual cuisine associated mainly with special events and Jewish holidays. The Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi cuisine had its origins in the interwar period, when Palestine became an important destination for Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe.3 Joining long-resident groups such as Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardim (also known as Mizrahim, or Oriental Jews), these immigrants bolstered the local Ashkenazi population, which became the largest and most powerful community in the Yishuv. Developing both spontaneously and by 46

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design, the Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi culture became the hegemonic culture during the British Mandate period, and remained such during the first decades of the newly established state of Israel. Many aspects of this culture have been researched and described.4 In this essay, I focus on the domestic as opposed to the public sphere,5 examining the formative processes of Ashkenazi cuisine from the second quarter of the 20th century (during the British Mandate era) through the first decades of Israeli independence. The notion of cuisine is defined here as a set of “proper dishes” comprising ingredients that are considered to be fit for consumption, and recognized as appropriate cooking by a sizable community of eaters. Since a cuisine emerges in the specific historical and social conditions of a given community,6 it is in constant flux. This is true even if it consists of a diet determined by certain religious rules (as in the case of kosher cuisine), since the rules themselves are subject to varying interpretations. In principle, the meals prepared in a given cuisine are considered edible by the majority of the community, though not all of them will be regarded as “ideal” meals. The latter category, as will be seen, also involves criteria of social class.

The Jewish Cuisine of Eastern Europe Although Ashkenazi cooking embraces a diversity of cuisines that are by no means homogenous in terms of taste, ingredients, or choice of dishes, we can still refer to an “East European” Jewish cuisine.7 The wide variety of ingredients and dishes in Ashkenazi kitchens was a function of the geographical dispersal of Ashkenazi communities.8 In Dvora Baron’s story “Genizah” (Holy burial), for instance, the rebbetzin of Zuzikovka chats with a neighbor and recalls how she had once been put off by “those Lithuanian foods” that now seemed to be “tastier . . . than the best Polish treats.”9 (In this case, not only geography but also religious ideological affiliation played a role in culinary differences between the two communities: Lithuania was the stronghold of mitnagdim, whereas many Jews of Poland were Hasidim.)10 As will be seen, social class also greatly affected culinary experience, with wealthier Jews enjoying a richer and more varied diet. Nevertheless, the Jewish Ashkenazi cuisine, in all its manifestations, shared a number of assumptions regarding “proper” and “ideal” meals. The most significant common denominator of the cuisine (as was true of all traditional Jewish cuisines) was its adherence to the rules of kashrut. The most powerfully symbolic rules of kashrut, namely, avoidance of the meat of non-kosher animals and not mixing dairy and meat in one meal, were considered major markers of Jewish identity. Even those who were somewhat lax in their religious observance followed these basic rules. Those who blatantly challenged the notion of kashrut were most often individuals who wished to be regarded as “western” or “universal” in their world outlook; in adopting a non-kosher cuisine, they signaled their self-distancing both from Jewish religious culture and from the more specific East European Jewish culture. The varying diet of East European Jews was closely tied to economics. What was served at the table of wealthy Jews was very different from the normal diet of middle- and

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lower-class Jews who constituted a majority of the Jewish population between the wars. The ideal for everyone was to eat three meals a day,11 with the main meal eaten around noon.12 However, many households did not have set weekday mealtimes, such that family members would eat whenever they came home from work or studies. A “proper” noon meal featured some form of animal protein; in poorer households, this might be nothing more than a slice of pickled herring. Daily consumption of meat (usually beef) was a sign of affluence that demarcated between the middle classes and the poor.13 In his autobiographical novel A Guest for the Night, S.Y. Agnon recounts a visit to a Jewish guesthouse in the impoverished town of Szibuch (modeled on his hometown, Buchach, in Galicia) in the aftermath of the First World War. The narrator, who is returning home, has become a prosperous man (gvir) in the eyes of the local Jews. When the owners suggest that he take his meals on the premises, he hesitates. He is a vegetarian, and he is reluctant to trouble the hosts to prepare a special meal for him—his assumption being that the main meal of the day will include meat as a main course. The woman who owns the guesthouse reassures him: “Who eats meat here?” said the mistress of the house. “All six days of the week no one has a taste of meat. . . . During the war we learned to cook without meat or anything else, and the food had no flavour or anything; but since the war I have learned to make the food tasty even without meat. There was a doctor here who didn’t eat any flesh foods and he taught me to make all kinds of dishes with vegetables, and I haven’t forgotten his teaching yet.”

All the same, meat continues to be symbolically important—the mainstay of the “ideal” Sabbath meal, and therefore, despite the difficult economic conditions, it is served on that day. In deference to her guest’s vegetarianism, the woman does not serve him meat on the Sabbath, but rather offers him “fish, boiled or stuffed, or pickled or marinated, besides other good things. And it goes without saying that there is no Sabbath without a pudding.”14 Poultry was expensive,15 and milk and other dairy products graced the homes only of relatively well-to-do families.16 The price of milk was driven up by the rules of kashrut, which stipulated supervision to ensure that the milk did not come in contact with the milk of a non-kosher animal. Nonetheless, East European Jewish cuisine featured a number of dairy products directly derived from milk, including butter, cottage or farmer cheese, kefir, and sour cream.17 Apart from potatoes, vegetables did not form a major part of the diet, as Europeans in general (with the exception of those who lived near the Mediterranean) did not attach much importance to them. Onions, radishes, and cucumbers were eaten raw, but most other vegetables were consumed only after cooking or other forms of processing (preservation in salt, vinegar, or sugar).18 Some vegetables, among them potatoes and cabbage, were available for much of the year, as they could be stored for the winter. Seasonally available vegetables included lettuce, cucumbers, onions and green onions, large and small radishes, garlic, parsley, parsnip, dill, carrots, beets, turnip, cauliflower, pumpkin, and tomatoes (though the last were available only during the interwar period). Various fruits, among them berries, apples, pears, cherries, and plums were in abundant supply at the height of the season. Herbs—in particular, parsley and dill—were used sparingly and only in cooking.19

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Potatoes were served on an everyday basis. Other carbohydrates generally took the form of dough-based dishes, such as noodles.20 But because wheat flour was costly and noodles were usually hand-made, dough-based dishes were not as cheap as potatoes.21 In certain areas, rice was a common component of the diet even though it had to be imported—for instance, in Galicia (which was influenced by the Hungarian cuisine), cabbage leaves were stuffed with rice, sugar, and even tomatoes.22 Eggs were expensive and consequently were rarely eaten in the homes of poor or even middle-class Jews.23 Dried legumes (peas and beans) were part of the diet, as were oats, barley, groats, and buckwheat.24 Overall, the East European Jewish diet was high in fats (in particular, goose fat), with wealthier families using more of this fairly expensive item. Similarly, because sugar was expensive, its level of consumption varied in accordance with families’ economic status. Dark rye bread featured prominently at every weekday meal, with white flour used to make challah for the Sabbath and holidays. Though tea was the most popular drink, coffee and cocoa were also consumed. How strong and how sweet the tea was depended on a family’s financial circumstances.25 The daily diet of most East European Jews was limited and monotonous. And while Sabbath meals were more varied, they, too, were repetitive. Ideally a Sabbath meal would include chicken, fish, and challah, and holiday meals and family events were often marked by special symbolic foods—matzah for Passover, for instance, or dairy products for Shavuot. In contrast to poor and lower-middle-class Jews, the wealthy enjoyed an abundant daily diet that included beef-based dishes, fish, pastries, a variety of dairy products, fresh and preserved fruit, and imported wines.26

Migration and Modification of the European Ashkenazi Cuisine Immigrant cooking typically changes following the initial encounter with the new local cuisine.27 A variety of factors account for the transformation of a cuisine, among them the unequal power relationship between longtime residents and newcomers;28 the symbolic meaning immigrants attach to the old culinary tradition as opposed to that of the new country;29 the foods that are available in the new country and, of these, which are considered “fit for consumption” by the immigrants. Availability and appropriateness do not always overlap; for instance, tomatoes, as will be seen, were available in Palestine but were not considered by everyone to be a proper food. In Mandate-era Palestine, there was an additional factor: the influence of local nutritional experts, who sought to promote a diet based on scientific principles. The majority of interwar Ashkenazi immigrants to Palestine belonged to the lower middle class. Yet because they were ’olim—“ascendants” to Eretz Israel, as opposed to being mere immigrants—they did not regard themselves as poor newcomers who came knocking at the door, anxiously waiting to be “accepted” by the locals. Rather, having arrived at the “threshold of the East,”30 they considered themselves to be representatives of “western culture,” with the relative geographic concept “West” being applied to all Ashkenazi Jews, not just those of Western Europe. Their culture, they believed, was superior to the local culture, including that of the “Oriental” Jews

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whom they encountered on arrival.31 Most immigrants, especially urban families, were not inclined to adopt the local culture—including the local cuisine. Indeed, it takes material or social incentives to abandon a deeply familiar diet. An example is that of Jews who immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century. Most of them improved their economic standing; consequently, a new repertoire of foods (some of them unknown in the “old country”) became available. As a rule, the first-generation immigrants did not seek to abandon their Jewish identity and culture. By the second generation, however, Jews who wished to advance socially were increasingly inclined to tone down their Jewish visibility, in particular with regard to the consumption of kosher meat in the public domain. Many went further, moving away from a diet that was associated both with the backwardness of the old world and with their prior inferior social status.32 In this fashion, the bourgeois Jewish cuisine of chicken soup, chopped liver, and other iconic foods was transformed into a symbolic cuisine for many American Jews, which was generally limited to Jewish holidays and Jewish family events. In contrast, Jews who immigrated to Palestine felt no need to change their bourgeois Jewish cuisine—which in their eyes was the ideal and proper cuisine—for that of the local Palestinian Arab population. Rather, they generally chose to select a number of items from the local repertoire of ingredients33 and incorporate them (ignoring the cuisine from which they were taken) into their culturally familiar culinary system. The emerging Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi cuisine did not come about in an entirely spontaneous manner. Rather, it was also influenced by the prevailing nutritional discourse of the time. In the second decade of the 20th century, science-based theories of nutrition—in particular, those concerning the crucial role played by vitamins—were adopted throughout the western world.34 As a result, discussions about food shifted away from moral, religious, or educational precepts,35 focusing instead on the human body as a machine requiring the proper kind and amount of fuel. By the 1930s, the field of home economics had become firmly established in the Yishuv, and there was much information being disseminated about the importance of a balanced, nutritious diet. As home economics (also known as domestic science, household arts, and domestic economy) was a clearly gendered field, it is not surprising that women’s groups were especially active in promoting proper nutrition.36 The Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), for instance, put out a series of brochures in the 1930s that were aimed at housewives. In one of these brochures, titled “Principles of Nutrition Theory,” Milka Sapir presented nutrition charts showing how much of a given food could be purchased for a given price (10 mils), how many calories it had, and how much protein and fat it contained. Invoking an American expert on the subject, Sapir wrote: In the attempt to construct a proper diet, the housewife can expect to encounter many difficulties. We hope that the words of Sherman [the American expert] will offer her guidance and instruction: “If we think of the human body as a combustion engine, then the organic nutrients can be considered its fuel. Protein and a part of the nutrients are what the machine is built from, minerals and other substances—constitute the lubricating oil, and the vitamins spark the combustion. All these constituents are vital for the functioning body.”37

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Other brochures in the series were devoted to recipes, following the usual cookbook division of “soups,” “appetizers,” “meat and fish,” and so on, with nutritional information provided for each dish. Similarly, in the few cookbooks published during this period, it was standard practice to note the scientific principles behind a nourishing meal and to list the nutritional value of each dish for which a recipe was given.38 Another important women’s organization, Hadassah, published ten informational brochures during the Second World War. The series was titled Guide for Family Nutrition and was aimed at helping housewives cope with the challenges of cooking with limited resources.39 The brochures featured a series of three-meal daily menus for various budgets, as, for instance: “A menu at 50 mils [per person]”; “A menu at 40 mils [per person].”40 In other recipe books of the period, authors similarly promoted the notion of “health” first and foremost while relegating flavor and aesthetics to a distinctly secondary role—mere instruments in ensuring that healthy food would make its way into the digestive system (especially of children). Readers were also admonished that food must be consumed in the proper manner—that is, in an atmosphere of quiet, pleasant conversation, with people sitting up straight and keeping their elbows off the table.41 In addition to stressing health, the nutritional discourse in the Yishuv was also imbued with nativist ideology. Thus, Sarah Bromberg (later Bavly), the head of Hadassah’s department of nutrition, argued in 1938 that there needed to be a balance between “local produce . . . the climate . . . religious practices . . . [and the people’s] instinct. . . . ”42 Put somewhat differently, a “national” diet was based both on place (in the literal sense: the soil, the climate) and on culture, such that Jews returning to their homeland needed to immerse their bodies, both metaphorically and concretely, in the land. A decade earlier, at a conference sponsored by the nutrition committee of the Histadrut labor federation, Mordechai Brachiyahu, founder and director of the department of school hygiene in Hadassah noted: What is good and natural to the land’s climate, so far as it is part of the Arab cuisine, deserves our attention, but it must be corrected in a civilized manner. It is the nation’s culture that informs the popular instinct by the correct adjustment of its food, and it is inconceivable that we should accustom ourselves to the land without recourse to science and popular education.43

In other words, the new local Jewish cuisine was to bring together scientific knowledge and “locality”—but would also be distinct from both the local Arab and Mizrahi Jewish cuisines.44 The way to do this was by adopting elements of the local diet, consciously dropping old eating habits and acquiring new ones.45 In the words of Bromberg: “The new immigrant must not only learn, he must also forget.”46 She identified three types of attitudes toward new habits of eating. The attitude of “extreme conservatism” was marked by a reluctance to try anything new: “ ‘Eggplants are not tasty’; ‘zucchini—not worth trying; ‘bulgur—who eats that?’ ” Yet the opposite extreme—“ ‘We shall eat like the resident population from day one’ ” was also inadvisable.47 Clearly, the proper way of becoming acclimatized to new foods was through gradual exposure and adjustment. At the outbreak of the Second World War, when food shortages caused sharp increases in the prices of many food staples, nutrition experts seized the opportunity

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to influence the domestic culinary culture. An abundance of menus comprising recipes based on locally available ingredients appeared in the women’s journals and in the women’s sections of the daily newspapers. Hadassah sponsored food expositions in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem, and also, as noted, published its Guide for Family Nutrition. In the first of these brochures, the basic question to be addressed was: “How do I properly feed my family with the limited means available?” The authors recommended “dishes based on rice, bulgur, and semolina,” explaining that “in terms of their nutritional value, cheap groats are not inferior to the expensive kind. Bulgur and cracked wheat have similar nutritional value to buckwheat and oats, while their price is much lower.”48 Another brochure (the fifth in the series) was dedicated to recipes in which “the eggplant features as the main vegetable.”49 The modern nutritional discourse was not limited to the private (gendered) sphere but rather infiltrated Yishuv society as a whole. An anecdote from A Compilation of Lies, a collection of tall tales (chizbatim) originally told by Palmach fighters around the campfire,50 illustrates this point: “During a short naval course . . . the guys would meet up at night to talk about important things, especially about food, health, and vegetables. Once, Abu-Lish’s brother said: ‘What do you know about vegetables? They’ve got cucumbers in Kibbutz Gvat—no kidding, each vitamin is the size of a finger!’ ”51

Components of the Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi Cuisine Although the cuisine that evolved in the Ashkenazi kitchens of the Yishuv was different from that of the immigrants’ countries of origin, in particular with regard to some of its ingredients, the main contours and rationale of the diet were recognizably European. A survey by Sarah Bavly of Jewish families in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, published in 1947, indicates which foods could be found in local Ashkenazi kitchens toward the end of the British Mandate.52 Eggs, for instance, were an important part of the diet, and consumers were willing to pay a relatively high price for them. As may be recalled, eggs were regularly eaten only by prosperous Jewish families in Europe. For this reason, they were socially prestigious, which probably explains why they were readily adopted by immigrants to Palestine. Dairy products—not milk per se, but rather milk derivatives such as yogurt, low-fat cottage cheese, and “white cheese” (a kind of cream cheese)—were also very popular, especially in Tel Aviv, whereas “yellow cheese” was still considered a luxury item.53 And fresh vegetables, especially cucumbers and tomatoes, had become a fixture in the diet of all classes of Ashkenazi Jews, accounting for nearly two thirds of the vegetables that were purchased. Indeed, the tomato held a special place in the mythology of the Zionist kitchen. Along with a number of other foods (such as corn, potatoes, and turkey), it had reached Europe from South America following the Spanish conquest. In Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, it became part of the Turkish cuisine, owing to political and economic ties between Spain and the Ottoman Empire; from there it spread throughout the empire, including Palestine.54 Only later was it incorporated into the French and Italian cuisines, whereas its entry into East and Central European kitchens was delayed until the interwar period.55

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From the earliest days of Zionist settlement, the tomato features in accounts of new immigrants’ first encounters in the Yishuv. For instance, the hero of Agnon’s Only Yesterday, Isaac Kumer, arrives in Palestine from Galicia during the second wave of immigration (1903–1914). During his first days as a pioneer (ḥ alutz), he is given a tomato to eat, but has a hard time recognizing it as a proper food. To him, the tomato was a “fool’s apple,” as it was called back home.56 Lacking money, and also desiring to find a place among the ḥ alutzim, he adopts both tomatoes and olives as part of his daily fare.57 A memoir written by Zeev Ben Shahar describes a similar experience. When his family arrived from Poland in 1925, they were taken in by an uncle whose family included longtime residents of Tel Aviv. Ben Shahar recalls that “it was not easy for me to get used to the food of Eretz Israel–the tomato, the eggplant, and zucchini. The tomato, which in Poland we saw growing in the window boxes of the Christians, and which we therefore dubbed the ‘Christians’ apple’ or the ‘triefe apple,’ was eaten here by the Jews as well.”58 Interestingly, it was the tomato rather than the more prestigious orange that became the symbol of the individual’s commitment to the Zionist enterprise. This is how it appears in the 1926 hit, “Tomato,” by Yehuda Karni and Yoel Engel: Ho, ho, ho, our land is poor Let every living creature sing the tomato anthem. Tomato, tomato! Just yesterday we came off the boat and already you feature in our borscht, our salad, and our meatballs . . .  It’s tomatoes, only tomatoes from the moshav of Bnei Brak to [Kibbutz] Degania. . . . 59 According to Eliyahu Hacohen, a scholar of Hebrew song, “Tomato” was instrumental in incorporating the tomato into the immigrants’ daily diet.60 Thus, the tomato came to symbolize both the process of personal transformation and that of the collective agricultural enterprise (“from the moshav of Bnei Brak to Degania”). The ancient land of Israel may have been the land of milk and honey, but in the modern land, “it’s tomatoes, only tomatoes.” Even this exaggeration had more than a kernel of truth. In 1939, some years after the public relations effort on behalf of the tomato, an American agricultural scientist by the name of Walter Clay Lowdermilk found that about a third of the agricultural land dedicated to vegetable crops in Palestine was given over to tomatoes.61 According to the survey of foods carried out by Bavly in 1947, the consumption of fresh vegetables had increased from the time of a previous survey conducted in 1943, even though the relative price of vegetables had gone up in the interim. In contrast, cooked vegetables such as carrots, zucchini, beets, and green beans were being eaten much less.62 Bavly found a socioeconomic correlation between ethnic origin and culinary repertoire. Occupying the higher economic strata, Ashkenazim were able to maintain some of the culinary customs they had brought from their countries of origin. Consequently, they continued eating potatoes, which in Palestine cost more than

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nutritionally equivalent foodstuffs such as legumes, rice, and groats.63 The latter, Bavly noted, functioned as the traditional carbohydrates among the local Arab population and Mizrahi Jews, both of whom were “more strongly represented in the lower economic classes.”64 Similarly, research carried out at about the same time by a historian, Avraham Polak, indicated considerable differences—both in foods and in their cost—in the diets of Ashkenazim versus non-Ashkenazim.65 Bread is a good example of the connection between economic status and ethnicity. Bread formed part of every meal,66 and although white bread was much more expensive than rye bread, it was commonly eaten by the Ashkenazi population. As noted, white bread had been regularly eaten only by wealthier Jews in Eastern Europe; for others, it was a food associated with the Sabbath and other special occasions. Thus, for Ashkenazim, white bread had social and symbolic meaning. Polak noted in his study: “A large part of the population eats white bread even though it costs about three times as much as regular rye bread,” with middle-class residents of Tel Aviv consuming more white bread than people of other towns.67 Very few fresh herbs—only parsley and dill—were used. As in East European cuisine, the Ashkenazi Eretz Israeli cuisine was only mildly spiced. However, in contrast to East European cooking, it was less fatty, and in place of goose fat, vegetable oil (though not olive oil) was generally used.68 Finally, the social significance of “keeping kosher” underwent change in Palestine. For many immigrants, Jewish identity (associated with the diaspora) was replaced by Hebrew identity (associated with the Zionist enterprise).69 This new identity did not require kashrut observance in order to remain distinct from the non-Jewish surrounding: there was no real threat to the collective Hebrew identity because assimilation with the local (Arab) culture was not perceived as an attractive alternative.70 Instead, “Hebrewness” offered Ashkenazi Jews an identity associated with a powerful group: a new experience for them. One consequence of this shift in identity was that non-observance of the rules of kashrut no longer entailed social stigma or exclusion from the Jewish collective. To be sure, most food items were intrinsically kosher, including most of the meat sold in Jewish butcher shops. However, in Tel Aviv, for instance, some butchers sold nonkosher meat.71 Among the customers were families from Central Europe who had already abandoned kashrut observance in their native lands. Uzi Ram, for instance, was born in Tel Aviv in 1937.72 His grandfather had been a kosher butcher in Mainz, Germany, but his father had opted to be part of German society and culture and had pursued an artistic career. Forced to emigrate, the father came to Tel Aviv, where he made a point of buying non-kosher sausages from delicatessen shops along “Ben Yehuda Strasse”—so called because of its concentration of German-speaking Jewish immigrants. Similarly, Aliza Kupferman’s family frequented non-kosher food stores. Kupferman came from a family of wealthy industrialists who, while not denying their Jewish identity, had been patriotic Germans. Under the Nazi regime, they were forcibly stripped of their German identity and consigned to the all-embracing category of “Jews.” Upon arriving in Palestine in 1938, the Kupfermans were once again free to define themselves both as Jews and as Europeans. In eating non-kosher food, they were able to draw a distinction between their brand of Judaism and that of East European Jews or of Mizrahi Jews. In addition, eating non-kosher sausages was a

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way of maintaining their sense of being European—an important matter for Germanspeaking immigrants, many of whom never felt entirely at home in Palestine. The Kupfermans made few if any adaptations to Tel Aviv society or culture. They clung to their Central European diet. They neither adopted the custom of eating fresh vegetables nor began to eat eggs at breakfast or dinner. Instead, they continued to consume a great deal of sausage and (yellow) cheese. In contrast were the Hertzes, who had emigrated earlier and at a younger age from Berlin. In Germany, they had belonged to the lower middle class and had identified as Zionists; once in Tel Aviv, they adopted a diet that included raw vegetables along with such previously alien foods as eggplant and zucchini.73 In these and other historical testimonies, one sees how foods that had been socially prestigious in the immigrants’ countries of origin (for instance, eggs) easily became part of the Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi cuisine. Adapting local vegetables was a more complex process that varied according to each specific vegetable. The eggplant, for example, was alien to most Central and East European cooking and required culinary processing with which the new immigrants were unfamiliar (though it eventually was adapted into a vegetarian version of an exclusively Ashkenazi dish in the form of “chopped liver” eggplant). Zucchini, in contrast, was more easily adapted, as it could be cooked in a soup. Tomatoes and cucumbers became a new partnership, consumed in the form of vegetable salad in various versions (for instance, with or without onions or green bell peppers). This salad was very close to the “native” dish known in today’s Israeli culinary lexicon as “Arab salad”—the latter differing mainly in that it is more finely chopped.74 Less enthusiastically received than the vegetable salad were other traditional dishes (both cooked and uncooked) from the Arab and Mizrahi Jewish repertoire.75 Until the 1930s, the vegetables used for salad were mostly grown by Arab farmers, whose produce was cheaper than that of Jews. Over time, however, advances in agricultural practices and in the irrigation of fields led to a significant increase in Jewish agricultural output.76 The cultivation of vegetables by Jews was both a strategy of disconnection from the Arab economy and a way of proving that the Jewish settlement could have an autonomous economy—a situation that heralded the arrival of political independence. Moreover, incorporating vegetables from “the harvest of our land” into the home kitchen had symbolic meaning: consumers could feel themselves to be “natives” conducting an authentic life on their own soil. Consuming the produce of the field symbolized the body’s fusion with the Zionist territory: a body that ate bread by the sweat of its brow, and that consumed the “proper” food (as opposed to bulgur or hummus).77 As in Europe, the ideal culinary day featured three set times for the formal ritual of the “meal,” which were sometimes interspersed with light, in-between repasts. Of the latter, the two most common were known as arukhat ’eser (the 10:00 a.m. meal) and arukhat arb’a (the 4 p.m. meal).78 These different meals were marked as well by distinctive foods.79 On weekdays, the main meal was meant to be eaten approximately at midday, and consisted of a series of dishes that were served consecutively.80 First to be served was usually soup, prepared either with vegetables or with meat (or poultry), or both. At times, an appetizer was served instead of or before the soup. The main course was meat-based and was served with a carbohydrate—usually potatoes, though sometimes rice or a grain. At times, cooked vegetables were also part of the

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main course. The last course, dessert, generally consisted of fresh or cooked fruit. Breakfast and dinner were lighter meals in which all foods were served at the same times. Among the most common breakfast or dinner foods were eggs, cheeses and other dairy products, vegetables, porridge, and bread.81 The food served at the home of the Silverberg family, as recounted by Shimon Silverberg (b. Tel Aviv, 1936), is representative of the “ideal” Ashkenazi cuisine. His parents had been born in Eastern Europe, his mother arriving in Palestine with her parents at the age of 14. Owners of a successful bakery, they were part of Tel Aviv’s well-off bourgeoisie. Here is Shimon’s nostalgic description of the breakfast his devoted mother would prepare for him and his older sister: The meal would begin with a small salad made from cut vegetables, half a grapefruit . . . sour cream and cheese; if there were strawberries, then strawberries [with] sugar . . . and eggs, one egg at least. I’d have two eggs, I really love eggs. All this with bread, of course, and then a glass of milk from which you had to remove the skin, and if I drank my milk, then I’d be allowed coffee. This type of large meal, every morning, and cake, too!82

The main, hot meal at the Silberbergs was served at midday, and because the family bakery was not far from home, the father was able to join his family for lunch (this was customary in many households). Lunch consisted of chicken soup, “wonderful gefilte fish the likes of which I never again tasted,” meatballs, and kneidlach; the evening meal featured “leben (curdled milk) with a salad, with vegetables, with olives, with all kinds of things like that.”83 In sum, the mother’s cuisine comprised both dishes and ingredients that she knew from her own parents’ home and nutritious local produce unknown to the East European kitchen of the first quarter of the 20th century.

From Healthy Subjects to Desireful Consumers During the first decades of Israeli statehood, the Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi cuisine remained the hegemonic cuisine, in the sense that it was deemed the “proper” cuisine both in public discourse and in institutionalized culinary settings. This was the case even after the ethnic composition of Israel underwent huge change in the wake of massive Jewish immigration from Islamic countries in the early 1950s, which resulted in Ashkenazim accounting for only about half of the total Israeli Jewish population. Jews coming from North Africa, Egypt, and Iraq brought along Jewish cuisines that were variations of the culinary cultures of their countries of origin.84 These cuisines were not the same as those of the local Arab or Mizrahi Jewish populations. Yet in the evolving Israeli culture of the 1950s and 1960s, only two dichotomous groups of Israeli Jews were delineated—Ashkenazim and Mizrahim.85 Consequently, the diverse cuisines of Jews from Islamic countries were revamped as the “Mizrahi cuisine.” To be sure, a “hegemonic” culinary discourse does not necessarily have any great or immediate impact on individual kitchens. As with Ashkenazi families during the British Mandate era, post-state Mizrahi families adjusted their culinary culture to the local reality and evolved new, local cuisines. At the same time, the hegemonic discourse did leave its marks on institutions such as school kitchens, hospitals, transit camps for new immigrants, a variety of workplaces, and the army. During the austerity

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period (tzen’a) of the 1950s, when the state undertook to supply basic food items for the population in accordance with purely nutritional considerations, food vouchers actually reflected the rationale of the Ashkenazi diet; moreover, because Mizrahim were relatively poorer than the veteran Ashkenazi population, they had fewer means of obtaining “missing” items in their diet (for instance, by purchasing such items on the black market).86 An especially interesting case in point is the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Until the 1970s, the food served in army kitchens was almost exclusively Ashkenazi in nature, even though soldiers came from many different ethnic backgrounds and had widely varying culinary preferences.87 On the face of it, those who constructed the military’s food charts—experts serving in the logistics corps in consultation with the medical corps—were guided by purely instrumental nutritional considerations (the menus for soldiers in combat units, for instance, had a higher caloric value than those intended for soldiers doing clerical work).88 Yoram Heker, who had studied chemical engineering in Cracow before immigrating to Israel, worked in the IDF logistics unit between 1958 and 1968; together with the head of the gastronomy section, who came from Hungary, he put together the army’s menus according to the different food charts. Now he is embarrassed to recollect how these menus were created without consideration for the culinary preferences of the Mizrahi soldiers, who made up half the military force.89 At the time, the allegedly “irrational” desires of those on the receiving end—not only in the army, but in the society at large—were assumed to be irrelevant. Even when such desires appeared to be taken into account, there was a gap between the rhetoric of multiculturalism and the reality of a continuing Ashkenazi culinary hegemony. For instance, an article titled “Are You Hungry,” which appeared in 1959 in Bamaḥ aneh, the weekly IDF newspaper, seems at first to be sympathetic to the notion of ethnic pluralism: “Statistics show that the IDF has soldiers from 50 countries and it must therefore be sensitive to 50 culinary customs.” Yet in the next sentence, the burden of being “reasonable” is shifted to the soldiers: “It is impossible to suit each and every soldier’s palate, but with some effort foods can be found that most, if not all, may like.”90 Moreover, as late as 1978, the IDF’s alleged sensitivity to different culinary customs was not reflected in its actual menus, as seen in a three-day suggested menu for June of that year (Table 4.1):91 Other dishes served that month included potato soup, steamed orzo (petitim), deviled eggs, “English cake,” and barley soup. The one dish that may not have starred in Mrs. Silberberg’s kitchen was the tehina that was served for dinner on Saturday, June 16. It was only in the early 1980s that Israel’s military menu began to include foods representing different cuisines, in particular the so-called “Mizrahi” cuisine, along with some internationally oriented dishes. This change is evident in the third IDF cookbook, published in 1991 in a lavish edition complete with color photography.92 Although authored by a career officer, the book was edited by Israel Aharoni, at the time Israel’s leading chef and cookbook writer. Indicative of the book’s contents is the “appetizers and salads” section, which offers a culinary pastiche—tehina; hummus; eggplant and tehina; chopped-liver flavored eggplant; Romanian eggplant; Chinese-style steamed eggplant; Turkish salad; celeriac and apple salad; cabbage with caraway seeds; cucumber and dill salad; Chinese salad; Italian salad; potato and mayonnaise; Russian eggs; tuna and celery salad; and deviled eggs.93

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Ofra Tene Table 4.1.  IDF Menu for Three Days in June 1978

Day

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Monday,

rice porridge

chicken soup with soup nuts

cooked potatoes

June 11

scrambled eggs

roast chicken

meatballs [klops]

yellow cheese

steamed rice

vegetables

olives

vegetables

bread, margarine, jam

vegetables

dessert

tea

bread, margarine, jam

bread

coffee, milk Tuesday,

rice porridge

pea soup

omelet

June 12

fried eggs

goulash

yogurt

white cheese

mashed potatoes with fried

baked potatoes

vegetables

onions

vegetables

olives

vegetables

bread, margarine, jam

bread, margarine, jam

dessert

tea

coffee, milk

bread

Wednesday

rice porridge

chicken soup

egg salad

June 13

omelet

with thin noodles

steamed noodles with tomato sauce

cream cheese

roast chicken

yellow cheese

vegetables

steamed rice

vegetables

olives

vegetables

yeast cake

bread, margarine, jam

dessert

bread, margarine, tea

coffee, milk

bread

Obviously, it was not only demographic change that undermined the hegemony of the Ashkenazi diet. That change, after all, had already occurred in the early 1950s. Rather, over time, Israeli society had been transformed by political, social, and cultural processes associated, in part, with accelerated globalization and with the strengthening of consumerism. In one significant shift, the patronizing attitude of culinary decisionmakers was gradually replaced by a consumer-oriented strategy, with eaters now perceived as “clients” whose needs must be satisfied, both personally and economically. An early expression of this shift were the remarks made by Major Jack Aviram at a symposium sponsored by the IDF logistics corps in April 1977. “My argument is that nutritional considerations as such, caloric considerations for instance, or the question of proteins, is not what currently guides the food system,” he noted. “It is the other aspect . . . that of expectations, which dominates how we design the food system.”94 An article appearing in Bamaḥ aneh in 2003 summed the matter up: “Ashkenazim, we’re fed up with you. Tzimmes—out! Malawaḥ —in! Goulash is bowing out to make room for khreime, and orzo has turned into couscous. Pickled herring is gone, while hummus and tehina have moved in. The new menu in the army is redder, hotter, and more Mizrahi.”95

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Thus, while market forces are usually blamed for speeding up processes of homogenization, in the Israeli case it seems as if these forces gradually and inadvertently increased cultural diversity—undermining the power of the hegemonic culinary experts, and enabling non-Ashkenazi culinary cultures to assert their central place in Israeli society.

Notes I would like to thank Anat Helman for extending the invitation to write an essay for this volume. Thanks to Eddie Stone from the Jewish Public Library, Montreal, who very kindly helped me find translations to the quotations from Sholem Aleichem stories, and to the anonymous women and men who shared with me their memories of Mandate Palestine. Special thanks are due to Dafna Hirsh, whose generosity in sharing her original ideas and her wide knowledge made my studies of the Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi cuisine fruitful and enjoyable; her reading and comments on an earlier draft were a valuable contribution to the present text. 1. Amos Kenan, “Biografiyah kulinarit,” in Ta’am haḥ ayim: antologiyah shel sipurei okhel, ed. Yaron Avitov and Yagil Ran (Jerusalem: 2002), 130–133. 2. In 1970, Amos Kenan published a path-breaking cookbook titled Sefer hata’anugot (The book of delights) in which he instructed the younger generation—that is, those who came of age after 1967—how to consume non-kosher food and how to treat food as a cultural experience. 3. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were approximately 54,000 Jews in Eretz Israel; see Mordechai Naor and Dan Giladi, Eretz yisrael bameah ha’esrim: miyishuv limdinah 1900–1950 (Tel Aviv: 1990), 461. In 1922, the Jewish population numbered 83,963 people (ibid., 61); by 1948, it numbered approximately 650,000 (Moshe Sicron, Demografiyah: ukhlusiyat yisrael, meafyenim umegamot [Jerusalem: 2004], 25). 4. See, for instance, Rachel Elboim-Dror, “Haḥinukh ha’ivri kearkhitekturah tarbutitit veḥevratit,” in Ha’agalah hameleah: meah ve’esrim shenot tarbut yisrael, ed. Israel Bartal (Jerusalem: 2002), 24–51; Oz Almog, Hatzabar—diyokan (Tel Aviv: 1997), 263–268; Zohar Shavit, “Hitpatḥut kitvei ’et veha’itonim,” in Beniyatah shel tarbut ’ivrit beeretz yisrael, ed. Zohar Shavit (Jerusalem: 2009), 123–197; idem, “Hitpatḥut hamol”ut ha’ivrit beeretz yisrael,” in ibid. 199–262; Shimon Lev-Ari, “Hama’avar shel teatron Habimah meeiropah leeretz yisrael,” in ibid., 57–67. On more general concepts of the role of culture in the formation of national identity, see Zohar Shavit’s introduction in ibid. and Israel Bartal’s introduction in Bartal (ed.), Ha’agalah hameleah. 5. On the importance of everyday life processes in the course of cultural formation, see the introductory essay in Alice Kaplan and Kristin Ross (eds.), Everyday Life (Yale French Studies 73) (New Haven: 1987), 1–4; on the private as opposed to public sphere, see ibid.; also see Hasia R. Diner, Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration (Cambridge, Mass.: 2001), 148. On the importance of the home in supplying the necessary tools for an individual to become a “proper” member of the collective, see Ofra Tene, “ ‘Habatim halevanim yimaleiu’: ḥayei yom-yom bedirot Tel Aviv 1924-1948” (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University, 2010). On public kitchens in Eretz Israeli culture, see Yael Raviv, “Recipe for a Nation: Cuisine, Jewish Nationalism, and the Israeli State” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 2002). 6. Jack Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology (London: 1982); Stephen Mennel, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present (Urbana: 1996). 7. Diner, Hungering for America, 148. The present essay concentrates on the cuisine of Jews from Eastern Europe, who constituted the majority of the Jewish population living in Mandate Palestine. Dishes and ingredients included in the “ideal” cuisine of this group became

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part of the Eretz Israeli Ashkenazi cuisine. Mention will also be made of the somewhat different Central European Jewish cuisine, as it demonstrates different approaches toward the local ingredients. 8. Shmuel (Shmil) Holland has written extensively on geographical aspects of European Ashkenazi cuisine: see, for instance, “Hadagah asher akhalnu bepolin,” Et-mol 173 (February 2004), 16–18; “Ta’am haman: hakugel vegilgulav,” Et-mol 175 (May 2004), 22–23; “To’amehah ḥayim zakhu,” Et-mol 178 (November 2004), 18–19. 9. Dvora Baron, “Genizah,” in idem, Parshiyot: sipurim mekubatzim (Jerusalem: 2000), 238. 10. Holland, “Hadagah asher akhalnu bepolin,” 17. 11. As Jack Goody (Cooking, Cuisine and Class) has shown, not all cultures observe a distinction between meals by means of the menu. 12. Diner, Hungering for America, 162; M. Schecter, “ ’Al hamaakhalim vehamashkaot,” Davar (5 May 1936). 13. Hasia Diner brings a lovely testimony from the memoir of Maurice Raphael Cohen, whose grandfather used to leave home after a meatless midday meal with a toothpick in his mouth, to convey the impression that he was cleaning meat from between his teeth. See Diner, Hungering for America, 164. 14. Shmuel Yosef Agnon, A Guest for the Night, trans. Misha Louvish (New York: 1968), 21–22, 28. The narrator, though vegetarian, eats fish; in terms of kashrut, fish is a neutral (parve) food, neither meat nor dairy. 15. Nonetheless, poultry—in particular, chicken—had an important place in East European Jewish cuisine. Chicken soup was (and is) widely believed to have medicinal properties. In a story by Sholem Aleichem, for instance, a poor Jewish widow describes how the doctor told her she needed to provide her only child with “least a quarter-fowl worth o’ hot broth every day” lest the son, like his father, die young (“The Pot,” in Sholem Aleichem, Nineteen to the Dozen: Monologues and Bits and Bobs of Other Things, trans. Ted Gorelick [Syracuse: 1998], 10). 16. In another story by Sholem Aleichem, a couple from Kasrilevke are said to be “insatiable gluttons” even though they “eat exactly what the other Kasrilevkien Jews eat, which is to say: we eat blows [makot] and finish the meal with a dish of fever [kadaḥ at].” They delight in talking about the traditional dairy foods served on Shavuot but cannot actually afford to buy the necessary eggs and milk products required to make the foods (“Mat’amim shel ḥalav: siḥah shel zolel vesove Katrieli,” in Sholem Aleichem, Medaberim be’ad ’atzmam (Tel Aviv: 1959), 86. 17. According to Shmuel Holland, yellow cheese was far less common, as it needed to be produced by mechanical means (interview conducted 27 May 2009). 18. Sarah Bavly, Tezunateinu: perakim betorat hetezunah vehamezonot, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: 1944), 128. 19. Interview with Shmuel Holland. 20. Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog, Life is with People: The Culture of the Shtetl (New York: 1962), 371. 21. Interview with Shmuel Holland. 22. Ibid. 23. Zborowski and Herzog, Life is with People, 370. On the omelet as a culinary object of desire, see Sholem Aleichem, “The Squire’s h’Omelette: Lithuanian Dialogue,” in Nineteen to the Dozen, 54–58. 24. Diner, Hungering for America, 162; Zborowski and Herzog, Life is with People, 371. 25. From an interview with Bilha Gelber (pseudonym). Information from Gelber and other informants mentioned in this essay is based on interviews conducted by me between 2005 and 2006. 26. Diner, Hungering for America, 163–164. 27. Stephen Mennell, Anne Murcott, and Anneke H. van Otterloo, “The Sociology of Food: Eating, Diet and Culture,” Current Sociology 40, no. 2 (Autumn 1992), 78–80. 28. Liora Gvion, Begovah habeten: hahebeitim haḥ evratiyim vehapolitiyim shel hamitbaḥ ha’aravi beyisrael (Jerusalem: 2006).

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29. Diner, Hungering for America. 30. In a paraphrase of the 12th-century poet Yehudah Halevi, who wrote (while he was in Spain), “My heart is in the East, and I am at the ends of the West.” 31. Dafna Hirsch, “ ‘We Are Here to Bring the West, Not Only to Ourselves’: Zionist Occidentalism and the Discourse of Hygiene in Mandate Palestine,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 41, no. 4 (November 2009), 577–594. It should be noted that the encounter with the local culture also gave rise to a certain amount of admiration for “native” ways. However, this admiration was filtered through a romantic prism; in daily life, “Oriental” features were adopted only partially and selectively. See, for example, Ariel Hirschfeld, Rishimot ’al makom (Tel Aviv: 2000), 150–163. 32. Diner, Hungering for America, 179–228; Paula Hyman, “Me’ever layam: hemshekhiyut utmurah bamishpaḥah hayehudit hamehageret bearatzot habrit,” in Eros, erusin veisurim: miniyut umishpaḥ ah bahistoriyah, ed. Israel Bartal and Yeshayahu Gafni (Jerusalem: 1998), 335–344. 33. In 1927, Etta Sadow, the chief dietician of Hadassah, conducted a survey on the foods consumed in Palestine among the Jewish and Arab populations. The report does not mention which foods were grown locally and which were imported, and also does not (for the most part) give a sense of the quantities consumed. The list of foodstuffs includes the following: Vegetables: tomatoes, okra, eggplant, lima beans, spinach, mushrooms, dried peas, green peas, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, potatoes, onions, corn, artichoke, pepper, parsley, spring onions (scallions), asparagus, cucumbers, radishes, garlic, pumpkin, celery. Oils: olive, sesame, cottonseed. Honey. Fruits: oranges, peaches, figs, grapefruit, olives, almonds, mulberries, plums, grapes, pomegranates, lemons, etrogs (citrons), cherries, strawberries, bananas, loquats, quinces, pears. Legumes: various kinds. Eggs. Rice. Meat: mainly mutton, beef, chicken and other fowl. Dairy: products derived from the milk of cows, goats, sheep. (Etta Sadow, “Outline of Summary of Report on Dietetic Survey in Palestine—January 1927 to May 1927,” Central Zionist Archives [CZA], S4/58.) 34. Naomi Aronson, “Nutrition as a Social Problem: A Case Study of Entrepreneurial Strategy in Science,” Social Problems 29, no. 5 (June 1982), 482. 35. John Coveney, Food, Morals and Meaning: The Pleasure and Anxiety of Eating (London: 2006), 25–46. 36. Experts in the field of nutrition, however, included a number of men; one outstanding figure was Moshe Wilbuschewitz, a chemical engineer by training, who wrote widely on nutrition and invented a whole grain bread (leḥem ḥai). 37. Milka Sapir, ’Ikarei torat hahazanah (Tel Aviv: 1932), 50–51. The quote from Sherman originally appeared in Ragnar Berg, Ernährung, Küche und Gesundheit (Stuttgart: 1930), cited by Sapir. 38. See, for instance, Lilian Kornfeld, Ani mevashelet: sefer habishul haeretzyisreeli (Tel Aviv: 1948); Erna Meyer, Eikh levashel beeretz yisrael? (Tel Aviv: 1937); WIZO, Sefer habishul (Tel Aviv: 1948). Among the few vegetarian cookbooks were those of Rivka Bat-Elyah, Mah nokhal? (Tel Aviv: 1930) and Dora Schwartz, Horaot lehazanah mavriah (Merhaviah: 1945). 39. On Mandate-era activities of Hadassah, see Dafna Hirsch, “ ‘Interpreters of Occident to the Awakening Orient’: The Jewish Public Health Nurse in Mandate Palestine,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50, no. 1 (2008), 229–231. 40. Hadassah, Moreh derekh lehazanat hamishpaḥ ah (Jerusalem: 1941–1947) (unpaginated; quote appears on final page). 41. See, for instance, WIZO, Kakh nevashel (Tel Aviv: 1952), 13. 42. Sarah Bromberg, “Sheelat hatezunah hatakhlitit beeretz yisrael,” Hamazon, no. 1 (1938), 2. 43. Mordechai Brachiyahu, “Letakanat hahazanah,” Davar (26 November 1928).

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44. According to Sarah Bromberg: “The food of the Jews from eastern countries [that is, Mizrahim] does not fit the conditions of our country . . . since, as we mentioned above, tradition alone, in the absence of the necessary instinctive adjustment, does not ensure correct and balanced nutrition” (“Sheelat hatezunah hatakhlitit beeretz yisrael,” 3). See also idem (Bavly), Tezunateinu, vol. 2, 128–135; Lilian Kornfeld, “Mezonot ’eidot hamizraḥ,” Hamazon 4 (1939), 12. To be sure, nutritional experts also had a low opinion of the traditional East European diet. In an article in Davar in 1932, it was noted that the “fare of the Jewish towns excelled neither in its variety, nor in its rationale, nor even in terms of how it took into account market prices” (“Torat hahazanah [letarukhat hahazanah beveit habriyut beTel Aviv],” Davar [9 March 1932]). 45. Sarah Bromberg: “Tezunat hayishuv vehatamatah leyetzu haḥaklai,” Hamazon, no. 3 (1939), 1–2; memo from Mordechai Brachiyahu, 22 October 1926, CZA A211/51; “Torat hahazanah (letarukhat hahazanah beveit habriyut beTel Aviv).” 46. Bromberg, “Sheelat hatezunah hatakhlitit beeretz yisrael,” 2. 47. Ibid., 2–3. 48. Hadassah, Moreh derekh lehazanat hamishpaḥ ah, first pamphlet (unpaginated; quote appears on first page). 49. Moreh derekh lehazanat hamishpaḥ ah, fifth pamphlet (quote appears on first page). 50. The book, written by two well-known authors who were themselves former members of the Palmach, the Yishuv’s secret military organization, was a compilation of comic tales allegedly told by Palmach fighters. It was published in several editions and became a cult classic during the late 1950s and 1960s, further strengthening the heroic image of Palmach fighters. 51. Dan Ben Amotz and Haim Hefer, Yalkut hakezavim (Tel Aviv: 1963), 26. 52. Sarah Bavly, “Ḥ akirah ’al ramat hatezunah vehadargot hatezunatiyot shel hayishuv ha’ivri ha’ironi baaretz,” in Ramat haḥ ayim uve’ayot hatezunah bayishuv ha’ivri ha’ironi baaretz, ed. Gershon Cyderovitch and Sarah Bavly (Jerusalem: 1947), 29–53 (English section: 27–52). 53. Israelis continue to make a distinction between white cheese (gevinah levanah) and what is generically described as yellow cheese (gevinah tzehubah); the latter is considerably more expensive. 54. Bert Fragner, “From the Caucasus to the Roof of the World: A Culinary Adventure,” in  Culinary Cultures in the Middle East, ed. Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper (London: 1994), 51. 55. Tomatoes were long believed to be poisonous—and also an aphrodisiac. The latter is evident in the early French term for tomato, le pomme d’amour. Similarly, the Hebrew word for tomato, ’agvaniyah, stems from the root A-G-V, which means “to lust.” 56. Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Only Yesterday, trans. Barbara Harshav (Princeton: 2000), 49. 57. The olive, though equally alien to the Ashkenazi diet, was more readily acceptable, as it was one of the “seven species” of food traditionally associated with Eretz Israel. Cf. Benjamin Tammuz’s story “Zeitim,” in Avitov and Yagil (eds.), Ta’am haḥ ayim, 256–266. 58. Several years ago, this account appeared online (in Hebrew) at oranim.ac.il; I have a copy of the text. 59. Complete lyrics (in Hebrew) online at shironet.mako.co.il/artist?type=lyrics&lang=1& prfid=474&wrkid=5650 (accessed 14 October 2013). 60. Information about Eliyahu Hacohen was obtained in an interview with Dalia Lamdani (2 July 2008). 61. Walter Clay Lowdermilk, Eretz yisrael, haaretz haye’udah (Merhavia: 1943), 112. 62. Bavly, “Ḥ akirah ’al ramat hatezunah vehadargot hatezunatiyot shel hayishuv ha’ivri ha’ironi baaretz”; Meyer, Eikh levashel beeretz yisrael, 104. 63. Potatoes were not a common local crop in the early 20th century. Jewish farmers in the Yishuv did not succeed in cultivating potatoes until the 1940s. See Moshe Wilbuschewitz, “Madrikh lemeshek habayit: ’al tapuḥei adamah,” Davar (23 February 1931); Lowdermilk, Eretz Yisrael, haaretz haye’udah, 112; Kornfeld, Ani mevashelet, 4. 64. Bavly, “Ḥ akirah ’al ramat hatezunah vehadargot hatezunatiyot shel hayishuv ha’ivri ha’ironi baaretz,” 36. Tel Aviv, Bavly noted, was observed to “excel in the highest rate of

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legume consumption among the lower classes . . . and in its total divergence [in this regard] from the upper classes” (ibid., 37). 65. Avraham Polak, Hayishuv ha’ivri bemotzaei hamilḥ amah (Merhavia: 1945), 34–38. 66. In a television interview conducted in 1991, the poet Aharon Shabtai (b. Tel Aviv, 1939) recalled his mother’s saying “eat it [the meal] with bread”; quoted in Hanna Soker-Schwager, Mekhashef hashevet mime’onot ’ovdim: Yaakov Shabtai betarbut hayisreelit (Tel Aviv: 2007), 326. For Shabtai, bread represented “modesty, simplicity, an ethos in which he and his brother Yaakov were raised.” (Ibid.). 67. Polak, Hayishuv ha’ivri bemotzaei hamilḥamah, 51. 68. Ibid., 37. 69. Almog, Hatzabar, 128–129. 70. Itamar Even-Zohar, “Factors and Dependencies in Culture: A Revised Outline for Polysystem Culture Research,” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 24, no. 1 (January 1990), 15–34. 71. Haim Fireberg, “Tel Aviv: Temurot, retzef veribui panim shel ḥevrah vetarbut ’ironit bitkufat hamaavak (1936-1948)” (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 2003), 331–332. 72. See n. 25; all names are pseudonyms. 73. See n. 71. 74. Cf. Dalia Lamdani, “Tiyul beYafo,” Laisha (12 July 2004), 128–131; Christian Dabdoub Nasser, Classic Palestinian Cookery (London: 2001), 42; Aziz Shihab, A Taste of Palestine: Menus and Memories (San Antonio: 1993), 59. Cookbooks featuring traditional Palestinian cuisine, as well as other testimony, stress that the salad must be “finely chopped,” whereas instructions for the Ashkenazi version speak of the vegetables as either “finely chopped” or “cut.” 75. Dafna Hirsh, “ ‘Hummus Is Best When It Is Fresh and Made by Arabs’: The Gourmeti­ zation of Hummus in Israel and the Return of the Repressed Arab,” American Ethnologist 38, no. 4 (November 2001), 621. 76. Yehuda Lowe, “Haḥaklaut hayehudit beeretz yisrael mitḥilat shenot hashemonim ’ad sof tekufat hamandat,” Haentziklopediyah ha’ivrit (Jerusalem: 1959), 6:822–837. 77. On symbolic connections between food and the body, see Deborah Lupton, Food, the Body and the Self (London: 1996), 23. 78. Sapir, ’Ikarei torat hahazanah, 55. 79. Sarah Bromberg, “ ’Arihat tafrit bearba’im mil leish” (15 July 1935), CZA, ZA A520/5; Moreh derekh lehazanat hamishpaḥ ah (third pamphlet); “Tezunateinu lesh’at ḥerum: keitzad aakhil et mishpaḥti karauy uvemeḥir minimali?” Hamazon, no. 4 (1939), 13. 80. This was not the common practice among Palestinian fellahin; see Sadow, “Outline of Summary of Report on Dietetic Survey in Palestine”; on formal meals in the Palestinian cuisine, see Gvion, Begovah habeten, 87. 81. The following, for instance, appears in Kornfeld, Ani mevashelet, 13–14: Our meals are copious: they follow this varied and nutritious plan: Breakfast: Not every household knows how to fully appreciate this important meal; this is particularly reprehensible in families with children who run off to school with just one sandwich in their hand. The correct way to start the day is to eat a salad, olives, an egg or some cheese, jam, margarine or butter, and to drink coffee with milk. The Ten O’clock Break consists of a sandwich or pastry, a drink or some fruit. Midday and Main Meal: Soup, meat, vegetables, potatoes or porridge [daisah], bread and compote. Dinner: A light meal consisting of salad, yogurt, cheese, eggs or fish, bread, fruit, etc. 82. Interview with Shimon Silverberg (pseudonym), from interviews conducted between 2005–2006. 83. Ibid. 84. See, for instance, Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, “Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad: Food, Emigration, and Transformation in the Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel in the 1950s,” in this volume.

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85. The Forum for Social and Cultural Studies (Haforum lelimudei ḥevrah vetarbut), “Manginonei kinun veyitzur hayed’a hakanoni ’al mizraḥim beyisrael,” in Mizraḥ im beyisrael: ’iyun bikorti meḥ udash, ed. Hannan Hever, Yehouda Shenhav, and Pnina Motzafi-Haller (Jerusalem: 2002), 288–305. 86. Orit Rozin, Ḥ ovat haahavah hakashah: yaḥ id vekolektiv beyisrael bishnot haḥ amishim (Tel Aviv: 2008), 222; idem, “Craving Meat during Israel’s Austerity Period, 1947–1953,” in this volume, 73; Meir-Glitzenstein, “Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad,” 98–102. 87. Aviad Levi, “Ashkenazim, nimastem,” Bamaḥ aneh (17 January 2003), 6–10. 88. In 1950, for instance, “the food for IDF soldiers is supplied according to 14 nutrition charts for humans and 3 charts for animals” (from a letter from Gen. Efraim Ben-Artzi, head of the supply department, to the IDF Chief of Staff [27 December 1950], IDF Archives [Tel Hashomer], 1954/105–568). 89. Interview with Yoram Heker (11 October 2009). 90. Avraham Maron, “Ḥ aim atah ra’ev?” Bamaḥ aneh (28 May 1959), 4. 91. IDF archives: 1978, 14–153. 92. Gadi Keinan, Habishul betzaha”l (Tel Aviv: 1991). This was the third of three IDF cookbooks, following Bishul vetezunah betzaha”l (1962) and Habishul betzaha”l (1976). In the two previous editions, most of the recipes were taken from the Ashkenazi cuisine, though there were some Mizrahi dishes that, because of their high nutritional content, had already become part of the diet during the Mandate period. 93. Cf. the 1976 IDF cookbook, which featured deviled eggs; Russian eggs; Italian salad; egg and potato salad; chicken “cocktail” salad; fish salad; chopped-liver flavored eggplant salad; Romanian eggplant salad; mayonnaise salad; Turkish salad; stuffed carp; and jellied carp. Moreover, Mizrahi dishes were marked as such, as for instance in “Mizrahi-style bean soup.” 94. Jack Aviram, IDF food symposium: 1977, IDF archives. 95. Levy, “Ashkenazim, nimastem.” For a comparative discussion of the significance of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi cuisines in Israel, see Leora Gvion, “Two Narratives of Israeli Food: ‘Jewish’ versus ‘Ethnic,’ ” in this volume.

Craving Meat during Israel’s Austerity Period, 1947–1953 Orit Rozin (Tel Aviv University)

In October 1947, the British Colonial Secretary announced that Britain would soon leave Palestine. This announcement came hard on the heels of the report put out by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine that recommended the termination of the British Mandate. Palestine was to be partitioned into two states, one Jewish and one Arab; anticipating war, the leadership of the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, declared an emergency military and economic regime. Thus, both in the period leading up to Israel’s formal declaration of independence and for several years thereafter, the Yishuv economy was administered in a centralized fashion by its governing institutions. Centralization was meant to ensure that all the community’s resources would be mobilized for the war effort and that (as with the centralization of the British imperial economy during the Second World War) sufficient food and other products would be provided for the population at large, with prices kept in check.1 The emergency measures included an austerity regime under which food and other basic commodities were rationed. On April 26, 1949, the austerity regime was extended. It now received the Hebrew name tzena’, a word connoting modesty. The goal of the rationing program was to enable the new country to take in and feed the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants from Europe and the Muslim world arriving en masse, and to rehabilitate the nation’s infrastructure.2 Earlier, prior to independence, the Jewish Agency Executive had established an Office of the Supervisor of Imports and Inventory, charged with instituting tight control over the economy in preparation for the end of the Mandate. Among its missions were cataloguing inventories and overseeing the importation of food and animal feed. It was also given authority to organize the supply and distribution of food and to control prices (a power it took over from the Mandate’s food controller). After the establishment of the state in May 1948, Israel’s new government declared a national state of emergency, and the minister of industry and commerce, Peretz Bernstein, was vested with the authority to enforce the emergency regulations that Israel had inherited from the Mandate. In August 1948, the State Council (mo’etzet ha’am), the country’s provisional parliament, approved the Order to Prevent Price Gouging and 65

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Speculation, which mandated the establishment of special municipal courts to punish violators.3 Such cases were heard as well by the magistrates’ courts. At the beginning of the war, the army also enforced the prohibition against speculation, but tried civilians only in cases involving plunder.4 The first stage of the War of Independence began in the wake of the UN decision to approve the partition plan. At this point, in what is commonly referred to as the intercommunal war, the Yishuv fought local Arab forces that were augmented and assisted by irregulars who arrived from neighboring Arab countries. (The second stage of the war, in which the regular armies of the Arab states invaded Israel, began after the British evacuation in May 1948.) The supply of food began to dwindle as soon as the intercommunal war began. During the first half of 1948, some 50 percent of the food available to the Yishuv was produced by Jews, 7 percent was purchased from Arab sources, and 43 percent was imported. The imports included many staples: flour, wheat, sugar, margarine, oil, and meat products, as well as cattle for slaughter. Although food imports did not halt during the war, the quantity of essential imported food products declined. In addition, the distribution and marketing of food supplies became much more difficult, largely because of attacks on the roads. This affected supplies of food from local production facilities and from the ports, as well as those released from the Mandate’s warehouses in Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv.5 The food item most affected was meat. The greater part of the meat consumed by the Yishuv was imported, with the rest being supplied by the Yishuv’s farms and by local Arabs. The exigencies of the war, and the large demand for meat, led to the slaughter of dairy and breeding cows—some 5,000 of the 35,000 head of cattle owned by the Yishuv on the eve of the war. Because of the shortage of meat, the National Committee (the pre-independence self-governing body of Jews in Palestine) and the umbrella organization of local councils decided to order the temporary closure of slaughterhouses and butcher shops in specific areas until a sufficient quantity of meat had accumulated. Yet even after the institution of measures to reduce meat consumption and to import meat (including non-kosher meat) from Turkey, the United States, Australia, and Argentina, the quantity available did not meet civilian demands throughout the rest of the war.6 Despite the ban, animals continued to be slaughtered in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa slaughterhouse in order to supply meat to the military and to hospitals.7 Given the difficulty of providing food to the Israel Defense Forces—its newly established supply branch was unable to take care of all the army’s needs—individual army units undertook initiatives to obtain their own supplies. To provide themselves with fresh meat, army brigades set up their own barns and slaughterhouses, to which they brought cattle captured from the enemy.8 By June 1948, the supply branch had become more effective, but unsolved problems of provisioning remained. Nor was the army particularly successful in dealing with animals left behind by Arab refugees—herds of sheep and cows, as well as large numbers of chickens. These were sometimes appropriated by soldiers who slaughtered and ate them, or else sold them to civilians in the area.9 In at least one case, a herd of cattle, like spoils of other kinds, became a source of income for army units, which used the money to support needy soldiers.10 In another instance, cattle were taken from an abandoned village on the Lebanese border and sold to a kibbutz. (The money the unit received was used to upgrade its kitchen and

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mess hall.) In still another case, an army unit captured goats, which it exchanged for beef cows. Some of these cows, in turn, were sold, and the proceeds were used to buy helmets.11 For the general population, not just meat but also other animal protein sources were in short supply, both because of a drop in production and because of increasing consumption by the military. Meanwhile, the Jewish population was growing through immigration, and as the army took control of agricultural land, at least some Arabs were cut off from their fields or flocks and thus stopped producing food. All of these people—the general Jewish population, soldiers, new immigrants, and Arabs—needed to be provisioned.12 Israel’s austerity period offers an opportunity to examine the role played by meat in Israeli society during its formative years. As Nick Fiddes has shown, meat is a “natural symbol.”13 By discussing the early Israeli craving for meat, I seek not only to depict daily life during this period, but also to demonstrate meat’s role as a communication medium (in the form of a symbol that expresses social ideas and meanings). Then as now, eating meat, or refraining from eating meat, or refraining from eating a certain kind of meat, staked out clear boundaries of identity and of moral and religious choice.

Why Do Humans Consume Meat? Before taking a detailed look at the place of meat in Israeli society during the period of austerity, it is worth considering the significance of meat in human culture. The most obvious reason that humans eat meat is that it is a palatable and nutrient-rich food. Some social scientists start with this assumption when they set out to explain patterns of meat consumption, arguing that the complex symbolic significances of meat are, in effect, manifestations of its underlying nutritional value. Others, however, regard cultural context as more significant than nutritional value. The first view is best represented by Marvin Harris, who bases his argument for the universal appeal of meat for humans on the idea that, although we are not true carnivores, meat provides an especially attractive source of nutrients (amino acids, in particular) for our species.14 Yet Harris, too, points to a psychological component—humans desire meat, he claims, precisely because it is rare.15 He adduces ethnographic studies from around the world in arguing persuasively that in numerous and varied cultures, meat is valued more than plant food. Like Frederick J. Simoons before him,16 he notes that many languages have a word for “meat hunger,” that is, a hunger that can be assuaged only by eating meat. He also argues that meat is valued so highly that when the supply of meat declines, even when there is no shortage of other foods, conflicts and even intra-communal fissures are liable to emerge. This can happen, for example, when overhunting causes a drop in game populations in a particular area.17 Simoons, for his part, shows how differences in nutrition, especially the differential consumption of animal proteins among various ethnic groups in Africa and Asia, can be linked to physiological differences. In addition, he demonstrates that groups consuming meat, blood, and milk are relatively taller and stronger.18 However, when examining “meat hunger,” Simoons suggests, as have others before him, that the phenomenon

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is psychological in basis, not necessarily physiological, and that the craving is produced by a decline in the availability of meat even when it is accompanied by only a small reduction in the intake of protein and calories.19 Representing the opposing school of thought, Fiddes argues that the consumption of meat is governed by different rules than those pertaining to other foods. Unlike other foods, meat has a deep symbolic value: the consuming of muscle tissue of other animals is a potent statement of man’s supreme power over nature. Moreover, meat consumption is equated with achievement, prestige, and wealth. This does not necessarily mean that each individual consciously glories in the subjugation of animals. At the same time, according to Fiddes, the need to demonstrate power over nature is an omnipresent thread running through human culture.20 As an important source of protein and iron, meat was also considered to be essential for good health. Red meat, as a high-energy food, is still held to be an especially appropriate food for men and to symbolize masculine qualities such as strength and power.21 Carol Adams has taken these findings one step further in the context of her feminist-vegetarian doctrine. She scathingly deconstructs the connection between masculinity, patriarchy, and the consumption of meat: Women, second-class citizens, are more likely to eat what is considered to be secondclass foods in a patriarchal culture: vegetables, fruits and grains rather than meat. The sexism in meat eating recapitulates the class distinctions with an added twist: a myth­ ology permeates all classes that meat is a masculine food and meat eating is a male activity.22

In considering the significance of meat consumption, it is also useful to examine its opposite—the avoidance of meat. Parama Roy, for instance, has examined vegetarianism as a thread running through Mahatma Gandhi’s political language. She points to the cultural link between masculinity, colonialism and power, and meat consumption. She argues that vegetarianism was part of the body talk and body politics that Gandhi ascribed to, which was connected as well to sexual self-control, self-sacrifice, and the foregoing of pleasure. Gandhi was able to exploit these cultural symbols, converting weakness and deprivation into strength and in this way constructing a new masculinity.23 In somewhat similar fashion, the ascetic culture that emerged during the period of the Yishuv stressed restraint in a variety of matters—such as making do with less meat—as part of the struggle to attain independence and self-sufficiency, and efforts were made to impress upon the public the negative consequences of excessive craving for meat. One of the Jewish tradition’s best-known stories about meat hunger, appearing in the book of Numbers, was often invoked in the discourse of the austerity period. The biblical passage reads as follows: And the people were as murmurers, speaking evil in the ears of the Lord; and when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled. . . . And the mixed multitude that was among them fell to lusting; and the children of Israel also wept on their part, and said: “Were we only given meat to eat! We remember the fish, which we were accustomed to eat in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the squash, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; but now our

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soul is dried away. . . . [A]nd the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly; and Moses was displeased. And Moses said unto the Lord: “Why do you deal ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you place the burden of all this people upon me? . . . From where can I have meat to give to this entire people? For they trouble me with their weeping, saying: Give us meat, that we may eat. . . . And the Lord said unto Moses: . . . And say you to the people: Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, and you will eat meat; for you have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying: Were we only given meat to eat! For it was well with us in Egypt; therefore the Lord will give you flesh, and you will eat. You will not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils and it becomes loathsome unto you. . . . And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought across quails from the sea. . . . And the people rose up all that day, and all the night, and all the next day, and gathered the quails; he that gathered least gathered ten heaps; and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp. While the flesh was yet between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. And the name of that place was called Kibrot Ha-Ta’avah [the graves of the craving], because there they buried the people that craved (Num. 11:1-34).

It is noteworthy that the children of Israel do not merely crave meat (and fish), but also cucumbers, squash, leeks, onions, and garlic. However, neither Moses nor God discuss their longings for certain vegetables. Neither do most modern readers of the story: we take it for granted that it is the meat that is important. To be sure, during the austerity period, Israelis also longed for onions (according to Michael Hazany, a member of the Knesset: “It may be possible to live without meat, but it is impossible to live without onions”).24 Nevertheless, during the period beginning with the end of the Mandate and the War of Independence, a much greater effort was exerted in the search for meat.

Meat Consumption during the War of Independence As the Mandate period came to an end, fresh meat was provided by the legal slaughter of calves, bulls, and buffalo.25 Frozen and canned meat was imported. In addition, some chickens were raised, slaughtered, and sold fresh, augmented by frozen imported poultry. From the beginning of the war, in the autumn of 1947, until 1952, the average portion of meat (referring as well to poultry) eaten by civilians was about 200 grams a week. At times, however, the amount supplied to each person was drastically reduced to 125 grams a week26 or even 100 grams a week (in autumn 1951);27 on occasion, no meat or poultry was distributed. In August 1950, the average consumption was 100 grams a month.28 Moreover, not all of the meat was fit to eat.29 In comparison, the meat and animal protein ration in Britain at this time was much larger. In 1948, the harshest year in terms of meat supply (the figures here do not pertain to poultry), the British received 40 kilograms of meat per person per year, equivalent to about 760 grams a week.30 Among the variety of problems faced by the local meat market was the decreasing supply of animals, which caused prices to rise and also increased the level of competition among meat suppliers. Another problem, as noted, was unsafe roads, which

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made it harder to obtain animals for slaughter. Finally, there was intercommunal rivalry: the Yishuv leadership sought to avoid purchasing cattle from Arab husbandmen, on the grounds that this would be tantamount to supporting the enemy’s war effort.31 In Tel Aviv (where nearly half of all Israeli Jews resided), the maximum meat prices set by the municipality made it difficult for local butchers to obtain cattle, since other buyers, such as hospitals, factories that produced meat products, and the army offered better prices.32 Consequently, the Association of Hebrew Butchers in Tel Aviv-Jaffa sent a letter in December 1947 to David Zvi Pinkas, the head of the meat committees (both national and municipal) that initially worked in parallel with the British authorities. In the letter, the butchers asked to be given sole authority over the local meat trade. Removing the middlemen (the cattle merchants) would lower prices, it was claimed. In addition, it was argued that there was no proof that Arab husbandmen who sold to Jewish buyers paid tribute to the Arab irregulars. The butchers’ association letter (which contained as well a request to meet with the authorities in order to better explain the butchers’ position) indicates that the high demand for meat was making it difficult to implement the National Committee’s policy of keeping the Jewish economy independent of the Arab economy.33 Indeed, when commerce between the two communities ceased, meat prices in Arab Jaffa declined, as meat once sold to Jews now poured into the Arab market.34 Meanwhile, both the shortage of cattle for kosher slaughter in the supervised municipal slaughterhouses and the importation of meat (which the butchers naturally opposed) weighed heavily on those whose livelihood depended on the slaughter and sale of meat.35 In a subsequent letter, the Tel Aviv-Jaffa butchers’ association claimed that its members were suffering economic adversity because the prohibition against slaughter was not being enforced throughout the Yishuv. Even in Tel Aviv, animals were being slaughtered illegally, without veterinary and rabbinic supervision, and without slaughter taxes being paid to the municipality.36 These claims were hardly unfounded: records of the time show that the Tel Aviv veterinary department was confiscating meat that had been slaughtered without supervision in a number of outlying neighborhoods.37 Moreover, the municipal veterinarian reported that the ban on slaughter—which was meant to deprive the Arab sector of income—had met with resistance, with illegally slaughtered meat being smuggled into Tel Aviv.38 In response, the butchers’ association began to operate two motorcycle patrols in order to counter the smuggling of contraband meat.39 The National Committee, for its part, arranged for meat to be imported from Hungary at the beginning of January 1948.40 Nonetheless, by the end of the month, there was a severe shortage of meat, and authorities consequently lifted the ban on purchasing cattle from Arabs, on condition that meat would be sold for no more than a maximum price set by the municipality.41 Up until the end of December, prices were set by the British authorities, but when the ban was lifted by the Jewish national authorities, the British decided to stop government intervention in the matter.42 Because of the limited quantity of cattle, slaughter in Tel Aviv was permitted only on Wednesdays, with meat sold in butcher shops from Wednesday through Friday. Restaurants, too, were permitted to serve meat only on these days, apparently in order to discourage them from serving smuggled meat.43 Meat prices rose steeply and steadily.44 In addition, the difficulty in supplying meat gave rise to debates concerning the nation’s level of social solidarity at a time of war.45 Zvi Tabak, the head

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of the butchers’ association, wrote to the mayor of Tel Aviv, Israel Rokach, with a request that butchers not be compelled to supply meat to restaurants: [M]embers of the association are risking their lives by traveling to villages and moshavot [Jewish farming villages] and the most dangerous places in order to buy meat for the inhabitants of Tel Aviv. . . . We have taken upon ourselves to do our duty. . . . We supply meat to Tel Aviv’s inhabitants while incurring losses and mortal danger, in recognition [of the fact] that consumers have sons manning positions and risking their lives; but not for [the sake of] restaurant proprietors who make a profit from this meat at the same time that we are losing and putting our lives in danger.46

Meanwhile, the emergency committee (va’adat hamatzav) in meat-starved Jerusalem sent a telegram to the Tel Aviv municipality asking it to send along some of the cattle designated for Tel Aviv—a request that was met.47 (The following month, a similar request was sent to the nearby town of Petah Tikva, formerly a farming village, which still contained some land under cultivation.)48 In February 1948, the national meat committee issued new regulations supplementing those of the Mandate authorities. Yet these were not always implemented by local municipalities.49 By March 1948, Tel Aviv butchers were in despair. In a letter dispatched to the national meat committee, Tabak complained that the prices at which butchers were allowed to sell meat were unrealistic. Moreover, the supply of meat continued to be severely limited—among other things, the moshavot did not permit the selling of cattle for slaughter, instead using their herds for local consumption. In the name of the butchers’ association, Tabak demanded the establishment of a national meat board that would be empowered to purchase and equitably ration out cattle. In addition, cattle should be slaughtered on alternating weeks—one week for Tel Aviv, and one for the rest of the Yishuv—since there were not enough cattle to feed the entire population every week. Finally, in a reversal of its previous position, the butchers’ association also advocated the importation of frozen meat as well as live poultry.50 In April 1948, the Tel Aviv municipality decided to hand out “meat cards” to all its residents—adults and children alike—in order to ensure proper distribution.51 In the first week following distribution of the cards, no beef was available, but Tel Aviv residents were able to purchase chicken or fish, the ration being set at 250 grams per person for fresh chicken, 300 grams per person for frozen chicken (imported from Denmark), or 250 grams for frozen fish fillet (imported from Norway). Each type of food had a set price, with a portion of fresh chicken costing nearly four times as much as one of frozen fish.52 As the demand for food—and for meat, in particular—increased, prices rose despite the authorities’ rationing and distribution efforts. Profiteering among Jews and Arabs burgeoned as prices spiraled upward, and as unlicensed goods were smuggled both into the country and into the city.53 Inspectors spied on restaurants, and individuals who were caught in possession of contraband meat were brought to trial.54 Notwithstanding, sheep and cattle continued to be slaughtered surreptitiously (and not in accordance with the demands of Jewish religious law).55 Non-kosher animals such as rabbits and even camels were also butchered illegally and without any oversight.56 In the face of continuing shortages, the government in January 1949 sought to impose order on the market by mandating that consumers re-register at butcher

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shops to receive new meat ration cards.57 Fearing that violence might break out in lines at meat stores, the Civil Guard was assigned to keep order.58

Postwar Meat Allocation and Its Nutritional Consequences The end of the war did not bring any real improvement in the supply of meat to civilians. Poultry sellers (poultry and beef were sold at different stores) staged a work stoppage for a good part of 1949. The strike made it difficult to supply supplementary poultry portions to the sick, a problem that continued even afterwards, given the small number of stores that were authorized to provide these special rations.59 In Tel Aviv, beef continued to be distributed only from Wednesday through Friday. While chicken could be purchased earlier in the week, women preferred to buy both beef and chicken on the same day, since both were used in the preparation of Sabbath meals.60 The result was long lines at the stores during the latter part of the week.61 Before the Passover holiday in the spring of 1949, the rations provided in Tel Aviv amounted to 250 grams per person of fresh or frozen fish, five eggs per adult and four per child, and 200 grams of beef per person on the eve of the first day of the holiday, and another 200 grams for the rest of the Passover week. In addition, the rations included 150 grams of sausage per person and 150 grams of “kitchen-ready” (slaughtered and plucked) chicken per person; in Haifa, people received live chickens.62 Later that year, the egg, chicken, and beef rations were reduced during the weeks prior to Rosh Hashanah so that a larger supply could be provided for the holiday itself. Only two eggs per adult and four per child were distributed. The standard weekly ration of meat during the summer of 1949 was 200 grams per person, but during some weeks only 125 grams were actually supplied. For the most part, the meat was frozen; sometimes only canned meat was available.63 During the three-week holiday period, the egg ration was increased to six eggs a week per child and five per adult; in addition, the population received 200 grams of fresh fish per person per week and 200 grams of meat. Matityahu Kalir, director of the Tel Aviv municipality’s economics and statistics department, was worried that disturbances would break out in lines at stores, especially at butcher shops that sold beef.64 He demanded that uniformed inspectors be assigned to keep order during the distribution of the special holiday rations.65 Supplies declined during the autumn and winter of 1949–1950. Restaurants were required to collect ration cards when they served meat dishes66 despite the strident protests of the proprietors, who ordered shutdowns and issued threats that they would stop serving meat entirely.67 According to Dov Yosef, the minister of supply and rationing, the restaurant owners had themselves admitted that at least some of their clients consumed a double portion of meat, one at home and one at the restaurant, and that the principle of equality required the regulation of these out-of-home portions as well.68 Restaurants (and their regular customers, some of whom were officials in the austerity regime) continued to be targeted for criticism even after the government began to implement stringent oversight of restaurant meals.69 In the face of the meat shortage, the Ministry of Supply and Rationing began to reduce or even terminate the rations allocated to schools and welfare institutions, such as public soup kitchens. In addition, even those who were certified as ill (and

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thus eligible for additional rations) were often unable to obtain the extra food.70 Prior to Passover in 1950, for example, the Tel Aviv municipality asked the ministry to provide free rations to 5,000 needy families in the city—250 grams of meat (without bones) per family for the entire week-long holiday, a tiny serving by any standard. Notwithstanding, the ministry turned down the request on the grounds that this meat was not actually consumed by the needy; many poor families, it claimed, sold their rations on the black market in order to buy additional bread and other inexpensive foods.71 (This claim seems to have had some basis in fact.)72 As a result, the philanthropic project was shut down.73 In the summer of 1949, Kalir informed the mayor that the medical committee (which worked in conjunction with the economics and statistics department) had reported symptoms of malnutrition among the underprivileged population.74 Throughout the austerity period, there was evidence that public health declined as a result of worsening nutrition.75 Reports concerning malnutrition were especially common in the autumn of 1951 and in the summer and autumn of 1952.76 At the beginning of 1953, when the beef ration was lowered to 100 grams per week, workers went on strike and staged demonstrations in which they demanded better food.77 As noted, the ill, the elderly, and children received supplemental rations of items such as eggs, butter, and chicken. An additional portion of beef was supplied to the sick only for a brief period following the war.78 Pregnant and nursing women received supplemental animal proteins, mostly in the form of eggs and milk.79 Butchers and those charged with certifying meat’s kosher status received extra beef, chicken, and egg rations, the goal apparently being to counter corruption.80 Individuals who engaged in hard physical labor also received supplements.81 Nonetheless, the nation as a whole experienced a continuing decline in nutrition, and this, combined with the government’s failure to respond adequately to the demands of different groups of workers who did not receive supplements (or who thought their supplements insufficient) led to a drop in productivity.82 A panel of health and nutrition experts that was appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture concluded that the decline in productivity was in fact due to improper nutrition—specifically, insufficient protein in the diet. (Studies in Britain set the minimum daily requirement of protein at 40 grams, a standard the Israeli rationing program did not meet.) The experts recommended increasing the meat ration by 150 grams per week, and also suggested that spices be made more readily available so that a wider variety of dishes might be prepared.83 Supplemental food for the ill (which, apart from eggs and poultry, could also include sugar, rice, fruit, and vegetables)84 was a point of contention between the national government and the Tel Aviv municipality. A person who was ill went to a doctor in order to get a certification of illness, which then had to be approved by a medical committee. This was not always a simple matter—apart from the usual bureaucratic delay, applicants were often submitted to humiliating treatment on the part of government officials.85 Nonetheless, Dov Yosef wrote in his memoirs that the number of sick people in Tel Aviv soared astronomically. In Jerusalem, 3 to 4 percent of the public was certified as sick; in Haifa the rate was 6-7 percent; but in Tel Aviv, between 10 and 15 percent of the public was officially ill.86 By 1952, the daily Hatzofeh reported that fully 20 percent of the country’s population was receiving supplementary rations.87

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Not surprisingly, the shortage of meat created a burgeoning black market, the size of which was a matter of debate. Government officials sought to portray it as relatively limited, whereas the press and opposition leaders characterized it as a largescale phenomenon. In response to numerous complaints directed against the Ministry of Agriculture during the autumn of 1951, Lavon declared: “It is not the case that there are a million underground chickens that the Ministry of Agriculture doesn’t know about! . . . No one . . . is smuggling in a couple of thousand cows for slaughter. We must distinguish between the facts and how these facts are perceived in the public mind. Ten kilograms of meat might get sold, but by the time those ten kilograms are talked about by two thousand people, they turn into two thousand tons.”88 The available evidence indicates that the black market was larger than Lavon portrayed it. Immigrant farming villages were a major source of the large quantity of black-market meat sold in 1952, as huge profits could be made by slaughtering cows that had been purchased at a subsidized price. Meat was also smuggled in from Arabpopulated areas of the country as well as over the borders, an activity in which Jews and Arabs cooperated. In a number of instances, kibbutzim supplied meat to the black market.89 Canned meat that immigrants bought with their meat ration tickets reached the black market as well,90 as did geese, ducks, pork liver paste, and canned pork imported illegally by air.91

Must Everything Be Kosher? During the war, the demand for pork rose.92 After the establishment of the state, the chief rabbinate lobbied for a ban on the sale of non-kosher meat. However, in September 1948, Eliezer Pearlson, then serving as food controller (hamefakeaḥ ’al hamezonot), decided to provide ration cards for such meat as well, arguing that without supervision, the state would lose control of the food market.93 As expected, this decision, coupled with the shortage of kosher meat, increased tension between religious and nonreligious Jews.94 Angered as well by the fact that the nonreligious public was displaying insufficient solidarity, thousands of religious Jews staged a demonstration on December 2, 1948 in front of the building where the State Council, the provisional parliament, met. Members of the council’s presidium agreed to meet with a delegation of rabbis representing the demonstrators, who demanded that the sale of non-kosher meat cease.95 In a speech delivered two weeks later, Hayim Moshe Shapira, a government minister (holding the immigration and health portfolios) and a member of the Hapo’el Hamizrachi religious party, strongly criticized government policy as both an injustice to the observant Jewish community and an affront to the very character of the state: For six months, citizens of the country who eat kosher food have endured untold suffering as a result of the shortage of kosher meat. Tens of thousands of Jewish children have gone without meat, because kosher meat is neither to be seen nor found in their parents’ homes. If we knew that this was the common suffering of all the state’s citizens we would remain silent . . . but that is not the case, not everyone suffers equally, because large quantities of non-kosher meat are available. . . . [T]he height of this abuse is, in my opinion, the matter

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of pork. . . . I will not speak about the religious aspect, but the national aspect. I think that bringing pork into the land of Israel is a national crime. It is not just a matter of nonkosher meat. Pork has been abhorred by Jews for generations. . . . The Jew would avoid even saying the word, and would refer to “the other thing” rather than to pork because he did not wish to defile his lips.96

In response, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion contended that, whereas the government had to supply sufficient kosher meat to those who needed it, it was not obligated to provide it to all Israelis. The provisional government’s minister of industry and commerce, Peretz Bernstein, explained that there had been no shortage of kosher meat as long as there were enough cattle for slaughter in Israeli slaughterhouses. But this situation had changed, making it necessary to import frozen meat, and nonkosher meat was more easily obtained than kosher meat. He admitted as well that the government had permitted the importation of pork for the non-Jewish (Christian) population.97At a meeting of the Tel Aviv city council, Mayor Rokach responded to a question posed to him by David Zvi Pinkas, a representative of the Mizrachi party, and said that the municipal veterinarian’s department had not issued any permit for pork to be brought into the city.98 But in practice, such meat was widely available. What had begun as a demand to augment the supply of kosher meat for observant Jews expanded into a broad struggle involving two demands—first, a ban on the importation of non-kosher meat (that is, any meat that had not been slaughtered and prepared according to Jewish law) and second, a ban on pig farming and the importation and sale of pork. According to Dafna Barak-Erez, the religious public’s interest in forbidding the public sale and consumption of pork had to do with market changes during the war. She quotes a religious activist, Hayim Braude: The War of Independence broke out. Butchers whose trade had been confined to ritually unfit meat became greedy. They bought up cowsheds and stables in the surrounding orchards, particularly in the towns of Beit Dagan, Azur, Ramle, and Lod [areas conquered during the war], and set up pigsties for raising pigs and slaughtering them on the spot. According to the figures in our possession, there were more than forty pigsties in the areas surrounding Tel Aviv, which supplied the city with hundreds of kilograms of pork and pork products every day.99

The facts support Braude.100 In a speech to the Knesset, Avraham Deutsch, representing the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party, claimed that economists had offered a positive evaluation of pig farming, noting that it could provide food for local consumption and, in so doing, not only reduce dependence on imports but also save foreign currency. Deutsche claimed that in many places, kibbutzim in particular, pigs were now being raised.101 Shortly before the first general election, held in January 1949, the government decided that meat could be imported with the approval of two ministers, one of whom would be religious. The result was that the importation of non-kosher frozen meat nearly ceased. There were cases, however, in which the kosher certification of the meat purchased was voided by the Israeli rabbinate. To prevent wastage, this meat was nevertheless sold to the public in non-kosher butcher shops.102 The effort to restrict imports to kosher meat made it more difficult to supply the public with what it considered an adequate ration of meat. It also angered those on

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the Left (mainly Communists and socialists) who opposed any political-religious attempt to interfere in the personal lives of nonobservant Jews. Opponents claimed that the government’s across-the-board decision kept meat out of the mouths of the general public and also worsened the situation of those who observed the dietary laws by exacerbating competition for the limited quantity of kosher meat, in addition to depleting the country’s foreign currency reserves. In 1951, the supply of many goods—including meat—declined.103 With officials facing a crisis, non-kosher canned meat was distributed to the public, reigniting the battle with the religious community.104 Throughout the austerity period, the issue was debated.105 In 1953, for instance, two bills that would have prohibited pig farming were submitted to the Knesset, one sponsored by Shlomo Lorincz (Agudat Yisrael) and the other by a varied group of legislators from Agudat Yisrael, Mizrachi, and the ruling Mapai party.106 Both bills referred to the historic status of the pig in Jewish history, with Lorenz stressing that his bill was motivated not by Jewish law but rather by national considerations. According to Lorincz, most of the country’s Jews found pork disgusting, as “it reminded them of the nation’s repression and its loss of freedom.”107 In the end, partly because pig farming could be very profitable (depending on what the animals were fed),108 the state did not forbid raising or selling pork. Instead, it attempted (with only partial success) to allow pig-raising only in areas (for instance, near Nazareth) that had a significant Christian population.109 Since the government did not really want to restrict a successful agricultural endeavor, it was proposed that pork raised in Israel would be exported, and that the money earned would be used to buy goslings and ducklings (which were cheaper to raise than cattle), as well as animal fodder.110 The government also allocated money for rabbis, religious inspectors, and butchers to be sent overseas in order to arrange for the import of sufficient kosher meat.111

Meat Consumption and National Identity The battle to ban the importation and sale of non-kosher meat and to prevent pig husbandry had several aspects. As has been seen, it was a social struggle in the sense that observant Jews felt they had less opportunity than others to obtain suitable meat. The economic dimension was related to the high cost of importing kosher meat and the ensuing logistical complications. Politically, the battle over kosher versus nonkosher meat pitted religious and ultra-Orthodox parties, on the one hand, against left-wing parties, on the other. Religious leaders wanted a kosher country, whereas secularists wanted Israel to be a country in which individuals were free to decide what to put on their plates. At the same time, the struggle also had a more symbolic dimension relating to the shaping of the national body and the character of the state.112 In this sense, it was more nuanced than the political-religious battle would seem to suggest: eating pork was condemned not only by ultra-Orthodox and religious Jews, but also by many of the nonobservant. For example, during the intercommunal war of 1947–1948, an article appearing in Davar, the daily newspaper of the Histadrut labor federation (which had a largely secularist agenda) condemned the consumption of pork as a “criminal habit.” The

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writer, Y. Efrati, claimed that a decision had been made to import frozen pork so as to prevent people from buying pork from the enemy—that is, from Christian Arabs who raised pigs. This decision was wrong, though not for religious or national reasons. Rather, he argued, the consumption of pork was inappropriate for Israel’s hot climate and was detrimental to the physical resilience of the Jewish population. In that case, what motivated Jews to eat pork? The answer, he wrote, was psychology— a desire, dating back to the time of the Enlightenment, to flout Jewish religious law and the religious community. Rejecting this approach, Efrati also criticized the importation of any kind of meat, arguing that the Yishuv should consume only what it had produced itself.113 This last argument, with its emphasis on self-reliance, was often applied to food in a more general sense. In the autumn of 1951, when food inventories were extremely low because of a severe drought and because a lack of foreign exchange had restricted imports, Ya’akov Uri, a Mapai parliamentarian, noted in the Knesset: The state of nutrition in our country is not as miserable as has been depicted from this podium. . . . Last spring, too, there were surpluses of carrots, lettuce, and other winter vegetables. There is fish . . . there are eggs and milk, and there is also a bit of fruit, grapes, figs—and let us not denigrate the cactus fruit. Glasses of juice can still be had, without rationing, on every corner. . . . We long-time residents must simply take it upon ourselves to suffer a bit, heroically, as we have done in the past, and not aspire to riches—to suffer a bit in the present for the sake of future development.114

Uri was essentially promoting two sets of values—national pride (in the sense of consuming local products); and frugality, self-sacrifice, and the foregoing of pleasure. The latter values echo those appearing in Parama Roy’s discussion of Gandhi: whereas the austerity regime was adopted as a rational policy aimed at preventing hunger and enabling mass immigration, it also had symbolic aspects. To begin with, austerity and rationing were perceived as means of physically building the nation, inasmuch as they facilitated the absorption of new immigrants. In addition, however, both the discipline demanded by austerity and its aim of apportioning food in an equitable manner were seen as strengthening the moral fiber of the country.115 The notion that the body should set aside desire (and even hunger) in the service of nation-building was not always well-received. A letter sent to the Palestine Post, signed “Hungry Benjamin,” rejected the communalization of his body: “Being an independent craftsman, I am not a member of any [worker’s] organization and therefore the Food Controller is powerless to grant me the addition accorded my fellow workers who are lucky enough to be employed by someone else. My ignorant Body Nonpolitical still demands its daily calories.”116 For Benjamin, it was the body, not the soul, that needed food. His need was self-evident and supposedly carried no political baggage: he saw no obvious reason to deprive his body of what it required. In contrast was the call for physical self-denial that was manifested both in the religious battle against the consumption of non-kosher meat and in Uri’s call for frugality (and, of course, in Gandhi’s promotion of chastity and vegetarianism). Put somewhat more abstractly, Benjamin represented the desiring, “normal,” natural body, as opposed to the abstemious body that seeks to mark the boundaries of the nation and/or the moral boundaries of the individual. Yet in reality, the matter was

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more complex: in order to build a strong nation, strong bodies were needed, and meat was perceived as a necessity. Thus, the hegemonic Israeli culture was broadcasting contradictory messages. On the one hand, it promoted simplicity and frugality. On the other, it continued to glorify the Zionist notion of a “muscular Judaism”—as personified, for instance, by daring Palmach fighters who had no qualms about pilfering chickens from the kibbutz henhouse and cooking them over a campfire.117 Meanwhile, the connection between the consumption of meat and physical health was cited in letters that citizens sent to various government bodies. In April 1948, the owner of a butcher shop in Tel Aviv’s Mughrabi neighborhood applied to the municipality for permission to purchase and sell frozen meat to his customers, the residents of poor neighborhoods. “Some 2,500 people live in these neighborhoods,” he wrote, “and since the meat shortage began they have not had meat, and the poorest people in the nation live there, people who labor and work hard and who need food that will fortify the body.”118 In another letter, a ten-and-a-half year-old boy, depicting himself as weak and thin, asked for a supplement of animal proteins. He wrote to Dov Yosef that he, the minister, “must certainly love children and be concerned about their health, [so I ask] that you allow me to receive the additional food that is so necessary for my health so that I can grow up and be useful to my homeland.”119 In similar fashion, a sixth-grade boy from Tel Aviv wrote the following to Yosef: “I . . . feel a decline in my strength this year. Last year my friends saw me as the strongest one. This year they make fun of me. I ask you, Mr. Minister, to give an order that I receive additional rations of meat, eggs, and milk, and when I grow up I will serve the country boldly and vigorously.”120 Meat consumption, in these letters, was understood as a means of producing a strong nation—a nation of workers and fighters. Citizens asked for meat so as to better serve their country, and even if their requests were not met, they were answered in similar vein. (The sixth-grader, for instance, received a reply from a secretary in the minister’s office stating that the nutritional value of hot cereal and milk, both of which could be obtained without ration cards, was no less important than meat or eggs).121 But there were other letters that did not focus on contributing to society. They spoke simply of desire. One of the best examples is the concise illustrated letter written by one girl: “To Dov Yosef, I want to eat meat every day and not just on one day.”122 That letter, too, received a reply, this time from the ministry director-general, in which he offered his gloss on her request: The minister of supply and rationing has requested that I confirm the receipt of your letter and to notify you that instead of writing about your wants and practicing drawing pictures of meat, it would be better if you considered—in view of the way that those older than you live—that if you eat more meat, it might be that your father or his friends will not find work in the factories that employ them and that they will not have money even to buy you bread; and this is because your young country has only a limited amount of money, and it is not sufficient both to feed you all the delicacies you dream of and also to buy the machines and materials necessary to employ your parents and their friends, who are coming from the exile to this land.123

The director-general’s excoriation of naked desire was unmistakable. The girl’s wishes—the delicacies she desired—were to be condemned no less strongly than

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Moses and God’s denunciation of the children of Israel’s longing for the fleshpots of Egypt. To be sure, the director-general offered the girl a rational economic explanation couched in ideological language: money was needed for jobs. But he also seemed to be telling her, “Keep quiet, we are building a nation now”—admonishing her that, at this historical juncture, there was no place for the desires of an undisciplined body that gave precedence to food over freedom and self-restraint. Even so, desire raised its head and could not be put off by ideology or attempts to promote alternatives. Thus, the religious public repeatedly demanded that it be given kosher meat. Minister of Agriculture Lavon responded: If we offer, instead of meat, other kinds of food to those who cannot or do not wish to eat this meat, then that is just. Anyone who calls it deprivation is talking nonsense. . . . [W]e can give only what we have. I want to say to religious Jews, or to those who speak in their name, that for a religious Jew, it is not such a great sacrifice to eat carp and eggs instead of this meat, if the meat is not kosher and if not eating it is a religious matter, a matter of worldview. . . . What is so terrible if some Israelis receive extra eggs and carp and others receive this meat? If we had kosher meat to give to religious Jews, we would do so gladly.124

Yet the craving for meat, whether beef or chicken, could not be assuaged with fish. In December 1948, the minister of immigration and health, Hayim Moshe Shapira, spoke of the lack of kosher meat as a state of hunger, despite the fact that alternatives were available. “This odd situation has confronted many families with a most bitter trial,” he wrote, “because they face a choice—either to starve their children, or to defile their kitchens. Tens of thousands of families in the state of Israel starve their children and do not give in to this harsh reality.”125 One man complained to the director-general of the Ministry of Supply and Rationing, writing that, since his childhood, because of a weakness of the heart, he had required a double ration of meat. The austerity regime, he said, was causing his heart to deteriorate, as well as leading to headaches and nervous tension.126 Shimon Garidi, a member of the Knesset representing the Yemenite list, cast his desire for meat in terms of an ethnic requirement: For us, the Yemenites, and perhaps for the Sephardim, and most probably for the Arabs— what we have today is not a minimum of supply, but a total lack. . . . It is known that the principal foods of these groups are flour, meat, and olive oil. The limited supply today is completely unable to supply the needs of these groups. The Yemenites do not want the bread available on the market. They want flour, from which they can make six or seven kinds of bread . . . they go to great efforts to get flour, and the same is true of meat. It is known that people obtain meat despite all the troubles, despite the arrests and the heavy fines. They obtain meat and eat meat, because they cannot make do with the amount supplied.127

According to Shlomo Lorincz of Agudat Yisrael, the Israeli population endured “both physical and psychological suffering” because of the meat shortage.128 Other members of the government tackled the problem in a different manner, attempting to inspire the people to make sacrifices, as when Yisrael Yishayahu Sharabi of Mapai declared: “Look to our historic covenant and do not give in to the huge desire to eat meat. . . . ”129

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Towards the end of 1950, the Ministry of Agriculture convened a panel of health and nutrition experts to study the issue of diet and productivity. As noted, the panel concluded that a reported decline in productivity could be explained by a protein shortage in the Israeli diet. One official who attended a meeting of the panel had trouble understanding why the population could not be given more fish to eat as a way of increasing its protein intake. Two of the doctors on the panel responded that the drop in productivity also had psychological causes, one of which was that people were dissatisfied with the meals they ate. A nutritionist added that people were tired of fish and wanted meat. As justification for its recommendation to Lavon that he increase the meat ration, the panel stated that meat was especially important in rousing the appetite, and that boosting appetites would improve overall nutrition. The panel also maintained that it was not clear that the amount of fish in the Israeli diet could be augmented because people were already eating more fish than they wanted.130 A year later, Dr. Walter Abeles, director of the Jerusalem branch of Kupat Holim Clalit, the Histadrut’s heath organization, explained people’s antipathy to fish, and their desire for meat, as the outcome of a natural need for variety in the diet: “When fillet of fish was the only principal food item, everyone avoided eating it and made it into a symbol of the faulty supply [of food].”131 In his memoirs written more than twenty years later, Dov Yosef wrote that “the single item of which it can be said that supply was sparse was animal protein. But even that was available to the public in adequate quantities, had [the public only] eaten more fish and had it used a greater amount of milk powder, two items that it could receive. The difficulty was simple enough and very human—people did not want animal proteins. They wanted meat.”132

Conclusion Today they are distributing chicken. The blade in the butcher woman’s hand rises and falls into the chicken’s flesh and digs between the bones, a hammer blow causes organs and scraps of meat to be sprayed all around. Chicken feet fall off, chicken livers get piled up on the side, innards are pulled out by a bloody hand with a swift, sure movement. There is nothing here associated with living flesh that breathed and writhed in God’s world and which was beheaded for human consumption. No one is sickened by the sight. Our approach to our food is all too practical and real. The important thing is—to get it!133

This passage, expressing a sense of guilt over the killing of animals for food, is exceptional for the austerity period. I have uncovered no other evidence of such feelings or of a sense of responsibility for the welfare of animals raised for consumption. But times have changed. For the last three decades, whether for health or for moral reasons, the consumption of meat has been in decline in the West.134 It may thus be difficult for us today, living as we do in a culture of plenty and of guilt, to comprehend how much people in the past lusted for meat. How can the desire for meat be explained? How to account for a craving that was so potent it led some people blatantly to violate religious law and ancient tradition? Or that was powerful enough to challenge the rule of law—and, in some instances, to lead to collaboration between Jews and Arabs during a time of war?

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While there may be a physiological basis for the psychological need for meat, as Harris maintains, it is also indisputable that, in any given culture at any given particular time, food preferences are of great significance.135 In Israeli culture during the country’s first years, meat played an important role by virtue of its very absence. Along with cigarettes, sugar, and coffee, its scarcity was responsible (in the view of Israelis of the time) not only for physical weakness but also for nervous tension, social unrest, and a decline in public morale.136 Moreover, the shortage of kosher meat raised religious and cultural barriers. The concern expressed by ultra-Orthodox and religious members of the Knesset that some observant Jews would resort to eating non-kosher meat is further testimony to the craving for meat. In addition, like other groups in the population, the observant wanted to shape the nation in their own image, in this case by having it adhere to the laws of kashrut. They seem to have assumed that a man is what he eats, and that Jewish identity itself was in danger, especially when the country was still in formation, at a time when every symbolic manifestation bore special significance. The shortage of meat led to widespread resentment,137 a decline in the quality of life, ill health (for at least some), and a decline in productivity at the workplace. To be sure, there was no acute famine in Israel in terms of calorie consumption. Nor was there a lack of animal protein—imported frozen fish and skim milk powder filled this need. But while this might have taken care of the body’s physical needs, it seems not to have provided a response to cultural-symbolic needs and to physical and psychological cravings.138 In their response to the meat shortage, Israelis behaved like many people throughout the world. The central and honored place meat holds in human nutrition in general and in daily and holiday ceremonies in particular (including the Sabbath in Jewish tradition) has been described and analyzed in depth. Mary Douglas has elucidated the structure of the family meal and the close link between food (and drink) and social relationships. She has shown how a meal’s structure and composition of ingredients serves to preserve and construct the daily, weekly, and yearly schedule. Since meat (and fish) satisfy not only nutritional needs but also serve as part of a system of symbols or as significant components of everyday life,139 an interruption of supply disrupts the individual’s quotidian rhythm and disorders the sense of routine. During the austerity regime, the attempt to make up for scarcity with alternatives could not fill in or bridge over the symbolic shortages. For the most part, these categories remained unaddressed, with the notable exception of holidays, for which the authorities took steps to provide relatively large rations of fresh fish and meat. Another aspect of the difficulties faced by Israelis coping with the lack of meat was their preference for familiar foods.140 The postwar wave of immigration produced a population in which nearly every second Israeli was a new immigrant. It would be difficult to speak of a single Israeli cuisine at a time when immigrants from Europe, Asia, and Africa, belonging to a large variety of communities, were arriving in huge numbers (moreover, the country also had a large Arab minority). At the same time, the austerity restrictions worked to fashion an Israeli menu more in line with the needs of those who had come from Europe, both because of the increased consumption of dairy products and eggs, including powdered eggs and milk, and because of the paucity of spices. Immigrants nonetheless made great efforts to maintain their

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accustomed eating habits, at least in the early 1950s,141 while the more veteran Israeli population also did its best to make up for shortages, especially in the food given to children.142 As evidenced by the letters written by them (or in their names), children held a place of honor in Israeli society of that time. Their parents presumably believed that letters from their children might elicit a positive response even in instances where their own attempts at obtaining additional food had failed. While such hopes were generally not realized, children’s letters were taken seriously, not least because they provided an opportunity for officials to explain and justify government policy. When boys asked that their meat rations be increased so that they could grow up properly and be able to contribute to society in the future, their requests were met with a measure of didactic tolerance. In contrast, the girl who asked for more meat simply to satisfy a personal desire received an especially unsympathetic reply, in language reminiscent of the Book of Numbers’ condemnation of “murmurers.” (There may have been an additional reason for the harsh response—the writer was a girl, and as has been seen, meat consumption is associated with males.)143 These varying responses point to the internal contradiction of Zionist ideology. Although the Zionist movement sought to establish a normal society, circumstances of the time demanded exceptional efforts and a surmounting of the natural tendency toward continuity, not least with regard to dietary habits. Such asceticism was a cornerstone of native Israeli (sabra) culture, as Oz Almog has shown.144 Yet as ascetic as the sabra was in his living quarters, dress, and even food, he was expected, as a strong New Jewish Man, to display a healthy manly appetite. Thus, for example, while the Hebrew fighter of the War of Independence was not depicted (or glorified) as bloodthirsty, the army made every effort to provide its soldiers with sufficient meat, and the Yishuv leadership generally prioritized soldiers over civilians when it came to meat rationing. Even after the war, a panel of experts justified its recommendation that the meat ration be increased on the grounds that meat aroused the appetite. The way in which “new Hebrews” of the Yishuv, and later, Israelis, shaped their surroundings according to modern values is summed up in a famous line written by the poet Natan Alterman: “We will dress you [the land of Israel] in a gown of concrete and cement/And lay for you a carpeting of gardens.”145 Alterman’s imagery evokes a Jewish return to history and a people reclaiming control of its fate. In other sources from this period, dominion over nature is epitomized by the conquest of physical space as expressed in terms of male suzerainty—diametrically opposed to the old, feminized exilic Jewish man.146 The link made by health professionals, doctors, and laymen, including children, between the consumption of meat and physical vigor was meant to serve this new masculinity. The rebuilding of the Hebrew nation was to be expressed by creating a healthy Hebrew body with a healthy appetite, a body full of passion and physical needs. At the same time, the requirements of the ideal body contradicted the imperatives of nation-building at a time when the Zionist ethos also called for the ingathering of Jewish exiles—which, in concrete terms, meant hundreds of thousands of new immigrants to be fed. In the final analysis, both for long-resident and new Israelis, meat was a key symbol of power, vigor, and health.

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Notes Thanks are due to Shalom Ratzabi and Anat Stern for sharing data and advice, and to Pnina Lahav and Gideon Peled for sharing with me their memories of the austerity regime. 1. Moshe Naor, Baḥ̣ azit ha’oref: Tel Aviv vehitgaysut hayishuv bemilḥemet ha’atzmaut (Jerusalem: 2009), 64–71. 2. Nachum Gross, “Kalkalat yisrael,” in He’asor harishon 5708–5718, ed. Zvi Zameret and Hannah Yablonka (Jerusalem: 1997), esp. 138–142. 3. These courts replaced municipal tribunals that dealt with cases involving food speculation. Some of these tribunals had been established in 1941 by the Mandate administration, and others had been put in place by the National Committee (Va’ad haleumi), the Yishuv’s communal governing body, in 1947. See Maya Mark, “Keshehadin lo nokav et hahar: batei hadin haminhaliyim veyaḥasei harashuyot bitḥumei kitzuv hamazon vehagbalat demei hasekhi­ rut bashanim haformativiyot shel hamedinah” (L.L.M. thesis, Tel Aviv University, 2010), 5. See also Anat Kidron, “Va’ad hakehilah beḤ aifa,” in Ezraḥim bemiḥamah, ed. Mordechai Bar-On and Meir Chazan (Jerusalem: 2010), 351. 4. Orit Rozin, Ḥ ovat haahavah hakashah: yaḥ id vekolektiv beyisrael bishnot haḥ amishim (Tel Aviv: 2008), 68; Anat Stern, “Ma’arekhet hashiput shel tzaha”l bemilḥemet ha’atzmaut” (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University, 2010), 164–166, 170 (n. 32). 5. Naor, Baḥ azit ha’oref, 71–73. 6. Ibid., 73–74. 7. Zvi Tabak to E. Pearlstein, Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipal Archive (hereafter: TAA), V-5/3 (19 January 1948). At the time, Pearlstein was the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv; at some point soon after the state was declared, he joined the Ministry of Supply and Rationing and became the national food controller (hamefakeaḥ ’al hamezonot), in which position he was responsible for rationing and supplying food and other commodities. Pearlstein held this post until the end of 1948. 8. Stern, “Ma’arekhet hashiput shel tzaha”l bemilḥemet ha’atzmaut,” 222; see also Benny Morris, Leidatah shel be’ayat hapelitim hafalastinim 1947–1949 (Tel Aviv: 1991), 304. 9. Stern, “Ma’arekhet hashiput shel tzaha”l bemilḥemet ha’atzmaut,” 222-223; Zvi Inbar, Moznayim veḥerev: yesodot hamishpat hatzevai beyisrael (Jerusalem: 2005), 663; 685–686. 10. Stern, “Ma’arekhet hashiput shel tzaha”l bemilḥemet ha’atzmaut,” 229–233. See also Inbar, Moznayim veḥ erev, 663. 11. Ibid., 685, 720, 728. 12. Naor, Baḥ azit ha’oref, 75. 13. Nick Fiddes, Meat—A Natural Symbol (London: 1991), 41. 14. Marvin Harris, The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig: Riddles of Food and Culture (New York: 1987); citations refer to the Hebrew edition, Parot kedoshot veḥ azirim meshukatzim: ḥ idot shel mazon vetarbut, trans. Tzippi Borsok (Givatayim: 1987). 15. Ibid., 15. 16. Frederick J. Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present (Madison: 1994). 17. Harris, Parot kedoshot veḥ azirim meshukatzim, 17-20; see also Alan Beardsworth and Teresa Keil, Sociology on the Menu: An Invitation to the Study of Food and Society (New York: 1997), 201–203. 18. Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh, 3–4. 19. Ibid., 6. 20. Fiddes, Meat, 2–3. 21. Elin Kubberød, Oydis Ueland, Marit Rødbotten, Frank Westad, and Einar Risvik, “Gender Specific Preferences and Attitudes towards Meat,” Food Quality and Preference 13, no. 5 (July 2002), 285. 22. Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat (New York: 2000), 36.

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23. Parama Roy, “Meat-Eating, Masculinity, and Renunciation in India: A Gandhian Grammar of Diet,” Gender & History 14, vol. 1 (April 2002), 62–91. 24. Divrei hakneset, vol. 10 (11 September 1951), 42. 25. Municipal bylaws, article 99 (date unclear), TAA, M-1563/11. 26. Divrei hakneset, vol. 10 (19 September 1951), 57–58. 27. “Meat Ration Cut to 100 Gram,” Jerusalem Post (14 October 1951). 28. Divrei haknesset, vol. 10 (19 September 1951), 57-58; Nimrod Hagiladi, “Hashuk hashaḥor vehitgabshutah shel haḥevrah hayisreelit: milḥemet ha’olam hasheniyah ve’ad limei hatzen’a” (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University, 2011), 226–227. 29. Memo regarding customer complaints about meat (Ruth Applebaum to Ministry of Supply and Rationing [17 December 1949], Israel State Archive [hereafter: ISA], G-207/7). 30. Based on the calculation that, in 1948, only 87 pounds of meat per capita per year were allocated. See Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption 1939–1955 (Oxford: 2000), 36. It should be kept in mind that there were cultural differences between the British and the Israeli populations with regard to dietary customs. In comparison to the British, East European Jews (the hegemonic group in Israel at that time) were accustomed to a more modest meat portion. 31. Minutes of a meeting of expert veterinarians (5 January 1948), TAA, V-5/3. 32. M. Guvernick to National Committee (26 March 1948), TAA, M-5/1563; Zvi Tabak to Mayor Rokach (28 March 1948), TAA, V-5/3. It should be noted that the situation in Jerusalem at that time was far more serious, as the city was under siege. As a result, all goods— including drinking water—were in scarce supply. 33. Zvi Tabak and Haim Silberstein to Zvi Pinkas (30 December 1947), TAA, V-5/3. 34. Itamar Radai, “Kerisatah shel haḥevrah ha’aravit-falastinint beyafo,” in Bar-On and Chazan (eds.), Ezraḥ im bemilḥ amah, 128. Nimrod Hagiladi notes that intercommunal cooperation during the war was condemned by both rivals; see “Hashuk hashaḥor vehitgabshutah shel haḥevrah hayisreelit,” 214, 217. 35. Zvi Tabak and Haim Silberstein to Zvi Pinkas (30 December 1947), TAA, V-5/3. 36. Zvi Tabak to Zvi Pinkas (18 January 1948), ibid. 37. Dr. [Aryeh] Levitt (chief veterinarian of Tel Aviv) to E. Pearlson (8 January 1948), ibid. 38. Dr. Levitt to E. Pearlson (21 January 1948), ibid. 39. Zvi Tabak to [Mr.] Wolovitch (10 February 1948), ibid. 40. Minutes of a meeting of the head of the Department of Economics and Statistics with cattle traders (6 January 1948), ibid. 41. Public announcement by D.Z. Pinkas (27 January 1948), ibid. 42. Hagiladi, “Hashuk hashaḥor vehitgabshutah shel haḥevrah hayisreelit,” 217–218. 43. Public announcement by D.Z. Pinkas (27 January 1948). 44. See for example, Meir Ezra to the Department of Economics and Statistics (23 February and 8 March 1948); Zvi Tabak to Mayor Rokach (1 April 1948), ibid. 45. Hagiladi, “Hashuk hasḥahor vehitgabshutah shel haḥevrah hayisreelit,” 215–216. 46. Zvi Tabak to Mayor Rokach (20 March 1948), TAA, V-5/3. 47. Emergency committee to E. Pearlson (2 January and 29 January 1948); Dr. A. Levitt to Mr. E. Pearlson (12 February 1948); announcement regarding resumption of slaughtering in the municipal slaughterhouse (29 April 1948), ibid. 48. Moshe Shlush to Mayor Yosef Sapir (4 February 1948), ibid. 49. Hagiladi, “Hashuk hashaḥor vehitgabshutah shel haḥevrah hayisreelit,” 218–219. 50. Zvi Tabak to meat committee (8 March 1948), TAA, V-5/3. 51. Announcement by Tel Aviv municipality (date missing), ibid. The draft announcement indicates that it was written between 2–5 April, 1948. 52. Announcement by the Department of Economics and Statistics of the Tel Aviv municipality (8 April 1948), ibid. 53. On an instance of collaboration between Jews and Arabs, see verdict no. 116557/47, by Judge M. Etzioni, Tel Aviv magistrates’ court (31 January 1947), ibid. On profiteering,

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see  Naor, Baḥ azit ha’oref, 5; Orit Rozin, “Austerity Tel-Aviv: Everyday Life, Supervision, Compliance, and Respectability,” in Tel-Aviv, The First Century: Visions, Designs and Actualities, ed. Maoz Azaryahu and S. Ilan Troen (Bloomington: 2011), 165–190. 54. M. Kalir to Dr. Gottlieb (15 January 1948), TAA, V-5/3. In this case, the meat was bought from people who worked in the Tel Aviv slaughterhouse. 55. Residents of the Kerem Hateimanim neighborhood to E. Pearlson (13 January 1948), ibid. 56. Interview with Gideon Peled (13 September 2011); interview with Pnina Lahav (20 September 2011); Etzioni, verdict 116557/47; Dr. Arieh Levitt to E. Pearlson (13 January 1948), ibid. 57. Press release of the Tel Aviv municipality (6 January 1949), TAA, M-1563/10. 58. A. Achituv (head of the civil guard) to Moshe Shlush (Department of Economics and Statistics) (23 March 1948), TAA, V-5/3. 59. Report on allocation of rations to the sick (31 August 1949), TAA, M-1208/3049; Municipality of Tel Aviv press release (date missing); Newspaper clip (unknown source, dating 22 August, 1949) “Meḥirat of shaḥut teḥudash beTel Aviv,” TAA, M-1216/3093. 60. For sources and halakhic debate on the significance of eating meat on the Sabbath, see Maimonides, Mishneh torah, hilkhot ḥagigah 2:10; Shulḥan ’arukh, Oraḥ ḥayim 529:1; Mishnah berurah, 529:11; Yam shel Shlomo, Beitzah, 2:5. 61. “Hasikum: ein tzorekh betorim,” Haaretz (16 September 1949). 62. Y. Osterer to Department of Economics and Statistics (7 April 1949), TAA, M-1563/5; Y. Smilensky to food controller (11 April 1949), ibid. 63. Dov Yosef to Mayor Rokach (7 September 1949), ibid. 64. Press release (27 February 1949), TAA, M-1563/10. 65. M. Kalir to Mr. E. Perry (12 September 1949), TAA, M-1563/5. 66. M. Kalir to Mayor Rokach (24 November 1949), TAA, M-1563/5. 67. M. Kalir to Mayor Rokach (5 December 1949), TAA, M-1208/3049. 68. Dov Yosef to Mayor Rokach (6 December 1949), ibid. 69. “Biflilim” (30 April 1952) and “Nisgeru mis’adot vebatei malon she’ashku et hatzibur” (14 May 1952), Davar. 70. M. Kalir to Mr. Picard (Ministry of Supply and Rationing) (6 January 1950), TAA, M-1208/3049. 71. Mayor Rokach to Mr. A. Belkind (food controller in Tel Aviv) (2 February 1950), TAA, M-1563/5; Rokach to Dov Yosef (1 March 1950), ibid. 72. M. Kalir to Mr. E. Perry (12 September 1949), ibid.; “Mekorot haaspakah: mishkei ’ezer, ’olim, ḥavilot shai,” Maariv (26 May 1952). See also Rozin, Ḥ ovat haahavah hakashah, 37; Vered Rozanes, “Hashed min habakbuk? tahalikhei medikalizatziyah bishnot haḥamishim: yaḥas ma’arekhet haberiyut leleidah, hanakah, ulehazanat tinokot bekerev ’olot” (M.A thesis, Tel Aviv University, 2010). 73. “Deagah lepesaḥ,” Ma’ariv (24 March 1950). 74. Kalir to Mayor Rokach (31 July 1949), TAA, M-1208/3049. 75. Orit Rozin, The Rise of the Individual in 1950s Israel: A Challenge to Collectivism (Waltham: 2011), 14-17; “Ha’alat meḥirei hamazon mesakenet et haberiut,” Yedioth Ahronoth (6 January 1953). 76. “Baaspakah uvashevakim,” Al HaMishmar (23 July 1952); “Ḥ alah yeridah nikeret be’erkhei hatezunah,” Haaretz (4 August 1952); “Matzav hatezunah,” Herut (18 August 1952). See also Rozin, Ḥ ovat haahavah hakashah, 36. 77. “Ha’alat meḥirei hamazon mesakenet et haberiut”; see also documents in CZA, S71/783 (vol. 3), among them, “Po’alei Tel Aviv usvivatah yishbetu beyom ḥamishi veyitbe’u shipur hamazon veaspakato,” Hamishmar (24 September 1951); “110 ve’adim hitztarfu kevar,” Al HaMishmar (26 September 1951). 78. A. Fogel (engineer) to Mr. M. Shlush (8 December 1948), TAA, M-1563/5. 79. Y. Maimoni to M. Kalir (13 January 1950), TAA, M-1208/3049. 80. A. Fogel (engineer) to Mr. M. Shlush (11 January 1949), TAA, M-1563/5.

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81. M. Kalir to Mayor Rokach (10 February 1950), TAA, M-1208/3049; Divrei hakneset, vol. 11 (6 February 1952), 1227; M. Gerzberg, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture to A. Shachnai, Ministry of Supply and Rationing (25 December 1950), ISA, G-216/41. 82. Journalists, government officials, and workers repeatedly warned against this eventuality, but those in charge paid no heed. See, for instance, a memo from the Inter-ministerial Committee for Food Supplements to Workers to Dov Yosef, Ministry of Supply and Rationing (21 August 1950), CZA, S-71/783, file 3; Yirmiyahu Shmueli, “Hetzatzti bamekarer shel Rachel Stifaner,” Al HaMishmar (30 October 1951). As reported by MK Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, organized skilled laborers had begun to demand not only higher wages from their employees, but also a supplement to their daily pay of half a kilogram of meat (Divrei hakneset, vol. 10, [17 September 1951], 106). 83. Minutes of meeting of doctors on the nutritional panel (1 or 6 December 1950), ISA, G-196/25; see also Dr. Rachmilevitch to Agriculture Minister Pinhas Lubianiker [Lavon] (12 December 1950), ISA, G-196/25; Israeli Medical Association panel recommendations (6 December 1950), ISA, G- 216/11; Y. Kanievsky to Dr. Yosef Meir (30 August 1949), ISA, G-197/26. 84. Kupat Holim general sick fund to the Department of Economics and Statistics (15 March 1953), TAA, K-6/1 (file also marked M-1208/3050). 85. Ibid. Many letters of complaint are on file in TAA, M-1208/3049; see, for instance, letter from Elka Lotte Kossin (20 September 1949) to the Ministry of Supply and Rationing. 86. Dov Yosef, Yonah vaḥ erev (Ramat Gan: 1975), 235. For Tel Aviv, see report (31 July 1949), TAA, M-1208/3049. 87. “20 aḥuz mehatoshavim nehenim mitosefet meyuḥedet beaspakat mazon,” Hatzofeh (31 July 1952). 88. Divrei hakneset, vol. 10 (11 September 1951), 32; ibid. (17 September 1951), 58–59. 89. “Mekorot haaspakah: mishkei ’ezer, ’olim, ḥavilot shai”; “Ne’etzru 3 ḥevrei kibutz ramat-hashofet,” Haboker (18 June 1952); “Parot mikibutz ‘ramat-hashofet’ sheno’adu lashuk hashaḥor huḥremu” Hakol (18 June 1952); “Beit mitbaḥayim bilti-ḥuki nitgalah leyad Binyamina,” Davar (14 July 1952). 90. “Hamokhrim: sindikat shel safsarim,” Maariv (17 May 1952). 91. Divrei hakneset, vol. 11 (5 March 1952), 1525; “Neeshamim beha’alamat sekhorah,” Davar (1 November 1950); “Keitzad mavriḥim besar ḥazir,” Davar (28 August 1951); H. Weisadler, “Shekiya’to shel hapikuaḥ,” Al HaMishmar (23 December 1953); Tikvah Weinstock, “Sheloshet shukei hahefkerut shel Tel Aviv,” Ma’ariv (25 May 1952). 92. Daphne Barak-Erez, Outlawed Pigs: Law, Religion, and Culture in Israel (Madison: 2007), 33. It is interesting to note that one food controller wondered whether ham served in restaurants should be considered meat. See Mark, “Keshehadin lo nokev et hahar,” 70 (n. 305); Zelig Gabriel Sorek (owner of a sausage factory located at the Tel Aviv Carmel market), to Dr.  Gur (18 June 1948), TAA, V-6; Y. Smilensky to Dr. Natan Ben Natan (and others) (10 September 1948), ibid. 93. E. Pearlson to chief rabbis (26 September 1948), ibid. 94. On attempts by the rabbinate to facilitate shipments of kosher beef and chicken for observant households, see Dr. Levitt to E. Pearlson (21 January 1948), TAA, V- 5/3; chief rabbinate of Tel Aviv-Jaffa to the Department of Economics and Statistics (8 Adar 5708/8 February 1948), ibid. 95. Naor, Baḥazit ha’oref, 90–91. See also (Rabbi) Katriel Fischel Tchoresh to M. Kalir (24 Shvat 5708/4 February 1948), TAA, V-5/3; Hatzofeh (3 December 1948). 96. Divrei mo’etzet hamedinah hazemanit, vol. 2 (16 December 1948), 20–21. 97. The license to import pork was granted to the Spinneys supermarket chain. See also Mustafa Abbasi and Henry Near, “Hageneral vehakefar: milḥemet 1948 bemabat mehatzad,” in Bar-On and Chazan (eds.), Ezraḥim bemilḥamah, 63. 98. Yedi’ot Tel Aviv 18 (3–4) (1948–1949). 99. Hayim Broide, Netivei Ḥ ayim (Tel Aviv: 1977) 199, quoted in Barak-Erez, Outlawed Pigs, 34 see also ibid., 35–36.

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100. Giora Goodman, “ ‘Davar aḥer’: ’anaf gidul haḥazirim bimdinat yisrael umitnagdav 1948–1962,” Cathedra 134 (2010), 69-88; Tal Rabinovsky, “Gidul ḥazirim batnu’ah ­hakibutzit—sipuro shel ’anaf mesagseg ba’asorim harishonim lamedinah” (unpublished paper, 2010), 11. 101. Divrei hakneset, vol. 3 (3 December 1952), 244. See also “Masa umatan ’im angliyah leaspakat basar,” Davar (21 December 1952). 102. Divrei hakneset, vol. 6 (12 July 1950), 2175–2176 (MK Hanan Rubin and Minister Dov Yosef). 103. “Menat hamazon lehalakhah ulema’aseh,” Haboker (17 September 1951). 104. Divrei hakneset, vol. 10 (17 September 1951), 61 (MK Kalman Kahana); ibid., 65 (MK Shlomo Lorincz) and 74 (Minister Pinhas Lavon). 105. Divrei hakneset, vol. 4 (31 January 1950), 686 (MK Hanan Rubin); ibid., vol. 5 (16 May 1950), 1396 (MK Moshe Sneh); ibid. (28 June 1950), 1940–1942 (MK Eliezer Preminger); ibid., vol. 7 (31 October 1950), 122 (MK Eliezer Peri); ibid. (1 November 1950), 145 (MK Eliezer Livneh); ibid., vol. 8 (28 March 1951), 23 (MK Hanan Rubin and Minister Pinhas Lavon); ibid., vol. 10 (11 September 1951), 42–43 (MK Michael Hazani). 106. Ibid., vol. 13 (4 March 1953), 854 (MK Haim Landau). See also ibid. (4 February 1953), 641–642; “Masa umatan ’im angliyah leaspakat basar.” 107. Ibid., vol. 13 (4 February 1953), 639–640 (MK Lorincz); Barak-Erez, Outlawed Pigs, 44. 108. Marvin Harris, “The Abominable Pig,” in Food and Culture—A Reader, ed. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik (New York: 2008), 54, 57. 109. Goodman, “ ‘Davar aḥer,’ ” 74–75. 110. Divrei hakneset, vol. 14 (11 May 1953), 1274 (Minister Peretz Bernstein). 111. Ibid., vol. 12 (17 June 1952), 2331; ibid. (28 August 1952), 3202; director-general, Ministry of Internal Affairs, to Department of Exit Permits (27 May 1952), ISA, G-715/5; Mazon Food Corporation to Ministry of Religion (25 December 1951), ISA, GL-6326/18; (Rabbi) S. Zedorowsky, Ministry of Religion, to Ministry of Immigration (10 January 1952), and Zedorowsky to Mazon Food Corporation (15 January 1952), ibid. 112. Divrei moetzet hamedinah hazemanit, vol. 2 (30 December 1948), 10–19. 113. Y. Efrati, “Yoman haezraḥ shel hamedinah ha’ivrit: haḥazir haromanti,” Davar (18 February 1948). 114. Divrei hakneset, vol. 10 (17 September 1951), 60 (MK Ya’akov Uri). 115. Orit Rozin, “Food, Identity and Nation-Building in Israel’s Formative Years,” Israel Studies Forum 21, no. 1 (2006), 57. 116. Copy of a letter to the editor of the Palestine Post (received 30 January 1950) from “Hungry Benjamin.” The letter is found in ISA, G-216/41. 117.  The Zionist cultural revolution promoted a new masculine image opposed to that of the diasporic, effeminate Jew. This ideological attitude was manifested in many areas of daily life, from military training to working the land. During the first half of the 20th century, both under Ottoman and later British rule, a new group of Jews emerged (in reality, as well as in literature and art). A good appetite was considered one of the many manly traits of the new Hebrew man. See S. Yizhar, “Hashavui,” in Dor baaretz: antologiyah shel sifrut yisreelit, ed. Azriel Uchmani, Shlomo Tanai, and Moshe Shamir (Merhavia: 1958), 44; A. Hillel, “Shir adamah,” in ibid., 446; “Kadur basar,” in Mishpaḥat hapalmaḥ: yalkut ’alilot vezemer, ed. Haim Guri, Amikam Gurevitch, Arieh Navon and Haim Hefer (Jerusalem: 1974), 183, 105–105. 118. Alexander Bsarim to Department of Economics and Statistics (2 April 1948), TAA, V-5/3. 119. AT (full name not disclosed) to Minister Dov Yosef (14 Kislev 5710/5 December 1949), ISA, G-216/19. 120. MC (full name not disclosed) to Minister Dov Yosef (9 December 1949), ibid. 121. Secretary (no name mentioned) to MC (13 December 1949), ibid. 122. GS (full name not disclosed) to Minister Dov Yosef (14 March 1950), ISA, G-218/29. 123. Director-general of Ministry of Supply and Rationing to GS (30 March 1950), ibid. 124. Divrei hakneset, vol. 10 (17 September 1951), 74 (Minister Pinhas Lavon). 125. Divrei moetzet hamedinah hazemanit, vol. 2 (16 December 1948), 20; ibid., 21; ibid. (30 December 1948) (Minister Aharon Zisling).

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126. DS (full name not disclosed) to director-general of the Ministry of Supply and Rationing (27 September 1950), ISA, G-218/29. 127. Divrei hakneset, vol. 10 (17 September 1951), 67–68. 128. Ibid., 65. 129. Divrei hakneset, vol. 13 (4 February 1953), 641 (for the draft bill see p. 655). 130. See n. 83. 131. M. Dafni, “Hatzena’ umatzav briutam shel haezraḥim” (19 November 1951). 132. Yosef, Yonah vaḥ erev, 235. 133. “ ‘Eser sha’ot beshavu’a,” Haaretz (1 July 1949). 134. L. Holm and M. Møhl, “The Role of Meat in Everyday Food Culture: An Analysis of an Interview Study in Copenhagen,” Appetite 34, no. 3 (June 2000), 277–283; on the growing number of vegetarians, see Fiddes, Meat, 28–29. 135. See Massimo Montanari, Food is Culture (New York: 2004), 6–7 and, in this volume, Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, “Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad: Food, Emigration and Transformation in the Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel in the 1950s,” esp. 97–99. 136. D. Glikson to Minister Dov Yosef (14 September 1950), ISA, G-216/16. 137. In 1950, the continuing food shortages led to the dismantling of the Ministry of Supply and Rationing, and responsibility for rationing was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture, headed by Pinhas Lavon. The following year, Lavon was forced to resign in the wake of disclosures that money he had raised overseas to improve the nutrition of the citizenry had been transferred to the finance ministry, to be used for other purposes. See Orit Rozin, Ḥ ovat ha­ahavah hakashah, 82; Eyal Kafkafi, Pinhas Lavon—Antimashiaḥ (Tel Aviv: 1998), 113–114. 138. See also Meir-Glizenstein, “Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad.” 139. Mary Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” in Counihan and Van Esterik (eds.), Food and Culture, 37–44. 140. As Fiddes notes: “Unfamiliar foods fail to offer the same security since we are as unsure of their symbolic status as we are of their physical safety. The danger is to our minds as well as to our bodies. Habit and traditions offer affinity with our peers and continuity with our individual and collective past” (Meat, 36). A similar observation was made by Shimon Garidi, the Yemenite Israeli parliamentarian. 141. Liora Gvion, “Ḥ umus-kuskus-sushi: okhel veetniyut baḥevrah hayisreelit,” in Beten meleah: mabat aḥ er ’al okhel veḥ evrah, ed. Aviad Kleinberg (Jerusalem: 2005), 46-50; Rozin, Food, Identity and Nation-Building in Israel’s Formative Years, 70–71; Meir-Glitzenstein, “Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad.” 142. Rozin, Ḥ ovat haahavah hakashah, 34–37. 143. See also Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, Mass.: 1984), 190–191. 144. Oz Almog, Hatzabar—dyokan (Tel Aviv: 1997), 317–328. 145. The poem, “Shir boker” (Morning song), set to music by Daniel Samburski, featured in a propaganda film of 1934 titled “To a New Life.” See Motti Regev and Edwin Seroussi, Popular Music and National Culture in Israel (Berkeley: 2004), 57–58. The full text, with an English translation by Nili Schneidman, can be found online at 70faces.jimdo.com/home/ issue-2-israels-60th/pioneers (accessed 30 October 2013). 146. See, for example, Nurit Gertz, Makhelah aḥeret: nitzolei shoah, zarim vaaḥerim bakolno’a ubasifrut hayisreelit (Tel Aviv: 2004), 29–30.

Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad: Food, Emigration, and Transformation in the Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel in the 1950s Esther Meir-Glitzenstein (Ben-Gurion University)

The Dove Flyer, Eli Amir’s novel about the Jews of Iraq just before their mass emigration to Israel, is rife with mouth-watering, sensual descriptions of food. In one scene, a sumptuous Sabbath meal is served to the Baghdadi mystic and sage Shmuel Yosef Darzi, and his entourage, in hopes of hearing from him about the fate of the narrator’s uncle, who had been arrested by the authorities and accused of Zionist activities. In 1949, when the novel takes place, there were about 135,000 Jews in Iraq; soon thereafter, in 1950–1951, almost all of them (125,000) emigrated to the state of Israel. Against the background of the tense family, on the one hand, and the mystic and his entourage, on the other, Amir offers a song of praise for the Sabbath fare of Iraqi Jews. The scene opens with a description of the table with its white tablecloth, shiny porcelain dishes and bowls, and gold-plated spoons and forks. Amir then goes on to describe the “appetizers”—among them, a large variety of chopped and seasoned salads made with parsley, mint, and lemon slices; all sorts of pickled vegetables; fried fish; cooked potatoes; and slices of fried eggplant and zucchini. Amir notes that all of this was meant to “create an appetite” for the main course, which included the best dishes from the Iraqi kitchen: tebit and patcha. Tebit is the Iraqi version of meat stew, made with stuffed poultry, pieces of beef, rice, and tomato slices, all seasoned with pungent ground cardamom. Patcha is a delicately flavored and heavenly smelling dish made of the well-cleaned stomach and intestines of sheep, stuffed with rice, chopped meat, and tomato slices, seasoned with cardamom and lime (known as Persian, or Basra, lemon).1 These two dishes were cooked all night on a low heat, and they were so tasty that, in the words of Amir, they were fit for a sultan. The guests were overwhelmed by the “culinary incense” and responded with cries of admiration.2 Eli Amir is not the only one who recalls the aromas of the broad assortment of dishes cooked by Jewish families in Iraq, with their many ingredients and spices. Many of those who emigrated from Iraq and wrote memoirs also speak about the exquisite aromas of the foods of their childhood and of the jealousy of those who were not lucky enough to taste them. It was not only these home-cooked dishes but also the food on 89

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the Baghdad streets that aroused nostalgic memories. A special place is reserved for samak mazguf, fresh fish caught in the Tigris River and roasted over bonfires on the riverbank. Shlomo Hillel, who later served as minister of police and as speaker of the Knesset, relates that when he arrived in Baghdad in May 1950 (under an assumed identity) in order to negotiate with Iraqi authorities about allowing the Jews to leave, he could not resist the smell of samak mazguf. To native Baghdadis such as himself, this food represented childhood and hot summer days. Although Hillel longed to eat fried fish by the river, he had been invited to an elegant dinner at the home of Yehezkel Shem Tov, the president of the Jewish community. Dining there, he and a British pilot, Ronnie Barnett, were the only ones using a knife and fork, and this “acrobatic feat” caused them to be secretly ridiculed by the Muslim dignitaries who were present.3 Another food often mentioned in the nostalgic recollections of immigrants is ’amba, a delicacy originating in India, made of pickled mango seasoned with turmeric. The sharp-sweet taste of ’amba is often linked with memories of school, as students used to buy it from street-vendors on their way to classes.4 The date palm trees that were plentiful along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, especially in the Shatt al-Arab area near Basra, are also frequently evoked. Various species of dates ripened at different times throughout the year. These would be eaten fresh, sometimes with their pits replaced by almonds. Dates were also used to make silan, a honey-like syrup that, together with crushed nuts, was made into ḥaroset for the Passover seder. Often Jews would buy a cluster of dates, hang it on the wall, and place a bowl underneath. The silan that seeped into the bowl was spread on children’s buttered bread—and the butter, in the words of one of the women I interviewed, was “real butter, not sterilized.”5 Dates appear in many of the memoirs, whether in descriptions of the landscape or in connection with nature walks or outdoor pastimes, or as food. The wealth of these foods and dishes was not unique to Iraq, but rather characterized Jewish cookery in most of the Middle Eastern countries. Claudia Roden, a food culture researcher, explains that this wealth was due to the openness of the relations between the Jews and their neighbors: “Their very great culinary repertoire reflects the special symbiosis of the Jews with the Islamic world and with the complex environment of different ethnic and religious groups that existed in the area.”6 These nostalgic descriptions of Iraqi Jewish cookery contrast with far less pleasant memories. Many Iraqi Jewish memoirs, though not all, depict Iraq as a place of suffering, hatred, persecution, discrimination, and poverty. In some instances, fear and anxiety accompany the authors from their childhoods, becoming part of their lifelong consciousness.7 Many memoirs give a detailed account of the farhud, the antisemitic pogrom that took place in Baghdad on June 1–2, 1941, and to prior attacks that occurred during the 1930s or at the time of the First World War. These books also describe persecution of the Zionists and the Communists after the Second World War and more wide-scale persecution of the Jewish community after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Even the story of the fancy dinner in Amir’s book relates to the search for information on the fate of an imprisoned uncle. In general, positive attitudes toward Iraq as expressed in these narratives are tied to the family and personal spheres—that is to say, confined to the Jewish domain. Descriptions of daily cuisine and festive foods are all presented within the framework

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of Jewish life. Yet, even here, it seems that anything that falls outside the boundary of the internal family realm—for instance, Jewish contributions to Arabic language and literature, the local dances (especially belly-dancing), Jewish public service, and even friendly relations with the Muslim neighbors—is invariably mentioned in conjunction with unpleasant memories of persecution. Against this background, it is possible to assume that Iraqi cuisine was awarded such a nostalgic place in the memories of Iraqi Jewish immigrants, well beyond that of its direct culinary significance, because it became a symbol of all the good things that were lost in the process of leaving. According to Michael Owen Jones: “Dictionaries define symbol as a visible sign of something invisible, as an idea, a quality: one thing stands for, represents, or ­re-presents another.”8 Any object may become a symbol. This is particularly true with regard to food and eating, which may be imbued with special significance or meaning. Raymond Firth notes that, by means of symbols, human beings organize the reality in which they live, define it, and even reconstruct it.9 The food that sustains a young person incorporates the warmth and affection proffered by his or her mother and the society and culture in which he or she grows up, and in this way is associated with the geographical landscape and climate of childhood. Among the often traumatic changes brought about by emigration are those connected with food and diet. In what follows, I focus on culinary transformation as a means of examining characteristics of the emigration from Iraq and the process of integration in Israel, shifts in the family structure in Israel, and the ways in which Israeli culture penetrated into the world of the Iraqi Jewish family during the 1950s. Special emphasis will be given to the role of Iraqi Jewish women, since cooking is usually defined as being women’s work and has special significance in the formation of women’s gender identity.10 After first sketching the features of Iraqi Jewish cookery in Baghdad on the eve of emigration, I look at the parallel changes that occurred in Israel both in the food and cuisine of these immigrants and in their socioeconomic status. In the last section, I explore how changes in Iraqi Jewish identity in Israel were reflected in a transformed Iraqi/Israeli cookery.

Food, Cookery, and the Status of Women in the Iraqi Jewish Family On the eve of the great emigration to Israel, Iraqi Jewish society was post-traditional in that European ideas of modernization had begun to make their mark. However, these changes were limited, confined mainly to upper- and middle-class urban society in the large cities (Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul), where most of Iraq’s Jews resided. They were more obvious in the male as opposed to female sphere, and more in the public domain than in the home. In Iraq, the extended, patriarchal family was the basic social unit for both Muslims and Jews. The hierarchic layers of the family were built on the basis of gender and age, with the younger subordinate to their elders and the women subordinate to the men. Standing at the head, the father was responsible for his family’s welfare, in return for which he expected respect and unequivocal obedience. Second to the father was the eldest son, who was slated to take on the role of the head of the family in the future; beneath him came the mother of the family.

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This hierarchy, which made the low status of women an integral part of the social structure, was sanctioned by Islamic and Jewish law. The woman’s inferiority was evident in her being consigned to the home, with no say in public life; she had no right to vote or to be elected to public positions. Moreover, women from middle- and upper-class families were generally not permitted to work outside the home. When they did so, it was usually in the wake of a financial crisis in the family, it being understood that the head of the family was failing to provide adequately.11 The introduction of modern, western education in Jewish schools built by the Alliance Israélite Universelle, among which were girls’ schools and co-ed schools, led to changes in gender relations in Jewish society. By the end of the 1940s, girls accounted for one third of the 18,000 Jewish students across Iraq, studying at all levels of the educational system, from kindergarten through high school.12 Alliance schools sought to bring European culture and modernization to Jewish communities in Muslim countries by means of French language and literature studies alongside Arabic and English, and by instilling values in the spirit of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah). At the same time, egalitarian messages of the school system were not meant to foster real equality, but rather to fashion an educated woman who would be first and foremost a wife and homemaker, capable of raising and educating a new generation of educated and enlightened people. Lower-class women were given places in occupational schools, especially those that taught sewing and embroidery, which could then be done at home to help earn money. From the end of the 1930s, new types of positions became available to middle-class women, among them teaching, nursing, and secretarial work in private companies. During the 1940s, there were a number of upper-middle-class women who had received higher education and were working as physicians and pharmacists. Overall, however, such changes affected only a limited class of women, and the world of most Iraqi Jewish women continued to be centered on the family. The traditional woman’s goal was to marry, following which she would serve her husband, obey her mother-in-law (who ran the extended household), and raise and educate her children. Eventually, if all went well, she would be able to take charge of her own extended household. As Naomi Kashi-Nisim, an immigrant from Iraq, wrote in her memoir, “studying isn’t done for its own sake, but to achieve a more acceptable status in the bourgeois society. Once a girl has completed her studies, she awaits her wedding day.”13 With young girls studying at school, cooking remained in the hands of the matriarch of the family. She was helped by her daughters-in-law, who were part of the extended household.14 On the eve of their emigration to Israel, only a few of these matriarchs had a modern education. However, they enjoyed high status within the family. Cooking, which was the most important task in the home, gave the matriarch control over those in her household—directly over subordinate young women and children and indirectly over the men above her in the family hierarchy. When she was no longer able to manage all the cooking chores, she passed the job and all relevant information on to her daughters-in-law and granddaughters. One of these granddaughters describes the family matriarch sitting on a chair in the center of the home courtyard, from where she issued directions to one of her daughters-in-law (the other one avoided doing the cooking), including precise details on the amount of each ingredient and spice and the manner of cooking. Following the grandmother’s death, the “apprenticed” daughter-in-law assumed her role and functions within the family.15 The control wielded by

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the matriarch was manifested in her choice of spices and in her power to determine the menu, with honored guests receiving a more varied and elaborate meal. She also orchestrated the serving of the food by the girls in the house. However, when strangers were invited to a meal, the women did not participate, and the man of the house was charged with bringing food to the table and serving it. Cooking entailed not only social but also religious and hygienic responsibility, as evident in the instruction provided by R. Yosef Hayim—the preeminent Iraqi Jewish religious leader of the late 19th and early 20th centuries—in a book titled Kanun alnisa (The law for women). The book was written in Arabic to make it more accessible to its predominantly female audience, and it sought to preserve local customs in the face of threats posed by modernization.16 As such, it provides an illuminating account of the norms of Jewish society at that time, along with valuable information regarding the ways in which Jewish families cooked. According to Hayim, a heavy religious burden is placed on the shoulders of the woman who does the cooking, because “all the food and drink is in her hands; even if she has many servants, everything is under her supervision. As to her husband, the food and drink is placed before him, but he has no idea what he has been given and how it was prepared.”17 Among the religious issues addressed by Hayim are how to check and rid food of insects, how to set aside a bit of dough in commemoration of sacrifices brought to the Holy Temple (hafrashat ḥalah), how to maintain strict separation of meat and dairy dishes and utensils, and how to remove blood from meat and poultry in accordance with the laws of kashrut. On the last, he notes that “all the members of the household count on her and she would bear the sin [if she was remiss].”18 Hayim’s work also emphasizes the importance of hygiene. Thus, women are instructed to air out their homes and to keep dishes, tables and shelves clean: “… and all the plates and spoons, large or small, must be cleaned, washed and well wiped, so that they do not have unpleasant odors.”19 (Hayim does not mention forks and knives among the kitchen utensils, an indication that most Iraqi Jews at the beginning of the 20th century did not yet use them.)20 When preparing drinks, the woman is to wash her hands; for food-tasting, “she should use a spoon, rather than drinking out of the pot, and not lick the spoon or any utensil with her tongue, nor should she crack anything with her teeth.”21 The kitchen floor should be kept clean and dry. If there are any servants, it is incumbent on the woman of the house to make sure that they wash their hands before leaving the washroom; use handkerchiefs to wipe their noses; keep their fingernails clipped; and make use of a towel placed on their shoulders for wiping their hands during the cooking process.22 According to Hayim, good household management consists in part of not wasting food or drink. He singles out for praise the woman who can prepare seven different dishes from one kilogram of meat.23 (In fact, many of the most elegant dishes of Iraqi cookery, especially the various dumplings, consist of a large carbohydrate jacket made of rice, potatoes, or bulgur filled with sautéed onions and a bit of meat.) A “worthy woman” is also industrious. Even if she is rich and has many servants, she, too, takes part in household activities, especially on Fridays, when all Sabbath preparations must be completed before sundown.24 According to Rodin, “you can smell a Jewish home from the cooking fat.”25 This refers to the fact that, unlike Muslims, Jews did not fry foods in butter, instead using

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vegetable oil or lamb’s fat. Holiday food was another area of difference between the two cuisines. Each Jewish holiday had its special dishes, in particular Passover. Indeed, the stringent requirements of Passover cooking made it common for Jews to have separate Passover dishes and pots, and preparations for the holiday started weeks or even a few months in advance.26 Yet while the myriad activities associated with cooking (and especially kosher cooking) could be burdensome, they were at the same time a source of satisfaction. In her study of Middle Eastern women in Israel, Susan Starr Sered found that cooking was perceived by women as a sacred act.27 Cooking also enabled the woman to control a running family budget. Although the “man of the house” did the shopping, he was given detailed instructions as to what to buy and in what quantities. For instance, before a large sack of rice was purchased, several different samples were brought home and checked by the women.28 A woman’s cooking reflected on her husband, with a rich meal redounding to his credit. Following a trip to Baghdad after the First World War, Rabbi David Sasson noted: The residents of this region always expect to receive guests and treat them kindly. They never think they’ve done enough for them. When they honor their guests with coffee or a sorbet or food, the “man of the house” himself serves them, without in the least feeling demeaned. On the contrary, he feels pleased that he can serve them personally.29

The culinary skills of the mother could also bring honor to her entire family. At feasts connected with extended family celebrations or neighborhood events, she was often called upon to help with the cooking; the more skilled she was, the more respect her family received.30

Ingredients and Preparation In Iraq, the main meal of the day was eaten in the afternoon and was served in the tarma or terar, a large room open on the side facing the central courtyard of the house.31 The food was set with serving spoons in large bowls or on platters—at least one of these held rice—at the center of the table.32 People seated at the table would help themselves to the various cooked foods. With the exception of Friday and the Sabbath, there was no fixed time for this meal and attendance was not mandatory. A study conducted in Israel in the early 1950s commented with approval on this mode of dining. The study, which focused on eating disorders in East European children, noted that [a] Jewish child of Iraqi origin, for example, does not show the same eating problems suffered by an East European Jewish child; he does not hate certain foods, and he eats nicely. In the Iraqi (though not the Kurdish) family, it is customary for food to be placed at the center of the table, and each person serves himself whatever and however much he wants from the platters. If the child is not hungry, he may leave the table without eating, and need not eat simply because the adults are hungry.33

In contrast to the large and spacious room in which the meal was served, the Iraqi kitchen was small and crowded. Badri Patel, who had lived as a child with his extended family in a large, three-story house in Tatran, a poor neighborhood in Baghdad, describes the “tiny, sweltering hot, windowless kitchen” as:

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the center of activity and control in the house—the women’s queendom. They baked bread and cookies in a brick and clay oven, cooked in huge cauldrons on charcoal stoves installed on the floor. It was no wonder that black soot always covered the entire kitchen. . . . At any hour you entered the house, you were flooded by the smells of food cooking: sweet and sour dumplings (kubba),34 okra (bamia), cooked beets and turnips, stuffed vegetables, and more and more. The women of the household would rise every day early in the morning and . . . go directly to the kitchen, because they had lots of work and complicated recipes.35

The work in the kitchen was done sitting down. The work areas were low tables; the women sat on low stools. Even the water faucet was low, so that the women could remain seated or crouching.36 On weekdays, or when strangers were hosted in the house, the women ate in the kitchen. These customs are reflected in an account written by Yerahmiel Asa, a Zionist emissary (born in the Caucasus region), who was a guest in several family homes in Baghdad. According to Asa: The woman is like a servant. When the family sits down to eat, she does not join them, not even on the Sabbath. In the home hosting me, I have not yet set eyes upon the mother of the house, the homemaker, sitting at the table during mealtime. She eats on the kitchen floor. Naturally, there are exceptions, but they are like a drop in the ocean.37

In contrast, Shaul Sehayek, whose home hosted many emissaries, did not consider the absence of women to be a sign of repression. He claimed that their eating separately on the kitchen floor—or more precisely, seated on a stool—was not considered in any way degrading but was rather the women’s choice, especially in conservative homes. Moreover, he noted, on Sabbaths and holidays, the women always ate together with the rest of the family.38 Roden writes in her book about Middle Eastern food: Iraqi Jews had a fixed weekly menu. Thursday was for kichree (lentils and rice), vegetables and dairy foods. On Friday, the fishermen brought the fish in early from the river, in time for the Jews to prepare fried fish and arook (fritters). They also had chicken soup with chicken pieces and rice. On Saturday in winter, they went to synagogue early, and when they returned for breakfast ate tebit—chicken stuffed with and also buried in rice—which had cooked overnight. Then they sat in the sun on the balcony or the roof terrace with their hamine [baked overnight] eggs, fried aubergines, mango pickle and bread, or they took these to a picnic on an island in the river. In the summer, they set out porous water jugs, which sweated and kept the water cool on the terrace. They also left pots of kubba—meat dumplings in a bamia (okra) stew, which had been prepared on Friday—on the roof terrace for the Saturday lunch. At night, they slept on the terrace to catch the breeze.39

The kitchen was not merely for cooking. It was also the site of intense socializing, with work being carried out collaboratively. Young women learned culinary secrets and rules of family conduct, by means of which they underwent the process of membership and—sometimes—empowerment.40 As noted, in the 1940s, signs of modernity had already appeared in the traditional Iraqi Jewish realm. Apart from changes in the educational and occupational sectors, industrialization was beginning to affect the food industry. Thus, alongside

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the homemade delicacies described above, such staples as bread, pita, and dairy products such as cheese and yogurt were increasingly purchased outside the home.

From Citizens to Refugees Between May 1950 and August 1951, the 2,600 year-old Jewish community between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers effectively came to an end, as the vast majority of Iraqi Jews relocated to Israel.41 This move had not been the result of an ongoing emigration process (as had been the case for Yemenite Jewry). Rather, from May 1948, when the state of Israel was established, Iraqi Jews increasingly experienced political and economic persecution: hundreds were fired from their jobs and their loyalty to the state was questioned, though at the same time they were forbidden to leave the country. An astonishing turnabout occurred in March 1950, when the Iraqi government decided to allow Jews to emigrate. The following month, thousands of Jews began to register to leave, knowing full well that this meant relinquishing their Iraqi citizenship and the right to return. By December of 1950, some 85,000 Jews had registered to emigrate.42 The establishment of a Jewish state had an unsettling effect on all the Muslim countries in the region (in the case of Iraq, soldiers were sent to fight against Israel). All of the Jews were linked with Israel and Zionism, despite the fact that relatively few Iraqi Jews considered themselves Zionists—by 1948, only about 2,000 young Jews belonged to the Zionist organization that had been operating in Iraq since 1942. Nationalism and antisemitism also played a role in undermining the status of the Jewish community; the infiltration of Nazi ideas during the 1930s had promoted antiJewish sentiment, as did propaganda promulgated by Arab nationalists. In the end, Iraqi Jews became victims of the Zionist-Arab conflict. The political and economic persecution of 1948–1949 shook their sense of security and raised anxieties regarding the fate awaiting them in the event of a second round of war. Fear of the future was the primary cause behind the mass registration to leave Iraq. On the eve of their emigration, the Iraqi Jewish community consisted of a small number of very rich families, others belonging to the middle and lower middle classes, and many poor people. Yet even the poorest Jews had homes and some source of income. While they were aware that the economic situation in Israel was difficult in the wake of the War of Independence and the arrival of masses of immigrants, they did not truly perceive the scope of these hardships and how this would affect their absorption. They did not imagine that they would lose their wealth and property during the emigration process.43 The passage to Israel was quick: their Iraqi citizenship was revoked, they swore never to return to Iraq, and they were given laissez passer documents. They left behind their houses, stores, workplaces, and monetary assets. They carried with them five to fifty dinar, depending on when they left, and twenty kilograms of baggage per person; they boarded airplanes at the Baghdad or Basra airports and several hours later found themselves in Lod. These few hours of travel were critical, marking the time when the Jews of Iraq lost their orderly world and became refugees—this, despite the fact that upon their arrival, they were met by government officials and were soon granted Israeli citizenship.44

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Food and the New Immigrants In her autobiography of 1912, Mary Antin, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, describes her first encounter with “the promised land.”45 Her father, who had gone ahead of the family and was already living in the United States, welcomed his wife and children with an “American” meal that he had quickly put together from various canned foods. He also presented them with a strange, smooth fruit that he called a “banana.” This new culinary experience was immediately rejected by the Antin family, with Mary’s mother rushing to reclaim her role as the cook, reverting to typical East European cuisine: potatoes, onions, cabbage, rye bread, and herring.46 Decades later, in the new state of Israel, the very staples that spelled “home” to Antin’s family were being offered to new immigrants, regardless of their region of origin. Upon immigrants’ arrival in Israel, they were sent to Sha’ar Ha’aliyah, a transit camp in which they were sequestered during their first days, in part to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. In the memory of Iraqi Jews, Sha’ar Ha’aliyah is associated with feelings of strangeness, foreignness, and helplessness.47 Here, in a former British army camp surrounded by barbed wire, they came to realize that they were impoverished refugees.48 This was their first experience living in large public dormitories shared with people from many other countries, or in tents pitched within the camp. Immigrants were given a number of personal items, including a mattress, a blanket and a few dishes and utensils. Meals were provided by the camp, and it was in this context that the immigrants first encountered East European dishes prepared by the East European cooks. As might have been expected, the Iraqi Jews thoroughly rejected this food. Avraham Kehila, later deputy mayor of Jerusalem, recalls: “This was a serious zbang . . . a huge shock. . . . The server filled our mess tins with jam and ground herring, which was greasy and uncooked. . . . We threw it all out. Sometimes we didn’t even bother to stand in line.”49 When the members of Victor Muallem’s family were given a breakfast consisting of two white radishes, two pieces of herring, leben (a type of yogurt), a tasteless soup, and four slices of rye bread, they were unable to eat—despite their overwhelming hunger—and finally threw the food away. Victor then made his way to one of the stores in the camp, where he bought oranges, bread, and some canned preserves.50 Similarly, Yaffa Ben Menashe, the daughter of a rabbi from Kurdistan, tells of eating only oranges and bread all the while that she was in Sha’ar ha’aliyah and of people fainting from hunger, since they refused to eat the food they were served.51 Another immigrant from Iraq, Shoshana Levy, was later sent to Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’emek and was assigned the job of cleaning small herrings; she was so revolted by the sight and smell of the thick solution in the vats that she vomited.52 On occasion, to be sure, curiosity and hunger got the better of the immigrants. Badri Patel tells the story of how, after a few days of hunger, his brother Yehezkel decided “to be brave and try to eat. . . . He held his nose and swallowed some herring without smelling it—and lived. Following his lead, we decided we would eat it as well so as not to die from hunger, and over time, we even came to love the herring.”53 Manifestations of revulsion toward strange food were not unique to Israel. Many similar incidents are recorded with regard to initial contacts with foods offered by a

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host country, even in instances in which the new immigrants were fleeing starvation in their native land. Many Indians who arrived in the United States were revolted by the idea of eating beef, German immigrants could not stand the taste of American coffee, and others complained about the terrible tea. When immigrants initially reject the food of the host country, it creates a sense of uniqueness and prestige, as a kind of declaration regarding their (former) high social status. Later on, the immigrants try the new food and eventually adopt new eating habits, reconciling with and integrating into their new society.54 In the case of the Iraqi Jews, it appears that their revulsion toward the herring symbolized their ambivalent contact with the new land. Expressions of ridicule and disgust toward “Ashkenazi” food were a form of opposition to the drastic reduction of their social status. Whereas the host society classified them as (in Ben-Gurion’s words) “human dust,” a motley, disorganized horde without ideology or leadership, these new immigrants displayed their superiority vis-à-vis the host society by denigrating herring. Simultaneously, however, this fish was also tantalizing and alluring, especially since it was the food of the established, “veteran” European residents, the “rulers of the land.” Indeed, at a later stage, the eating of herring became an indicator of the successful completion of the integration process of these new immigrants.55

Life during the Period of Austerity For new immigrants to the United States, one of the country’s main characteristics was its abundance of foods, especially compared to what had been available in their countries of origin. Even when they discovered that the streets were not “paved in gold,” the wealth of food gave them a sense of security.56 This was not the case in the state of Israel in its first years. Israel was a poor country that had just come out of the War of Independence, during which a large portion of its economic infrastructure had been destroyed. In parallel, almost 700,000 new immigrants were being absorbed, among them about 130,000 Jews from Iraq. Over the course of three years, the Jewish population of Israel doubled. The commitment to provide for the mostly poor immigrants in a reasonable manner, supplying them with sustenance, housing, jobs, and all their other basic needs, necessitated an enormous economic undertaking.57 In order to reduce the cost of living, to cope with a serious shortage of food (particularly among the new immigrants), and to deal with the growing gap between the newcomers and the host population, Israel implemented an austerity regime (tzena’) between 1949 and 1958, with more stringent controls in effect until the end of 1952. One of the main features of this program was the rationing of various food items, clothing, and furniture.58 Although the austerity policy applied to all the residents of Israel, it affected different population groups in varying ways. The Arabs had an advantage in that most of them dwelt in rural areas and grew their own food.59 Similarly, Jews who lived on kibbutzim and moshavim produced their own agricultural products.60 However, for veteran city-dwellers, most of them Ashkenazim, this austerity meant either limiting or completely giving up certain foods (though some people received food and clothing from relatives in America or had an income high enough to allow them to buy or trade for extra ration coupons).61 Orit Rozin describes the many hardships of

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the austerity program on Israeli housewives. They had to stand on line for hours in order to buy food and, as a result of food shortages, were often forced to break the law and go to black-market suppliers. Rozin discusses the damage to women’s health, their sense of despair, and their feelings of fear and guilt when they dealt with the black market, all of which eventually led to their taking steps to repeal the austerity regime (which met with partial success).62 If this was the situation of established, middle-class Israelis, it is easy to understand how difficult it must have been for the new immigrants, especially those from Muslim countries. These immigrants resided for a long time in temporary housing, in transit camps or new settlements. Many of them suffered from long periods of unemployment, had large families with many children, and had the most meager of resources during the period of austerity.63 Moreover, not all of the subsidized products that could be purchased with the coupons were appropriate for Middle Eastern cuisine, certainly not Iraqi cuisine. During their first years in a host country, immigrants tend to stick to the familiar food of their country of origin, even if it is scarce and of poor quality, and even if their new land is offering them an abundance of new foodstuffs. As noted, old dishes tend to take on nostalgic and symbolic meaning. In part, this is due to the fact that new immigrants face many changes over which they have relatively little control—where they live, what kind of work they do, which language they are required to speak. Under circumstances involving a loss of status and independence, food comes to represent one area in which individuals continue to have autonomy: they can exercise control over their meals. This feeling of mastery may have initially taken precedence over any normal, counterbalancing interest in the varied foods of their new homeland.64 In the case of Iraqi Jews, even this area of autonomy was severely compromised. Unlike other immigrants, Iraqi Jews had gone from economic abundance to dire poverty, making it impossible for them to make their favorite dishes. The main ingredients of Iraqi cuisine were rice, lamb, fresh fish, and pita, whereas the food in Israel included potatoes, petitim (a rice-shaped, roasted wheat product), groats, and herring. The rice ration was at first very small, only 250 grams per person per month. Though the bread was subsidized and cheap, the pita preferred by the Iraqi Jews was not; it was both expensive and virtually unattainable. And although most of the spices used in Iraqi cookery existed in Israel, not all of them were available during the period of austerity. The challenge facing the immigrant Iraqi Jewish housewife was not simple: how could she find alternatives that would give her dishes the original flavor, or at least resemble the look of the original? To begin with, the small allotment of rice was saved for use at celebrations; in daily cooking, petitim (which was dubbed “Ben-Gurion rice”) was used. Fried macaroni replaced the grains of rice that were used to prepare the tebit,65 and instead of the powdered rice normally used for kubba, coarse semolina was substituted. A small amount of ground meat or fish was mixed with a combination of fillers such as chopped onions, parsley, and bulgur in order to make a variety of dumpling dishes.66 There were even those who created an alternative to ’amba by replacing mango with pumpkin and adding curry.67 Frozen, fried fish took the place of fresh fish from the Tigris, and the butter necessary for the preparation of kichree was replaced by margarine.68

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Another way to get substitute ingredients was to sell the products gotten for coupons, especially the meat and eggs.69 Families with many children, who at one point were allotted four to five eggs per child per week (adults were allotted only two eggs per week) often sold eggs to their Ashkenazi neighbors and then purchased more desirable products such as lamb or rice on the black market, or else they bought an additional amount of cheap, subsidized bread.70 Yaffa Ben Menashe recounts how some immigrants who lived near agricultural settlements (usually young people) used to sneak into the vegetable fields and orchards to steal produce—sometimes being chased, caught, and beaten by guards.71 In other instances, the children of immigrants who had been sent to live on a kibbutz would bring fruit, vegetables, and cuts of beef with them when they went to visit their parents.72 As described by Shimon Ballas in his novel The Transit Camp, on those occasions when Iraqi mothers were successful in putting together the traditional dishes, there was great excitement and even exaltation.73 Almost all Israelis were affected at least to some extent by food shortages and rationing, but for Iraqi Jews the situation was greatly exacerbated by their loss of status.74 Many of them resided for months or even years in tents or in makeshift hovels made of cloth or metal. Men were often unemployed for long periods of time or else were forced to accept jobs that involved hard manual labor. Needing to learn a new language, they were pained to discover that their original language and culture were looked upon with disdain. Extended families that had once lived together were broken into smaller, nuclear units and scattered to various settlements. In many families, the status of the father was “mortally wounded,” a situation that could lead to escapist behavior such as excessive drinking.75 Often the mother of the family had to work outside the home, or teenagers were forced to quit school in order to help support the family. These immigrants felt a sense of chaos: those who had been wealthy and highly respected were now reduced to the same level of poverty as their poorest former neighbors in Iraq, struggling to survive each day.76 The blow to their cuisine was yet one more reminder of the ways in which they were diminished and humiliated in their new home. Adding insult to injury, the Israeli establishment was set on “educating” the new immigrants not only in matters of health and hygiene,77 but also in the realm of nutrition. A concerted propaganda effort was launched by well-baby clinics, kindergartens, schools, health clinics, and various organizations such as the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO) and the Organization of Working Mothers in order to promote the consumption of milk and dairy products, in particular.78 (These had a marginal place in Iraqi cuisine, consumed mainly by children.) Arab and North African cuisines were criticized for being not sufficiently nutritious, whereas the Israeli diet was touted as ideal, as it was western and modern. This, despite the fact that, as Claudia Roden notes: “Compared to the cooking of Ashkenazi Jews, the home cooking of the Sephardim is immensely rich and varied, elaborate and sophisticated.”79 Beyond mistaken assumptions, the assault on traditional Middle Eastern cuisines reflected cultural arrogance—yet another attempt to transform immigrants into “new Jews” in accordance with the Zionist ethos. Thus, European table manners were presented as the norm. Eating with the hands was equated with primitive behavior, and use of a fork and knife became the hallmark

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of modernity and progress.80 In classes and lectures on the subject of hygiene and childrearing, the assumption was that immigrants from the East were ignorant and unduly lax.81 Accordingly, mothers were told that regular meals must be served at regular times, and children, even if not hungry, should be forced to eat. The intervention of the Israeli system was total, to the point where even in the culinary sphere, the Iraqi Jews were no longer their own masters.

Transformations during the First Decade In 1958, a comparative research project on the nutrition of the Iraqi and Yemenite communities examined eating habits among different subgroups. For the Iraqis, researchers studied newer and more veteran immigrants living in Jerusalem and new immigrants in Or Yehudah (previously the Hiriyah transit camp).82 The working assumption was that, given similarities in climate and agriculture between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, certain “eastern” eating habits would be adopted by the Israeli public at large, benefiting Israeli nutrition while also promoting ethnic diversity (“the ingathering of the exiles”). The research findings did not support these hypotheses. Instead, it became clear that new immigrants had abandoned their traditional eating habits in favor of Israeli habits, which were defined as “western.”83 It was found that many of the central ingredients of traditional Iraqi cookery, for instance, lamb, rice, bulgur, and fried or grilled fish, were being used less, whereas the use of noodles and potato flour had increased. In addition, margarine had replaced oil and frozen fish fillets had replaced fresh fish (with Iraqis consuming twice the national average). The consumption of legumes and sugar had increased while that of soups and of foods containing eggs, vegetables, and cheese had remained about the same or had decreased slightly. Approximately half of the Iraqis still ate pita, even though it was not a subsidized food item. Most of the others were eating white bread; only a minority were eating “black bread,” which was cheaper but considered to be of less social status than white bread.84 What had not changed, the study found, was the use of specific spices. Indeed, spices appeared to be the most important means by which immigrants attempted to preserve the “old” dishes. Housewives were willing to go to enormous efforts to attain the required spices. As a result, even a decade after their arrival in Israel, Iraqi women were using various combinations of black pepper, cumin, coriander, ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom—comprising a distinctive blend of spices known as baharat—and they continued to reject other condiments (for instance, mustard and poppy seeds) that had not been used in Iraq. Iraqi housewives were also still using the same cooking techniques as they had in Iraq. Although Roden claims that cooking “is always that part of culture and tradition which survives the longest,”85 this was not true of Iraqi cookery in 1950s Israel. The Jerusalem researchers enumerated three reasons for this Israeli anomaly. First, the European-born immigrants enjoyed a prestigious socioeconomic status. Second, many of the staple ingredients of Middle Eastern cuisine were unavailable. And finally, even when certain Middle Eastern ingredients were obtainable, they were expensive,

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both because they needed to be imported and because they were not subsidized by the government: In Israel both the local production of foodstuff and its importation from abroad are largely controlled by the government. In such a situation, and in absence of specific planning, it was almost inevitable that the needs of the less influential groups would suffer. Since the officials in charge of production and import were in general Western [that is, European] Jews, it was natural to them to provide for the types of food that are thought to be important in their own culture. It seems quite likely that the idea that people of different cultures may have different needs failed to attract the attention of the officials concerned. As a result, certain types of foods, used largely by oriental Jews, either became unobtainable in Israel or rose in price because they were not included in the official basket.86

The report also dealt with the issue of who were the main agents of change in the transformation of food consumption patterns. One might think that demands for change in the traditional diet might come primarily from fathers, who, working outside the home, had the most regular contacts with people of different ethnic backgrounds. Mothers, in contrast, were the family “gatekeepers,” the last to be influenced by new conditions in the host country, whereas children might influence their parents by refusing to eat certain foods.87 As it turned out, it was the children—influenced by the Israeli educational system—who carried the most weight. They became the primary agents for socialization, bringing Israeli culture into their immigrant family homes.88 When the research was completed, it became clear that the dietary changes had significant psychological ramifications for the immigrants from Iraq. The shortage of certain ingredients and familiar foods and the resulting changes that altered the taste of various dishes—and especially the rapid pace of these changes—spoiled the sense of pleasure in eating and caused immigrants to feel tension and strain.89 These matters are also apparent in the memoirs. Many years after immigrating to Israel, Shoshana Levy asked her mother to compare life in her small but well-equipped home in Israel with her previous life full of hard work in the family’s large house in Baghdad. Her mother’s response astounded her: She answered without hesitation that she felt great happiness in distant Baghdad compared to Israel, and that she truly misses those days. I asked her, “Why? How can that be?” And she answered me simply: “Back then, there was joy in life and joy in creation. We were less dependent on machines and we touched everything with our hands, felt [the food], almost having a dialogue with it, following all the changes until it was cooked. More than that—everything was organized. We had a rich life cycle. What do we have here? Almost everything is prepared, in boxes and bags, everything’s frozen—dead, and almost nothing is fresh.”90

Continuing her explanation, Levy’s mother described the happiness and satisfaction she had experienced in the course of preparing her dishes in Baghdad, and the pleasure of making special preparations for the holidays: “Family gatherings were a time of happiness, and the reward for my labors . . . [was] to see the joy on their faces.” In Israel, she explained, the manner in which the holidays were celebrated had changed; no longer was there a feeling of family intimacy.91 Although this recollection may reflect nostalgia for the “good old days,” it is also an indication of how difficult the first years in Israel must have been for Levy’s mother and others like her.

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In a book titled On the Threshold of Redemption, Batya Shimony defines the transit camp, the site where most of the Iraqi immigrants resided during their first years in Israel, as a “liminal space.”92 This concept is borrowed from the field of anthropological research, which delineates three stages in rites of passage: the detachment stage, during which people detach themselves from their familiar place in the social structure; the liminal stage, in which they are in an in-between (threshold) condition, no longer belonging to the previous place but not yet belonging to the new one; and the socialization stage, in which they have made the changes required of them and are now located in their new place within the social system. A person located in the liminal stage does not yet have a defined social status.93 There is always liminality in the immigration experience, the condition of being “betwixt and between.”94 In the case of immigrants to Israel, leaving the liminal stage may lead to redemption; that is, the immigrant sheds his old identity, transforms culturally, ideologically, and socially, and joins the Zionist community as a full-fledged member. The other option is to remain stuck in the liminal stage, belonging neither to the society left behind nor to the new society.95 During their first ten years in Israel, most of the Iraqi Jews remained in this state. Their lifestyle and standard of living in Iraq were a matter of the past, whereas they had only just begun to integrate into Israeli society. This was also true in regard to their cookery. The broad spectrum of possibilities of the Iraqi cuisine had dissipated, while the culinary offerings of Israel were meager. At the same time, far off on the horizon, the “option of redemption” was becoming visible. It began with the location of substitute foods, the use of new ingredients and the adoption of new cooking methods. This transformation was directly related both to the immigrants’ length of residence in Israel and to the improvement in Israel’s economic situation in the mid-1950s and 1960s, and the process was accelerated as the younger generation came of age. Other factors contributing to the abandonment of Iraqi cookery have to do with the retention of knowledge in the hands of the mother. Traditionally, as has been seen, the mother’s knowledge and expertise were passed along to her daughters-in-law. But with the geographical scattering of families, many young married women no longer lived in proximity to their mothers or mothers-in-law, and they often picked up their cooking skills from women in the neighborhood.96 This phenomenon was particularly pronounced in the kitchens of young women who had married non-Iraqi men, especially those who had married Ashkenazim.97 It was not difficult for them to adopt the recipes of other Jewish ethnic groups, since these did not deviate from the laws of kashrut. Transformations in education and employment also had an impact on second-­ generation immigrant women and the food they cooked. Second-generation women generally had more formal education than their mothers and were more likely to work outside the home (particularly in “feminine” jobs such as secretarial work or teaching). This, in turn, led them to seek quicker and easier cooking methods than those of the traditional Iraqi kitchen. By the 1960s, food standardization had begun in Israel, with more packaged and canned foods available. Working women took advantage of these cooking short-cuts, so that even when the Israeli economy improved and the standard of living of Iraqi immigrants rose, the numbers of those who continued to cook according to the tradition continued to dwindle. The most interesting phenomenon concerns the use of ground rice in the preparation of kubba, the most common Iraqi dish. During the austerity period, semolina was adopted as a substitute.

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Even when rice became readily available, semolina continued to be used, to the extent that it is today associated with “authentic” Iraqi kubba.98 Among first-generation immigrants, there was more continuity. Once the economy improved, and particularly once staples such as rice became more readily available, women were more likely to revert to traditional recipes. In contrast, most of the younger generation adopted standard Israeli food. This divergent trend is supported by the findings of two research studies done thirty years apart. In the study conducted in 1958, two thirds of the new immigrants from Iraq were found to prefer cooking the traditional foods, despite the food shortages at that time.99 In research done in the late 1980s, it was found that 71.9 percent of those who came to Israel as adults had continued to cook Iraqi cuisine, as opposed to only 19.5 percent of their children.100 Today, the first-generation immigrants are grandmothers who make Iraqi dishes for their extended families (including non-Iraqi spouses) in honor of the Sabbath, holidays and special occasions, or just to pamper their grandchildren. This indicates that, even today, Iraqi food is a significant component in the identity of Israeli Jews hailing from Iraq, and continues to serve as a source of pride and gratification. At the same time, the wide-scale abandonment of Iraqi cookery may be explained by the prevalence of “symbolic ethnicity,”101 whereby descendants of Iraqi immigrants retain only those customs that are not overly demanding or time-consuming.

Conclusion Any migration, even in conditions of relative comfort, can be traumatic. We cannot fathom the full implications of that trauma without studying the daily lives of immigrants, investigating what has changed in them and how those changes may have affected their personal identity, their self-perception, and their general state of mind. The study of food is one of the areas allowing us to penetrate the individual realm, gaining access to people’s emotions. Ironically, as noted by Knut Oyangen, there is no correlation between the significance of food for immigrants and the attention that historians of immigration have given to the subject.102 According to the official state narrative, immigrants from Muslim countries benefited both culturally and economically when they relocated to Israel—leaving behind poverty and backwardness for new lives of modernity and progress. Yet in the case of Iraqi Jewry, migration was prompted by political, not economic, reasons; most of the immigrants suffered a drastic reduction in standard of living when they reached Israel. Moreover, it has become clear that the prevalent assumption that traditional foods of Jews from Muslim countries were not rejected in Israel does not withstand the test of reality. In part, this was due to economic hardship and shortages. In addition, however, there was an attempt on the part of the Israeli educational system to transform what were perceived to be “primitive” eastern eating habits. As such, the difficulty in maintaining traditional Iraqi cookery was not only the outcome of economic circumstances but also of cultural perspective. In retrospect, it seems clear that this situation could have been avoided. The traditional Iraqi diet was both healthy and varied, and when the Israeli economy began to recover in the mid-1950s, most of its constituent ingredients, with the exception of rice, could easily be produced in Israel’s climate. A more thoughtful and balanced plan for imports might have increased the accessibility

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of foods amenable to Iraqi Jews (and to Jews from other countries), thus somewhat easing their adjustment process. The shortage of basic commodities used in Iraqi cuisine was the result of a lack of understanding, or perhaps a lack of concern and cultural arrogance, on the part of those who determined import policies. In time, economic conditions improved, and many Iraqis returned to cooking their traditional food. By this time, their children were already inclined to give it up. Iraqi cuisine was no longer a significant element in their identity, and they did not fight for its continued existence. As with other second-generation Israelis, they preferred to eat standard food that was easier and faster to prepare. At the same time, Iraqi food remained a nostalgic topic, representing all that had been good in Jewish family life in Iraq: familiarity, solidarity, and joie de vivre. Food became the symbol of a good life with old values—all that had existed before the trauma of leaving and becoming refugees. In a sense, it encompassed “forbidden” memories, as in Israel there was no place for longing for Baghdad. Yet one was still allowed to miss the aromas of the Jewish cuisine in Baghdad. These longings did not negate the Zionist ethos.

Notes 1. See Claudia Roden, The Book of Middle Eastern Food (London: 1997), 363–365. 2. Eli Amir, Mafriaḥ hayonim (Tel Aviv: 1992), 117, 124–126. Describing the life of the young, loving couple, Rachelle and Hezkel, Amir notes that their love is intermingled with the tastes and aromas of all types of foods. He describes breakfast: “Milk from a cow milked that morning with white foam bubbling on it, a very soft-boiled egg, date honey in homemade teḥ ina [sesame paste] and a dry, hard Georgian pita that Abu Salah prepared especially for us.” Rachelle goes out to wander about town, “to pick up the smells of the marketplace, to see people, to eat zingula [sweet pastries], to taste a sweet from one of the stands.” In the evening, the two of them ride a carriage around the city and end up at the casino, where they eat “ice cream and cold cake for her, dutch beer and shami [Syrian] pistachios for him.” 3. Shlomo Hillel, Operation Babylon (New York: 1989); Sasson Somekh, Baghdad etmol (Tel Aviv: 2004), 32. 4. See Somekh, Baghdad etmol, 82. 5. Interview with Clara Vider (17 September 2011). 6. Claudia Roden, “Jewish Food in the Middle East,” in Culinary Cultures in the Middle East, ed. Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper (London: 1994), 154–155. 7. Yitshak Bar Mosheh, Bayit beBaghdad (Jerusalem: 1982), 173. 8. Michael Owen Jones, “Food Choice, Symbolism and Identity: Bread-and-Butter Issues for Folklorists and Nutrition Studies,” Journal of American Folklore 120, no. 476 (Spring 2007), 133. 9. Raymond Firth, Symbols: Public and Private (Ithaca: 1973), cited in ibid. 10. Bonnie G. Smith (ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, vol. 2 (Oxford: 2008), 318. 11. On the transformations in the status of women in Iraq, see Nilly Gabbay, Haishah hayehudiyah bebaghdad: tahalikhei shinuy bema’amadah haḥ evrati bemaḥ atzit harishonah shel hameah ha’esrim (Jerusalem: 2006); Shaul Sehayek, “Temurot bema’amad hayehudiyot be’irak,” Pa’amim 36 (1988); Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, Zionism in an Arab Country: Jews in Iraq in the 1940s (London: 2004), 116–133. 12. On modern education in the Jewish community in Iraq, see Maurice Sawdayee, “The Impact of Western European Education on the Jewish Millet of Baghdad: 1860–1950” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1976); Nissim Rejwan, The Jews of Iraq: 3000 Years of History and Culture (Boulder: 1985); Yosef Meir, Hitpatḥ ut ḥ evratit-tarbutit shel yehudei ’irak meaz 1930 ve’ad yameinu (Tel Aviv: 1989).

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13. Naomi Kashi-Nissim, “Me’irak leyisrael: pirkei yoman vezikhronot” (unpublished ms., cited with the author’s permission). 14. Gabbay, Haishah hayehudiyah beBaghdad, 135. 15. When the other daughter-in-law arrived in Israel, she was obliged to cook for members of her family (Vider interview, 17 September 2011). 16. A summary of the woman’s various duties may be found in Sehayek, “Temurot bema’amad hayehudiyot be’irak,” 69–71. 17. R. Yosef Hayim, Ḥ ukat hanashim, trans. R. Benzion Mutzafi (Jerusalem: 1979), 40. 18. Ibid., 114. 19. Ibid., 51. 20. Vider, for instance, reported that, at the end of the 1940s, they did not use a fork in her home (Vider interview, 17 September 2011). 21. R. Yosef Hayim, Ḥ ukat hanashim, 40. 22. Ibid., 114. 23. Ibid., 79. 24. Ibid., 94–95, 100. 25. Roden, “Jewish Food in the Middle East,” 155. 26. Avraham Zilkha, “By the Rivers of Babylon (Psalm 137),” in Remembering Childhood in the Middle East, ed. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea (Austin: 2002), 120–126. See also Shoshana Levy, ’Al em haderekh (Tel Aviv: 2001), 52–57. The special Passover crockery was mentioned in conversations and interviews held with many Iraqi immigrants. 27. Susan Starr Sered, “Food and Holiness: Cooking as a Sacred Act among MiddleEastern Jewish Women,” Anthropological Quarterly 61, no. 3 (July 1988), 129–139. 28. Vider interview (17 September 2011). 29. Rabbi David Sasson, Masa’ bavel (Jerusalem: 1955), 175–176. 30. Vider interview (17 September 2011). 31. Gideon Golany, Babylonian Jewish Neighborhood and Home Design (Lewiston: 1999). 32. Rice was a necessary staple at every meal. See Sami Zubaida, “Rice in the Culinary Cultures of the Middle East,” in idem and and Richard Tapper (eds.), Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (London: 1994), 93–104. 33. Daniel Valdenstein, “About the Image of East-European Immigrants in Israel,” Haḥinukh (1953), 135. 34. Depending on region, the dish is also known as kibbeh or kubbeh. 35. Badri Patel, Ḥ alomot beTatran, Baghdad (Jerusalem: 2005), 31. 36. Vider interview (17 September 2011). 37. Yerahmiel Asa, “Beaḥat megaluyot yisrael,” Mibifnim 13, no. 4 (1949), 632. 38. Sehayek, “Temurot bema’amad hayehudiyot be’irak,” 76. 39. Roden, The Book of Middle Eastern Food, 340. Levy also attests to the existence of a regular weekly menu and claims that the experiences of cooking in Baghdad were shared by all the Jewish families: A person walking around near the homes of the Jews on the Thursday of any week will smell the same smells and immediately know that everyone is cooking and eating the same dish—kedjeree [kichree], made of rice and lentils and seasoned with butter, garlic, and cumin. This was a fixed custom, the origin of which nobody knows. Without exception, all the Jews ate kedjeree on Thursdays, rich and poor—everyone. On Fridays, in the late morning hours, all the Jewish homes sounded the taps of the copper pestle, and you knew they were making kubba. (The pestle was being used to pulverize the meat and rice grains in preparation for making the dumplings.) On other days of the week, they ate meat meals or sometimes also fish. See Levy, ’Al em haderekh, 51; Patel, Ḥ alomot beTatran, Baghdad, 31. Vider talks about meals of lamb on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, fish on Mondays, fish and kichree on Thursdays, and chicken on the Sabbath (Vider interview, 17 September 2011). 40. For instance, Vider told me about her old grandmother, who, no longer able to cook, would sit in the center of the courtyard dishing out cooking orders to her daughters-in-law and granddaughters (Vider interview, 25 September 2011).

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41. Of the 10,000 Jews who remained in Iraq, another 5,000 emigrated to countries other than Israel in the course of the following few years. All but a handful of the remainder left between 1970–1971. 42. See Meir-Glitzenstein, Zionism in an Arab Country, 239–259. 43. On March 10, 1951, the Iraqi government froze the property of those registered to leave for Israel. Regarding the value of this property, see Itamar Levin, Sheki’ah bamizraḥ : ḥisul hakehilot hayehudiyot bimdinot ’arav veshod rekhushan (Tel Aviv: 2001). 44. The circumstances of their departure correspond to the U.N. treaty of 1951, which defined a “refugee” as someone who owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear,is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who,not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. (Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, online at unhcr.org/pages/49 da0e466.html [p. 16] [accessed 1 September 2013].) See also Adi Schwartz, “A Tragedy Shrouded in Silence: The Destruction of the Arab World’s Jewry,” Azure 45 (Spring 2011), 52 (n. 63). 45. Mary Antin, The Promised Land (Boston: 1912). 46. Donna R. Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of the Americas (Cambridge, Mass: 1998), 36. 47. Levy, ’Al em haderekh, 72; Victor Muallem-Dror, Bintivei haḥ ayim: zikhronot veairu’im sheeinam nishkaḥim (Or Yehudah: n.d.), 39. 48. On Sha’ar Ha’aliyah, see Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, Bein Baghdad leRamat Gan: yotzei iraq beyisrael (Jerusalem: 2000), 107–110; Nadav Davidovich and Shifra Shvarts, “Health and Hegemony: Preventive Medicine, Immigrants, and the Israeli Melting Pot,” Israel Studies 9, no. 2 (2004), 150–179. 49. Avraham Kehila, Hayinu keḥ olmim: autobiografiyah (Jerusalem: 2007), 112. 50. Muallem-Dror, Bintivei haḥayim, 38. Apparently, there was later a change in the components of the meal. Yehezkel Haba, who arrived in Israel in June 1952, after being released from an Iraqi prison, received a more “Israeli” meal of bread, margarine, half an egg and a slice of tomato. Yehezkel Haba, Halokh lelo ḥ azor: sipuro shel asir tziyon (Ramle: 2002), 140–141. 51. Yaffa Ben Menashe, Dumiyah vesa’ar (Tel Aviv: 2000), 46. 52. Levy, ’Al em haderekh, 72; Muallem-Dror, Bintivei haḥayim, 68. 53. Patel, Ḥ alomot beTatran, Baghdad, 107. 54. Knut Oyangen, “The Gastrodynamics of Displacement: Place-Making and Gustatory Identity in the Immigrants’ Midwest,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 39, no. 3 (2009), 329–335. 55. Eli Amir, Scapegoat (London: 1987), 50. 56. Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat, 62. 57. Dan Giladi, Mitzena’ litzmiḥah kalkalit (Tel Aviv: 2002), 14. 58. See details of this policy in David Ben-Gurion’s speech given before the Knesset, in Eli Shaltiel, David Ben-Gurion: rosh hamemshalah harishon: mivḥar te’udot (1947–1963) (Jerusalem: 1996), 193; and in David Ben-Gurion, Ḥ azon vederekh, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: 1951), 67. See also Orit Rozin, “Craving Meat during Israel’s Austerity Period, 1947–1953,” in this volume. 59. Liora Gvion, “Ḥ umus-kuskus-sushi: okhel veetniyut baḥevrah hayisreelit,” in Beten meleah: mabat aḥer ’al okhel veḥevrah, ed. Aviad Kleinberg (Jerusalem: 2005), 46–49. 60. Orit Rozin, “Leben o lebeniyah: ’al mazon, nashiyut uvinyan haumah bimei hatzen’a,” in ibid., 162. 61. Ibid., 157–158. 62. Orit Rozin, Ḥ ovat haahavah hakashah: yaḥ id vekolektiv beyisrael bishnot haḥ amishim (Tel Aviv: 2008), 25–35. 63. Gvion, “Ḥ umus-kuskus-sushi,” 47–48. 64. Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat, 48.

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65. Gvion, “Ḥ umus-kuskus-sushi,” 48. 66. Ibid., 47–50. 67. Conversation with Sasson Hakham (11 September 2011). 68. Vider interview (25 September 2011). 69. Gvion, “Ḥ umus-kuskus-sushi,” 47. 70. Vider interview (17 September 2011). 71. Ben Menashe, Dumiyah vesa’ar, 57, 67, 71. 72. Levy, ’Al em haderekh, 85; Eli Amir, Scapegoat (London: 1987), 101, 212. 73. Shimon Ballas, Hama’abarah (Tel Aviv: 1964), 28. 74. On the damage to their status, see Meir-Glitzenstein, Bein Baghdad leRamat Gan, 128–147; recollections of shortages, especially during 1950–1952, were provided by Vider (17 Sept. 2011) and Dorit Hakham (2 October 2011). 75. The theme of loss of status of the father appears in a number of novels written by Iraqi immigrants, among them Ballas, Hama’abarah; Amir, The Scapegoat; and Sami Michael, Shavim veshavim yoter (Tel Aviv: 1974). In one scene in Hama’abarah, the daughter blows up at her father: “I told him that he was stealing our margarine rations . . . to buy himself drinks; that most of the money I hand over to him he spends on himself, bringing home only bread and vegetables. . . . Poor Dad, he listens and stays silent. . . . He begins to shake” (p. 21). 76. See Ballas, Hama’abarah, 52: “In Iraq, we sat among ministers, senators, and sheikhs. . . .  Here—who knows us? I’ve become one of these common people.” 77. On health matters, see Davidovich and Shvarts, “Health and Hegemony,” 150–179; Sahlav Stoller-Liss, “ ‘Mothers Birth the Nation’: The Social Construction of Zionist Motherhood in Wartime in Israeli Parents’ Manuals,” Nashim 6 (Fall 2003), 104–118. 78. On propaganda for drinking milk and eating dairy products, see Mor Dvorkin, “Mif’alei hahazanah haḥinukhit bishnot ha’aliyah hagedolah: mekorot umeafyenim” (seminar paper, Ben-Gurion University, 2010). 79. Roden, “Jewish Food in the Middle East,” 154. 80. See Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, “Here We Eat with a Knife and a Fork: East and West in Intercultural Contact in Israel,” in Society and Economy in Israel: Historical and Current Perspectives, ed. Avi Bareli, Daniel Gotwein, and Tuvia Friling (Jerusalem: 2005), 615–644. 81. Dafna Hirsch, “Banu henah lehavi et hama’arav: hasiaḥ hahigiyeni beeretz yisrael bitkufat hamandat habriti,” Zemanim 78 (2002), 107–120; Orit Rozin, “Tenaim shel selidah: higyenah vehorut shel ’olim mearatzot haislam be’eynei vatikim bishnot haḥamishim,” ’Iyunim bitkumat yisrael 12 (2002), 195–238. 82. Israel Institute of Applied Social Research and the Department of Preventive Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem-Hadassah Medical School, Changes in Food Habits in the Yemenite and Iraqi Communities in Israel (Jerusalem: 1958), 4. 83. Ibid., 31. 84. Ibid., 31–36. In the end, the lafa, or Iraqi pita (a large flat pita, without a pocket) survived on the Israeli street, and it is today a standard item in restaurants offering home-style Mizrahi cooking. None of the Iraqi dishes became popular standards, but there are restaurants, especially in the central region, that serve Iraqi cuisine. One example is the sabiḥ , consisting of a hard-boiled egg and fried eggplant wrapped in an Iraqi pita. 85. Roden, “Jewish Food in the Middle East,” 154. 86. Changes in Food Habits in the Yemenite and Iraqi Communities in Israel, 5–6. 87. William Alex McIntosh and Mary Zey, “Women as Gatekeepers of Food Consumption: A Sociological Critique,” in Food and Gender: Identity and Power, ed. Carole M. Counihan and Steven I. Kaplan (Amsterdam: 1998), 128–129. 88. On the influence exerted by the educational system, see Ofra Tene, “ ‘Kaḥ nevashel’ bayit beyisrael: keriah besifrei bishul mishnot hasheloshim ’ad shenot hashemonim,” in Kleinberg (ed.), Beten meleah, 92–103; Tali Tadmor-Shimony and Nirit Reichel, “Social Education of Immigrants as a National Socialization Agent in the State of Israel,” International Journal of Jewish Education Research 3 (July 2011), 65–89. On the role of the school in fash-

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ioning a national identity see Tali Tadmor-Shimony, Shi’ur moledet: ḥinukh leumi vekinun medinah 1954–1966 (Sdeh Boker: 2010), 1–12. 89. Changes in Food Habits in the Yemenite and Iraqi Communities in Israel, 7, 11. 90. Levy, ’Al em haderekh, 50. 91. Ibid., 52. 92. Batya Shimony, ’Al saf hageulah: sipur hama’abarah—dor rishon vesheni (Or Yehuda: 2008). 93. Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Periods in Rites de Passage,” in Magic, Witchcraft and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural, ed. Arthur C. Lehmann, James Mayer, and Pamela A. Moro, 6th ed. (New York: 2005), 95–105. 94. Batya Shimony, “Sipur hama’abarah: bein hakol hashalit lekol haḥatrani” (Ph.D. diss., Ben-Gurion University, 2004), 78–81. 95. Ibid., 139–141. 96. Vider interview (17 Sept. 2011). See also Penina Morag-Talmon, “Reshatot nashim: reiyah ḥadashah shel meḥkarei kelitah shena’asu beyisrael bereishit shenot haḥamishim,” in Nashim mehagerot beyisrael, ed. Penina Morag-Talmon and Yael Atzmon (Jerusalem: 2013). 97. Among first-generation Iraqi immigrants, about 7 percent married Ashkenazim; by the third generation, 34 percent of marriages involved an Ashkenazi spouse. See Meir-Glitzenstein, Bein Baghdad leRamat Gan, 182. 98. In fact, Iraqi cookbooks published in Israel after the 1970s recommend the use of semolina as if it were an original ingredient in these dishes, indicating that the authors are unaware of the change. 99. Changes in Food Habits in the Yemenite and Iraqi Communities in Israel, 13. 100. This research was conducted in 1986–1987 and included hundreds of families of Iraqi immigrants. See Tova Bensky, “Hishtalvutam hatarbutit, haḥevratit vehapolitit shel yotzei ’irak,” in Yehudei ’irak beyisrael baḥ evrah uvekalkalah, ed. Tova Benski et al. (Ramat Gan: 1991), 233. 101. Herbert J. Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Group Cultures in America,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 2, no. 1 (1979), 1–20. 102. Oyangen, “The Gastrodynamics of Displacement,” 325.

Cutting into the Flesh of the Community: Ritual Slaughter, Meat Consumption, and the Transition from Ethiopia to Israel Hagar Salamon (The Hebrew University)

Food preparation and consumption are charged loci of symbolism and interpretation. By connecting the physical and the conceptual, food issues most powerfully repre­ sent the ability of a culture to channel senses and emotions into complex and power­ ful worldviews. The values and social prescriptions conveyed through food (including what is allowed and what is forbidden) are both expressions of identity and markers of inclusion and exclusion. Food and eating are patently physical, but they also in­ volve complex processes of assimilation and ownership and in this sense have the potential of linking between the private and the social body.1 The natural appear­ ance of physical practices is belied in the connections between food-related processes and the dynamics of cultural preservation and innovation they entail. Moreover, food signifies transitions on both the chronological and the spatial axes between hunger and satiety, day and night, sacred and mundane, domestic and public, past and present.2 In my attempt to better understand the dramatic passage of the Beta Israel (known in the past as Falashas and now Ethiopian Jews) to Israel, I often turn to their stories, which travel between Ethiopia and Israel.3 Central to their stories is meat. Meat stands at the center of the community’s preoccupation with food, as it engages in dia­logue with other components of the meal as well as with the meat consumed by other groups.4 Countless times have I heard the sentence: “We would eat together— everything, except for meat,” from Ethiopian Jews speaking about their lives among neighboring religious groups in Ethiopia. Indeed, meat consumption functions as a fundamental—and charged—delineation of inclusion and exclusion for the Beta Israel both in Ethiopia and, subsequently, in their post-immigration lives in Israel. This essay is based on a long-term field study conducted among Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel. The sections relating to life in Ethiopia are based on in-depth, ethno-historical interviews, whereas those pertaining to the post-immigration period are based on interviews and observations conducted in Israel, as well as on the in­ ternal community discourse taking place in public electronic forums. In these two cultural contexts, the Ethiopian and the Israeli, the consumption of meat stands out 110

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clearly at the center of the groups’ communal and ritual life, establishing and delin­ eating the relations between man and God as transposed onto earthly relations. With the passage from Ethiopia to Israel, practices that once designated lines of separation between religious groups now came to mark divisions within a single religion, Judaism, and even within the Ethiopian Jewish community. Similarities and differences be­ tween groups will be analyzed in light of the events described. Finally, an attempt will be made to connect the ethnography of Ethiopian Jewry’s food consumption to broader issues related to meat as a signifier of deep social and cosmological under­ standings.

Eating Customs and Meat Consumption in Ethiopia In Ethiopia, the Beta Israel lived in the northwestern part of the country, in some five hundred small villages spread across a region inhabited by Amharic- and Tigrinnyaspeaking populations. Their physical appearance was not different from that of their non-Jewish neighbors. They spoke the same languages and had a similar daily life­ style. Some of the villages were entirely Jewish, but in most cases the Jews consti­ tuted a religious and occupational minority within villages whose majority populations were mainly Christian and Muslim. Relations between the Jews and their neighbors were characterized by ambivalence.5 Their distinctive religion, based on the Torah (whose commandments they strictly observed),6 delineated clear borders between them and the neighboring groups. Thus, within the lines of similarity, borders were marked—concrete and obvious in certain realms, subtle and symbolic in others. Similarities and differences alike were manifested in the eating customs of the Beta Israel. In common with members of other religious groups (all of whom lived in a traditional agricultural society), their diet was based on local produce. Staples in­ cluded teff, a distinctive grain in Ethiopia that was (and is still) used for the prepara­ tion of injera, a flat, spongy, and sour pancake-like bread that was served accompanied by different stews (watt) made with various legumes and vegetables, honey, coffee, and tea. Two additional favorite drinks in the region were tala, a homemade alcoholic beverage prepared from a mixture of barley, water, and local herbs, and a honey-wine known as taj. Injera was usually eaten as part of a main, communal meal in which several diners shared the food from a table-like tray. According to the traditional hier­ archy governing the meal, the first to eat were the men, followed by women and children. Each person would take a piece of the injera and dip it into the stew, so as to enjoy the commingling of tastes. The traditional eating customs emphasized com­ mensality and sharing among the participants in the meal. Meat consumption was reserved for special occasions such as holidays and lifecycle celebrations. For Shabbat there was special bread, called dabo, instead of the weekday injera, but meat was infrequently served; when it was, it took the form of chicken or (very rarely) goat. The meat was cut into small pieces and cooked in a stew. In contrast to the simplicity of the everyday menu, the eating of meat stood out for its festiveness. In addition, due to the shortage of means of preservation (apart from drying), the slaughtering of an animal followed by the preparation and con­ sumption of meat was usually associated with large gatherings. The most valued

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meat was that of cattle, followed by sheep, goat, and chicken.7 All these kinds of meat were eaten by all neighboring religious groups; pork, however, was not consumed by any of the groups, including Ethiopian Christians.8 While women were responsible for most of the components of the menu, animal slaughter and preparation was re­ served for the men. In accordance with its ritual-religious nature, this took place among all the groups according to strictly observed religious rules. Among the Beta Israel, those charged first and foremost with animal slaughter were the priests (Qesotch),9 followed by married men who were familiar with the laws of ritual slaughter. The person who conducted the slaughtering would receive the head and tongue of the animal, and in cases in which a group of neighbors pooled their means and efforts (a common occurrence), the head and tongue were eaten by all those who participated in the slaughter. The meat of the rest of its body was cut into bite-sized pieces that were later cooked in a meat watt and eaten communally.10 Thus, the entire body of the slaughtered animal marked both distinctions and sharing patterns in the human society that consumed it.11 Another practice in which the division of the slaughtered animal was used to mark social distinctions and cosmological understandings was the distribution of the meat through a lottery, which was practiced whenever the animal was meant to serve a number of separate families. As is still the case among many non-Jewish groups in Ethiopia (and also among some of the Beta Israel in Israel), the meat of the slaugh­ tered animal was divided into small pieces and organized in piles of equal size. A cer­ emonial lottery determined which pile each one of the participants would receive.12 Thus, much commonality existed between all religious groups in the region, as man­ ifested not only by the traditional way of cooking the meat, but also by the basic concepts and distinctions: between meat and the rest of the components of the menu, between men and women, and between the active participants in the slaughter and those who simply partook of the meat, as well as the ritualistic procedure of the lot­ tery. At the same time, meat was a means of separation between the different reli­ gious groups. Its consumption was meticulously confined within the limits of each group, and strict practices of separation were observed. The strictest boundaries set by the Jews in meat consumption were between them and the Christians, their “con­ stitutive other.”13 On the importance of meat in the distinctions between groups in general and in Ethiopia in particular, Frederick J. Simoons writes: The manner in which an animal dies often determines whether its flesh is acceptable. For some peoples the flesh of animals that die a natural death may constitute the bulk of the meat consumed, whereas other groups reject such flesh. . . . Other groups go still further, prohibiting the flesh of all animals not killed according to ritual observances. Most fa­ miliar, perhaps, are the provisions of that sort followed by Orthodox Jews, but ritual obser­ vances are also found among other groups. . . . It was a special problem to us when on mule trip in Ethiopia, for accompanying us were Christians, Moslems, and one Jew (Falasha), and none of these groups would eat the flesh of animals killed by the others.14

In Judeo-Christian tradition, meat is a charged symbol in the relations between believer and God, and therefore also in marking differences between religions. The way in which animals become consumable meat is paved with obligatory differentiating practices,

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which clearly mark the non-transgressible borders between groups. In addition, con­ sumption of meat is required in certain ritual contexts such as weddings and memo­ rial ceremonies among all of the groups in the region.15 These principles held true for the different religious groups living in close prox­ imity in the villages of northwestern Ethiopia. The Beta Israel took pride in their slaughter, which was undertaken meticulously according to the biblical prescriptions governing the covenant between God and the children of Israel. As recounted by many Ethiopian Jews, Jewish slaughter was performed with a razor-sharp knife, making the animal’s passage from life to death as quick and as painless as possible. This was generally described as being opposed to the Christian method of slaughter, which was “too slow” and not in accordance with careful and painstaking rules.16 The following description demonstrates one interviewee’s close familiarity with Christian slaughter practices: But [giving] Jewish meat to a Christian, Christian to a Jew, Christian to a Muslim is for­ bidden. Because it’s souls, right? The Muslims do “bissimallah” [in the name of Allah], right? The Christians do “Basema ab wawald wamanfas qeddus ahadu amlak” [in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit one God], and then slaughter. The Jews say “Baruch yitbarak amlak yisrael” [Blessed is the King (God) of Israel]. That is because the cow was in her life, she had life, birds are the same, a hen was in its life so everyone does his own blessing. . . . In slaughtering there are differences, the Christians, even if they find a cow that is already dead, they would still eat it. If a cow fell down and died they would eat it. Even if it had died before. And also their knife isn’t so good. We have a special knife just for slaughtering.17

When asked how Christians perceived Beta Israel’s slaughtering practices, the re­ sponse was that the Christians regarded the Jews as the progeny of Christ-killers— that is, they carried “in their blood” inherited traits of the murderers of God. In addition, their slaughtering practices were likened to the crucifixion of Christ. Here it should be noted that slaughter among the Beta Israel was performed outside—visible to all— and that the slaughtered animal was then hung on a tree in order to remove its blood. For the Christians, this act evoked Jesus’ crucifixion on a cross of wood. In similar fashion, the Christians believed that the crucifixion was a Jewish Paschal sacrifice, similar to the Beta Israel’s Passover sacrifice. In this sense, a connection is made be­ tween doctrine (the crucifixion of Jesus by the Jews) and practice (the specifics of slaughtering). Each group is revolted by the slaughtering and meat-eating customs of the other. In the Torah, there is an explicit prohibition against eating bloody meat or con­ suming blood in any way: “Therefore I said to the children of Israel, none of you shall eat blood. . . . For the life of all flesh is its blood, on which its life depends: there­ fore I said to the children of Israel, you shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: . . . who­ ever eats it shall be cut off ” (Lev. 17:12–14). The Beta Israel repeatedly expressed their revulsion at the Christian custom of leaving blood in the slaughtered animal and even eating the animal “raw,” that is, still bloody.18 The raw meat, they went on to say, carries many parasites that cause different kinds of diseases from which the Beta Israel are free; they likened the eating of bloody meat by the Christians to a bestial eating.19 Thus the Christians are described by the Beta Israel as “blood eaters” who transgress one of the central edicts of the Torah.

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From Ethiopia to Israel  In Ethiopia, as has been seen, meat was a charged marker of borders between Jews and their Christian neighbors. The immigration of the Beta Israel to Israel resulted in new lines of inclusiveness and divisions; meat, as will be demonstrated, is central in the conceptualization and processing of this complex experience. As already noted, religious belief and strict observance of the Torah’s command­ ments were sufficient to validate the religious identity of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia. In Israel, however, the Beta Israel achieved recognition by the hegemonic Jewish authorities in Israel only in 1973, when Ovadia Yosef, the chief Sephardi rabbi (rely­ ing on a 400-year-old rabbinical ruling), declared that they were among the descen­ dants of the lost tribe of Dan. This ruling opened the gates for Ethiopian Jews, who, in an ongoing series of dramatic and sometimes clandestine operations, immigrated to Israel.20 But their struggle did not end upon their arrival in Israel. There, the rab­ binical establishment, while acknowledging the Judaism of the group as a collective, cast doubt on the Jewishness of each one of its members as individuals, since their status was determined by the priests of the community—the Qesotch—and not ac­ cording to Jewish law (halakhah).21 The religious status of the Ethiopian Jews in Israel underwent changes over the course of time. The first groups of immigrants, arriving in Israel from 1977 up until Operation Moses in 1984–1985, underwent a conversion process (giyur leḥ umrah, referring to conversion performed as a precautionary measure in instances in which a doubt exists about a person’s Jewishness) that included immersion in a mikveh, a declaration of acceptance of rabbinic law, and in the case of men, a symbolic blood­ letting that served as a brit milah. Ethiopian immigrants in this initial period of aliyah, hailing in the main from Tigrinnya-speaking provinces of Ethiopia, did not explicitly oppose this conversion procedure.22 However, in the months following Operation Moses, with the arrival of Amhara immigrants from the mainly Amharic-speaking Gondar province, opposition to such conversions began to grow.23 The situation reached a climax in a month-long demonstration that took place across from the offices of the chief rabbinate in Jerusalem in the fall of 1985. Although a compromise settlement was eventually reached, the personal status of those (mainly Amharas) who did not go through a process of conversion was left halakhically unresolved. For the Beta Israel, the result was an open wound of pain, rage, and vulnerability.24 These emotions found astonishingly apt expression as they were channeled around— and even into—the pot of meat. The main manifestations of the divide marked by meat are those between rabbinical religious authority and traditional (Ethiopian) reli­ gious authority; between young people and their parents; and between Amharas and Tigreans. In what follows, each one of these divides and the web of connections be­ tween them will be examined.

Ethiopian Animal Slaughter in Israel: Challenging the Rabbinate The ongoing and painful struggle against the Israeli rabbinate centered on the rabbin­ ate’s lack of recognition both of individual Ethiopian Jews and of the authority of the Qesotch. The “unconverted” members of the group, the majority of whom had

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emigrated from Amharic-speaking regions in Ethiopia (known within the community as “Amaharim” or “Gondarim”) constituted the majority among the Beta Israel immi­ grants.25 One of the salient responses of the non-converted group was its unwilling­ ness to recognize rabbinate authority and to eat meat that was slaughtered under its supervision.26 Instead, its members continued to carry out slaughtering under the su­ pervision of Qesotch from within the group. In consequence, there came to be a demar­ cation between traditional Beta Israel slaughter and slaughter according to the laws and supervision of the rabbinate, which mirrored the lines of separation that existed between members of different religions in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, meat had constituted a marker of the “true,” “correct” religiosity adhered to by each group; so, too, meat in Israel came to signify the struggle between the “truthfulness” of the Beta Israel’s Jewishness vis-à-vis that which rabbinical Judaism sought to impose on them.27 The division over slaughtering has far-reaching implications for all the sides in­ volved, as the body of an animal whose meat is destined to be eaten turns into an arena of conflict over religious authority. From time to time, the Israeli media carries reports on “Ethiopian animal slaughter,” which is variously described as “a grave phe­ nomenon,” “illegal slaughter,” and “black slaughter.” In one article appearing in a local newspaper in Netanya, for instance, it was reported that . . . hundreds of Ethiopian residents have been endangering their health in consequence of the rabbinate’s refusal to let them slaughter in the slaughterhouse under the supervision of the veterinary service. . . . In Netanya itself, some of the Qesotch have been slaughter­ ing sheep that were purchased from moshavim in the area—all this under cover of dark­ ness and in the groves adjacent to their neighborhoods. Usually the meat is transferred directly to buyers from within the community, but in some of the cases the meat parts are transferred directly to the butcher shops and sold as kosher. . . . Ethiopian residents of the city aren’t interested in the various religious wars taking place: they want to eat their meat as their forefathers did.28

Another article uses similar (and sometimes identical) terminology even as it con­ veys sympathy for the Beta Israel: . . . when [the Beta Israel] immigrated to Israel they asked that the Qesotch [be allowed to] slaughter cattle and fowl in the municipal slaughterhouses, since [most of those in] the community do not customarily buy meat from supermarkets . . . but the chief rabbinate laid down a categorical veto. According to them, in order to conduct a slaughter you have to get authorization from the rabbinate. The Ethiopians, for their part, saw this as arro­ gance and an insult to their tradition. They felt that they were being pushed to the corner and therefore, according to them, they are forced to bypass the law. . . . With regard to black slaughter, the ones responsible for enforcing the law are the munic­ ipal veterinarians. “As far as I am concerned,” says the municipal veterinarian of Netanya, Dr. Louis Horenstein, “I would rather they allow them to slaughter here, in the slaughter­ houses. In my opinion, they definitely have the right, but apparently, halakhically speaking, there is a problem. I tried to talk about this with the religious council, but they were not even willing to listen. This is why there is black slaughter. We explain to the Qesotch that black slaughter is against the law and they are insulted, they think we are racist. They don’t understand that the term ‘black slaughter’ does not refer to their skin color.”29

Another form of rhetoric associates the Ethiopian slaughter with “Muslim” animals (a reference to animals bought from Bedouins in the Negev or from the territories of

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the Palestinian Authority). Of course, such animals, when alive, are not prohibited according to Jewish law. However, in instances in which they are not slaughtered under rabbinic supervision, they are spoken of in terms of being a health hazard. For ex­ ample, a story circulated on a Beta Israel website describes how a member of the com­ munity goes out at night, crosses the border to the territory of the Palestinian Authority, and returns with a sheep, which he then sells to “innocent” citizens in Israel: “ ‘There are rumors that many members of the community don’t feel well and are sick and feel somewhat weak,’ says one of the people in the Department of Agriculture, and it could be that this is a result of the meat they have been eating.”30 In addition to the traditional slaughter taking place within the community, several butcher shops that practice “Ethiopian slaughter” have opened in recent years. This phenomenon has forged an alliance between traditional slaughter and modern tech­ nological marketing means, literally bringing Ethiopian slaughter out from the back­ yards and into the general public arena. In an article appearing in Haaretz titled “The Way to Religious Independence Goes through Separate Slaughter,” Iyanho Farade Sanbatu argued that such butcher shops represented a further stage in the separation of the Qesotch from the Orthodox rabbinate, which could eventually lead to the estab­ lishment of an independent religious arm that did not rely on the institutions of the state.31 However, in the meantime, the struggle for authority between Ethiopian Jews and the chief rabbinate is exacting a high price within the Ethiopian Israeli commu­ nity, which is presently split between the two groups of religious authorities.

Between Young People and Their Parents: Cutting into the Flesh of the Family The centrality of meat in marking lines of separation within the Ethiopian commu­ nity casts a shadow on the relations between generations. The critical confrontation vis-à-vis the rabbinate is in many cases embodied in the relationship between parents and children, the latter of whom, having been educated in religious establishments, avoid eating meat at their parents’ homes. In an article about the intergenerational crisis among Ethiopian immigrants in Israel, Yaakov Gunchel, a lawyer and member of the community, aptly describes this split: The delegitimization of the tradition and religious customs of the parents brings the war over religious legitimacy into their homes. Many of these young people refrain from eating at their homes because of the strictures of halakhah, which for them are unbendable. The separation of dishes is taken for granted in the homes of Orthodox Jews. In Ethiopia no such separation was customary. And indeed, such a separation of dishes is a latter-day, pro-forma act. The Torah’s explicit prohibition is on cooking meat and milk together in the same pot,32 so certainly having two sinks is not the essence of the law. The parents are severely hurt and even see these strictures as forbidden according to the Torah, since the Torah prohibited the addition or detraction of anything from it—“Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it” (Deut. 4:2). The young people are also not willing to eat meat that has been slaughtered by the qesim without the authority of the rabbinate. Furthermore, the parents are convinced that their children are erring in the ob­ servance of the commandments; they see it as a revolt against the religious authority that guided them until not long ago and as a rejection of the tradition of the forefathers. . . . Young

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people who feel trapped between two worlds, and do not want to harm either one of them, find roundabout ways of dealing with the situation. Some of them suddenly declare that they are vegetarians in order to avoid direct confrontation with the issue of traditional slaughter. . . . The scope of the familial and social damage widens and will ultimately lead to the complete collapse of the strongest institution among Ethiopian Jewry, the institu­ tion of the family.33

A lengthy responsum titled Until Dawn: Ethiopian Jews in the State of Israel, Issues from a Religious Perspective34 (published by Or Etzion, a religious Zionist institu­ tion) calls for unity among all Jewish communities under the observance of rabbin­ ical religious law. This, it is argued, “will put an end once and for all to all arguments and disagreements.”35 Much of the book’s emphasis is on halakhic issues, with much attention given to Jewish dietary laws—in particular, those aspects of the law that deal with ritual slaughter and meat consumption. In the chapters titled “Keeping Kosher” and “Keeping Kosher in the Home of One Who is Not Knowledgeable in Jewish Law,” it is noted that “[t]here are things that may not actually be kosher—for ex­ ample, the meat can be problematic, as well as anything that was cooked or heated in non-kosher utensils. In these cases, as painful as it may be, it is preferable not to eat these things.”36 In “Keeping Kosher and the Generation Gap,” there is a query on the part of a young woman about kosher meat, which “is recognized as a severe problem within the community.”37 The rest of that chapter details the differences in slaughter and eating of meat and stresses the importance of observing standard rules.38 Similarly, in the chapters titled “Qes Asheto and His Ruling on Kashrut in the Land of Israel” and “A Clarification of Some of the Laws of Kashrut and Their Observance Today in the Community,” meat is by far the main focus of discussion.39 In Ethiopia, religious observance was above all the responsibility of the older gen­ eration; in general, young people were less meticulous in their observance. It was sometimes the case that young people studying in post-secondary institutions outside of the village even transgressed some of the laws regarding strict separation from non-Jews in meat-eating, a matter that had to be dealt with upon their return to the village.40 In Israel, the situation is reversed: it is the young people studying in Orthodox religious institutions who teach their parents about meat. Thus, the meat “fault line” continues to shift, with the consumption of meat lying at the center of a painful split between young people and their parents in the Ethiopian immigrant community in Israel.

Meat and Intra-Community Divisions: Cutting into the Flesh of the Community Another surprising and meaning-charged manifestation of the divisions over meat is the separation within the community between “converted” and “non-converted,” namely, the split between “Tigrim” and “Amaharim,” as the two language groups are popularly known.41 With regard to disputes concerning animal slaughter and meat consumption, both in practice and in worldview, one interviewee recounted: Meat is a story. It’s a real story. Because we, the Tigrim, came before the Amaharim, and then we were taken to the mikveh. And we didn’t know it was in order to convert us, we

118Hagar Salamon just thought it was the mikveh. Then two weeks later they informed us that we were con­ verted. We just thought that we would go swimming in a swimming pool, just to have fun. All of a sudden they give us a certificate that we’d been converted and that now we are true Jews, certified kosher [she laughs sheepishly]. So that was it. We ignored it, we said “well, it’s not so bad” . . . but then along came the Amaharim and they were stronger and they [the authorities] said to them also, come like a herd of sheep to immersion [in the mikveh]. So they didn’t want to. They didn’t want to, and so there were some demonstra­ tions but still it stayed that way. So now, the whole community is fighting [against each other] . . . , now they are making separations in the food. Some of the honor of the Amhara qesim was hurt; they said that their honor was dam­ aged because in Ethiopia they alone could slaughter the meat and perform marriages, so why should they be rejected here? So the Amaharim here continue to slaughter their own meat and prepare it for themselves, while we go to the butcher: either an Israeli butcher or an Ethiopian butcher with authorization from the rabbinate.42

Another powerful expression of the wider implication of this division over the “sep­ aration of meat” can be found in the connection between the meat consumed, the one who consumes it, and the collective body that he or she wishes to belong to. One Tigrean woman declared: “I say that those who don’t eat meat [that was slaughtered under the supervision of the rabbinate] should not be given [anything],” as opposed to those who do eat meat approved by the rabbinate. And in the interview cited above, my respondent elaborated She, my aunt, for example, bought a cow, you see? So a rabbi slaughtered the cow, an Israeli rabbi [that is, not Ethiopian]. We go to the Israeli rabbi. So they [the Amaharim] don’t want from the Israeli rabbi. They want to slaughter on their own. The Amharotch from their Amharotch,43 they want him to do the slaughtering for them. So they went and slaughtered a cow and my aunt’s husband brought them 200 shekels’ worth of their meat for the party. He bought 200 shekels’ worth of their meat. Already slaughtered, and then when they come, you prepare it and give it to them. So he prepared separate pots of this meat and separate pots of the other meat.44

According to these testimonies, meat—its slaughter and its consumption—have come to signify a split within the community, such that it is seen as “a story, a real story.” The act of conversion (both through the mikveh and through the symbolic blood­ letting among males) made flesh the focus of meaning, both in concrete and in symbolic fashion. The flesh of the Tigreans was marked by their submission to the rabbinate, with all the humiliation this entailed. Their transformation into “kosher Jews” goes through a sublimation (with certain cannibalistic overtones) both in their own atti­ tude and in that of the Amhara vis-à-vis the meat consumed and the charged act of its slaughter—whereas the Tigreans now refuse to eat meat that has not been slaughtered by rabbinate-authorized butchers, the Amhara boycott the “kosher” Tigrean meat. The expressions “certified kosher” and “like a herd of sheep to immersion [in the mikveh]” add another layer of symbolization to the narrative of the intra-community divide and its connection with the slaughter and consumption of meat. The point of no return that the unwitting submersion marked on their body, invisibly but indelibly, turns it into an act of violation that seared the “certified kosher” stamp on the flesh of each and every one of them. In these and other interviews, the connection between slaughter and eating of meat, and between conversion and the two-fold split that it

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engendered, recurred time and again. It is painfully clear that the schism in religious authority between the Qesotch and the rabbinate exacts a high price on the unity of the Ethiopian Israeli community.

The Social and Cosmological Facets of Sacrifice While in Ethiopia, and in keeping with biblical traditions, the Beta Israel offered sacri­ fices as a means of personal or community penance or commemoration: a burnt sacrifice, a sin offering, and a Passover sacrifice.45 The Beta Israel also observed the practice of purification by means of the ashes of a red heifer, in particular in purification rites surrounding the dead.46 Among the Beta Israel, for whom the custom of sacrifice rituals was common, the linking perception of eating meat and sacrifice was not lim­ ited to sacrificial rites. In fact, the concept of sacrifice, offering, and repentance existed in a variety of manifestations having to do with the slaughter and consumption of meat. In Animal to Edible, her study of abattoirs in southwest France, Noelie Vialles points out the great difficulty of transforming an animal into food and the tendency for this to take place in isolated, invisible spaces.47 In contrast, as has been noted, animal slaughter in Ethiopia takes place in open spaces, generally in the context of a ritual gathering of a group of men. The visibility of this transformation of a living creature into a tasty and festive dish raises theological and philosophical questions regarding the system of connections and boundaries between life and death/death and life; the complex mutual relations between God and his believers, and those between God, human beings, and animals. As part of her ongoing exploration of biblical paradigms of binding, possession, and freeing, Gillian Feeley-Harnik offers a new perspective on the transformative connection between God and food: binding and freeing, she notes, appear in the formative scenes of the covenant between God and his believers, as in the central examples of the “binding” of Isaac and the binding of Jesus to the cross.48 A look through this paradigm redirects our gaze to the complex cosmological praxis in the lives of the Beta Israel both in Ethiopia and in Israel—in particular, the way in which the meat lottery (which is still carried out by many Ethiopian Jews in Israel) reflects a perception of the animal as a victim chosen to nourish those who partake of its flesh. This perception entails—if only by implication—another transformation based on the metaphoric logic of repentance or sympathetic magic, which takes place be­ tween the individual and the meat.49 The bound animal that is about to give up its soul on the altar of people’s nourishment reaches God’s door in instances in which the com­ munity “serves” it to God in the form of a sacrifice. At the same time, every killing and eating connected to a holiday or ritual entails a sort of sacrifice, wherein the sac­ rifice of the animal replaces the human and is assimilated into him. The praxis of a meat lottery invites a broader analysis of perceptions of meat slaughter and consumption in the context of the web of prohibitions and prescriptions related to the Ethiopian handling of meat.50 Taking place after the slaughterer or slaughterers take the tongue and the head for themselves, the lottery directs our attention to arbi­ trariness and intentionality. Yet beyond the mitigating aspects of the lottery from a social perspective—namely, its circumventing of potential rivalries in the distribu­ tion of the meat of a single animal among several partners—it is connected on a

120Hagar Salamon

deeper level with the notion of sacrifice and transformation as described above. The perception of the slaughtered animal as victim, which is shared by Judaism and Christianity, is capable of conceptualizing a transformative perception between humans and ani­ mals. The meat lottery, as a collaborative act, allows for the collective transmission of this transformation. In addition, the specific praxis connected with the meat lottery—with the arbitrary allotment of a given pile of meat to a specific person by means of a person pointing a branch—is an interesting cultural allusion to the designation of burial places in Ethiopia by anonymous piles of rocks alongside a plant.51 As the image of death echoes in the designation of the meat, it constitutes an implied reference to the transformation be­ tween man and beast—between animal as food and human as food. This complex and charged connection of nourishment, in which flesh that eats flesh is fated itself to be consumed, is processed in the displacement practices of sacrifice and lottery. A vivid expression of this perception, which entails a victim-like identification be­ tween the animal and the individual, arises metaphorically in a corpus of stories of Ethiopian immigrants about life in Israel. In this corpus, it is possible to feel acutely the centrality of the system of transformation embodied in meat. Stories about the difficulties of assimilation in Israel focus on the metaphor of slaughtered meat that does not reach its destination. The tale type that developed here places in its center an elderly, traditional man—confused and helpless—who places the slaughtered an­ imal in someone else’s apartment. In an embarrassing encounter, he discovers his mis­ take while sometimes losing substantial parts of the meat. These stories, which I have called “mislaid meat stories,” are common among members of the community in Israel. Via the metaphor of meat, they convey the sense of loss, vulnerability, and unsettled­ ness that the immigrants feel in Israel.52 In addition, there is a suspension of the trans­ formation of raw, edible meat into the human flesh it is supposed to feed. Indeed, it is reversed, in a process indicating a lack of clear identity, a movement from have to have-not.

Concluding Remarks The dense symbolism of meat among all the foods eaten by humans is signified in the substance of the food itself, which turns from animal to edible. This highly loaded transformation carries concrete and symbolic characteristics of inclusion and ex­ clusion in many cultural contexts.53 Meat is a key idiom in the lives and identities of Ethiopian Jews, both in their country of origin and in the post-immigration years. Through meat, we can discern cultural understandings and constructions relating to the building, maintenance, representation, and even challenging of identities, relation­ ships, and basic hierarchies, as assimilated into the private and collective body. In the transition from Ethiopia to Israel, Ethiopian Jews experienced a far-reaching identity change—from Jews in Ethiopia to Ethiopians in Israel—in addition to a radical change of physical environment from rural village to modern urban society. Despite the thoroughgoing change in almost every aspect of their lives, the drama of the drawing of boundaries through meat did not disappear. Rather, it continues to undergo a transforma­ tion whose components echo, whether explicitly or implicitly, the loaded meanings

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that were connected to meat in the country of origin. One might have assumed that the customs of separation that were relevant to life in Ethiopia would no longer be relevant after immigration to Israel. In fact, issues connected with meat came with them, and these are continually recharged with new carnal energies. In the many inter­ views conducted with members of the Ethiopian community in Israel over the years, in the different ceremonies observed, and in public forums that raise fundamental is­ sues for the Ethiopian immigrants in Israel, the full power of the meat divide is exposed. In this way, meat is revealed as a unique idiom, capable of containing and processing complex dynamics of life and death, and wherein the corporeal expression of slaughter and eating are attended by cultural understandings about belief and custom, impurity and purity, power and doubt. In addition, the necessity of eating meat in the context of various life-cycle and yearly cycle rituals focuses our attention on the deep reli­ gious aspects embodied in slaughter and consumption. Communal slaughter and eating of meat marks the partnership in relation to God, while the exclusion from it—which is enacted vis-à-vis other groups—marks the option of disconnecting from and rejecting it. The evolution from flesh to meat goes through the concept of sacrifice, destiny, and moral responsibilities. This is connected, so it seems, to the perception of meat as a sanctifying entity in which the death of the an­ imal, through a transformative displacement, connects to religious belief and the strengthening of the connection with God, as if the person was actually sacrificing him­ self. When God is affixed to this natural meat chain, it creates an anxiety-ridden cos­ mological configuration. In consequence, it appears that issues of meat will continue to stand at the center of matters connected with the soul.

Notes I am grateful to my friends in the Israeli Ethiopian community for sharing with me their experiences and thoughts. The research on which this essay is based was supported by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University, which also provided me with a professional and supportive work environment for which I am greatly thankful. Sections of the essay were presented at the Africa Unit Seminar of the Truman Institute and the 18th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies held in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, in November 2012. I extend my thanks to the participants of the panels at these conferences for their stimulating discussions. 1. In this context, Mary Douglas’ ideas on the relationship between the private body and the social body provide an important basis for the analysis of the edible and the nonedible. See also her analyses of the structure of meals and the social contexts at play in their encoding and deciphering: “Deciphering a Meal” in Myth, Symbol and Culture, ed. Clifford Geertz (Boston: 1972), 61–81. For more on the connection between identity and eating, see Claude Fischler, “Food, Self, and Identity,” Social Science Information 27, no. 2 (1988), 275–292. For a com­ prehensive survey of the anthropology of food, see Sidney W. Mintz and Christine M. Du Bois, “The Anthropology of Food and Eating,” Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (2002), 99–119. 2. On food and transformation, see, for instance, Jane Fajans, “The Transformative Value of Food: A Review Essay,” Food and Foodways 3, nos. 1–2 (1988), 143–166; on food and religious transformation, see Gillian Feeley-Harnik, The Lord’s Table: The Meaning of Food in Early Judaism and Christianity (Washington, D.C.: 1994); idem, “Religion and Food: An Anthropological Perspective,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63, no. 3 (1995) 565–582.

122Hagar Salamon 3. I began my research on Ethiopian Jewry in Israel in 1985, a short time after Operation Moses. The research was conducted among members of the Beta Israel who had retained their Judaism in Ethiopia. In recent years, aliyah has opened up to members of the Falashmura, the offspring of Christianized Ethiopian Jews, who undergo a “return to Judaism” and pro-forma conversion. On this group, see Don Seeman, One People, One Blood: Ethiopian-Israelis and the Return to Judaism (New Brunswick: 2009); Malka Shabtay, Yehudei etiyopiyah mizera’ beta yisrael: masa’am mi-“beta yisrael” livnei ha “falashmura” uleyehudei etiyopiyah (Tel Aviv: 2006); on their life in Ethiopia, see Hagar Salamon, “Bein etniyut ledatiyut: heibetim penimkevutzatiyim shel hamarat dat bekerev beta yisrael beetiyopiyah,” Pe’amim 58 (Winter 1994), 104–119; Steven Kaplan, “Falasha Christians: A Brief History,” Midstream 39, no. 1 (January 1993), 20–21. 4. Hagar Salamon, The Hyena People: Ethiopian Jews in Christian Ethiopia (Berkeley: 1999), 97–104; idem, “Cow Tales: Decoding Images of Slavery in the Ethiopian Jewish Community,” Slavery and Abolition 29, no. 3 (2008), 415–435; idem, “Bein amaharim vetigrinim: narativ shel pitzul bama’avar meetiyopiyah leyisrael,” paper presented at a conference on Ethiopian Jews (Raanana [Israel], March 2008); idem, “Misplaced Home and Mislaid Meat: Stories Circulating among Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel,” Callaloo 33, no. 1 (Winter 2010), 165–176. For a cultural history of meat-eating and meat-avoidance, see Frederick J. Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present (Madison: 1994). On the “cattle complex” in eastern Africa, see Melville Herskovits, “The Cattle Complex in East Africa,” American Anthropologist 28 (1926), 230–272, 361–388, 494–528, 633–664. For an interesting discussion on the centrality of kosher slaughter and its specific, political dynamics in different western contexts, see Sander L. Gilman, “Are You Just What You Eat? Ritual Slaughter and the Politics of National Identity,” in Re-Visioning Ritual: Jewish Traditions in Transition, ed. Simon J. Bronner (Oxford: 2011), 341–359. The centrality of meat during the early Israeli austerity period is vividly demonstrated and analyzed in Orit Rozin’s paper in this volume, as she writes: “Then as now, eating meat, or refraining from eating meat, or refraining from eating a certain kind of meat, staked out clear boundaries of identity and of moral and religious choice” (“Craving Meat during Israel’s Austerity period, 1947–1953,” 67). 5. See, for instance, Hagar Salamon, “Dam etzel beta-yisrael ushkheneihem hanotzrim beetiyopiyah: simlei mafteaḥ beheksher bein-kevutzati,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore 15 (1993), 117–134; idem, “Bein etniyut ledatiyut”; idem, “Metaphors as Corrective Exegesis— Three Proverbs of the Beta-Israel,” Proverbium 12 (1995), 295–313; idem, The Hyena People. 6. See, for example, Michael Corinaldi, Jewish Identity: The Case of Ethiopian Jewry (Jerusalem: 1998). 7. Reidulf Knut Molvaer, Tradition and Change in Ethiopia (Leiden: 1980), 138–143, lists the common kinds of food in Ethiopia, although to those traditional foods eaten in the villages he adds more complex and expensive foods that were eaten customarily by wealthier, urban families. On the food of the Beta Israel, see Ora Schwartz-Beeri, “Hamitbaḥ umazono­ tav,” in Etiyopiyah: kehilot yisrael bamizraḥ bameot hatesha’ ’esrei veha’esrim, ed. Hagar Salamon (Jerusalem: 2008), 165–172. 8. The Christian Ethiopian prohibition on eating pork is related to the fact that Ethiopian Christianity is closely tied to the text of the Torah. On this, see Edward Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible: The Schweich Lectures (London: 1968); Donald Levine, Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society (Chicago: 1974), 53. 9. In Israel, the term acquired a Hebrew ending and became qesim. 10. These details emerged from interviews I conducted with members of the group from 1985 until the present. 11. For an intriguing analysis of the complexity and ambivalence that transpires in such an intimate setting between a human group (Suris in southwestern Ethiopia) and their cattle, see Jon Abbink, “Love and Death of Cattle: The Paradox in Suri Attitudes toward Livestock,” Ethnos 68, no. 3 (2003), 341–364. For a study of the ambivalent connection between slaves and meat within the Beta Israel in Ethiopia, see Salamon, “Cow Tales.” 12. On lotteries in other social contexts among Ethiopian immigrants in Israel, see Hagar Salamon, Steven Kaplan, and Harvey E. Goldberg, “What Goes Around, Comes Around: Rotating

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Credit Associations among Ethiopian Women in Israel,” African Identities 7, no. 3 (2009), 399–415. 13. For an ethnographic study of the relations between the Beta Israel and their neighbors in Ethiopia, see Salamon, The Hyena People. For a detailed description of this boundary and its meanings among the Beta Israel in Ethiopia, see idem, “Dam etzel beta-yisrael ushkhenei­ hem hanotzrim beetiyopiyah.” 14. Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh, 302. The following paragraphs are taken from the chapter “Our Blood, Their Blood: Menstruation, Slaughter, and Eating,” in Salamon, The Hyena People, 97–104. 15. For an enlightening discussion of food in general and meat consumption in particular in early Jewish and Christian contexts, see Feeley-Harnik, The Lord’s Table. 16. See also Wolf Leslau, Falasha Anthology (Yale Judaica Series 6) (New Haven: 1951), xx. On differences between the rules of slaughtering as practiced by the Beta Israel and those mandated by mainstream Jewish law (halakhah) see n. 26. 17. Interviews were conducted in Hebrew; in this interview (conducted in the summer of 1990), citations are given in Ge’ez, the liturgical languages used by both Christians and Jews in Ethiopia. 18. On the cooked/raw dichotomy as an expression of the boundaries between human and inhuman; civilized and uncivilized, see Claude Levi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked (New York: 1969). 19. Salamon, The Hyena People, 102. 20. There is a rather comprehensive literature on the immigration from Ethiopia to Israel and the main dramatic operations therein. See, for instance, Shalva Weil, “Zionism and Aliya,” in Ethiopia: Jewish Communities in the East in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. Hagar Salamon (Jerusalem: 2007), 187–200; Corinaldi, Jewish Identity; Steven Kaplan and Chaim Rosen, “Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel: Between Preservation of Culture and Invention of Tradition,” Jewish Journal of Sociology 35, no. 1 (June 1993), 35–48. 21. On the requirements set by the Israeli rabbinate and the opposition to these require­ ments, see Menachem Waldman, Beyond the Rivers of Ethiopia: The Jews of Ethiopia and the Jewish People (Tel Aviv: 1989); idem, “Harabanut harashit leyisrael vihudei etiyopiyah,” in Harabanut harashit leyisrael: shiv’im shanah liysudah (Jerusalem: 2002), 737–756; Corinaldi, Jewish Identity; see also Steven Kaplan and Hagar Salamon, “Ethiopian Jews in Israel: A Part of the People or Apart from the People?” in Jews in Israel: Contemporary Social and Cultural Patterns, ed. Uzi Rebhun and Chaim I. Waxman (Waltham: 2003), 118–148. 22. This was explained by the “converted” members of the community as stemming both from a willingness to compromise, that is, to remove the obstacle and to become recognized on an indi­ vidual basis as Jews in Israel, and from their strong desire not to harm the chances for bringing the entire community to Israel; in addition, as noted by the “converted” Tigrean interviewees, there was a lack of precise understanding as to the meaning and repercussions of the conversion process. 23. The opposition of Ethiopians from Gondar to demands of the rabbinate was based on the centuries-old history of their Judaism and the difficulties they had faced as Jews in Ethiopian society. Chaim Rosen claims that, at this stage, internal pressure was applied to the group from Gondar, which for many of them precluded any compromise. See Rosen, “Hashaveh vehashoneh bein beta yisrael beGondar uveTigre,” Pe’amim 33 (1987), 104, n. 40. 24. See Waldman, “Harabanut harashit leyisrael vihudei etiyopiyah”; Steven Kaplan, “The Beta Israel and the Rabbinate: Law, Ritual and Politics,” Social Science Information 28, vol. 3 (September 1988), 357–370. A good deal of anger focuses on the necessity for Ethiopian couples to get rabbinate verification of their Jewishness in order to marry. This demand is not unique to the Ethiopian community. However, given the rabbinate’s insistence that individuals of the community undergo conversion and the opposition this engendered, the subject of marriage (which is worthy of a separate essay) became especially loaded. 25. This was the case before the arrival of the Falasmura (see n. 3). 26. The primary differences between traditional Ethiopian slaughter and rabbinical slaughter are described in Yedidya Adunya-Adib and Yakhat Rosen, ’Ad ’alot hasḥ ahar: yehudim ­etiyopim bimdinat yisrael, sugiyot bemabat torani (Or Etzion: 2003), 52–53:

124Hagar Salamon The butchers from most Jewish communities learn how to check the knife and to verify that it is entirely sharp, otherwise, according to the halakhah, the knife tears the neck of the beast and doesn’t cut it. . . . In Ethiopia this was less strictly observed. Of course, efforts were made for the knife to be sharp, but they were not punctilious about small flaws. Another example is the matter of meat that is forbidden to eat: there are various dis­ eases and defects, which, if the beast suffers from them, disqualifies it from being eaten. Forbidden meat is a big subject, and only great rabbis are expert in it. In Ethiopia, they only knew about some of these laws. Another problem is the purging of the sciatic nerve and ḥ elev [selected portions of fatty tissue]. The eating of these is forbidden, and they must be removed from the meat along with their remains. In this, too, there are differences in tradition. . . . [I]n Ethiopia the meat was cut into small pieces, which were soaked in salt water, etc. According to halakhah, this method is not effective. . . .  The result of these differences is that, according to the halakhic sages, meat slaugh­ tered and deemed kosher by the Qesotch is problematic. 27. In some of the interviews I conducted, people expressed their view that the Orthodox rabbis are “Christians” who made latter-day changes to the laws of the Bible. On the struggle against the rabbinate, see Yaakov Gunchel, “Shevirat kelim,” Eretz aḥ eret 44 (April 2008), 24–27. Gunchel discusses the split between “the rabbis of the Ethiopian community” and the “hala­ khic rabbis” vis-à-vis what is the “real Judaism.” From a different vantage point, Rabbi Haim Vaknin, the rabbi in charge of the municipal slaughterhouse in Netanya, explains why Qesotch are not allowed to slaughter: “A person who does not know the nuances of slaughter cannot slaughter, regardless of his origin. He can kill the beast, but it will not be a kosher slaughter. . . .There are many Ethiopians today who study in yeshivot, and if an authorized slaughtering rabbi comes to us, we will be glad to accept him as a slaughterer” (Shai Lotan, “Hakesim neged harabanut veha’iriyah: tenu lanu lishḥot,” Mekomon Netanyah (1 October 2009), online at mynet.co.il/ articles/0,7340,L-3783713,00.html (accessed 5 June 2014). 28. Shmuel Nahon, “Sheḥitah lefi hamasoret haetiyopit,” Kol hasharon (8 April 2006). 29. Lotan, “Hakesim neged harabanut veha’iriyah.” 30. “Masa’ be’ikvot habasar” (10 July 2009) on the website Beta Israel: Society and Culture— Jews of Ethiopia, online at beteisrael.co.il/article.asp?ArtId=502&cat (accessed 8 December 2013). Interestingly, in the claims of the Beta Israel against the raw meat eaten by Christians in Ethiopia, a central place is reserved for the health aspect of the practice. See Salamon, “Dam etzel beta-yisrael ushkheneihem hanotzrim beetiyopiyah.” 31. Iyanho Farade Sanbatu, “Haderekh le’atzmaut datit ’overet bishḥitah nifredet” (17 November 2005). The writer emmigrated to Israel during Operation Solomon in 1991 from the region of Gondar. 32. The prohibition relates, of course, to the biblical passage “Thou shalt not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” (Ex. 23:19; 34:26; Deut. 14: 21), which was interpreted among Ethiopian Jewry according to the literal biblical meaning, and not expanded as in the rabbinical inter­ pretation. 33. Gunchel, “Shevirat kelim,” 24–27. 34. Adonya-Adib and Rosen, ’Ad ’alot hasḥ ahar. 35. Ibid., 45. 36. Ibid., 48. 37. Ibid., 50. 38. Ibid., 50–54. 39. Ibid., 54–58. 40. In interviews I was told that, in most cases, students who went to study in faraway places were also careful about observing the separation in eating meat. 41. For a detailed discussion of the manifestations of the split between the two groups, see Hagar Salamon, “Bein amaharim vetigrim”; see also Lisa Anteby-Yemini, “Beshulei hanirut: ’olim meetiopiyah beyisrael,” in Nirut beḥ agirah: guf, mabat, yitzug, ed. Edna Lomsky-Feder and Tamar Rapoport (Jerusalem: 2010), 53–54. Anteby-Yemini notes the intra-community

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divide with regard to the issue of animal slaughter, although she associates this division with the immigrants who came on Operation Solomon (1991) and not, as arises from the present study, as being related to the opposition to conversion (which began as early as 1985). 42. Interview conducted by the author with a young Tigrean woman (Spring 2006). 43. The interviewee here is using the plural form in Amharit for the term Amaharim. 44. Interview with Tigrean women (Spring 2006). 45. See Devora Lifchitz, “Un sacrifice chez les Falachas, Juifs d’Abyssinie,” La Terre et la vie 9 (1939), 116–123; and Leslau, Falasha Anthology, xxvi–xxvii. 46. Num. 19. The last red heifer sacrificial ceremony documented was in 1952 by the Tigray Great Priest, Memhar Yitzhak. Its ashes were kept in a clay vessel in the Tigray village of Bet Mahariya. I received a first-hand account of this ceremony from the late Qes Avraham Tezazo. See also Yaakov Gunchel, “Tezaze Sanbat,” Eretz aḥ eret 35 (September 2006). According to Wolf Leslau, who visited Beta Israel villages in 1947 and 1950, only male animals served as sacrifices (qerban), among them bulls, sheep, or male goats. He reported that the sacrificed animal must be without physical flaw, and that it is slaughtered atop an altar situated in the northernmost plot of the courtyard of the prayer house, with a double-edged sharp knife that is used exclusively for this purpose. After that, writes Leslau, the slaughterer, who is one of the Qesotch (though not the Grand Qes, who does not actually perform the slaughtering) dips leaves of several kinds of trees (two or four kinds) in the blood of the slaughtered animal and sprinkles it on the altar and on the entrance to the prayer house. After that, its skin is removed and burned, along with the blood and the internal parts, including sinews, fat, kidneys, and bones. These are burnt entirely, and the ashes are thrown to a place on the side that is not stepped upon. The meat of the sacrifice is washed, cooked, and divided among the Qesotch and the people. The entire animal must be eaten on the same day. Women do not take part in this sac­ rifice. See Leslau, Falasha Anthology, xxvi–xxvii. 47. Noelie Vialles, Animal to Edible, trans. J.A. Underwood (London: 1994). 48. Feeley-Harnick, The Lord’s Table, 567. 49. The explicit biblical transformation between a human and a slaughtered animal is offered in the story of Jacob and his struggle against God’s angel in Yabuk (Gen. 32:23–33). This story connects, in a way that does not appear elsewhere in the Bible, between the human body (that of Jacob) and the prohibition of the eating of the sciatic nerve of the animal—a central tenet in Jewish slaughter, also among the Beta Israel. Earlier in the chapter, there appears a description of the offerings that Jacob sends to Esau, a list made up entirely of kinds of animals and the detailing of their numbers, which serves as a reference to the laws of sacrifice in Lev. 7, thus establishing a sublimative connection between the body of Jacob, the sacrificial offerings, and the laws of slaughter. I thank Harvey Goldberg for this reference. 50. Salamon, “Goralo shel basar: dramah beshalosh ma’arakhot bein etiyopiyah leyisrael,” ’Iyunim bitkumat yisrael 22 (2012), 204–224. 51. In Nehemia 10:35, it is written: “We the priests, the Levites, and the people, have like­ wise cast lots [goralot] for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, according to our father’s houses, at times appointed, year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord our God, as it is written in the law.” Along with the Book of Ezra, the Book of Nehemia played a key role in the religious life of Ethiopian Jewry, and the links offered in this passage between fate [goral] and the sacrifice as well as marking fates through trees, forms an interesting con­ nection between texts and praxis. On the centrality of the Books of Ezra and Nehemia in the Sigd holiday of Ethiopian Jewry, see Shoshana Ben Dor, “Hasigd shel beta yisrael” (Master’s thesis, The Hebrew University, 1985). 52. For more on this tale type, see Salamon, “Misplaced Home and Mislaid Meat.” 53. Thus, for example, Nick Fiddes focuses on the centrality of meat-eating in Britain and the changes that happened over time, treating meat as a natural symbol (in a direct and pur­ poseful reference to Mary Douglas’ work on the “natural symbolic” connection between the human body and the social body). See Fiddes, Meat: A Natural Symbol (London: 1991).

Two Narratives of Israeli Food: “Jewish” versus “Ethnic” Liora Gvion (Kibbutzim College of Education)

The Israeli food scene has changed significantly since the mid-1990s. Restaurants proliferate, new foods conquer the local culinary scene, and food writers around the world extol the emerging Israeli cuisine. In light of these developments, this essay discusses the various meanings of “Jewish food” in Israel and the extent to which traditional Jewish foods have shaped the current culinary scene. Based on comprehensive interviews with ten prominent figures within the Israeli food establishment, it focuses on two simultaneous narratives that bisect the discourse on food along ethnic lines, examining the way in which these narratives have constructed the social meaning of Jewish, ethnic, and Israeli food. In Israel, I contend, the food of the Ashkenazim has become “Jewish food” without ever being used to shape a distinctive Ashkenazi identity. Ashkenazi dishes have come to symbolize the European diaspora and an East European Jewish world that has ceased to exist. Over the years, Ashkenazi immigrants gradually abandoned their native foods. Consequently, the Ashkenazi food narrative revolves around nostalgia for an old food culture and a social life in which this food was consumed. Conversely, dishes of Mizrahi Jews became ethnic foods in Israel. Unlike Ashkenazim, Mizrahim continued with their food practices; in the course of time, their dishes have won popularity among the wider Israeli population. The Mizrahi food narrative focuses on politics of identity and underlines the means through which Mizrahim have become active social agents in the Israeli culinary world.

Ethnicity, Jews and Food When Israel was founded, it was led mainly by East European Zionists who wished to establish a modern Jewish state based on socialist ideas. The father-founders of the state also wished to create a “new Jew,” often associated with the native sabra, who was to be the antithesis of the traditional “old Jew.” Ashkenazi new immigrants to Israel were perceived by the establishment to be potentially assimilative into the ­culture of the newly formed collective, whereas Mizrahi Jews were regarded as a 126

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hard-to-assimilate group. Arriving in large numbers from North Africa and Asia after 1948, many Mizrahim were channeled to the lower end of the job market and to development towns.1 Over time, some improved their financial situation, while others advanced via politics, often by emphasizing the social marginality of Mizrahi Jews.2 From the 1980s on, a growing number of Mizrahi Jews promoted multicultural politics and revitalized their cultures through exposure to the general public. In addition, they introduced narratives that challenged both the hegemonic narratives and existing social hierarchies, suggesting alternative interpretations of the Ashkenazi-dominated story of nation-building.3 Given the above, one could assume that, along with social esteem and political hegemony, the Ashkenazim would also conquer the culinary scene. However—and perhaps due to their power and perception of being potentially assimilative into Israeli society—the Ashkenazim gradually abandoned their foods. Aiming to break away from all that symbolized the East European Jewish diaspora, they labeled their food as “Jewish.” From the 1970s, its visibility in the public sphere was limited. In contrast, Mizrahi food, which was defined in Israel as “ethnic,” gained gradual prominence until, by the 1970s, it dominated the public culinary scene, serving as well as the foundation of today’s Israeli cuisine. Cuisines are means through which national and ethnic identities are recognized, reinforced, and marketed to the general public.4 Ethnic and national cuisines alike are constantly negotiated and changed. Moreover, ethnic social networks that once provided the basis for ethnic cuisines are gradually transformed. Culinary traditions are modified; over time, ethnic foods become more accessible to a wider public.5 Whereas the first generation of immigrants tends to preserve its foods and eating habits, the second generation is inclined to abandon its culinary tradition in favor of local dishes. At some point, however, the process is reversed, as third and fourth generations of immigrants feel safe enough to return to their culinary roots, regarding some of their grandparents’ dishes as attractive alternatives to their usual daily fare.6 Consequently, dishes brought to the new country by the first generation of immigrants are often transformed, for the third generation, into “comfort foods” that evoke nostalgia. Nostalgia comprises convenient versions of fantasies, memories, and desires connected with the past.7 It can be restorative, aiming to bring back what is averred to have once been, or it can be reflective—content to regard the past as past, even if embellished.8 According to Wu Jing, the nostalgic mode is one of the avenues leading to identity formation.9 Social actors invoke this mode in thinking through who they are, or in constructing their explanations of changes they encounter or actions they decide to take. Food practices enable immigrants and minorities to construct identities that reintegrate the past and the present.10 Through food-related activities, individuals relive and transform their histories; on a wider scale, such activities serve to disseminate a group narrative to the wider public. Certain dishes and food practices produce and enhance feelings of nostalgia because they come to symbolize worlds that no longer exist. Moreover, these practices become means of expressing themes of inclusion in or exclusion from the society in which the immigrants now live. In their daily preoccupation with food, immigrants combine tradition and innovation into a hands-on

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form of knowledge that is preserved and transmitted from generation to generation as well as serving current needs.11 The transmission of culinary knowledge also conveys memories and individual versions of histories, which often challenge the official version. The Kalymnian immigrants in Florida, for instance, idealize food products sent from “home” and the female knowledge that produces them, even if these products are more often modern variations of Kalymnian food or mass-produced Greek foods.12 Palestinian refugees who have continued visiting the sites of their obliterated villages also carry out a set of food practices. They pay attention to the fruits and herbs that grow in these sites and see these plants as enhancing a temporary re-creation of the pre-1948 world of their fathers.13 Moreover, by continuing to cook traditional Palestinian foods, women introduce their offspring to collective Palestinian culinary knowledge.14 Similarly, Filipino women in Hong Kong use food to signify social and cultural distance from their Chinese employers. From a Chinese point of view, Filipino foods are part of an ethnic cuisine, whereas Filipino women regard them as national dishes.15 Migrants and minorities who feel comfortable in their new land often write “nostalgia cookbooks”16 or “cookbook memoirs.”17 These books take memory rather than cooking as their central theme and show how authenticity, loss, and nostalgia are conceptualized among migrants. In addition, cookbooks are part of the commodification and mass marketing of food memories, which mediate between the past and the present. Carol Bardenstein’s analysis of the cookbook memoirs written by exiles from the Middle East assesses the exiles’ belief that, had they been able to stay in their old homes, the transmission of food traditions would have been continuous and identities would have remained intact, authentic, and unproblematized.18 Another way of communicating food memories to both the ethnic community and the host society is by opening restaurants. A low capital cost makes the food business accessible for ethnic entrepreneurs of limited economic assets. Relying on kin networks, they are able to raise the necessary cash for a small eatery; such restaurants are initially kept afloat by a labor force that comprises members of their own ethnic group. They provide immigrants a taste of home—food accompanied by nostalgia, and an atmosphere that encourages them to discuss their experiences and express their feelings.19 In contrast, some immigrants address their restaurants to members of the host culture. Staged authenticity, with dishes that are adjusted to the taste of the locals, make it possible for successful restaurateurs to acquire financial stability and a certain cultural acceptance. Greek restaurants, Franco-Chinese restaurants, and the okazuya (Japanese American take-out delicatessens) are usually family enterprises that compete with better-capitalized businesses. By creating their own food spaces, ethnic restaurateurs actively participate in the commodification of their food and contribute to its commercialization, de-authentication, and possible appropriation on the part of outside entrepreneurs. In this regard, it should be noted that assertions about “authentic” ethnic food sustain commonly held beliefs about particular cultures, places, and people. Restaurateurs often find it hard to disrupt mainstream ideas about what is and what is not authentic, whereas members of the dominant group often open restaurants offering their own version of ethnic foods, claiming that their customers are not ready for the “real” ethnic cuisine.20

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In the case of Jews, food is a major component of ethno-religious culture. Dietary restrictions such as those connected with the laws of kashrut often prevent Jews from mingling with non-Jews. In such instances, Jewish assimilation is held in check by an ongoing process of differentiation from others.21 Yet in recent decades, the boundaries that used to separate Jews from non-Jews have become fuzzy and increasingly crossed, as people move both into and outside the Jewish community, often keeping kosher only under certain circumstances. Many Jews, for instance, minimize Jewishness in public settings while highlighting it in the home, or emphasize Jewishness in the company of other Jews while minimizing it in the company of non-Jews.22 Eve Jochnowitz has analyzed restaurants operated by Russian Jews in New York, focusing both on their “Jewishness” and on their influence on the culinary landscape of the larger Jewish community. Such restaurants, she finds, have been profitable for these immigrants. Rather than attempting to continue in their original professions, they have practiced their Jewishness. This does not involve serving strictly kosher food and paying for rabbinical supervision, but rather offering certain dishes such as “chicken à la Jewish grandmother” that have come to symbolize Jewish cuisine.23 In a different study, Jennifer Berg shows how foods brought to New York by East European Jews, such as bagels and knishes, were first identified as Jewish foods. During the 20th century, as their consumption crossed ethnic lines, they became known as New York food. Finally, in a process paralleling the social and economic upward mobility of New York Jews, these foods—in various upgraded versions—were once again given the status of Jewish foods.24 In Israel, as noted, “Jewish” food is Ashkenazi, and a means of expressing nostalgia, whereas the varied Mizrahi cuisines have been commodified as ethnic cooking. In the remainder of this essay, I explore these themes as they are expressed in comprehensive interviews conducted with ten Israeli chefs and food writers between the spring and fall of 2011. All of these individuals have been major figures in the Israeli culinary landscape for twenty years or more.25 Half of them are Ashkenazim; half are Mizrahim. Three are women (two Ashkenazi and one Mizrahi); three have written food columns and have written cookbooks, some of which have transformed Israeli domestic cooking. Four interviewees currently manage a catering business, two of which specialize in Ashkenazi dishes and the other two in Mizrahi dishes. Three others are hotel chefs whose cooking is restricted by the laws of kashrut. All of the interviews took place either at the informant’s work place or in a café, and lasted three to four hours on average. I began with biographical questions, inquiring about the circumstances under which cooking was chosen as a career, and about the kind of food the interviewee cooked. We then spoke about changes in the Israeli culinary scene and the impact that different Jewish culinary traditions have had on the local culinary landscape. All of the interviewees claimed that the Ashkenazim had a monopoly on Jewish food, whereas Mizrahim were cooking, eating, and serving ethnic foods. None of the informants were comfortable discussing the question of whether discrimination against Mizrahim applied to the food business as much as to other aspects of Israeli life. Some (both Ashkenazim and Mizrahim) argued that ethnicity did not matter in the kitchen, as taste was all that chefs really cared about. Others spoke briefly about the ways in which Mizrahi Jews were undervalued, but claimed that, in recent years, Mizrahi culture has by and large come to dominate the public scene, as the Ashkenazim have lost their hegemony.

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As noted, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim use food to narrate their stories of inclusion in/exclusion from Israeli society. Although they are embedded in the overall Zionist ethos, these food narratives complicate the hegemonic narrative. The Ashkenazi food narrative emphasizes inclusion into the Zionist project in return for disengagement from diaspora culture. The Mizrahi food narrative, in contrast, reveals connections between social marginality and gastronomic sustainability over time. Whereas the Ashkenazi narrative broods over the disappearance of East European dishes from the active culinary repertoire, the Mizrahi narrative emphasizes the role Mizrahim have played as meaningful culinary agents.

The Ashkenazi Narrative: The Social Construction of Nostalgia As assimilative and committed to Zionism as the political establishment perceived the Ashkenazim to be, their food was often regarded as a relic from the Jewish diaspora that did not suit life in Israel. However, in recent years and in consequence of multicultural politics, an Ashkenazi food narrative has emerged. This narrative expresses nostalgia for dishes that were once popular in East European Jewish homes and feelings of regret for abandoning a well-established Jewish food tradition. By cooking and eating their foods at home, the first generation of Ashkenazi immigrants was able to relive, to a certain extent, the social world they had left behind. Some immigrants opened cheap eateries meant for fellow immigrants who wished to eat familiar foods in the vicinity of their workplace. Yet in the course of time, their children, whether native-born or simply well-assimilated in Israeli society, rebelled against anything that symbolized the diaspora. Haim, a kosher caterer and former restaurant owner from Jerusalem who grew up in an immigrant neighborhood, says: My friends and I thought of our parents’ food as repulsive. It was food of the diaspora [galut]. . . . The Zionist and the sabra were seen as modern. They were our role models. I used to dream that my parents were in the Palmach. I understand now that the Ashkenazim were also oppressed, yet they had better means of coping with oppression than did Mizrahim.26

Tammy, who specializes in East European foods and currently operates a small catering business, testifies that she, unlike her friends, had always loved the dishes cooked by her two grandmothers, both of whom lived with her family: My friends on the moshav made fun of me. For them, I was a Jewish girl eating Jewish food. For me, this food symbolized love. For my parents and grandparents, it was just food. Unlike my friends who played outdoors, I spent my childhood among pots, pans, carps swimming in the bathtub, and griebelech in a jar. I didn’t mind the kids ridiculing me.27

Although Haim and Tammy grew up in different social settings and felt differently about their parents’ background, they both recognized the general disrespect accorded to East European new immigrants and their food. Haim adopted the hegemonic perspective, according to which his parents’ persisting food habits implied a failure to become Israelis. Tammy, in contrast, saw the food as connecting her to a larger historical Jewish community as well as to family members no longer alive. Despite their differing childhood attitudes toward Ashkenazi food and culture, these two individuals

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are now active in using food to summon up reminiscences of the world their grandparents and parents left behind. A different experience is reported by Avraham, an Ashkenazi hotel chef who has never felt pressure to stop cooking East European dishes. “For Israelis,” he explains, “these foods symbolize the Jewish ghetto and therefore they have a negative connotation. But this isn’t the case for Jewish tourists. They see them as Jewish foods and therefore also Israeli foods, just like they see humus, falafel, and finely chopped salads.”28 Yuval, a Mizrahi hotel chef, adds: It’s not a question of oppression. We see them as Jewish food only because they are the foods of the Ashkenazim, who were the first to come here. They are heavy, greasy, and foreign to the region. There is no reason for us to eat them. Ashkenazi tourists expect to eat them in their visit to the Jewish land because for them it is Jewish food.29

The two chefs agree about the connotations East European foods raise in Israel. They point to the fact that, for Israelis, there is a difference between Jewish food and Israeli food. European Jewish tourists, conversely, regard traditional Ashkenazi dishes as singling them out from the non-Jews among whom they live and, at the same time, as connecting them to a worldwide Jewish community, of which Israel is a part. Some Mizrahi chefs are critical of the Ashkenazim for breaking away from their food tradition. “I don’t like your attitude,” says Michelle, a cookbook writer who manages culinary workshops. “You [Ashkenazim] think it’s cool to eat Mizrahi dishes and are proud of your liking spicy food, but you cannot respect other people’s food if you don’t respect your own tradition. It is only now that you realize that you might have lost something.”30 In contrast, Ron, a former restaurant owner who currently works as a caterer and consultant, sympathizes with those Ashkenazim who have abandoned their culinary tradition: “It is horrible food. I can’t blame them for abandoning it. Some of the dishes, of course, remind you of foods of your grandmothers. I wonder if it is the food you are missing or the person whose cooking was a labor of love.”31 By taking a critical position on the Ashkenazim’s attitude toward their food, Michelle intertwines disrespect for long-lasting culinary traditions with disrespect for the people who prepare and eat the food. Ron, on the other hand, argues that it is possible to dislike a certain culinary tradition and still appreciate its culinary agents. This apparent contradiction, according to him, is connected with feelings of nostalgia—bygone foods evoking memories of the labor of love that produced such food and real or imagined memories of a world that no longer exists. Haim notes that the third and fourth generations of immigrants express curiosity about the dishes their grandmothers used to prepare: Youngsters, nowadays, no longer see traditional Jewish dishes as food of the diaspora but as their grandparents’ food. They miss their grandparents and regret not knowing more about their foods. I meet people in their 30s and 40s who long for the gefilte fish that reminds them of the gefilte fish their grandmothers used to make.

Naomi, a well-known cookbook writer, has this to say: “Do you remember the slogan: ‘Sephardim! Wake up!’ Maybe it’s time to say: Ashkenazim! Wake up! The stigma is long gone. We really need to refresh our culture so that our grandchildren know something about our food. They’re curious about it.”32

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In this manner, Naomi connects the growing interest in traditional Jewish foods to attempts to define a distinctive Ashkenazi ethnicity. Ashkenazi hegemony implied that Ashkenazim were neither perceived as ethnic nor had to think of themselves as such. It was only when Mizrahi music and food gained widespread popularity, and a growing number of Mizrahi politicians accumulated political power, that Ashkenazim realized it was time they revitalized their food and thought of their culture as distinctive and potentially appealing to other segments of Israeli society. David, a Mizrahi caterer and the owner of two restaurants, believes that Ashkenazim have much to gain by rediscovering their traditional dishes. “Maybe now, when the Ashkenazim have lost their political power, it is time for them to return to their roots,” he comments. “Death, illness, [and] personal and collective crises evoke nostalgic feelings for old-time dishes. This is when traditional dishes become comfort food.”33 Although the Ashkenazim were not considered a distinctive ethnic group, their “Israeliness” rested on their voluntary distancing from diaspora culture. Changes in both the political and the cultural sphere promoted a growing toleration among Ashkenazim toward their own culinary tradition, along with a willingness to reintegrate traditional dishes in the family repast. The ongoing consumption of Jewish foods among haredi Jews implies that there are sources to rely on for rediscovering Jewish dishes. The combination of inexpensive ingredients along with long, slow cooking has made these dishes affordable for large families who often live on modest means. Women who work full-time have less time to cook, and many haredi women (and, of course, others) benefit from a growing market of ready-made East European foods, as noted by Naomi: As long as there are haredi Jews, there is hope for our foods. For years I’ve been buying herring and pickled fish in Bnei Brak. The number of yeshiva students who buy ready-made foods has proliferated in the last five years. I see them coming on Thursdays and buying chicken soup, gefilte fish, klops, cholent, and salads for Shabbat. The small restaurant where I often go to eat gefilte fish turns into a take-away place on Thursdays and Fridays. People are buying like crazy.

The growing interest in Jewish food raises the question as to just what is Jewish food. Who are its contemporary culinary agents? How are the dishes marketed to consumers? My informants observe that the number of active Jewish cooks has decreased throughout the years, making it necessary to find appropriate criteria for identifying reliable knowledge-holders. Jewish cookery rests on certain ingredients, cooking methods, and dishes from wherever Jews have lived. As Haim reminds us: The traditional Jewish housewife had to improvise with whatever was available. Wherever Jews went, they took their dishes with them and added local ingredients and dishes to it. In Israel, much of it was lost: the various mushrooms, berries, roots, and goose fat. Add to it the growing dislike toward these foods and, as you can see, there is a lot to rediscover.

Beyond this, Jewish cookery relies on women who have learned to cook from senior members of their families. Later in life, they pass their knowledge on to others, mainly their daughters. Therefore, the identity of the cook and her sources of knowledge are germane to the sustainability of the Jewish kitchen. According to Tammy:

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My grandmothers thought the kitchen was the most natural place for a girl to be. I don’t think they ever asked themselves whether they should teach me how to cook. I was just there all the time. At the age of nine, I was standing on a stool and grinding the fish. At ten, they let me fillet the fish, and before I realized it, I was carving the meat and passing the chicken through the flames to burn the feathers.

Living in physical proximity to women who cooked on a daily basis enabled Tammy to master the skills of Jewish cookery. Unlike her grandmothers, who learned to cook in order to qualify for marriage, Tammy learned because she loved the work. Later in life, she realized that very few people possessed the kind of knowledge that she did. Haim’s love of Jewish cookery also emerged from daily exposure to a direct source of knowledge of Jewish cookery. His love for his grandmother nurtured his curiosity toward her food and also toward the world she left behind: “I was sixteen when my grandmother moved in with us. She and I shared a bedroom. Before I’d fall asleep she’d tell me stories about life in the golah [diaspora]. She also cooked for us and taught me all I know about cooking.” Haim and Tammy contextualize their cooking expertise in physical and emotional proximity to knowledgeable, significant others who were willing to teach them to cook. In retrospect, they realize the extent to which this exposure has affected their career. In addition, they are aware of the decreasing number of knowledgeable cooks. “For my research on East European dishes,” Haim notes, “I interviewed hundreds of women. I wanted to understand why they abandoned their original kitchens. The answer was very simple and kept repeating itself: ‘I had no one to learn from. I was twelve when the Nazis came.’ ” These quotations reveal the interconnectedness between sustainability of culinary knowledge and European Jewish history. The death of almost an entire generation of domestic cooks during the Holocaust disconnected survivors from direct sources of culinary knowledge. In the absence of significant others, Ashkenazi women had little possibility to learn how to cook their mothers’ dishes—and, given the expectation that they would leave diaspora ways behind, also had little reason to do so. Today, however, Haim, (who did have access to this knowledge) takes it upon himself to propagate Jewish culinary knowledge for the next generations. “My parents, who encouraged me to get an education, were shocked when I chose to major in Yiddish and Jewish history,” he explains. “I wrote my dissertation on the history of East European food and decided that I was going to make a living cooking these dishes and lecturing about Jewish food.” Naomi, for her part, thinks that for third and fourth generations of immigrants, food memories have come to play a major role in the search for Jewish dishes, “If I wanted to write an Ashkenazi cookbook,” she says, “I’d have to interview people about their food memories to reconstruct the recipes. When people call me and ask for a Jewish recipe, I ask them how they remember it. That is how I know which version of the dish they are looking for.” Restaurants and delis have also come to play a major role in the preservation of Jewish dishes. This said, many restaurants are operated by professional cooks who had little or no knowledge of Jewish food prior to their employment. Restaurateurs count on the nostalgic mode of their diners, some of whom have only vague memories of what the food should taste like. They use various means of staging authenticity and providing dinners with a traditional aura. For instance, they write the Yiddish,

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Russian, or Polish name of dishes on the menu, serve kosher food, or claim to employ a cook who has learned to cook from his grandmother, or else offer various versions of the same dish with the aim of commemorating as many Jewish communities as possible. Restaurants owned by religiously observant Jews such as Haim, who is also fluent in Yiddish, or restaurants and delis located in religious neighborhoods, are perceived by consumers as authentic because they embody two major features of traditional Jewish communities, the Yiddish language and kashrut. Tammy, in contrast, needed to have her culinary expertise recognized by two major culinary authorities on Jewish food: I couldn’t help noticing this old couple who came every Friday afternoon. At one point they approached me, introduced themselves as the previous owners of a famous Jewish restaurant and wondered how I became such a great cook. When their children took over the business, they hired Thai and Palestinian cooks whom they personally trained but, according to them, there was no neshume [soul] in the food.

The couple, having failed to recruit their own children into the business or to train other young cooks to prepare food in the proper manner, had been forced to eat Jewish food elsewhere. Thus, Tammy—who was young enough to be their own daughter— was effectively named their successor in the field, receiving a stamp of authenticity from the older generation. Another means of constructing authenticity is that of offering various versions of the same dish, each of which represents a different region in which Jews have lived. Haim recalls: “I was arguing with a client about who makes better kreplach, the Hungarians or the Poles. I called my cook, Ibrahim, and asked him to bring the client Hungarian and Polish kreplach so that she could decide which of the two was the better version.” He thus implies that authenticity is constructed by enabling clients to order dishes of various Jewish communities. Simultaneously, he acknowledges the fabricated nature of authenticity by revealing the identity of the Palestinian cook who was trained by a second-generation knowledge-holder, and who benefits as well from modern cooking technologies. The fabricated nature of authenticity, along with limited access to knowledgeholders, has enabled some cooks to play with the form and content of traditional Jewish dishes. In light of the growing popularity of cholent as a mid-day Saturday meal even for nonobservant Jews, Tammy and her previous business partner, who were working at the time at an ostrich farm near Eilat, used a gimmick to attract a large and steady clientele: Every weekend I cooked cholent in a pot the size of a dining room table, over an open fire. My partner slept by the fire and watched it all night long. Since we had plenty of ostrich eggs, we figured we’d use them instead of regular eggs. We placed an ad in the local paper inviting people to eat cholent with ostrich eggs. The night before the opening, we emptied one of the eggs, and five minutes before we started serving, we put a small pigeon in it. When we “cracked” the egg shell, the pigeon flew out of the pot. It was the talk of the town and people kept coming every Saturday.

The combination of a knowledgeable culinary agent, a commercial gimmick, and nostalgia for traditional Jewish dishes all contributed to the successful marketing of

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cholent to visitors in the park. Tammy and her partner, who counted on a long-­established habit of eating cholent on Saturdays in the winter, cooked within the traditional framework of the dish, yet also displayed their creativity as cooks by adding ostrich eggs (which in fact are not kosher) as a special twist. These examples reveal ways in which authenticity and tradition are socially constructed and marketed to the public. It is noteworthy that the food itself is not intrinsically authentic or traditional. According to both Haim and Naomi, a traditional food is one that can be traced back three generations. It follows that a given dish may have been “new” in the time of the grandmother. Alternatively, the grandmother might have cooked an already existing dish, but with variations—for instance, changing the ingredients because certain ingredients could not be found, or cooking the dish by different means. Such variations are seen by third-generation immigrants as irrelevant, as Haim notes: “Jews all over Europe prepared kugel in ceramic pots. In Israel there were no ceramic pots, so people started preparing kugel in “wonder pots” that had a hole in the middle.34 Two generations grew up thinking it was the original way of preparing kugel, not knowing it was a compromise women made for lack of ceramic pots.” Naomi adds that people “don’t want to eat the original version of the dish. They look for a flavor that reminds them of their parents or their childhood. For my grandchildren, the dishes I prepare in my kitchen are genuine authentic Israeli cooking.” To conclude, the Ashkenazi food narrative appropriates Jewish food and focuses, on the one hand, on the processes involved in the abandonment of East European Jewish food traditions and, on the other hand, on the means of refreshing traditional Jewish dishes and delivering them to third-generation immigrants and others as authentic. Among Ashkenazim, the loss of political and cultural hegemony alongside growing support for multicultural politics promoted feelings of nostalgia for old-time foods. Their search for “Grandma’s food” may thus be seen as a wave of nostalgia that equates food preparation with a labor of love.

The Mizrahi Narrative: Continuity and Novelty From the late 1970s on, an emergent social construct—Mizrahi—has come to encompass all the different Mizrahi identities in Israel. This social construct has not obliterated the distinctive features of the various Mizrahi kitchens. Differing Mizrahi cuisines continue to coexist, and Israelis of all origins distinguish between the different versions of particular dishes. Together, however, these cuisines form a food narrative that focuses on locality, temporality, and self-empowerment. My interviewees attribute the sustainability, visibility, and growing popularity of Mizrahi cuisines to their suitability for the local climate, their reliance on local ingredients, and their resemblance in various ways to other Mediterranean cuisines. This enables Mizrahi professionals in the field of food to speak with a distinctive voice. First-, second-, and third-generation Mizrahi immigrants have kept alive their food traditions, to which they have added new dishes. According to Avraham, “Mizrahi women cooked every day, and their children lent a hand. They also kept a kosher kitchen. Many of the children continued cooking the same dishes when they grew up.

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When some of them became cooks, they cooked their native dishes in their workplace.” Sometimes, as Michelle adds, traditional notions and upbringing could eventually lead to professional and social success. “Your parents wanted you to get an education and become a professional,” she notes. “My parents wanted me to have an occupation that would not prevent me from being a good housewife and mother. Here I am, making a living from cooking and writing about my food tradition and that of other groups.” The fact that Mizrahi men and women who cooked in restaurants and institutions such as hospitals, army dining rooms, and canteens often cooked the same food that their mothers cooked at home made it possible for Ashkenazim to familiarize themselves with Mizrahi food. According to Yuval, “the Ashkenazim developed a liking for our food.” Moreover, he says, it is “not so much that Mizrahi youngsters wanted to become cooks. It was one of the few options open to them. They figured, well, I’ll never be hungry, and in a number of years I’ll start my own business.” Avraham, an Ashkenazi chef who works in a prestigious hotel (most of the cooks under his supervision are Mizrahi) adds that, when he decided to become a cook, “everybody said that only Moroccan and Syrian men worked as cooks. It was in the hotel restaurant that I first tasted some Moroccan and Tunisian dishes. Little by little we started including them in our menus. The guests love them.” The sustainability of Mizrahi kitchens can be attributed to two factors: first, the numerous knowledge-holders who are able to transmit what they know to the second and third generations; and second, the diminishing expectations regarding the willingness of the political establishment of the 1960s-1980s to include Mizrahim, and the fact that persisting gaps in levels of education between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim made cooking a convenient occupation. Although Mizrahi cooks used their positions to introduce their dishes to customers of various origins, the promotion of the food was neither premeditated nor part of an organized action aimed at shaping the local culinary scene. Rather, it was a series of individual actions pursued in the course of making a living. Only in retrospect was it apparent that Mizrahi chefs, cooks, and restaurateurs had become active culinary agents. Sammy, a restaurant consultant, describes the process: In Israel, Polish Jews, some of whom were farmers and tailors, became “the aristocracy” and East European food became “Jewish food.” But in the streets, Mizrahi food ruled. Polish immigrants had lived in ghettos and hadn’t mingled much with their surroundings. North African Jews never lived in ghettos. A ghetto, for them, was part of a European experience. Cooking for people outside the community was a natural thing to do.35

Sammy implies that Ashkenazim, both in the diaspora and in Israel, have kept their foods to themselves, whereas Mizrahim share their food with their social surroundings. In this sense, he appears to accept the hegemonic perspective according to which Ashkenazi cuisines are defined in Israel as “Jewish” and are therefore kept within segments of the Ashkenazi community. In contrast, Mizrahi foods are ethnic and yet are also popular among the general population. Although the Israeli culinary scene contains different Mizrahi kitchens, Sammy acknowledges the grand Mizrahi identity that has emerged while at the same time claiming that it has not affected the distinctive nature of the various Mizrahi cuisines. Changes in the political and economic climate in Israel have made it possible for a

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new generation of Mizrahi chefs to use their native dishes, sometimes in an upgraded form, as a means of enhancing their position in the culinary scene. These chefs, some of whom currently operate upscale restaurants, are proud of their ethnicity and regard their food as one of the means of reversing power relations in Israel. Notwithstanding, most of them began their careers by specializing in West European or Far Eastern cuisines, and it is only after they won recognition as talented chefs that they dared to return to their mothers’ dishes, upgrading and incorporating them in their menus. Yuval, for instance, studied at a culinary institute in Switzerland, where he majored in French and Swiss cookery: Afterwards, I studied architecture in the U.S. and supported myself by cooking in some small French restaurants. It was years before I was able to admit to myself that I wanted to enter into partnership with my father. When he left, I renovated the place and expanded the menu to other Balkan dishes, to some of which I gave a French “touch.”

According to Michelle: We grew up believing that our culture was not worthy and that our food was good only for street foods. This is why all these Mizrahi chefs specialized in every possible cuisine but their own. It is only now that they realize that one cannot survive by serving fois gras and crème brûlé. All the great [Israeli] chefs today are Mizrahim. Yet it is only when they became famous that they got the courage to depart from the mainstream and explore their native kitchens.

Sammy notes that “[w]e all wanted to cook French, and many of us cooked kosher French food, which is a culinary disaster. Luckily, we emancipated ourselves from the French tyranny and moved on to other cuisines.” As these quotes indicate, the highlighting of ethnicity and, simultaneously, the upgrading of Mizrahi dishes has been a gradual process that began as a departure from exploring foreign culinary terrains. The acquisition of impressive professional experience (and recognition) was what enabled these chefs to re-explore their native kitchens—not as Mizrahim, but as professionals. In line with this, their decision to become involved in the marketing and commodification of their dishes was based on professional rather than political considerations. To be sure, some Mizrahim, such as Michelle, never detached themselves from their culinary roots. Rather, they used their native kitchens as a point of departure to explore other ethnic cuisines in Israel, with the aim of preserving them: I was always fascinated by the various Mizrahi kitchens in Israel. A few weeks after my Libyan cookbook came out, I got a call from a woman who thanked me for helping her cook the way her mother cooked. She couldn’t believe I wasn’t Libyan. For me it has always been important to help people reconnect with their histories and dishes. It is only now that many of my colleagues have realized how important it was.

In contrast to Michelle’s view of herself as a folklorist who helps people reconnect with their culinary roots, chefs such as Yuval and Sammy have made a professional decision to return to their native foods. In light of the growing interest in ethnic food throughout the world, their native kitchens have become assets enabling them to position themselves as leading figures on the local culinary scene. Wrapping their

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d­ ecision in memories, feelings, and appreciation of the older generation of cooking mothers is but a means of staging authenticity and showing connections to primary sources of knowledge. In the case of Yuval, such conscious marketing is a second-­ generation tactic. His father, he explained, “was the first to take his mother’s dishes, dress them up as fancy, decorate the restaurant, and charge a fortune for it. Everyone who was anyone came, and he made good money out of it. I upgraded his versions.” We can see that both Ashkenazim and Mizrahim have re-evaluated and mobilized their native kitchens as part of an identity-formation process. Ashkenazim, in their search for traditional foods, recognize their having lost touch with a world that no longer exists; Mizrahim, who maintained their food traditions, are apologetic for devaluing their cuisines and disregarding the potential contribution to their career. Although the groups have gone in different directions, members of both have realized that their food, authentic or not, is an expression of their identity and social position in Israel. Ron explains: Upgrading our mothers’ dishes is part of our coming to terms with who we are. We are no longer ashamed of our origins. We look for grandmothers who cook the traditional way. But they no longer cook like that. They don’t use paraffin stoves; their kitchens are modern; they use soup powder for spices, and margarine, because they believe it makes the dishes taste better. It is only when photographers or food writers come that they pretend to be cooking the traditional way.

On the one hand, professional training and success both serve to enhance Mizrahi chefs’ self-confidence and encourage them to participate in the commodification of their food. On the other, their identity and the culinary knowledge that comes with it rest on a nostalgic image of a world that no longer applies to Mizrahi kitchens. Both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi chefs agree that Mizrahi dishes play a major role in the emergent Israeli cuisine. For one thing, the dishes are suitable to the local climate. In their extensive use of local ingredients, Mizrahi chefs indicate their commitment to food that is seasonally and locally available (this fits in well with the growing trend for “local” food in the West, though Israeli chefs tend to be more pragmatic than ideological in their approach). Although it has taken three or four generations for Mizrahim to take the lead in the process of creating a national Israeli cuisine, very few chefs express discontent with the persistent economic and educational gaps between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim. The majority of my interviewees disregarded a possible connection between food, ethnicity, and politics of identity. They claim that the growing popularity of Mizrahi cuisines is an indication that, whereas the Ashkenazim have monopolized Jewish food, the Mizrahim have monopolized Israeli food. According to Eli, a Mizrahi chef and former restaurant owner who now works as a chef: “People now realize we are part of the Middle East. We eat local: vegetables, fruits, olive oil, and spicy food; we look less to the foods of other nations.” David agrees: “Forget the politics; it has nothing to do with food. What also acts in our favor is the trend of eating local and the growing popularity of Mediterranean cooking. It is easy for us to be part of it.”36 To conclude, the Mizrahi food narrative combines two apparently contradictory themes: the local and the global. Mizrahi chefs can claim to promote the trend of

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l­ocality, given that the Mizrahi cuisine relies on local ingredients and suits the local climate. At the same time, the growing popularity of Mizrahi food ties in with the global trend of eating Mediterranean-style. This interplay between the global and the local further allows Mizrahi chefs to claim that there is no connection between food and politics, despite the fact that they themselves have been empowered by their ­position at the forefront of the emergent Israeli cuisine.

Conclusion In light of recent developments in the Israeli culinary scene, this essay has discussed the various meanings of “Jewish” food in Israel and the extent to which traditional Jewish foods have shaped Israeli cuisine. I argue that the food of the East European Ashkenazim became Jewish food, and that it is only recently that attempts have been made on the part of third-generation immigrants to see their food as a means of constructing a distinctive Ashkenazi identity. Consequently, the Ashkenazi food narrative has revolved around nostalgia for a vanished food culture and a desire for this food’s inclusion in Israeli society. In contrast, Mizrahi dishes became ethnic foods in Israel. In addition, Mizrahim remained in tune with their food practices, and over the years, their dishes won popularity among many Israelis. The Mizrahi narrative has revolved around sustainability as opposed to detachment. Yet at the same time it has focused on providing the new nation with the food of its many ethnicities and has invoked the past in order to enable Mizrahim to position themselves more prominently in Israeli culture. Although it seems that power relations between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim were reversed in the culinary sphere, this was not quite the case. The Ashkenazim did not need to conquer the culinary scene in order to gain acceptance in Israeli society. Despite the hardship of immigration and limited monetary resources, their social and cultural capital enabled them, within the span of a generation, to gain economic security, to ensure their children’s education, and to maintain political hegemony. Their food narrative was but a means to reconnect with the world they were expected to leave behind upon immigration to Israel. Put somewhat differently, although Ashkenazim might have left the diaspora, the East European diaspora was still part of them. For the Mizrahim, preoccupation with food was a means of positioning themselves in Israeli society and a way of bringing forward the many ethnicities that were part of the social makeup of Israel. Moreover, cooking and commodifying food were vehicles for individual mobility. Cooking provided professional status, economic stability, knowledge in world traditions, and recognition. So that, whereas the Ashkenazim needed to detach themselves from the past in order to become Israelis—beginning to look for their culinary histories only after their position in Israeli society was established—Mizrahim recruited their culinary past in order to become Israelis and to set the foundations of an Israeli cuisine.

Notes This essay is dedicated to Dalia Lamdani, whose work has inspired many food writers and journalists in Israel.

140Liora Gvion 1. See Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Stephen Sharot, Ethnicity, Religion and Class in Israeli Society (Cambridge: 1991); Yinon Cohen and Yitchak Haberfeld, “Second-generation Jewish Immigrants in Israel: Have the Ethnic Gaps in Schooling and Earnings Declined?” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21, no. 3 (1998), 507–528; Moshe Lissak, “ ’Eidah ve’adatiyut beyisrael beperspektivah historit,” in Yisrael likrat shenot haalpayim: ḥ evrah, politikah, vetarbut, ed. Moshe Lissak (Jerusalem: 1996), 74–89; Shlomo Swirski, Haḥ inukh beyisrael: meḥ oz hamaslulim hanifradim (Tel Aviv: 1990). 2. Sammy Smooha, Arabs and Jews in Israel: Change and Continuity in Mutual Intolerance (Boulder: 1992). 3. Aziza Khazzoom, “Lahafokh lemi’ut, livḥon et hamigdariyut: nashim ’irakiyot yehudiyot bishnot haḥamishim,” in Mizraḥ im beyisrael: ’iyun bikorti meḥ udash, ed. Hannan Hever, Yehouda Shenhav, and Pnina Motzafi-Haller (Jerusalem: 2002), 212–243; Pnina MotzafiHaller, “A Mizrahi Call for a More Democratic Israel,” Tikkun 13, no. 2 (March-April 1998), 50–53; Yehouda Shenhav, “Yehudim yotzei aratzot ’arav beyisrael: hazehut hamefutzelet shel mizraḥim bimḥozot hazikaron haleumi,” in Hever, Shenhav, and Motzafi-Haller (eds.), Mizraḥ im beyisrael, 105–151. 4. Stephen Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present (Oxford: 1986); Liora Gvion, “What’s Cooking in America: Cookbooks Narrate Ethnicity: 1850–1990,” Food Culture and Society 12, no.1 (March 2009), 53–76; idem, “Narrating Modernity and Tradition: The Case of Palestinian Food in Israel,” Identities 16, no. 4 (2009), 391–413. 5. Andrew Buckser, “Keeping Kosher: Eating and Social Identity among Jews in Denmark,” Ethnology 38 no. 3 (Summer 1999), 191–209; Pierre L. van den Berghe, “Ethnic Cuisine: Culture in Nature,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 7, no. 3 (1984), 387–397; Gvion, “Narrating Modernity and Tradition.” 6. Herbert Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 2, no. 1 (1979), 1–19. 7. Jonathan Bach, “ ‘The Taste Remains’: Consumption, (N)ostalgia and the Production of East Germany,” Public Culture 14, no. 3 (2002), 545–556; Michael Pickering and Emily Keightley, “The Modalities of Nostalgia,” Current Sociology 54, no. 6 (November 2006), 919– 941; Norman Urquia, “The Re-branding of Salsa in London’s Dance Clubs: How an Ethnicised Form of Cultural Capital was Institutionalised,” Leisure Studies 24, no. 4 (2005), 385–397; Rob Drew, “ ‘Once More, with Irony’: Karaoke and Social Class,” ibid., 371–383. 8. Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: 2001); Toru Hanaki, Arvind Singhal, Min Wha Han, Do Kyum Kim, and Ketan Chitnis, “Hanryu Sweeps East Asia: How Winter Sonata is Gripping Japan,” The International Communication Gazette 69, no. 3 (June 2007), 281–294. 9. Wu Jing, “Nostalgia as Content Creativity: Cultural Industries and Popular Sentiments,” International Journal of Cultural Studies, 9 no. 3 (September 2006), 359–368. 10. David Sutton, “Whole Foods: Revitalization through Everyday Synesthetic Experience,” Anthropology and Humanism 25, no. 2 (December 2000), 120–130; Rebecca Luna Stein, “National Itineraries, Itinerant Nations: Israeli Tourism and Palestinian Cultural Production,” Social Text 16, no. 3 (Fall 1998), 91–124. 11. Sherrie Inness (ed.), Kitchen Culture in America: Popular Representations of Food, Gender, and Race (Philadelphia: 2001); Michel de Certeau, Luce Giard, and Pierre Mayol, The Practice of Everyday Life, vol. 2, Living and Cooking, trans. Timothy J. Tomasik (Minneapolis: 1998). 12. David E. Sutton, Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory (Oxford: 2001), ch. 3. 13. The reference here is to Palestinians who were displaced from their villages during the 1948–1949 war; many of them remained within the green-line borders of Israel. See Efrat Ben-Ze’ev, “The Politics of Taste and Smell: Palestinian Rites of Return,” in The Politics of Food, ed. Marianne Elisabeth Lien and Brigitte Nerlich (Oxford: 2004), 141–160. 14. Gvion, “Narrating Modernity and Tradition.” 15. Lisa Law, “Home Cooking: Filipino Women and Geographies of the Senses in Hong Kong,” in Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader, ed. David Howes (Oxford: 2005), 224–241. 16. Sutton, Remembrance of Repasts, 142–144.

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17. Carol Bardenstein, “The Gender of Nostalgia,” Signs 28, no. 11 (2002), 353–386. 18. Ibid. 19. Reuben A. Buford-May, “Race Talk and Local Collective Memory among AfricanAmerican Men in a Neighborhood Tavern,” Qualitative Sociology 23, no. 2 (2000), 201–214; Gvion, “Narrating Modernity and Tradition”; Marie Sarita Gaytán, “From Sombreros to Sin­ cronizadas: Authenticity, Ethnicity and the Mexican Restaurant Industry,” Journal of Con­temporary Ethnography 37, no. 3 (June 2008), 314–341. 20. Gaytán, “From Sombreros to Sincronizadas”; Jia Lou, “Revitalizing Chinatown into a Heterotopia: A Geosemiotic Analysis of Shop Signs in Washington D.C’s Chinatown,” Space and Culture 10, no. 2 (May 2007), 170–194; Samantha Barbas, “I’ll Take Chop Suey: Restaurants as Agents of Culinary and Cultural Change,” Journal of Popular Culture 36, no. 4 (May 2003), 669–686; Krishnendu Ray, “Ethnic Succession and the New American Restaurant Cuisine,” in The Restaurants Book: Ethnographies of Where We Eat, ed. David Beriss and David Sutton (Oxford: 2007), 97–114; Lawrence A. Lovell-Troy, The Social Basis of an Ethnic Enterprise: Greeks in the Pizza Business (New York: 1990); Winnie Lem, “Daughters, Duty and Deference in Franco-Chinese Restaurants,” in Beriss and Sutton (eds.), The Restaurants Book, 133–150; Christine Yano, “Side-dish Kitchens: Japanese American Delicatessens and the Culture of Nostalgia,” in ibid., 47–64; Sylvia Ferrero, “Comida Sin Sar: Consumption of Mexican Food in Los Angeles: ‘Foodscapes’ in a Transnational Consumer Society,” in Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies, ed. Warren Belasco and Philip Scranton (New York: 2002), 194–219; Shun Lu and Gary Fine, “The Presentation of Ethnic Authenticity: Chinese Food as a Social Accomplishment,” The Sociological Quarterly 36, no. 3 (June 1995), 535–553; Naomi Trostler and Liora Gvion, “Trends in Restaurant Menus in 1950–2000,” Nutrition Today 42, no. 6 (2007), 255–262; Liora Gvion and Naomi Trostler, “From Spaghetti and Meatballs through Hawaiian Pizza to Sushi: The Changing Nature of Ethnicity in American Restaurants,” Journal of Popular Culture 41, no. 6 (December 2008), 950–975; Arjun Appandurai, “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30, no. 1 (January 1988), 3–24; Liora Gvion, “Cuisines of Poverty as a Means of Empowerment: Arab Food in Israel,” Agriculture and Human Values 23, no. 3 (October 2006), 299–312. 21. Cynthia Levine-Rasky, “The Parents of Baywoods: Intersections of Whiteness and Jewish Ethnicity,” in The Great White North? Exploring Whiteness, Privilege and Identity in Education in Canada, ed. Paul R. Carr and Darren E. Lund (Rotterdam: 2007), 135–150; Cynthia Levine-Rasky and Jessica Ringrose, “Theorizing Psychosocial Processes in Canadian, Middleclass, Jewish Mothers’ School Choice,” Journal of Education Policy 24, no. 3 (2009), 255–269. 22. Lynne Scholefield, “Bagels, Schnitzel and McDonald’s—‘Fuzzy Frontiers’ of Jewish Identity in an English Jewish Secondary School,” British Journal of Religious Education 26, no. 3 (2004), 237–248. 23. Eve Jochnowitz, “From Khatchapuri to Gefilte Fish: Dining Out and Spectacle in Russian Jewish New York,” in Beriss and Sutton (eds.), The Restaurants Book, 115–132. 24. Jennifer Berg, “From the Big Bagel to the Big Roti? The Evolution of New York City’s Jewish Food Icons,” in Gastropolis: Food and New York City, ed. Annie Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan Deutch (New York: 2009), 252–273. 25. In order to protect the respondents’ privacy, all names have been changed. 26. Interview with “Haim” (28 April 2011). 27. Interview with “Tammy” (18 March 2010). 28. Interview with “Avraham” (Spring 2010). 29. Interview with “Yuval” (February 2010). 30. Interview with “Michelle” (February 2010). 31. Interview with “Ron” (June 2010). 32. Interview with “Naomi” (April 2010). 33. Interview with “David” (31 March 2011). 34. For an explanation of the wonder pot, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Pot (accessed 26 January 2014). 35. Interview with “Sammy” (April 2011). 36. Interview with “Eli” (March 2011).

Size Matters: Israeli Chefs Cooking Up a Nation Nir Avieli (Ben-Gurion University)

Questions concerning the nature of Israeli cuisine have vexed gastronomes and cul­ tural critics for quite some time. A common approach for tackling this issue is to suggest that Israeli cuisine is the outcome of a dramatic meeting between different ethnic cuisines imported by Jewish immigrants, the local produce, and possibly also the “native” Palestinian fare.1 The result is an extremely varied cuisine, often des­ cribed by people that I interviewed as a “mishmash” or as featuring “a little bit of everything.” Thus, Israel’s prominent food writer Ruth Sirkis responded to the question, “is there an Israeli cuisine?” as follows: This question comes up all the time. People find it hard to accept that national food can be as varied as Israeli cuisine. It is easier to argue that the Italians eat pasta, the Chinese rice, the Americans hamburger and the Israelis hummus, mangal [barbequed meat] and gefilte [fish]. But the definition is much wider and deeper. Our food is the compound of ethnic cuisines, international influences, produce of the land, and the meteoric develop­ ment of food culture. Everything falls under the rubric of Israeli food. One may argue that Israeli cuisine is a kind of cholent or shakshouka.2 Everything gets mixed in, creating something that is new and different. For me, Israeli cuisine is multifaceted, intriguing, tasty, and colorful, both traditional and modern.3

The cover of Sirkis’ famous cookbook, From the Kitchen with Love (1975), Israel’s best-selling cookbook to this day, reflects her definition of Israeli cuisine.4 It fea­ tures a photo of “Chicken in Oranges and Grapes,” a dish that was never popular in Israel but which exemplifies the culinary fusion she champions, combining local produce (“traditional” grapes and “modern” oranges), with Jewish—more specifically, Ashkenazi—fare (boiled chicken) to produce an original and innovative dish.5 Along similar lines, Omer Miller, chef at a successful Tel Aviv restaurant called The Dining Room (this naming makes ironic reference to the communal dining rooms of kibbutzim and state institutions) and author of the recent cookbook Israeli Cuisine, points out that his favorite recipe is “seafood over vegetable salad, served with fried pita shreds and labane [strained yogurt cheese], because this is . . . a combination of sashimi and Arab salad. It is exciting to take something from the gentle Japanese 142

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cuisine and serve it over a spicy salad. This combination is only possible in a young cuisine characterized by chutzpah . . . it’s Israeli, just like us.”6 Erez Komorowski, another trend-setting gastronome, follows suit. Recounting the early stages of his culinary career, he points out that “during those days, we were still debating whether an Israeli cuisine existed at all. But suddenly I realized that the melting pot of the Israeli cauldron isn’t different from the American one, only that instead of mixing in Chinese, Mexican, and Japanese, we are dealing with food from Morocco, Turkey, Tripoli, and the Caucasus.”7 While this definition of Israeli cuisine as a combination of Jewish dishes from different origins with the local produce and some local culinary traditions is historically accurate, it doesn’t really tell us much about the specific characteristics of Israeli cuisine, nor about its meanings. Indeed, one of the main contributions of the anthropology of food was its assertion that all cuisines are the outcome of historical processes of cultural migration, exchange, and fusion in specific ecological contexts.8 In this article I aim to move beyond the definition of Israeli cuisine as a mixture of ingredients, dishes, and cooking styles in order to point to some of the sociological and cultural dynamics that arrange and govern it. Based on long-term anthropological research conducted since the late 1990s, I suggest that Israeli cuisine is defined by a set of sociological characteristics, most prominent of which are food amount and portion size. These qualities are explained in relation to Israeli definitions of satiety, which is presented in this article as a cultural rather than a physiological condition, shaped by Jewish histories and by specific Jewish-Israeli tendencies. I conclude by moving beyond the culinary sphere to suggest that issues of portion size and “feeling full” may be relevant in understanding some of Israel’s dilemmas, arguing that research of a nation’s foodways allows for insightful analysis of national identity.

Researching Israeli Cuisine The findings presented in this article are the outcome of an ongoing anthropological research project that was launched in the late1990s when I began to interview prom­ inent actors in the Israeli culinary sphere, focusing on the “Israeliness” of their cooking. At that time, Israeli chefs and restaurateurs were not the celebrities they are today (most likely because television cooking shows had not yet begun to be broad­ cast in Israel), and they were easily accessible. Moreover, as I quickly found out, most of them were eager to be interviewed and happy to spend a few hours convers­ ing with me. I was pleased by their willingness to talk, yet somewhat intrigued: why would these busy, hardworking, often stressed people care to spend so much time in conversation with an academic? One of my interviewees, a present-day Israeli chefcum-celebrity, made a comment that shed some light on this mystery. A couple of hours into the interview, which was conducted at his restaurant (one of the first chef’s-restaurants in the country), he suddenly said: “You know, it’s amazing! People always ask me how to cook this or that, but no one has ever asked me what I think.”9 Over the years I have learned that this comment holds true for many of those involved in culinary professions: in the course of performing a demanding and stressful job,

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they amass substantial knowledge and intriguing insights about food, which they are only happy to share with anyone who is willing to talk about the “what” and “why” (instead of merely the “how”) of cooking and eating. I conducted a dozen interviews with prominent chefs such as Israel Aharoni, who single-handedly introduced Chinese food to Israel and had a central role in the devel­ opment of Israeli gourmet cuisine; Hanoch Bar Shalom, praised by many as Israel’s “chefs’ chef ”; and Boaz Zairi, Israel’s pioneering sushi master. I also interviewed sa­ lient culinary innovators such as Nechama Musayof, founder of the first Italian-style espresso bar (Expresso Bar, Tel Aviv, 1992) and of the Spaghettim restaurant chain. I approached the first interviewees through personal contacts and obtained additional interviewees based on their suggestions (snowball sampling).10 My initial research question was straightforward: “What is Israeli about the food you cook?” From that moment, the interview was usually off and running, and I was mainly concerned with how to successfully keep up with the interviewee’s cascade of observations and comments. The interviews lasted one to three hours and were usually conducted at the interviewees’ restaurants, which facilitated further observa­ tion and data collection. The content of the interviews turned out to be quite different from what I had ex­ pected. I anticipated that these chefs would talk about ingredients, spices, cooking tech­ niques, and dishes, but instead they talked sociology and anthropology: they defined social categories, discussed cultural tendencies, and described power structures. Their most compelling comments, as will be seen, addressed the quantitative dimensions of Israeli foodways. Over the years, I went on collecting data on Israeli cuisine, practicing participant observation in sites such as the Carmel and Mahaneh Yehuda open-air markets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, military and kibbutz dining rooms, Tel Aviv’s Taste of the City (Ta’am ha’ir) food festivals, and Independence Day picnics and barbeques at Jerusalem’s Sacher Park, while at the same time interviewing culinary practitioners and keeping track of the ever-increasing influx of media publications on food in Israel and Israeli food. Finally, in the course of writing this essay, I browsed through dozens of internet sites, food portals, blogs, talkbacks, and the like. It is important to note that the ideas and analysis presented in this piece are based primarily on ethnographic participant observation and on the interviews that I conducted or that were published in the media. This is not a “netnography.” Rather, internet sources are used to “thicken” the ethnography, in the Geertzian sense,11 by conveying the ideas expressed by chefs and customers with regard to various aspects of the food they cook and eat.12

Size Matters Although my interviewees suggested various definitions for Israeli cuisine, I gradu­ ally came to realize that the most prominent markers for this cuisine were the quan­ tity of food, the size of portions and, more implicitly, the issue of value for money. Israelis like their portions large! And just as important, they like them cheap!

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For instance, in an interview conducted in 1998, one chef recounted his experience with a salad bar at a restaurant he had opened several years earlier in an upscale Tel Aviv shopping center: We decided to offer a salad bar, just like in America, where customers fill their own plates. In order to price it, we consulted the professional literature, which suggested that the average customer would dish up some 750 grams of salad. During the first week of operation, we wanted to make sure that we were pricing correctly, so we weighed each salad plate [before it was paid for]. The average weight was 1250 grams, some 70 percent more than the international standard. We had to re-price the salad bar, and it became so expensive that we realized there was no point in offering it.13

In another interview conducted that year, one of the founders of a restaurant chain that specializes in pasta dishes explained the culinary logic behind the success of his enterprise, which distinguished itself by serving huge, moderately priced portions: In Italy, pasta is either an appetizer or an intermediary course between the antipasti and the main courses. They serve portions of roughly 80–100 grams of pasta in small plates. So we decided to offer portions based on 150–200 grams of pasta. Do you know how much a 10-kilo bag of pasta costs? Maybe 25 shekels . . . and the sauce is also quite cheap, even if you use high-quality ingredients. So we could offer a very large portion, which cost only a few shekels, and sell it for less than 30 shekels. The portions were so big that we had to order special plates that would be large enough. . . . [T]he customers loved it.14

He added that many restaurants followed suit and adopted these unusually large plates, especially Italian restaurants. He also noted that the logic of using high-quality but low-cost foreign food applied to another successful enterprise with which he was in­ volved, namely, espresso bars: [A] cup of espresso is extremely cheap to make, less than a shekel, so even when you sell it for three, the profit is very high. In addition, our espresso bars had no kitchens [and] only offered cookies and sandwiches. This allowed us to sell imported coffee and high quality snacks for a moderate price but with a large profit margin.15

From the opposite perspective, a prominent Israeli food journalist suggested (in the context of a discussion concerning portion size) that the main explanation for the failure of most Israeli restaurants specializing in French nouvelle cuisine was not kashrut restrictions, as it is often argued by both chefs and customers, but rather the fact that this cuisine features small portions of expensive dishes made with high-quality ingredients and invested with a great deal of skilled work: “[T]he Israeli clientele demanded larger portions for cheaper prices, and chefs either had to enlarge the dishes, which made them ridiculously expensive, or else use cheaper ingredients, which resulted in inferior food. In either case, these places were eventually unsuc­ cessful.”16 Similarly, an article on the food portal Rol reported that Shaul Ben-Aderet, the chef-owner of Kimmel, a well-established restaurant located in one of Tel Aviv’s trendiest neighborhoods, introduced a change in “the well-known French concept whereby small and expensive portions are served on huge plates. He adjusted the serving mode to the Israeli audience by serving large portions on large plates for a moderate price.”17

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In another instance, a critic wrote an essay featuring a discussion of an experimental chef’s-restaurant in Tel Aviv, which (according to its website) featured “high-quality local ingredients,” “innovative and creative local food,” “informal atmosphere,” and “light meals, tidbits and drinks.”18 The chef-owner agreed to be interviewed for the piece, but asked to see the text before it was published. To the critic’s surprise, the chef requested that all mention of his name or that of his restaurant be deleted. The reason? The restaurant was struggling economically, and the chef-owner was planning to remarket it as a venue for low-budget and hungry customers. Since portion size and satiety were about to replace culinary sophistication, there was a danger that the critic’s compliments would put off the target clientele.19 Portion size is important not only for the consumers of expensive food, but also for those whose explicit ideology condemns gluttony. In the course of my research on kibbutz dining rooms, the issue of food amount and price emerged from a different angle. Dining room managers told me how, in the days preceding the privatization of the kibbutz dining room, members would dish up huge amounts of food, which was practically free, and eventually throw much of it out. According to one dining room manager, “people used to load their plates and then simply throw good food to the garbage. Dog owners would often [bring] a box with their dog’s name on it, so that members could toss in their leftovers. You should see how much meat was left there.”20 I was also told time and again how guests would take so much food that, in some cases, dining room workers had to stand by the buffet and ask them to limit their food intake. This praxis was virtually eradicated in privatized kibbutz dining rooms; today, guests and members alike have to pay for their food, which is strictly measured and priced. The dining room managers whom I interviewed claimed that privatization had brought about a 50 percent cut in food intake; in another study, a kibbutz functionary reported that garbage had decreased by 75 percent in privatized dining rooms.21 The point I wish to make here is that Israelis, both kibbutz members and their guests, like their portions large and even huge, so long as they don’t have to pay for them. Israelis also like to indulge in the so-called “Israeli breakfast” served at local hotels and restaurants. The image of such breakfasts as events where diners stuff themselves is vividly described by reporter Shoshana Hen: [T]hose interested in witnessing the encounter with the Promised Land after forty years of wandering in the desert are invited to stand at the entrance of a dining room in a typical Israeli hotel, preferably in Eilat, the gluttons’ capital of the nation, at 9 a.m. Multitudes of vacationing men, women, and children charge in as if they have never seen food. Mountains of herring, sweetened yogurts and puddings, cheeses, vegetables, salads and croissants are loaded on plates. Grab as much as you can. . . .22

Hen goes on to provide some specific quantities: at the Jerusalem Sheraton Plaza, “at least 700–800 eggs are cracked in accordance with guests’ requests,” whereas “Dan Eilat offers a 60-meter-long breakfast buffet, out of which 18 meters are devoted to a minimum of 25 kinds of baked items. At Herzliya’s Daniel Hotel . . . the breakfast calculation includes two-and-a-half croissants on average, two-and-a-half to three rolls, and two eggs per person.”23 It is important to bear in mind that these hotel breakfasts are included in the room’s price and are therefore “free” in the sense that guests may eat as much as they like for

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no additional fee. As in communal kibbutz dining rooms of the past, these food events feature “all you can eat” breakfast items in large quantity and variety. The quality of the products and dishes, however, is often mediocre. The consumption of huge amounts of food at hotel breakfasts is an established Israeli culinary cliché that is often ridiculed by comedians. A classic example is Bomba Tzur’s skit from the 1970s, Okhel, kadimah okhel (Food, straight to the food),24 which depicts the manner in which guests at a Histadrut labor union guesthouse are encouraged to stuff themselves from morning to night. This practice is condemned by Israeli tour guides abroad, who advise their clients not to go overboard on break­ fast dining and (even more important) not to make sandwiches for the rest of the day—a “custom” that is still tolerated in many Israeli hotels but which is considered theft in other countries. (In some Israeli hotels, there are now signs in Hebrew stipu­ lating that that no food can be taken out of the dining room.) Food critique Tahel Blumenfeld neatly summarizes the overindulgence embedded in these breakfasts: There is no doubt that breakfast at an Israeli hotel is a formative event in the lives of people who live here. This meal, in which impossible amounts of food are stuffed into the digestion system at impossible hours, encapsulates everything that makes us the chosen people: size does matter to us; we love salted herring when we don’t have to pay for it; cottage cheese is great, but we’d rather have three hundred kinds of cheese next to it; and of course, we’d rather fill our plates numerous times with a pile of food that we’ll never eat.25

Israelis like their portions big and cheap not only for breakfast—and not only in Israel. From the 1990s onward, one of the main reasons for Turkey’s great popularity as a tourist destination were the “all-inclusive” travel packages that included food, though not other perks such as massages or motorized water sports. Some 500,000 Israelis visited Turkey in 2009; although luxurious hotels with their private swim­ ming pools and beaches were also important factors, price and “free” food were what really made Turkish vacation packages so popular. Significantly, while those Israelis who opted for Turkey’s “all included” packages were often ridiculed as vulgar and lower-class, the Israeli branch of Club-Med offers similar attractions: “a holiday atmosphere throughout the year, a private beach . . .  world-class entertainment, outrageous meals around the clock . . . and most important, everything, but e-ve-ry-thing, is included.”26 Thus, even more well-heeled Israelis (Club Med holidays are very expensive) are lured by the promise of a free flow of food. In a different context, a classic Israeli “backpackers’ myth”27 recounts how four moshavnicks28 went to a well-known parilla (grill house) in Quito, Ecuador that had an “all you can eat” policy. After a couple of hours of non-stop meat consumption, the pro­ prietor approached their table and said that he was reluctant to serve them more meat. “In that case,” the backpackers responded, “we won’t pay.” The proprietor responded, “Fine, just leave!” Here again, quality is not the issue but rather quantity and price. The fact that this story became a myth indicates the importance of its message. I had my own “make-it-big” meal experience once with a group of Israeli (male) expats in California. One of the men was asked by the waiter, “how would you like your steak?” referring, of course, to whether he wanted it rare, medium, or well-done.

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The Israeli responded: “big!” causing all of his friends to burst out laughing while the waiter looked visibly uncomfortable. This story, too, turned into a kind of myth, as it was repeated every time any of us got together in the upcoming years. What I found most intriguing was the fact that, even in the United States, where portion sizes (based on personal observation) are generally larger than in Israel,29 this response evoked uneasiness among the Americans present, whereas the Israelis found it witty and even admirable. Here again, the issue was portion size rather than food quality. The Israeli preference for large, cheap portions shows no signs of diminishing. On the contrary, it seems that despite Israel’s increasing affluence, the emergence of a more sophisticated local cuisine, the importation of foreign foods and eating styles, and the growing awareness of the hazards of being overweight, portion size contin­ ues to grow, often at the expense of quality. This process is most clearly evident at the Taste of the City food festival celebrated annually in Tel Aviv since 1996.30 The orig­ inal idea behind this event was to introduce gourmet cuisine to those who would not normally be able to afford to dine in expensive restaurants, by means of offering samples of high-quality food for a fraction of its restaurant price. In its first year, the festival featured food from 20 gourmet restaurants; by 2012, according to the festi­ val’s sponsoring publication, “dozens of food stands of leading restaurants will offer especially inexpensive dishes (30–35 shekels).”31 Yet apart from the growing number of participating restaurants, there was another major change—over the years, the small portions of gourmet food (such as a tiny amount of Aharoni’s famous foie gras, for 25 shekels) had gradually been replaced by food that could hardly qualify as haute cuisine, mainly hamburgers and other kinds of grilled meat. At the same time, the portions had become much larger, each dish becoming a whole meal rather than a sample. Moreover, the prices of the portions had gone up to a level (40-45 shekels) that was close to the price of a main dish at a medium-range restaurant. These changes were noticed by customers, food experts, and critics alike. In the early years, people whom I interviewed during the festival often complained that the portions were too small and that even though prices were rather cheap, they had to purchase four or five dishes so as to satisfy their appetites. As the portions grew, and as the festival attracted increasing numbers of participants, these remarks were no longer being made. Yet professional chefs and journalists were far from pleased with the changes. Chef Eyal Lavi commented: “Sadly, in the last couple of years I didn’t participate [in the festival], because I didn’t like the fact that the event turned into a food market and stopped being a festival of quality restaurants.”32 Journalist Orna Yefet concurred, noting (in an article titled “Something Doesn’t Smell Good at the Ta’am Ha’ir Festival”) that “prestigious restaurants, and even simply good restau­ rants, . . . were replaced by much simpler restaurants . . . The gourmet dishes became kebabs and hamburgers that one can find at any street corner.”33 Lavi and Yefet con­ fined their comments to the lower quality of the food being sold. The other side of the equation was the enlargement of the portions. Thus, during the 2008 festival, one of the chefs told me: “we move 300 kilos of meat each day.” At the same festival I noticed a well-known chef competing with others in loudly promoting his wares (in this case, hamburgers). When I asked him why he was shouting, he responded: “this is a market.”34 Discussing with me the issue of portion size at the 2012 festival, food journalist and chef Hila Alpert commented, “Israelis are the biggest pigs ever.”35

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Enlarging Foreign Dishes Boosting small portions and emphasizing quantity over quality are also evident in the process by which Israelis have adapted global culinary trends such as tapas, dim sum and sushi, which were originally served in small portions. Even dishes that were not so small to begin with, or that are supposed to adhere to universal size standards (for instance, McDonald’s hamburgers) were enlarged in Israel. Let me address each of these dishes in its Israeli context. Spanish tapas, a version of the Mediterranean meze, are small and usually inexpen­ sive portions of “finger foods” that accompany drinks at bars. While there is a great variety of tapas depending on such factors as region, season, and location, the por­ tions are always small. In fact, the Spanish term for eating tapas is picar (peck) rather than comer (eat).36 Tapas served in Israel are different: they are usually much larger than the Spanish version and are also quite expensive. According to the owner of one of the trendiest tapas bars in Tel Aviv, the first tapas bars (opened in Israel in 2005 or 2006) were established by young culinary entrepre­ neurs who became acquainted with the dish either in Spain or, in most cases, in the United States, where tapas were a recent culinary trend. In the main, they were made with imported Spanish ingredients and fresh seafood, and were small and expensive. For this reason, the tapas bars elicited substantial hostility among Israeli customers, who sensed that they were being cheated.37 This hostility is easily discerned in the talkbacks that responded to a very positive review of a newly opened tapas bar in Tel Aviv in 2009.38 A man named Yaron, for example, wrote: “Everything looked really inviting and good until we got the food. Each portion was literally bite-sized. The prices, however, are those of main courses, 60–70 shekels. We were cheated once, we won’t be cheated again.” Amit wrote: “No need to endlessly discuss the issue. There were five of us, we paid 845 shekels and walked out still hungry . . . plain stinginess! And I am positive that [the chef] under­ stands the lack of proportion between the size of the dishes and their price.” A woman named Nelly wrote the following: “We were looking forward so much to going to this new place and trying the tapas, but were so disappointed when we found out that the portions were tiny. The average portion was no larger than a bowl of peanuts served for free at bars, only they charge you a fortune for it . . . we left hungry and with an in­ flated bill. We will never return.” Nelly’s comment also included a recommendation for a different tapas bar: “cheaper, bigger portions, and much tastier. . . .” In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that some commentators were less critical and even en­ thusiastic about the place. Most of the talkbacks, however, condemned the size of the tapas, especially in relation to their price. In a review of a tapas bar cited as “the first real tapas bar in Israel,” food critic Sagi Cohen argues that the large tapas portions served in Israel are hardly the real thing: “To date, all the restaurants calling themselves tapas bars were actually restaurants serving diminished versions of other types of food. With all due respect, ‘a sixth part of a steak’ is not tapas but five sixths of cheating, exactly in the way that ‘half a por­ tion of gnocchi’ is not tapas but an outrageous pricing system.”39 In light of such comments, when one of my interviewees opened his own tapas bar in 2010, he decided to serve larger portions that were made of cheaper ingredients.

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He also shifted the emphasis from the alcohol to the food, “as there is no real drinking culture in Israel.” He explained that while his menu “is less varied than a Spanish tapas bar, most customers order only one or two dishes per person, so there is no need for so many options.”40 Chinese dim sum went through a similar process of “Israelization” and enlarge­ ment. Dim sum is actually not a dish but an eating style featuring a large variety of small portions of food accompanying tea. Traditionally, dim sum dining took place in Cantonese tea houses, mainly in the morning. Cantonese cuisine is among the most sophisticated Chinese cuisines, and dim sum is among its greatest achievements. Steamed dumplings, finely folded and stuffed, are iconic dim sum items, but an aver­ age Cantonese tea house features dozens and even hundreds of other options. According to sociologist Rafi Grosglik, who studies the globalization of the Israeli culinary sphere, the first proper dim sum restaurant was established in Tel Aviv in 1995 by a couple who had become acquainted with dim sum in China and thought that “it was cool, and might work in Israel.”41 They wanted to offer “authentic dim sum,” but had very limited culinary knowledge and therefore simplified it to “classic fillings and four or five folds [the ways in which the dough is folded into specific dumpling shapes].” The restaurant did not do very well and was taken over by a different entre­ preneur, who had previously worked at a local Chinese fast food chain. Though he, too, possessed very limited culinary knowledge, he tried to pursue the dim sum path and even hired Chinese cooks. He soon realized that dim sum was not sufficiently attractive to Israeli diners. According to Grosglik, he therefore added “noodles and stir-fries, which are very popular in Israel,” alongside a variety of business meals, while retaining a few dim sum portions on the menu as a means of distinguishing his restaurant.42 The dumplings, Grosglik noted further, were adjusted to the Israeli taste in several ways. First, there were changes in the fillings: All of the “strange” ingredients were removed. For example, the classic “pork, springonion and ginger” was removed from the menu. . . . Shrimps however, were ok. They also invented a filling of spinach (actually frozen spinach), mixed with shredded roasted pea­ nuts and seasoned with artificial oyster sauce. It was sweet and salty and had spinach in it, and Israelis loved it.

A more important change had to do with the dough for the shells. Cantonese dump­ lings are often made from rice or tapioca flour, which makes for a fine and translucent pastry. But the Israeli customers wanted only wheat-flour shells, which make for a thick, coarse pastry similar to Italian pasta: “The point is that instead of the tiny, so­ phisticated dim sum served at Cantonese tea houses, they ended up serving huge portions of cheap, easy-to-make street foods such as fried gioza and steamed baodze, which are intended to stuff poor hungry workers rather than please members of the sophisticated urban elite.”43 Sushi was similarly adjusted to the Israeli culinary sphere. Although originating in Japan, sushi arrived in Israel via the United States, where it had already under­ gone changes. Some of the American modifications, such as the enlargement of the sushi units or the inclusion of ingredients such as avocado (in California rolls), canned tuna (in Hawaiian rolls), or salmon and cream cheese (in Philadelphia rolls), were in line with Israeli culinary preferences. However, the Israeli version differs

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both from the Japanese original and the American modification in that it is not only larger than the Japanese original, but also more “substantial.” According to a colleague who conducts his anthropological research in Japan, Japanese sushi is served in bite-sized pieces that allow the diner to experience a com­ bination of flavors, aromas, textures, and colors. He estimated that Israeli sushi is 40 percent larger than the Japanese equivalent.44 We should bear in mind, though, that sushi, like tapas, was originally devised to accompany alcoholic drinks and was therefore considered to be a “finger-food” rather than a dish. However, as Boaz Zairi, a leading sushi master, told me in 1998: “Israelis don’t drink and don’t have a drinking culture. Sushi is therefore considered a dish, and Israelis expect it to be as large and as filling as any other dish.”45 As noted, sushi had already undergone an increase of size in the United States. The U.S.-based portal SushiNow.com points out that American sushi is larger in general [than Japanese sushi]. The individual pieces are usu­ ally too big to eat in one bite. . . . In the same way that other cuisines are altered in the United States, more emphasis is put on the quantity of sushi and less on quality and eye appeal. . . . [M]eal proportions have expanded to rival meals available at other restaurants. The traditional Japanese reverence for good quality food in small portions has dissipated in America, with sushi bars deferring to the American-sized appetite and attraction to colorful food in big portions.46

In Israel, according to the Israeli food portal sushi4me.com, the portions are not only larger but also denser: “Sushi ‘inside out’ is identical to ‘conventional’ sushi. The only difference is in the rolling technique, and of course in the final product. . . . Many [Israeli] cooks and diners prefer this rolling technique over classic rolls because one can squeeze much more filling into the sushi.”47 Similarly, in a discussion group on “real sushi” that took place in June 2012 on a now-defunct Israeli portal known as pkfight.com, a man named Yehuda wrote: “It appears that sushi preparation in Israel is done according to slightly different rules that adhere to the Israeli food cul­ ture. . . . The Israeli diner who likes his pita packed with goodies might be turned off by sushi portions that look too humble; Israeli sushi had to give up some minimalism so as to adhere to the Israeli preferences.”48 Beyond size and consistency, Israeli sushi also differs in the proportion of rice vis-àvis fish and vegetables. In Japan (and in other rice cultures) rice is the centerpiece of the meal, with other food ingredients accompanying or decorating it.49 Israeli meals, however, follow the western notion that a “proper” meal centers on some form of ani­ mal-based protein,50 though vegetables are also important. Consequently, Israeli sushi features larger, thicker, and heavier pieces of fish and also larger pieces of vegetable shreds than its Japanese counterpart. Moreover, the fish is usually processed rather than raw, canned tuna or smoked salmon being the most common fish component. Several factors underlie the preference for processed fish. Canned tuna and smoked salmon are not only more durable, but also have stronger taste and aroma and are harder to slice into fine slivers. Using these ingredients therefore results in sushi that feature thicker pieces of fish and marked taste and aroma, which, as we have seen, are just the qualities Israeli diners prefer. Processed fish is also cheaper than raw fish and is less expensive to handle (for instance, in terms of refrigeration). Finally, the use of

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tuna and smoked salmon appears to be connected with a reluctance on the part of Israeli Jews to consume raw flesh. Although caterers that I interviewed argued that they use processed fish in order to avoid the problems associated with using the more perishable raw fish, the fact is that when I asked guests at a number of weddings whether they would like to try raw fish sushi, the most common response was disgust or even horror.51 Israeli sushi is also characterized by a number of local innovations, among them “fusion-sushi that combine Japanese traditions and the local food culture. An example is a sushi coated with breadcrumbs and fried in oil so as to produce a dish similar to schnitzel, Israel’s most popular dish. This [sushi] is sometimes prepared with chicken breast instead of the traditional algae leaf, which makes it even more similar to the traditional schnitzel.”52 The final product, of course, is quite different from the original Japanese dish based on tiny, delicately flavored rice balls and translucent fish slivers. It is important to note that the process of augmentation is not limited to foreign dishes that are originally small. The best example of the Israeli tendency to increase portion sizes is the “McRoyal” burger sold by McDonald’s in Israel (elsewhere, it is known by other names, most commonly the “quarter-pounder”). In 2001, some eight years after the arrival of McDonald’s to Israel, the CEO, Omri Padan, announced that McDonald’s Israel would increase the size of the McRoyal burger by 25 percent, “making it the largest hamburger at any McDonald’s throughout the world and, for that matter, at any international hamburger chain anywhere.” He went on to explain that the decision to enlarge the hamburgers was made in the wake of surveys conducted at local McDonald’s branches.53 Cultural geographer Maoz Azaryahu, who has examined McDonald’s in the context of what he terms the “Americanization of Israel,” notes that “the chain also developed a new type of hamburger to conform with Israeli preferences and tastes. As advertised, the McRoyal was more of everything: bigger, spicier, and more juicy. Accordingly, even if the idiom appeared to be American, both content and accent were unmistakably Israeli.”54 The process, in other words, cuts both ways: whereas McDonald’s has a role in the “Americanization of Israel,” the larger-sized hamburgers represent an Israeli cultural transformation of the American original.

Culinary Expertise and Fine Food It seems reasonable to assume that large slices of fish and coarser sushi, like the thick shells of the dim sum and the simplified, enlarged tapas, may reflect a lack of culi­ nary expertise, or a lack of caring about such expertise. Certain comments made by interviewees, as well as my own observations, point in the direction of a cultural tendency to disregard or even mock the culinary training and expertise necessary for producing fine food. This propensity fits in with my argument regarding the Israeli preference for quantity over quality. In several interviews, it transpired that the credentials even of highly regarded Israeli chefs could be somewhat thin. One of the country’s leading chefs complained during our long conversation that “nowadays, young people with big dreams take a

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three-day cooking class in Paris and then open a French restaurant.”55 Later in the interview, I asked him about his own training. He said that after working for a year or so as a kitchen assistant, he went to France and took a couple of short cooking courses before setting up his first (highly successful) restaurant. In another interview, a leading Israeli sushi master argued that sushi preparation is an art that can be ac­ quired only through long years of training under experienced Japanese sushi masters. Later in the conversation I asked him about his own training, and he responded that he had worked in a sushi restaurant in a western country. When I wondered if this was enough, he replied: “I have a Japanese spouse.” He later explained that he made reg­ ular visits both to Japan and to Japanese restaurants in other countries and was con­ stantly improving his knowledge and skills.56 However, the discrepancy between his contention regarding the proper training of sushi masters and his own (limited) training hovered over the rest of the interview. Lack of training and expertise among leading chefs, especially when it comes to foreign food, has also been noted by food critics. In a (rave) review of a newly opened tapas bar, Hagit Evron writes: [Yonatan] Roshfeld, a talented chef specializing in French cooking, studied the Spanish cuisine, went back and forth to Spain several times, and put together a menu . . . that, as far as authenticity goes, gets a high score. True, in any other place in the world (as Roshfeld, of all people, should know), opening an ethnic restaurant requires years of in-depth research, experience, and trial-and-error experimentation. But Roshfeld, as noted, is a talented and very confident guy.

Here and elsewhere in the review, Evron feels obliged to point out a certain gap ­between culinary pretensions and the actual food. “For instance,” she writes, “quesa­ dilla. . . . Even though this is a Mexican dish, one shouldn’t be petty-minded. They speak Spanish in Mexico, too. . . .”57 Not surprisingly, the tendency to distain professional training is exacerbated at the lower end of the Israeli culinary scene. Here is one telling vignette: I once took my children to a sushi bar that caters mainly to students at Ben-Gurion University (located in Beersheba, a desert city with few gourmet options). My children wanted to see the preparation process, so we took our seats by the bar. After taking our order, the student working at the bar began the process of making the sushi by dipping her hands in a bowl of water, explaining (in response to a question posed by my son) that this was to prevent the rice from sticking to her hands. She had this to say about sushi making in general: “What’s the big deal? You take some rice, shape it into a ball, top it with some fish or vegetables, and that’s it.” Further questioning elicited the in­ formation that the owner of the bar, also a student, had taught her how to make sushi just a few days before. The sushi, not surprisingly, was nearly inedible. The consequence of casually dismissing the importance of quality ingredients and culinary expertise is that size remains the only attribute of value: if sushi is “just a ball of rice topped with some fish”; if it is “no big deal” to prepare sushi/tapas/dim sum/ hamburgers; and if it only takes a couple of weeks in a cooking school or several trips abroad to master a foreign cuisine, there is little value to acquiring culinary knowledge and expertise.

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What Does It Mean to Be “Full” in Israel? What, exactly, do Israelis mean when they refer to satiety? Haim Cohen, a leading Israeli chef and culinary celebrity, provides a graphic explanation: “You sit at the table, your belt loosened and the top button of your pants open. You sweat, you can hardly breathe and you feel as if you are about to throw up. . . . Now that is what we call being full (save’ah).” Over the years, I have asked other Israeli chefs and food entrepreneurs, as well as other interviewees, to comment on Cohen’s statement. The most common reaction has been laughter, accompanied by an enthusiastic nod of agreement. Most of those I interviewed believe that historical reasons, as opposed to quality of food, underlie the Israeli emphasis on satiety. They point to the fact that, in con­ trast to the antisemitic stereotype of Jews being rich and fat, most diaspora Jews in the past were poor and hungry. Living under constant threat of violence and persecu­ tion, they explained, diaspora Jews became accustomed to eat as much as they could whenever they had the opportunity, as the next meal was never assured. Indeed, as is true of other cuisines, many of the mainstays of Jewish cooking throughout the dias­ pora are “augmented” dishes—that is, they contain mostly inexpensive ingredients, with relatively small amounts of animal protein. Cholent, the iconic Sabbath stew, is a good example, as are gefilte fish and kube. Interviewees also noted differences between various groups of Jews. With regard to certain Ashkenazi Jews, the Holocaust was invoked to explain a tendency on the part of many survivors to serve large amounts of food and to demand that all of it be eaten, this clearly being a reaction to previous extreme deprivation.58 In contrast, Mizrahi Jews59 have a tradition (reflecting the Arab influence of their countries of origin) of offering large quantities of food both as an expression of hospitality and as a token of prestige. Thus, a friend of Moroccan origin pointed to the colorful, dish-laden table at her parents’ house during a Sabbath meal and noted: “In Moroccan [Arabic], there is no word for ketzat [a little bit].” Another friend, who had migrated to Israel from Morocco as a young child, commented that, in his view, stinginess was the worst of all vices, adding that he considers “doggie bags” embarrassing because they represent an extreme form of stinginess. Both comments depict a Mizrahi penchant for large food portions, which imply generosity. I do not, of course, mean to suggest that generosity and a rejection of stinginess are exclusively “Mizrahi” qualities. Rather, I wish to highlight the fact that Mizrahi Jews perceive themselves to be generous, and point to the abundant quantities of food they tend to offer as an expression of this trait. Obviously, as with East European Jews, poverty and deprivation can also account for the Mizrahi emphasis on quantity. My wife’s grandmother, for instance, grew up in the Kurdish region of Iraq. In the aftermath of the First World War, this area was devastated by famine; three of her siblings perished as a result. Throughout her long life, feeding family members was something of a personal mission: even when mem­ bers of the family became affluent (and plump), she continued to insist that they “eat more,” dishing up impossible quantities and demanding that all of the food be consumed.60 According to sociologist Gad Yair, two thousand years of diaspora, poverty, and hunger—culminating in the Holocaust—alongside a sense of constant threat (real or imagined) still felt by most Israeli Jews, have resulted in a “collective post-trauma.”61

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My interviewees suggest that one possible consequence of this collective post-trauma is a collective, unappeasable hunger. However, there may also be a more contempo­ rary cultural explanation for the nationwide demand for large portions. In a sensitive and insightful article, Luis Roniger and Michael Feige discuss the extremely impor­ tant Israeli principle of not being a freier—that is, not being a sucker.62 While Roniger and Feige acknowledge that such reluctance is not exclusively Israeli, they argue that the centrality of this ethic in Israel calls for explanation, given that Israeli society has traditionally emphasized collective goals and self-sacrifice and has been critical of individual desires and personal profit. According to Roniger and Feige, the conventional sociological explanation for this Israeli trait relates to the weakening of ideological commitment in Israel.63 During the years preceding the creation of the state and in the early years of independence, the prevailing collectivist ideology was crystalized in the ideal of the pioneer who would sacrifice everything—including his own life—for the sake of the nation. But this ideology gradually eroded, and individualism, slowly acknowledged as a value, acquired a more central place in the lives of many Israelis. Roniger and Feige note that this was not a linear (and possibly deterministic) shift. Rather, there is a paradox­ ical coexistence between collectivism and individualism: Israeli Jewish society con­ tinues to make huge demands on its members and still upholds collective goals, the most important of which is defending the country and its citizens. Under such cir­ cumstances, “not being a freier” is a powerful mode of resistance to the hegemonic national ideology: “The non-freier . . . defines the meanings of Zionism by negating it. He does not define what should be done, but offers a model for what mustn’t be.”64 Stuffing oneself on food, and for a cheap price, is clearly an activation of the “not being a freier” principle: whether in Israel or abroad, and whether Israeli cuisine or not, large portions are an indication that the diner has not been cheated or otherwise taken advantage of. Indeed, in many interviews and talkbacks, one of the most com­ mon expressions used in response to a meal deemed too meager or too expensive was “freiers don’t die, they’re just replaced by others” ( freirim lo metim, rak mitḥ alfim). In an American context such a phrase may be interpreted as meaning “a sucker is born every minute,” but for Israelis, the additional point being made is that you might be cheated once, but no more than once. Roniger and Feige further argue that the obsession about not being a freier is par­ adoxical. As a disadvantaged minority, diaspora Jews suffered from a chronic “freier condition,” whereas Zionism sought to bring about an independent state in which Jews would overcome this condition. Yet in order to attain independence, individuals had to sacrifice themselves for collective goals (for instance, by serving in the army and doing regular reserve duty). When the collective ideals lost their hegemonic pos­ ition, these national duties were no longer perceived as a sacred duty, and those who performed them started feeling like freiers once again. Then again, if Israeli Jews find ways to get out of their national responsibility in order “not to be freiers,” the exist­ ence of the state is jeopardized, along with the non-freier status it was supposed to grant its citizens. Thus, there is really no way out of Israeli freierhood. This paradox evolves in a different direction within the culinary realm. Israeli Jews define a proper portion as a large amount of food, which leads to an extreme form of satiety. The quality of the food is secondary at best. The consequence is that Israelis get

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large portions of mediocre and even low-standard food. Thus, as in other walks of life, the Israeli obsession with not being a freier results in a constant state of “freierhood.”

Conclusion As anthropologists of food have long argued, many aspects of eating are cultural rather than nutritional.65 This case study points to the fact that in matters pertaining to the amount of food consumed and to feelings of satiety, cultural norms can overcome the physiological system and impose their own logic and parameters. Israelis do not nec­ essarily feel full when their nutritional demands are satisfied and their stomachs are amply stocked. Rather, they are satisfied (for a while) only when they feel that they have gotten full value and have not been taken for suckers; when they feel they can face the heavy demands of contemporary life in Israel and the looming threats of the future. The tendency of Israeli Jews to stuff themselves with food, and to feel full only on the verge of explosion, might have some implications for Israeli society at large. It seems to me that these propensities shed light on other aspects of life in Israel, among them the desire for bigger houses, cars, or home appliances. As with other issues dis­ cussed in this essay, a craving for such items is hardly confined to Israelis; it sometimes seems to be a universal desire. However, just as with Israeli foodways, such cravings evolve within Israeli cultural molds (such as the obsession with not being a freier). Finally, I would like to suggest that the Jewish Israeli tendency to eat to excess might have some implications for the understanding of wider issues. I discern the most salient expression for this tendency in Israelis’ complex relations with the national territory, and in the logic that underlies the Israeli-Arab conflict and specifi­ cally the occupation of the Palestinian territories. This logic was also apparent in the anti-government protests that rocked Israel in the summer of 2011. Tens of thousands of young Israelis—threatened by increasing economic gaps and the erosion of the Israeli middle class, and inspired by the “Arab Spring” and post 2008-crisis protest movements in Europe and the United States—hit the streets that summer to demand “social justice” and a more balanced division of wealth. Time and again during the course of these demonstrations, I heard the declaration: “We are not freiers.” The protests, however, were not sparked by the rising price of real estate, medical serv­ ices or gas, but rather by a minor increase in the price of the popular cottage cheese.66 Though Israeli culture and Israeliness are hardly defined or agreed upon (maybe because Israeli society is so young), the findings presented in this essay suggest that exploration of the Israeli cuisine may shed some light on Israeliness itself. While the cultural attributes discussed in this article are understood differently by different Israelis, the general agreement that “Israelis like it big” is illuminating, and may help to make sense of other Israeli phenomena.

Notes 1.  On various sociological aspects of Israeli cuisine, see the collection edited by Aviad Kleinberg, Beten meleah: mabat aḥ er ’al okhel veḥ evrah (Tel Aviv: 2005).

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2. Apart from being two popular food items in Israel, “cholent” and “shakshuka” can also refer to social processes in which intensive mixing and fusing take place. 3. Quoted in Hilik Gurfinkel, “Habishul hayisreeli: kavim lidmuto,” Maariv (9 May 2008), online at nrg.co.il/online/55/ART1/729/549.html (accessed 13 March 2014). 4. Ruth Sirkis, Mehamitbaḥ beahavah: yesodot habishul visodot hairuaḥ (Tel Aviv: 1975). On Sirkis’ classic, and on other Israeli cookbooks, see Doron Halutz, “Hasipur hayisreeli derekh hamatkonim vesifrei habishul mereishit hamedinah ve’ad yameinu,” Haaretz (25 March 2010), online at haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1159044.html. 5. Sirkis explained in a conversation in June 2012 that this specific picture was chosen for technical and aesthetic considerations and that she had never thought about it in terms of cul­ tural fusion, “at least not consciously.” However, she pointed out that the recipe for this dish (originally published in the late 1960s in At, a women’s magazine), which was influenced by Moroccan cuisine, was partly meant to demonstrate that, despite the Mizrahi critique of the sweetness of Ashkenazi food (as epitomized, for instance, in gefilte fish), Mizrahi cuisine also features sweet protein dishes. “At that time,” she added in a subsequent email of June 2012: I used to publish international recipes that were completely new on the Israeli landscape, including poultry dishes such as “Hawaiian Chicken in Pineapple,” “Far Eastern-style Chicken in Soy Sauce, Wine, and Honey,” “French Chicken in Wine,” “Chicken in Almonds,” “Chinese Sweet and Sour Chicken”–and also the Israeli-style chicken in orange sauce (oranges were at the time Israel’s most famous export). The recipe included cumin (characteristic of falafel) and its photo was chosen for the cover [of the book]. This explanation further supports my suggestion regarding the choice of this specific dish for the book cover. 6. Orit Harel, “Sefer bishul ḥadash: mitbaḥ yisreeli,” online at motke.co.il/news/new .aspx?0r9VQ=IIMD&fVq=I (accessed 20 June 2014). 7. Quoted in Rika Lichtman, “Haprovakator shehafakh lebustenai,” online at steimatzky .co.il/Steimatzky/Pages/Content.aspx?ContentID=Story_Cooking05 (accessed 20 June 2014). 8. For a few salient examples, see Jack Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology (Cambridge: 1982); Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: 1985); idem, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past (Boston: 1996); Carole M. Counihan, The Anthropology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning and Power (New York: 1999); Michael Ashkenazi and Jeanne Jacob, The Essence of Japanese Cuisine: An Essay on Food and Culture (Richmond, Surrey: 2000), David E. Sutton, Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory (Oxford: 2001); Richard Wilk, Home Cooking in the Global Village: Caribbean Food from Buccaneers to Ecotourists (New York: 2006). 9. Interview (May 1998). 10. Throughout the article, I generally refrain from citing the names of the chefs or restau­ rateurs who were interviewed so as to ensure their privacy. While some of them are identified in this paragraph, what they actually said will be quoted anonymously, unless the quotes are taken from published articles or news items. 11. Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” in Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science, ed. Michael Martin and Lee C. McIntyre (Cambridge: 1994), 213–231. 12. “Netnography,” a term developed by Robert Kozinets, refers to “a new qualitative research methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to study cultures and com­ munities that are emerging through computer-mediated communication” (see his essay “The Field behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities,” Journal of Marketing Research 39, no. 1 [February 2002], 63; see also idem, “On Netnography: Initial Reflections on Consumer Investigations of Cybercultures,” Advances in Consumer Research 25, no. 1 [January 1998], 366–371). 13. Interview (June 1998). 14. Interview (June 1998). 15. Ibid.

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16. Interview (June 2012). 17. rol.co.il/index/chef-secrets/kimel1-shefim.html (accessed 28 April 2014). 18. I feel that it would be unethical to disclose the restaurant’s name. 19. Interview (May 2012). 20. Interview (March 2009). 21. Michal Navon, “Hamitbaḥ hakibutzi vehahafratah,” Globes (14 August 2001), online at globes.co.il/news/home.aspx?fid=2&did=439431&nagish=1 (accessed 28 April 2014). 22. Shoshanah Hen, “Arukhat boker plus lailah,” Ynet (17 October 2005), online at ynet .co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3153985,00.html (accessed 23 March 2014). 23. Ibid. 24. A recording of the skit (in Hebrew) can be found online at youtube.com/watch?v =CxufKZQmBqE (accessed 16 March 2014). 25. Tahel Blumenfeld, “Lo rak beveit malon: 8 arukhot boker mushka’ot bimyuḥad,” Ynet (6 June 2007), online at ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3408000,00.html (accessed 23 March 2014). 26. Promo (in Hebrew) for Coral Beach Club, online at fattal.co.il/Hotel.aspx?ResortID =1&LangID=1 (accessed 28 April 2014), emphasis added. 27. I have been collecting data on Israeli backpackers since the mid-1990s. I define back­ packer myths as iconic stories recounted by Israeli (and other) backpackers, which are placed in a specific time and location even though the narrators usually admit that they did not per­ sonally witness the events. 28. A moshav is an Israeli agricultural community that, in the past, featured a certain amount of collectivism, though less than that of traditional kibbutzim. Moshavniks and kibbutzniks alike are often characterized as being physically strong and endowed with an impressive ca­ pacity for food intake, somewhat reminiscent of American truckers. This reputation probably stems from their uniqueness as Israeli Jews who work physically and are therefore in need of substantial amounts of food. During the period of food rationing, those engaged in physical labor were given extra meat rations; see Orit Rozin’s essay in this volume, esp. □□–□□. 29. On large portion sizes in the United States, see, for instance, Barbara J. Rolls, “The Supersizing of America: Portion Size and the Obesity Epidemic,” Nutrition Today 38, no. 2 (March-April 2003), 42–53. 30. “Ta’am ha’ir 15” (13 June 2011), online at 1909.co.il/2011/06/13/taamhair (accessed 28 April 2014). 31. “Ta’am ha’ir ḥozer: mah meḥakeh lakhem?” Akhbar ha’ir (29 March 2012), online at mouse.co.il/CM.articles_item,582,209,61237,.aspx (accessed 28 April 2014). 32. Dana Melamed, “Ta’am ha’ir 2011: hashefim hagedolim ḥosfim et hasodot,” online at mouse.co.il/CM.articles_item,582,209,60726,.aspx (accessed 20 June 2014). 33. Orna Yefet, “Mashehu lo meriaḥ tov befestival ‘Ta’am ha’ir’ ” (29 May 2008), online at calcalist.co.il/local/articles/0,7340,L-3078682,00.html (accessed 28 April 2014). 34. Interview (June 2008). 35. Interview (April 2012). 36. See “El mundo de las tapas” site, at arrakis.es/~jols/tapas/index2.html (accessed 28 April 2014). 37. Interview (June 2012). 38. I have decided not to include the web address of these talkbacks, as my point here is not to criticize the restaurant but rather to point to the Israeli preference for large portions at a low price. 39. Sagi Cohen, “Tortuga: sof sof ’osim kan tapas,” Haaretz (4 February 2011), online at haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1213264.html. 40. Interview (May 2012). 41. Conversation with Rafi Grosglik (March 2012). Although Israel Aharoni served dim sum in his restaurant Tai Chi in the late 1980s, this was only part of the menu. I later return to the dim sum at this restaurant. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Interview with colleague (June 2012). 45. Conversation with Boaz Zairi (April 1998).

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46. Online at sushinow.com/history.htm (accessed 30 April 2014). 47. Online (in Hebrew) at sushi4me.com/index.php (accessed 30 April 2014). 48. As noted, the message was posted in June 2012 but is no longer accessible online. 49. Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Rice as Self: Japanese Identities through Time (Princeton: 1993); idem, “Structure, Event and Historical Metaphor: Rice and Identities in Japanese History,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, no. 2 (June 1995), 227–253; Ashkenazi and Jacob, The Essence of Japanese Cuisine; Nir Avieli, Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town (Bloomington: 2012). 50. Mary Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” Daedalus 101, no. 1 (Winter 1972), 61–82; Anne Murcott, “On the Social Significance of the ‘Cooked Dinner’ in South Wales,” Social Science Information 21, nos. 4–5 (July 1982). 51. Judaism forbids the consumption of blood, which is believed to contain the soul (Leviticus 17:11). Traditional Jewish cooking therefore involves a thorough drainage of the blood, absorption of its leftovers with salt and, in some situations (for instance, when cooking liver), searing the raw meat so as to burn any remaining blood. As a consequence, raw flesh is practically avoided in all Jewish culinary traditions. 52. See no. 45 (emphasis added). 53. On the McDonald’s announcement, see “McDonald’s magdilah et ‘McRoyal,’ ”Globes (12 March 2001), online at globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=475849 and article of the same title at Y-Net Consumer (11 March 2001), online at ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-589789,00. html (accessed 30 April 2014). On adjustments made by McDonald’s to accommodate local culture and culinary demands, see, for instance, George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Life (Newbury Park, Calif.: 1996); James L. Watson (ed.), Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia (Stanford: 1997). The enlarged “McRoyal” burger was comparatively more expensive in Israel (about $6, compared with $3 for a quarter-pounder in the United States). 54. Maoz Azaryahu, “McIsrael? on the Americanization of Israel,” Israel Studies 5, no. 1 (Spring 2000), 41–64; quote on 62 (emphasis added). 55. Interview (March 1998). 56. Ibid. 57. Hagit Evron, “Shirat Sefarad” (6 December 2009), online at mako.co.il/food-cooking_ magazine/restaurants_review/Article-2315772cc394521004.htm (accessed 30 April 2014). 58. Israeli folklore and modern Hebrew literature abound with references to the complex relationship of Holocaust survivors to food, in particularly bread. See, for instance, David Grossman’s See: Under Love (New York: 1989) and the works by Yehiel De-Nur (writing under the name K. Zetnick). 59. On “Mizrahi” Jews, see Aziza Khazzoom, “Tarbut ma’aravit, tiyug etni usegirut ḥevratit: harek’a lei hashivyon haetni beyisrael,” Sotziyologiyah yisreelit 2 (1999), 385–428. 60. Susan Starr Sered, “Food and Holiness: Cooking as a Sacred Act among MiddleEastern Jewish Women,” Anthropological Quarterly 61, no. 3 (April 1988), 129–139. 61. Gad Yair, Tzofen hayisreeliyut: ’aseret hadiberot shel shenot haalpayim (Tel Aviv: 2011). 62. Luis Roniger and Michael Feige, “Tarbut hafreier vehazehut hayisreeelit,” Alpayim 7 (1993) 118–136. It seems to me that this article did not get the attention and appreciation it deserved, possibly because of its misleading title—in English, “The Freier Culture and Israeli Identity.” In fact, the article describes the phenomenon of resistance to being (or being per­ ceived as) a freier. 63. Cf. Oz Almog, The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew (Berkeley: 2000). 64. Roniger and Feige, “Tarbut hafreier vehazehut hayisreeelit,” 132. 65. For a few salient examples, see Marshall D. Sahlins, “Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 5, no. 3 (April 1963), 285–303; Claude Fischler, “Food, Self and Identity,” Social Science Information 27, no. 2 (June 1988), Mary Douglas, Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (London: 1975); Murcott, “On the Social Significance of the ‘Cooked Dinner’ in South Wales”; Mintz, Sweetness and Power. 66. Gad Yair, Tzofen hayisreeliyut: ’aseret hadiberot shel shenot ha’alpayim (Tel Aviv: 2011).

A Tapestry of Tastes: Jewish Women of Syrian Descent and Their Cooking in Mexico and Israel Paulette Kershenovich Schuster (The Hebrew University)

Jewish cooking, variously practiced, is a daily expression of religious beliefs, ethnic identification, cultural or family history, or a combination of these components.1 Transcending social upheavals and countries, it nonetheless encompasses a plethora of ingredients and tastes that reflect the cultural forms and practices, ethnic markers, and religious elements of many Jewish communities worldwide. This combination of global and local is mirrored in the complex constructions of identify among Jews who embrace local cuisine while preserving traditional foods. In this essay, I elaborate on this point by means of a case study involving two groups of Jewish women of Syrian descent—one in Mexico, the other in Israel.2

Syrian Jews in Mexico and Israel Before examining cuisine and food practices among Syrian Jews in Mexico and Israel, it is useful to provide a sketch of the communities in which they live. In Mexico, the highly organized and close-knit Jewish community comprises four main subethnic groups that are differentiated according to geographical origin: Ashkenazim (Eastern Europe); Sephardim (Iberian Peninsula, Turkey, and the Balkans);3 and two distinct Syrian Jewish sub-groups, Damascene and Aleppan. Within these groupings are ten smaller divisions, or communities (comunidades), each of which maintains its own religious, cultural, and educational institutions.4 For instance, Jews originating from Damascus, known as Shamis, belong to the Monte Sinaí community, whereas the Jews originally from Aleppo, known as Halebis, belong to the Maguén David community.5 Among the broader Mexican Jewish population, the Syrian Jews are generally known as árabes (Arabs). Although the term does not particularly endear itself to Syrian Jews, it is often used by them as well. Nonetheless, many of them still define themselves as Shami or Halebi, or else make use of the term shajato, from the Syrian Arabic word for peddler. (I was told by many Halebis and Shamis that shajato actually meant a type of old sandal worn by peddlers.) For most non-Syrian Jews, 160

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shajato is a derogatory term for nouveau riche Mexican Jews who lack formal education and whose public behavior is deemed arrogant and presumptuous (prepotente).6 More specifically, shajatos are denigrated as loud-mouthed people who wear brand labels and flashy jewelry. In contrast, when Syrian Jews use the term about themselves, the connotation is that of wealthy individuals who have the freedom to act, dress, and behave as they please. Syrian Jews first settled in Mexico in the early 20th century, a time of increased political instability in the Middle East in the wake of the decline of the Ottoman Empire.7 The immigration to Mexico peaked in the 1920s but continued as a trickle all the way through the 1970s.8 Many of the immigrants made a living as peddlers until they accumulated enough wealth to open their own small shops and factories, usually in the textile industry. Textile production remains a common Syrian Jewish enterprise alongside other kinds of manufacturing and importing of industrial and consumer goods, and many sons go into the family business either as owners or as managers, often after studying marketing or business administration. In Mexico City, where most Syrian Jews live, there are numerous families belonging to the upper socio­ economic echelons. As of 2012, the Mexican Jewish community numbered approximately 39,000 (out of a total Mexican population of 112 million) and thus represents a tiny minority in the country.9 Nonetheless, because of their socioeconomic position in the upper middle class, they are more visible than comparable immigrant communities.10 The Syrian Jewish community, totaling some 16,000 individuals, constitutes approximately 40 percent of the total Mexican Jewish population and as such has a significant presence and influence in community and public affairs, business, and charitable enterprises.11 In recent years, the Jewish community as a whole has become less insular, taking a more active role in Mexican society. Palestine (and later, Israel) took in three major waves of Syrian Jewish immigration. According to Walter Zenner, the first wave began in the 1880s, although no figures are available prior to 1919. The next period (1919–1948) saw the arrival of  9,118 immigrants, with immigration peaking in 1929–1935. When partition of Palestine was declared in 1947, riots erupted in Aleppo. As a result, access to Palestine was barred until the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948,12 although thousands of Jews succeeded in fleeing from Syria to Palestine with the assistance of those on the other side of the border.13 Following the establishment of the Jewish state, the Syrian government intensified its persecution of the Jewish population. Freedom of movement was severely curtailed, and Jews who attempted to flee the country faced either the death penalty or imprisonment.14 Nonetheless, a total of 5,660 Jews managed to immigrate to Israel between 1948 and 1958 (most of them arriving before 1951).15 This third wave coincided with the austerity regime (tzena’) in Israel; as described by Orit Rozin and Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, the rationing regime had a great impact on local foodways. In common with Iraqi Jews, the subject of MeirGlitzenstein’s essay, the Syrian Jews had great difficulty in obtaining many of the traditional ingredients used in their cooking, either because they were unavailable or too expensive. It was not until the mid-1990s, largely as a result of pressure from the United States following the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, that most of the Jews of Syria

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were given permission to leave the country. They were explicitly barred from going to Israel; however, in an undercover operation in late 1994, 1,262 Syrian Jews were spirited into the country.16 These more recent immigrants have integrated into mainstream Israeli society. Among second- and third-generation Syrian Jews, there is little or no Syrian ethnic identity. Moreover, whereas religious and ideological considerations were initially uppermost in the decision to immigrate to Palestine/Israel as opposed to other countries, there has been a rise in secularism among second- and third-­generation Syrian Jews in Israel, and many of them are no longer religiously observant.17 In contrast with Mexico, there is no organized or structured Syrian Jewish community in Israel, although there are residential clusters around synagogues following the Syrian liturgy in Holon, Jerusalem, Haifa, Bat Yam, and Tel Aviv. There are also some smaller groups of Syrian Jews in Ramat Hasharon, Herzliya, and Rishon Lezion.18 According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, some 35,100 Syrian and Lebanese Jews (counted together) lived in Israel in 2012, of whom 10,100 were born abroad.19 The largest concentrations of Syrian Jews are in Bat Yam and in Kiryat Tivon, the two towns in which immigrants arriving in the first years of the state were provided with housing. In Israel, Syrian Jews are considered Mizrahim (or, as they are sometimes termed, Sephardim).20 The comprehensive category of Mizrahim/Sephardim comprises most Jews of Asian and African origin as well as those from Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and the Balkans. This broad classification largely overlooks the distinct cultural differences among sub-groups, which are constructed according to ethnic origins and history, demographic size and social class, cultural practices, kin networks, and specific experiences in Israel.21

Method and Sources In investigating food and cooking in the lives of Syrian Jewish women, I made use of interviews, observations, and content analysis. Formal and unstructured interviews, casual encounters, informal conversations, and observations took place in homes, coffee shops, classrooms, sports centers, social clubs, and other settings. The target population was Jewish women (aged 18 and older) born in Syria or of Syrian descent, who were living in Mexico or Israel. Mexican respondents who were affiliated with the Maguén David Community or Monte Sinaí Community through marriage, but who self-identified as either Halebis or Shamis, were also included. Participants were recruited primarily through snowball sampling.22 All formal interviews were conducted in Spanish or Hebrew, and all participants were briefed as to the purpose of the study. In Mexico City (in the neighborhoods of Tecamachalco, Bosques de las Lomas, and La Herradura), I conducted 11 semi-structured interviews between September 2010 and October 2011. Six of the women self-identified as Halebi, two as Shami, one as a mixture of Ashkenazi (or, in the term used by Mexican Jews, “Idish”)23 and Shami, and two as a mixture of Ashkenazi and Halebi. The interviewees ranged in age from 25 to 65; all but one were third-generation Mexican-born.24 All of them were married (usually to self-employed businessmen) and had an average of three

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children.25 One woman had completed elementary school, two had vocational training, three had a high school diploma, three had a college degree, and two had post-­graduate degrees—and all of them, by their own declarations, were also housewives. Of the women who worked (one each as a writer, a psychologist, a store clerk in the family business, and a pastry chef, and three as teachers), two were employed on a full-time basis and five worked part-time, and all reported that their husbands did not object to their working outside the home so long as they did not neglect their familial duties. In other words, their jobs were seen as supplements to their husbands’ incomes, not as independent livelihoods. At the same time, the fact that more than half of the interviewees worked outside their homes indicates shifting social attitudes alongside changes in Mexico’s economic situation.26 In Israel, I conducted 11 semi-structured interviews between June and October 2011. The interviewees ranged in age from 37 to 74, and all but two had been born in Israel (the two women born outside Israel had emigrated from Aleppo, one at the age of 10 and the other at the age of 19). Six women were married, three were single, and two were widowed. Seven women had children (an average of two). Seven women defined themselves as Israelis, while the rest labeled themselves as Halebi-Israelis. All of the women traced at least part of their ancestry to Aleppo—in the case of nine women, both sides of the family came from Aleppo, whereas in one case, family members were from Aleppo and Damascus, and in another, from Aleppo and Egypt. As with the Mexican women, educational attainment varied (two women had finished elementary school, four had a high school diploma, one had studied at a teachers’ seminar, three had a college degree, and one had a post-graduate degree). Eight of the women were currently working outside the house, four of them full-time and four part-time; the other three women were retired. Among those still working, there was a greater range of occupations: teacher (of graphic design), caregiver, translator, technical writer, graphic designer/artist, office manager, administrative assistant, and municipal clerk. In addition to conducting interviews, I joined my subjects in their daily activities at home, during shopping, and at classes, social gatherings, and public events, where I casually questioned them and listened to their conversations. While in their homes, I was able to observe what the women cooked, how they cooked, and how the food was presented and served.27 During meal times, I recorded every food item that was prepared and consumed. In addition to relevant literature, my written sources included cookbooks, memoirs, newspapers, and archival materials.

Mexican Diet, Israeli Diet, Syrian and Mizrahi Cuisines Both in Mexico and in Israel, Syrian Jewish cookery can be placed in the wider, countrywide culinary context. Traditional Mexican cuisine, as detailed on an online UNESCO site, is a “comprehensive cultural model comprising farming, ritual practices, age-old skills, culinary techniques and ancestral community customs and manners.”28 Staples of the diet include corn and beans; among the cooking practices is a process known as nixtamalization, in which maize is soaked, cooked, and then hulled, increasing its nutritional value.29 The modern Mexican diet is based on traditional

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practices and ingredients; in addition to the staples mentioned above, it includes a variety of tomatoes, squash, and avocados, along with cocoa and vanilla. Another noteworthy staple is the chile, which is eaten over the course of the day, often as salsas or else sprinkled over fruit or candy (in the form of a powder known as chile piquin). Mexican cuisine is not uniform—each state and region has its typical dishes. Overall it is characterized by much diversity in tastes, colors, smells, and textures. The modern weekday Israeli diet is based largely on fresh vegetables, fruits, and dairy products. Israeli cuisine also incorporates many foods traditionally eaten in other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, such as falafel, hummus,30 shak­ shouka (poached eggs cooked in a spicy tomato and hot pepper sauce), and couscous (steamed semolina served with cooked vegetables and broth). As described by Liora Gvion in her essay in this symposium, Mizrahi food is largely regarded as “ethnic” cuisine in Israel, while Ashkenazi food is perceived as “Jewish” cuisine. In recent decades, Mizrahi food has surpassed Ashkenazi food in general popularity. The Syrian cuisine, like other Middle Eastern cuisines, is based on a few key ingredients: lamb, chicken, dried beans, eggplant, rice and bulgur, olives, yogurt and salty cheese.31 Thus Syrian Jewish dishes, which largely follow the Syrian cuisine except for the strict separation between dishes containing meat and those containing dairy ingredients, are alive with flavor and healthful ingredients, emphasizing whole grains, vegetables, legumes, and olive oil.32 The Mizrahi cuisine in Israel reflects the convergence of Jews from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Algeria, Morocco, Afghanistan, Bukhara (Uzbekistan), Egypt, the Berber communities, Kurdistan, Eastern Caucasus, and Georgia. It also shares a number of culinary practices with those of Palestinian Arabs, whose food is now well regarded among many Israelis.33 (In April 2014, Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, from the town of Baqa al-Gharbiyye, won the title of “Master Chef” in the Israeli version of the popular television cooking competition, serving traditional Arabic dishes with a modern twist.)34 Mizrahi food is often light and fresh, concentrating on salads, stuffed vegetables and vine leaves, olive oil, lentils, fresh and dried fruits, herbs and nuts, and chickpeas. Lamb or ground beef are widely used for Shabbat, holiday, and celebratory meals. Rice is a staple of the Mizrahi diet, as are many varieties of flatbreads. There are also, of course, many intra-group variations and modifications.

Patterns of Cooking Eating patterns observed in Mexico and Israel indicate that the sequence of meals is similar: breakfast, a main meal in the afternoon, and a light dinner. The cuisines differ in the types of food consumed and in the combinations of food components. For example, a typical Mexican breakfast may include eggs with some kind of salsa, served with tortillas or bolillos (French rolls) or else quesadillas (usually cheesefilled tortillas, folded in half and deep-fried or simply eaten warm) with salsa. Alternatively, pan dulce (sweet bread) may be eaten along with atole (a beverage made from corn gruel) or coffee. The traditional Israeli breakfast, in contrast, includes eggs, bread, a finely chopped “Israeli salad” of cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions, and dairy products such as yogurt, cottage cheese, labane (a yogurt spread), and bulgarit

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(a salty white cheese). To be sure, the typical Mexican and Israeli breakfasts contain eggs, cheese, and bread. However, they differ in the use of salsas, salads, and type of bread eaten. Mexicans would never consider eating fresh salads for breakfast, whereas in Israel it is a major component of the meal. Changes in dietary practices are more evident among the younger generations in both countries. They may consume less in the way of stews such as the Shabbat cholent,35 and somewhat more fruit, vegetables, and milk, along with larger amounts of meat, ready-to-eat breakfast cereals, soft drinks, candy, cakes, ice cream, snack chips, and salad dressings. In Mexico, seven of the respondents reported that they liked cooking. Nine of the 11 respondents cooked on a daily basis (although in most cases, as will be seen, housemaids do much of the actual work—and one respondent indicated that she received some help from her husband). Approximately 2-3 hours a day were spent on cooking. Daily food consisted of a mix of styles, including Mexican, traditional Syrian Jewish fare, and some international dishes (for instance, sushi or spaghetti). In the case of traditional Syrian or festive meal preparation, the women of the house generally joined forces with other female relatives (mostly mothers and mothersin-law). Older women will ask for a daughter’s help only if she is married—­unmarried daughters may volunteer to help, but are seldom required to do so. Cooking is considered to be one of a married woman’s responsibilities as a “good wife and mother.” Marriage, for its part, is regarded as the basis for happiness, and it is expected that all women will marry.36 Syrian Jewish women in Mexico learn the art of cooking from their mothers, adapting the traditional recipes to modern needs. Except for one respondent whose father had assisted in the cooking process, only the mothers did the cooking in their childhood homes. Five of the respondents reported that they or their families watched television during meals. Most of them said that mealtime conversations dealt mainly with daily routines, including what the children had done during the day at school. On Shabbat, some families also spoke about the Torah portion of the week. Meals were taken at odd times during the week, and not all the family members ate together. Nonetheless, the interviewees indicated that dining together has not lost its importance. Family meals on Shabbat remain traditional, and are usually consumed in a formal dining area. Among my Mexican respondents, typical Syrian Jewish food was cooked by five of the respondents. In another two instances, such food was cooked exclusively by their mothers or mothers-in-law; in the four remaining households, non-Jewish workers did the cooking. In cooking for special occasions, all of the women received some help from their mothers, mothers-in-law, or housekeepers. Syrian Jewish food, which is mostly reserved for festive events, holidays or Shabbat, includes yaprak (stuffed vine leaves with rice and meats), stuffed zucchini, hamin (cholent, or chont, as it is also known), ful (fava beans), lajmayin (a lamb dish), hamud (sour tomato soup with potatoes, chicken, celery, parsley, and rice kipe), chicken with eggplant, meat maude (a stew of fried potato cubes with lamb, beef, or chicken), municiones (small cooked pasta similar to the Israeli petitim),37 myedra (rice with lentils and fried onions; Shamis call this dish umyedra); and various types of kipe38 that are eaten alone or else with avocado, tehina (tahini), or green or red salsas.

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One indication of culinary assimilation is the willingness of some of the younger Mexican respondents to use commercially bought products rather than making a traditional dish from scratch. Traditional ingredients comprising comida árabe (Arab food) can be found, at premium prices, in boutique food stores; in one such establishment, 21 different items were available. However, according to some of the older respondents, it is considered shameful to buy traditional food rather than preparing it oneself. Food fusion, a process characteristic of the immigrant experience, refers to the trend of combining foods from more than one culture in the same dish. Some examples of food fusion in Mexico include stuffed zucchini with tamarind sauce; stuffed vine leaves with lemon sauce; artichoke with kipe and lamb, combined with various types of chiles and spices (such as cinnamon) and served with flour tortillas; meat cigars with ancho chile sauce; and Arabic sausage stuffed with beef, serrano chiles and chile piquin. Syrian Jews also enjoy the culinary diversity of Mexican dishes, adapting them at home to meet the requirements of kosher cooking. Thus, for example, tacos al pastor, traditionally made of spiced pork cooked on a rotisserie, are made instead with shredded beef or spiced fish and garlic, and a popular shrimp cocktail with ketchup and chipotle chile salsa is made from imitation crab meat.39 The use of imitation crab meat or (less commonly) imitation shrimp was another means of adapting popular Mexican dishes within the boundaries of kashrut. Shaul Stampfer points to a similar phenomenon in his contribution to this symposium, noting that both lox and falafel resemble meat (or meatballs), and that both are served with something that is either a dairy product (cream cheese) or can be mistaken for a dairy product (tehina sauce). Such foods, he notes, have the appearance of breaking with Jewish tradition, though in reality they are firmly within it.40 Initially, Syrian Jewish immigrants continued to eat traditional Syrian food after their arrival, but gradually Mexican dishes entered their cuisine. Over time, members of the second and third generations adopted modern Mexican patterns of eating as well as Mexican foods. An example are antojitos mexicanos, appetizers eaten before a meal or as snacks. These include chilapitas (little tortilla bases topped with fish, beans, beef or chicken) and tostadas (deep-fried tortillas topped with beans, shredded lettuce, some kind of meat, and salsa). Other popular Mexican foods include tacos, tamales, quesadillas, and corn-on-the cob with various toppings. In Israel, meanwhile, the growing acceptance of culinary diversity means that Israeli Jews “are beginning to celebrate their traditional flavors, recognizing that they are delicious in their difference.”41 In Mexico, each Jewish community tends to consume its own ethnic cuisine; it is rare that Syrian Jews will eat Ashkenazi food (although comida arabe is often eaten by Ashkenazim or Sephardim). Israelis, in contrast, incorporate various forms of ethnic cuisines and make them their own. All of the Israeli informants described their diet as Israeli, although five of the women reported that they ate Syrian Jewish food on a daily basis. The remaining six women reserved Syrian Jewish dishes for special occasions, holidays, and Shabbat. Among my Israeli respondents, seven reported that they liked cooking. Cooking in general was mostly done by the women themselves, although one respondent received help from her husband and one did not cook (in the latter case, the woman lived at her parents’ home, where her mother did all the cooking). Whereas in Mexico,

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nine of the 11 interviewees cooked on a daily basis, only five of the 11 Israeli women cooked daily. The other six cooked only on Friday or on Friday and one other day; they reported averaging one and a half hours of cooking a week. This is vastly different from the situation in Mexico, where my informants spend much more time cooking. Weekday food in Israel consists of a mix of styles, mostly Israeli and traditional Syrian Jewish dishes along with some international dishes (for instance, sushi, pizza, or Chinese or Thai noodles in a baguette). As in Mexico, traditional family meals are eaten on Shabbat, and are often served in a special dining area used only for Shabbat, holidays, and other festive occasions. Typical Syrian Jewish food is cooked exclusively by the respondents (in the case of seven women) or by their mothers or mothers­in-law (four women), although those in the first group reported receiving some help from their mothers or mothers-in-law on special occasions. In contrast to the situation in Mexico, food in the Israeli households was not normally prepared by domestic help; such help was available only for cleaning. Festive Syrian Jewish food includes bamia (stew made with lamb or beef cubes and okra, in a tomato sauce base), lubia (green bean stew), tabouleh (a salad of bulgur and finely chopped tomato, cucumber, onion and garlic, parsley and mint, seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice and salt), lamb with rice and mushrooms, rice with fasulia (green beans and meat), and myedra. Comparing the dishes that were mentioned by Syrian Jewish women in Mexico as opposed to those in Israel, I found greater diversity in the foods consumed in Israel. However, in consulting various Syrian Jewish cookbooks published in Mexico, along with a number of websites in Hebrew, I came across the names of many dishes that were not mentioned by the respondents.42 It is possible that these dishes are consumed by other Syrian Jews in Israel and Mexico, but not by the 22 women I interviewed. One Syrian Israeli woman mentioned that there were 178 recipes in her family, passed down orally from generation to generation (some, but not all, written down) and that this represented only part of the greater Halebi repertoire. Clearly the available repertoire of the Syrian Jewish cuisine, as presented in cookbooks and websites, is larger than that of each individual cook. In Israel, the mothers of my respondents had done all of the cooking in their childhood homes, assisted either by their husbands (in three cases), grandmothers (two cases), or aunts (one case). As with the Mexican respondents, five of the women reported that the television was on during meals. Mealtime conversation dealt with daily routines, politics (in the general sense), Israeli politics and security matters, children, and grandchildren. On Shabbat, as was the case among Mexican Syrian families, some families also discussed the Torah portion of the week. Although reporting that they continued to make certain traditional dishes from scratch, Israeli interviewees indicated that they regularly purchased staples such as pita and other kinds of flatbread, and dairy products. Whereas in Mexico the purchase of prepared products is considered by some to be shameful, in Israel it is perfectly acceptable. In the course of mapping local food stores in Israel, I discovered two types of Syrian kipe in the frozen food section of one of the national kosher supermarket chains, and these cost about the same as other, similar products. In local grocery stores, I also found many other types of kipe, as well as many Mizrahi dishes. Additionally, shopping centers throughout Israel feature food stalls on Fridays that

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offer an array of dishes, including a wide variety of kipes. When I asked one of my interviewees, a woman in her 60s, what she thought of buying such ready-made ­products, she scoffed at the notion, declaring that “there is no continuity with food. They [those who buy] do not know how to cook it, they have no interest, they are too busy.”43 This remark highlights generational differences in terms of which cooking practices are considered acceptable. For instance, younger cooks are apt to regard the microwave as a useful aid in cooking or reheating foods (in particular, processed foods that are purchased rather than cooked from scratch).44 In contrast, some older women do not approve of such modern appliances or technologies. As another interviewee in her 60s told me: “I do not like using these high-tech machines, I like kneading the dough, separating the rice by hand, feeling the texture of the dish.”45 This generational difference is related to changing family lifestyles: women working full-time have limited time to devote to lengthy and laborious food preparation. Food fusion does not occur in Israel as widely as it does in Mexico. Rather than combine various elements into a new dish, Syrian dishes are often served together with other Middle Eastern foods such as szug (also spelled seḥ ug; a Yemenite chili pepper sauce or spread) or matbuḥ a (a spicy Moroccan salad). Szug is often added to falafel, tehina, cut vegetable salad, or hummus and is also spread over fish and eggs.

Social Status, Religious and Ethnic Identities An examination of women of Syrian descent as they cook in Mexico and Israel reveals some of the differences between the social structures in these countries, as well as varying definitions of religion, ethnicity, and nationality among contemporary Israeli and Mexican Syrian Jews. One striking difference between the two groups concerns the prevalence of hired help. In Mexican Syrian Jewish households, the norm is to have domestic help. It is a matter of status to have one or more maids; a woman who cannot afford help may be referred to as a jazita (poor thing) and considered an object of pity. Syrian Jewish families tend to have more domestic help than their Ashkenazi and Sephardi counterparts. This situation reflects both the generally affluent status of Syrian Jews and the cheap cost of labor in Mexico. Usually, several workers (among them, a cook and a chambermaid), are employed so that no one person is required to perform all household tasks. Ten of the eleven women interviewed in Mexico reported that their families had hired help; in nine instances, families had live-in domestic help (and sometimes had additional help coming twice or three times a week). Such figures are consistent with other studies dealing with domestic employment in the same community.46 This domestic practice has had a profound influence on the process of acculturation, since many of these workers also function as nannies and cooks. In fact, four of the respondents indicated that they received help in cooking from their housemaids. The popular term in Mexico for a woman doing domestic work is muchacha, Spanish for “gal.” Domestic workers are also often referred to as gatas, Spanish for female cats, though none of the respondents admitted to calling their employees by this degrading appellation. The majority of my respondents indicated that they employ one muchacha, but some have as many as four (live-in and daily workers).47 Some

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had muchachas who dealt only with cooking, bedroom cleaning, or laundry. In general, the domestic help were responsible for overall cleaning. At the time of the interviews, the women of this study had been employing their current maids from 15 days to 18 years. A few of the Mexican respondents expressed appreciation and respect for the women who work for them, saying that they brought peace and happiness to their home or that they would be lost without them. At the same time, it is clear that they regard the women, first and foremost, as employees. All of the respondents refer to their housemaids by their first names, and the housemaids in turn address them as señora or patrona. When speaking of their maids to others, the Syrian Jewish women refer to them as muchachas or ijires (a popular Arabic term). It is not customary for patronas to visit the homes or villages of their housemaids, and in fact, most do not even know where the women live or where they are originally from. Only three respondents claimed that they consider their housemaids to be part of the family; one of these women then contradicted her claim by admitting that she kept her closets and pantries locked whenever the maid was working in the house. Seven of the respondents, however, said that they leave their closets or pantries unlocked, which indicates a relatively high level of trust. The housemaids who cook for my respondents prepare traditional Mexican dishes but have also become familiar with the preparation of traditional Syrian foods. The fact that many women rely on their non-Jewish helpers to make these dishes without supervision may indicate a waning level of religiosity. In addition, it indicates that the woman of the house, while responsible for the preparation and serving of food (including traditional Syrian Jewish food) does not necessarily have to do the cooking herself. The employment of domestic workers transforms Syrian Jewish women in Mexico (whether or not they are involved in unpaid or paid work beyond the home) into household managers. They become amas de casas (literally, “house masters”), a position that requires many hours of supervision and coordination of various household tasks. At the same time, the transfer of more laborious and mundane household tasks to female domestic workers leads to a sense of empowerment on the part of the employers. The act of supervising transforms housework into homemaking—an intensely social process involving material resources, time, and the labor of others.48 In an earlier study, I noted that home cooking gave Mexican Jewish women a higher status within the family as well as religious fulfillment.49 In the past decade, however, there has been a major shift, an outcome of the fact that domestic helpers now do much of the food preparation. Interestingly, several respondents in the current study expressed the view that, in employing impoverished indigenous women, they are fulfilling a societal obligation—some went so far as to call this an act of tikun ’olam (repairing the world at large through social and altruistic acts), though none of them deny that there is also an element of prestige in having the means to hire domestic workers to make their lives more comfortable. Although domestic workers cook most of the daily dishes, the cooking of traditional Syrian Jewish dishes is still largely—or at least partly—done by the patrona. Most meals are still prepared from scratch, using such traditional utensils as wooden spoons and chopping boards (with the housemaids doing most of the preparation

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work). During the last decade, ready-made foods have become more available, and these, as noted, are often used, since more women are now working outside the home. “Household help” is markedly different in Israel. Significantly, the Hebrew word ’ozeret literally means “helper” rather than maid or worker, and generally refers to a woman who comes to clean the home on a regular basis. None of the Syrian Jewish interviewees in Israel had women as cooks or as kitchen help, and only two of them employed an ’ozeret (once or twice a week). Of these two, one of them noted that she considered her ’ozeret to be part of her family, in the sense of inviting her to family functions; the other did not. Both, however, expressed complete trust in their employees, leaving them the house keys when they went to work. Based on my previous research and this additional comparison, it seems to me that Israeli Syrian women use food as a medium for control and empowerment, albeit to a lesser degree than their Mexican counterparts. In Israel, the status of women is to some extent connected to their level of employment outside the home. In addition, they are more involved in national life and have more varied opportunities for selfgrowth and empowerment. In contrast, Mexican Syrian women enhance their social status by means of their competent house management and their command over housemaids. What both groups have in common is their belief (expressed by a majority of women in the Israeli and Mexican groups) that men should be the main breadwinners and that women are responsible for the domestic sphere and therefore should stay at home and take care of the family. The patriarchal family constitutes an important element in both communities, a fact that encourages women to structure their identity within the context of the family while putting their careers in second place.50 Thus, both for Israeli and Mexican women of Syrian descent, traditional food continues to represent a valuable matriarchal heritage. Many respondents longingly recalled the aromas of traditional food that filled their childhood homes. One Israeli woman reminisced about her mother, who cooked daily for 15-20 people and for as many as 40–50 people whenever there was a holiday or family celebration (such occasions were frequent).51 Such nostalgic food recollections are important elements in a continuous dialogue between the past and the present. Food, as noted, is also closely connected with religious identity. In my research, I examined the extent to which the ongoing attachment to traditional Syrian Jewish food reflects a continuing overall traditional Jewish orientation, finding clear differences between Mexican and Israeli respondents. In Mexico, to be “traditional” (tradicionialista) implies the observance of certain strict aspects of Jewish tradition, alongside flexibility in others—for example, driving to Friday night services at the synagogue, or keeping kosher at home while eating non-kosher foods outside the home. The Jewish community in Mexico City is generally considered traditional,52 and there are indications that increasing numbers of Sephardim and Ashkenazim in Mexico as a whole can be defined as traditional, whereas sectors of the Syrian Jewish community are becoming more Orthodox. Overall, Halebis have a higher level of religious observance than Shamis.53 In response to a question regarding the level of their religious observance, the Syrian Mexican interviewees defined themselves as follows (in descending order of strictness of observance): “Orthodox” (two); “religious” (one); “conservative” (one); and “traditional” (seven).54 All the respondents expressed their belief that it was very

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important to maintain traditional Jewish values.55 When asked how they defined themselves ethnically, most responded that they were Jewish Mexicans.56 This indicates that, generally speaking, the Halebi and Shami women define themselves in religious (Jewish) as well as national (Mexican) terms. In addition, all but one of the Syrian Jewish women in Mexico observe kashrut to one degree or another. Only three maintain a strict observance of the laws of kashrut; seven keep kosher at home while eating non-kosher foods outside. More specifically, several respondents indicated that they buy only kosher meat, dairy products, and canned goods for consumption in their homes (even if these are more expensive), but at the same time are willing to eat non-kosher meat or shellfish, though not pork, in restaurants. These women do not see a contradiction in keeping a kosher kitchen and eating non-kosher foods outside the home. As one respondent stated: “It is kosher light.” In Mexico a definite restaurant culture exists among the wealthy elite, and the majority of my respondents frequent non-kosher restaurants two to four times a week. Some of these restaurants serve Arab food but mostly they provide international cuisine. Meanwhile, the home kitchen, a gendered space in which women perform and produce ancestral traditional recipes, significantly remains kosher. Of the Syrian Jewish women interviewed in Israel, four defined themselves as secular and seven as conservative or traditional (the two terms, konservativi and masorati, appeared to be used more or less interchangeably). No one defined herself as Orthodox. This situation reflects the Israeli context in which being Jewish is the “norm,” but where the dominant Jewish culture is non-religious.57 Still, most of my Israeli respondents said that they keep kosher at home. Among the two who did not, one nonetheless professed that she does not eat pork. In Israel, of course, it is easier to maintain kashrut outside the home, since most supermarkets as well as many restaurants are kosher. In contrast to the Mexican respondents, most of the Israeli respondents do not belong to the socioeconomic elite that dines out regularly. When they do, they tend to go to restaurants that serve international rather than Middle Eastern cuisine, though for quick lunch outings, they eat popular street food such as falafel or schnitzel served in pita (with Middle Eastern condiments). Syrian Jews in Mexico, in contrast, generally do not eat Mexican street food. As one of my younger interviewees told me: “Street food tastes delicious but I don’t want to get sick.”58 “Eating kipe is the best thing,” one Mexican woman told me, adding proudly that “the Idish are jealous of us because our food is so delicious.”59 My Israeli informants claimed that variations of kipe and mezzes (small salads) are central components of their diets and figure extensively in holiday meals. Several informants praised the qualities of Jewish Syrian food as natural, not too spicy, delicate, unique, and varied, yet at the same time simple and inexpensive. One woman said that “with a pack of parsley, you can feed an entire family.”60 Whereas traditional food functions, among other things, as a marker of ethnic identity for Mexican Syrian Jews (whether Halebis or Shamis) vis-à-vis other Mexican Jews, such food was not defined by my Israeli interviewees as part of a wider Israeli nationality and Mizrahi ethnicity. This is not surprising, given the fact that Syrian Jews in Israel freely marry Jews from outside the community, in contrast to Mexican Halebi and Shami Jews, who tend to marry within their own sub-groups (though no objections are raised to marrying Jews from other groups). Put somewhat

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differently, for Mexican Syrian árabes, traditional food is a bastion of their specific ethnicity (a minority within a minority), whereas in Israel, Syrian Jewish food has blended into a culinary Mizrahi and Israeli pot. Moreover, in Mexico, Syrian Jewish food is contained within the Jewish community and forms no part of the national Mexican cuisine. By contrast, Syrian Jewish food in Israel belongs to the broader Mizrahi cuisine and by extension, to the eclectic national Israeli cuisine. Last but not least, while all my Mexican respondents professed that they found eating pleasurable, three of the older Israeli Syrian Jewish women did not. Perhaps this stance evolved from their experiences as immigrants or as children during the period of shortages and rationing. One woman recalled the Israeli food she was given at that time—bread, margarine, salad, and a hard-boiled egg, which she did not like at first, though she has long since adapted. Another woman told me that she never really got used to eating “Israeli-style” food and will not cook it at home, while the third woman (now 63 years old) said that she acquired a taste for Israeli food only during her army service.61 These three women also did not enjoy cooking. What all the women—both in Israel and in Mexico—had in common was their love of traditional Syrian Jewish food, a love shared by almost all members of their families (one Israeli respondent noted that her Ashkenazi sons-in-law were the exceptions).62 The continued appreciation of such delicacies is crucial for the continuation of Syrian Jewish culinary practices. In Israel, these food traditions have begun to wane somewhat among the younger generations, but it may be the case that contemporary culinary trends that celebrate ethnic diversity will stimulate a local revival. In the meantime, however, the knowledge required for such a revival is being kept alive—and cooking—in the practices of the women I interviewed both in Mexico and in Israel.

Notes Thank you to Tina Sarah Halevi Reginiano for her assistance in a brainstorming session in which the title of this article was constructed. I am also grateful to all the women who participated in this research and to Regina Schoenfeld-Tacher for her insightful comments. 1. On Jewish cooking, see, for instance, Alan Kraut, “The Butcher, the Baker, the Pushcart Peddler: Jewish Foodways and Entrepreneurial Opportunity in the East European Immigrant Community, 1880-1940,” The Journal of American Culture 6, no. 4 (Winter 1983), 71–83; Gil Marks, Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Hoboken: 2010); Marlena Spieler, The Jewish Heritage Cookbook (New York: 2002); Claudia Roden, The Book of Jewish Food (New York: 2001); Massimo Montanari and Françoise Sabban (eds.), Atlante dell’alimentazione e della gastrono­ mia (Turin: 2004). On ethnic cuisines and foodways, see Andrew Buckser, “Keeping Kosher: Eating and Social Identity among the Jews of Denmark,” Ethnology 38, no. 3 (June 1999), 191–209; Claude Fischler, “Food, Self and Identity,” Social Science Information 27, no. 2 (June 1988), 275-293; Eugene N. Anderson, Everyone Eats: Understanding Food and Culture (New York: 2005); Orit Rozin, “Food, Identity, and Nation-building in Israel’s Formative Years,” Israel Studies Forum 21, no. 1 (Summer 2006), 52–80; Joëlle Bahloul, “Food Practices among Sephardic Immigrants in Contemporary France: Dietary Laws in Urban Society,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63, no. 3 (September 1995), 485–496. On the psychology of eating, see Roland Barthes, “Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption,” in Food and Culture: A Reader, ed. Carole Couniham and Penny Van Estrik

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(London: 1997), 23–30. On food in the Middle East, see Peter Heine, Food Culture in the Near East, Middle East, and North Africa (Westport: 2004); Sami Zubaida and Richard Rapper (eds.), Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (London: 1994); Claudia Roden, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food (New York: 2000). On Israeli cooking, see Janna Gur, The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey (New York: 2008); Orly Ziv, Cook in Israel: Home Cooking Inspiration (self-published: 2013); Deborah Golden, “Nourishing the Nation: The Uses of Food in an Israeli Kindergarten,” Food and Foodways 13, no. 3 (July 2005), 181–199; Ruth Sirkis, Popular Food from Israel (Ramat Gan: 2004). 2. This essay expands my previous research on the subject; see Paulette Kershenovich, “Evoking the Essence of the Divine: The Construction of Identity through Food in the Syrian Jewish Community in Mexico,” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues 5 (2002), 105–128; Paulette Kershenovich Sefchovich, “The Syrian-Jewish Community in Mexico City in a Comparative Context” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2010). 3. While the term Sephardim usually refers only to descendants from the Iberian Peninsula, in Mexico the term also includes those from Turkey and the Balkans (in particular, Greece). Hence, the popular term Los Turcos (the Turks). For those outside the Jewish community, Sephardim refers to all Jews of Middle Eastern and Arab descent, apart from Halebis and Shamis. 4. Silvia Seligson Berenfeld, “Los judíos en México: Un estudio preliminar” (B.A. thesis, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1973), 203; see also the online site of Tribuna Israelita at tribuna.org.mx (accessed 17 February 2014). 5. Shams is the Arabic name for Damascus, and Halab is Arabic for Aleppo; hence the terms Shamis and Halebis (is is the suffix for plurals in Spanish). In Mexico, Jews from Aleppo are known as Halebis rather than Halabis, as in most other countries. 6. Viviana Mejenes-Knorr, “Any Yiddish in Spanish? Part II of A Story of Jewish Mexican Spanish,” online at languageinfusions.com/5/post/2012/10/any-yiddish-in-spanish.html (accessed 16 February 2014). 7. The increasingly precarious political situation resulted in mass Syrian Jewish emigration, which led to the creation of Shami and Halebi diasporic communities. On Halebi Jews, see Walter Zenner, A Global Community: The Jews from Aleppo, Syria (Detroit: 2000). 8. Silvia Seligson Berenfeld, “Los judíos en México”; Liz Hamui Halabe, “Re-creating Community: Christians from Lebanon and Jews from Syria in México, 1900–1938,” Immigrants and Minorities 16, nos. 1–2 (March/July 1997), 125–145. 9. Sergio DellaPergola, “World Jewish Population, 2012,” online at jewishdatabank.org/ Studies/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=2941 (accessed 25 June 2014). 10. The relatively high status of Mexican Jews is also related to a controversial racial ­immigration policy, which deserves a separate discussion elsewhere. 11. Sergio DellaPergola and Susana Lerner, La población judía de México: Perfil demográ­ fico, social y cultural (Jerusalem: 1995), 28; Liz Hamui de Halabe, Transformaciones en la religiosidad de los judíos en México: Tradición, ortodoxia y fundamentalismo en la moderni­ dad tardía (Mexico City: 2005), 217. According to DellaPergola and Lerner, 39.5 percent of the Mexican Jewish community are Ashkenazim, 47.4 percent belong to the Sephardi and Syrian Jewish sectors (combined), and 13.1 percent are of unknown origin or are indifferent to their origins (DellaPergola and Lerner, La población judía de México, 104). 12. Walter Zenner, A Global Community: The Jews from Aleppo, Syria (Detroit: 2000), 79–80, 82. 13. Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (New York: 1979), 400; Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue (Tel Aviv: 1977), 31; Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (New York: 1991), 146. 14. In addition, banks were instructed to freeze the accounts of Jews and all their assets were expropriated; Palestinians were settled in the Jewish ghetto of Damascus; and the Alliance Israélite Universelle school became a school for Palestinian children. See Ya’akov Meron, “Why Jews Fled the Arab Countries,” Middle East Quarterly 2, no. 3 (September 1995), 47–55. 15. Zenner, A Global Community, 81.

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16. Steven Lee Myers, “Syrian Jews Find Haven in Brooklyn,” New York Times (23 May 1992); Poopa Dweck, Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews (New York: 2007), 6; Saul S. Friedman, Without Future: The Plight of Syrian Jewry (Westport: 1989). 17. Zenner, A Global Community, 77. 18. E-mail correspondence with Moshe Cohen, chairman of the Aleppo Heritage Centre in Israel (19 September 2011). 19. See Israel Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of Israel 2013, table 2.8. 20. In Mexico, the term Mizrahim is not used. 21. Mara Leichtman, “The Differential Construction of Ethnicity: The Case of Egyptian and Moroccan Immigrants in Israel,” Identity: The Journal of the Society for Research on Identity Formation 1, no. 3 (2001), 247-272; see also Harvey E. Goldberg and Chen Bram, “Sephardic/Mizrahi/Arab-Jews: Reflections on Critical Sociology and the Study of Middle Eastern Jewries within the Context of Israeli Society,” in Studies in Contemporary Jewry, vol. 22, Sephardic Jewry and Mizrahi Jews, ed. Peter Y. Medding (New York: 2007), esp. 230–232. On ethnic and other cleavages in Israeli society, see Sammy Smooha, “Class, Ethnic, and National Cleavages and Democracy in Israel,” in Israeli Democracy under Stress, ed. Ehud Sprinzak and Larry Diamond (Boulder: 1993), 309; Yinon Cohen, Yitchak Haberfeld, and Tali Kristal, “Ethnicity and Mixed Ethnicity: Educational Gaps among Israeli-born Jews,” Discussion Paper no. 5–2004, online at sapir.tau.ac.il/papers/sapir-wp/5-04.pdf (p. 2) (accessed 16 February 2014); Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel (Albany: 1989); Alan Dowty (ed.), Critical Issues in Israeli Society (Westport: 2004). On distinctions between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, see Sammy Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict (Berkeley: 1978); Deborah Bernstein and Shlomo Swirski, “The Rapid Economic Development of Israel and the Emergence of the Ethnic Division of Labour,” British Journal of Sociology 33, no. 1 (March 1982), 64-85; Hanna Herzog, “Social Construction of Reality in Ethnic Terms: The Case of Political Ethnicity in Israel,” International Review of Modern Sociology 15, nos. 1–2 (Spring-Autumn 1985), 45–61. 22. Snowball sampling (also known as chain sampling, chain-referral sampling, or referral sampling) can be defined as a non-probability sampling technique in which an initial subject provides the names of others, who then provide additional names. 23. In some other Latin American countries (for example, Guatemala), the term idish or idishikos is used. In Argentina, the Ashkenazim are referred to as “los Rusos” (the Russians), whereas Sephardim are termed “los Turcos” (the Turks). 24. Of those foreign-born (that is, not born in Mexico), one was born in Argentina. The first generation comprised those individuals born outside Mexico, while the second were those born in Mexico with at least one foreign-born parent. 25. Data from a wider study indicated that Syrian Jewish women tend to have an average of four children. See Kershenovich Sefchovich, “The Syrian-Jewish Community in Mexico City in a Comparative Context,” 177. 26. On adverse effects of the 2008 global economic crisis, see M. Angeles Villarreal, The Mexican Economy after the Global Financial Crisis (Washington, D.C.: 2010). 27. On food preparation see Elizabeth Silva, “The Cook, the Cooker and the Gendering of the Kitchen,” The Sociological Review 48, no. 4 (Nov. 2000), 615–616. 28. Mexican cuisine is inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; see “Traditional Mexican Cuisine - Ancestral, Ongoing Community Culture, the Michoacán Paradigm,” online at unesco.org/culture/ich/en/RL/00400 (accessed 3 February 2014) . 29. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization. The emphasis on corn in the Mexican diet reflects the Mayan belief that man was created from maize; see Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiche Maya, trans. Delia Goetxz and Sylvanus O. Morley (from Spanish version by Adrian Recinos) (Norman, Ok.: 1950). 30. Hummus is also eaten in Mexican Syrian homes. 31. Coleman South and Leslie Jermyn, Cultures of the World: Syria (New York: 2006), 122. 32. Dweck, Aromas of Aleppo.

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33. For more on Palestinian cooking, see for example: Aziz Shihab, A Taste of Palestine: Menus and Memories (San Antonio: 1993); Christiane Dabbdoub Nasser, Classic Palestinian Cookery (London: 2001). A different view is expressed by Ronald Ranta and Yonatan Mendel, who argue that “in relation to Israeli food culture, the Arab-Palestinian food element was marginalized, blurred and reinterpreted as belonging to the Zionist settlers, or as being brought to Israel by the Mizrahi-Jews.” See Ranta and Mendel, “Consuming Palestine: Palestine and Palestinians in Israeli Food Culture,” Ethnicities (19 January 2014), 1. 34. Upon winning, Atamna-Ismaeel said that she planned to use the prize money to open an Arab-Jewish cooking school. See the online report at ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340, L-4507263,00.html (accessed 18 May 2014). 35. In Mexico, cholent is modeled after the Ashkenazi version, containing beef, pinto beans, potatoes, and bay leaves, along with a few Syrian twists such as apricots and prunes, tamarind (Mexican) and spices such as powdered chiles, cumin, turmeric, paprika, salt and pepper. In Israel, the dish is similar to the Moroccan version that includes beef, chickpeas, bulgur, rice, potatoes, prunes, dates, garlic, rice, and spices such as cumin, turmeric, salt and pepper. Of course, variations abound. See Sherry Ansky, Ḥ amin (Jerusalem: 2008). 36. According to a survey of the Mexican Jewish population conducted in April and October of 1991, 20.3 percent of people aged 15–24 were married. The percentage rose to 84.2 percent (ages 25-34) and 89.3 percent (ages 35-44). See DellaPergola and Lerner, La población judía de México, 51. 37. Petitim is an Israeli toasted pasta that comes in a variety of shapes, including pearls, loops, stars, and hearts. Originally it was shaped like grains of rice, as it was meant to serve as a substitute for rice in the days when rice was scarce. See Esther Meir-Glitzenstein’s essay in this volume, “Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad: Food, Emigration, and Transformation in the Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel in the 1950s,” 99. 38. Kipe is a typical Syrian dumpling. The Arabic word kubbah means ball. Variations on the name include quipe, kibbeh, kibbe, kibe, kubbeh, and kubbi. See also Esther Meir-Glitzenstein’s “Longing for the Aromas of Baghdad: Food, Emigration, and Transformation in the Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israel in the 1950s,” in this volume (esp. 95–103). 39. Kershenovich, “Evoking the Essence of the Divine,” 110; Kershenovich Sefchovich, “The Syrian-Jewish Community in Mexico City in a Comparative Context,” 206. 40. See Shaul Stampfer, “Bagel and Felafel: Two Iconic Jewish Foods and One Modern Jewish Identity,” in this volume, 187. 41. Spieler, Jewish Heritage Cookbook (New York: 2002), 18. 42. Fortuna Charabati, Una dulce tradición: Dulces árabes (Mexico: 2002); Cecilia Harare and Allegra Dayan, Nuestras recetas favoritas (Mexico City: 1990). See also recipes (in Hebrew) on the Aleppo (Halab) Jewish Traditional Culture website, aleppojews.com/mitaame. php (accessed 16 Feburary 2014). 43. Interview with “Miriam” (25 September 2011). 44. Elizabeth Silva, “The Cook, the Cooker and the Gendering of the Kitchen.” 45. Interview with “Hannah” (10 October 2011). 46. Kershenovich Sefchovich, “The Syrian-Jewish Community in Mexico City in a Comparative Context.” 47. Other domestic workers include nannies, drivers, and mozos (handymen or male assistants). 48. Kershenovich Sefchovich,“The Syrian-Jewish Community in Mexico City in a Comparative Context,” 204; cf. Marcie Cohen Ferris, “Dining in the Dixie Diaspora: A Meeting of Region and Religion,” in Jewish Roots in Southern Soil, ed. Marcie Cohen Ferris and Mark I. Greenberg (Lebanon, N.H.:2006), 231–233. 49. Kershenovich, “Evoking the Essence of the Divine.” 50. Kershenovich Sefchovich, “The Syrian-Jewish Community in Mexico City in a Comparative Context”; Orlandina de Oliveira and Marina Ariza, Un recorrido por los estudios de género en México: Consideraciones sobre áreas prioritarias (Montevideo: 1999); see also Marilyn Safir and Amir Rosenmann, “Israelis,” in Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Men and Women in the World’s Cultures, ed. Carol Ember, and Melvin Ember (New York: 2003), 531. 51. Interview with “Shoshana” (26 September 2011).

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52. DellaPergola and Lerner, La población judía de México, 73. 53. For a discussion about the religious transformation of this sector of the community, see Halabe, Transformaciones en la religiosidad de los judíos en México. 54. These categories appear in a model proposed by Sergio DellaPergola and Susana Lerner in La población judía de México. 55. Tradition in this context “comprises the totality of life as shaped and handed down from generation to generation” (Nathan Rotenstreich, Tradition and Reality: The Impact of History on Modern Jewish Thought [New York: 1972], 8). Values refer to sets of expectations and beliefs that organize and inform a definition of any given situation. See Naomi Abrahams, “Toward Reconceptualizing Political Action,” Sociological Inquiry 62, no. 3 (July 1992), 327–347. 56. These findings are consistent with those of my doctoral dissertation; in the earlier study, 76.8 percent of the respondents indicated that they were Jewish Mexicans, 16.7 percent identified as Mexican Jews, and 1 percent as Arab Jews (with the remainder offering more complex definitions such as Jewish Mexicans of Arabic origin). See Kershenovich Sefchovich, “The Syrian-Jewish Community in Mexico City in a Comparative Context,” 163. 57. Eliezer Ben-Rafael, “The Faces of Religiosity in Israel: Cleavages or Continuum?” Israel Studies 13, no. 3 (Fall 2008), 89–113. Religiosity in Israel is a complex issue that will not dealt with here. For more on the various indices, see Peri Kedem, “Dimensions of Jewish Religiosity in Israel,” in Tradition, Innovation, Conflict: Jewishness and Judaism in Con­ temporary Israel, ed. Zvi Sobel and Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (New York: 1991), 251–278. 58. Interview with “Fortuna” (9 October 2010). 59. Interview with “Alegra” (10 June 2011). 60. Interview with “Miriam” (25 September 2011). 61. Interview with “Mazal” (16 September 2011). 62. Interview with “Ella” (26 August 2011).

Bagel and Falafel: Two Iconic Jewish Foods and One Modern Jewish Identity Shaul Stampfer (The Hebrew University)

One does not have to be an expert in culinary history to know that the bagel is regarded as an iconic food of American Jewry and that falafel holds a similar status among Israeli Jews.1 As we shall see, bagels and falafel have more in common than meets the eye. Both, for instance, are relatively new foods, which leads to the question of why they were so quickly and so thoroughly adopted. Both, moreover, appear in standard combinations consisting of a distinctive form of bread with two additional food elements. Yet whereas the bagel came to be seen as a traditional Jewish food,2 the falafel is regarded as an “Oriental” food. How all of this came to be, and what it means—in particular, with regard to contemporary Jewish identity—is well worth studying. In what follows, I begin with a historical review of bagels, falafel, and their associated components and from there move to a detailed discussion of the significance of the two foods.

Bagels, Lox and Cream Cheese In America, bagels with lox and cream cheese is regarded as a classic dish. However, it is not at all simple to untangle the history of these three items and to determine when and why they came together. We begin with the bagel, which is defined in the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture as “a small ring of dough made of white flour, yeast, and water. The dough is first boiled and then baked.”3 Although the boiling process is what makes the texture of the bagel different from other breads, its most distinctive feature is its ring shape (a torus, in geometrical terms). Most consumers will identify any ring-shaped bread as a bagel, regardless of the flour used for its dough, or whether or not it has been boiled before being baked. The distinctive shape came about for practical reasons: in Eastern Europe, such breads were sold in marketplaces and by peddlers, not in stores. Because of their shape, they could be hung on a string and sold one by one, without concern that they might fall. 177

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There are many ring-shaped baked goods that are similar to bagels, not all of them originating in Eastern Europe.4 However, in examining the source of the bagel, it is  necessary to focus on Eastern Europe and especially on the Polish obwarzanek krakowski,5 the Ukrainian bublik,6 the Lithuanian riestainiai, and the Belorusian smorgon baranki.7 The obwarzanek can loosely be described as occupying a midpoint between the American bagel and the German pretzel.8 Although softer, the dough is rolled thinly like a pretzel and twisted before being dipped in boiling water and then baked. The bublik is larger than the standard bagel of today and is also drier and sweeter. It is not sliced, but eaten as is. The riestainiai, often shaped like a torus, is  made from a sweet dough and is more a pastry than a pretzel. Of the four, the baranki—perhaps the least known in western culinary circles—appears to be the closest to what is called a bagel in the United States: it is boiled before baking, not sweetened, and not twisted.9 It makes sense that this type of bread evolved into the bagel, as the bulk of Jewish immigrants coming to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries came from what is now called Belarus and from neighboring regions.10 The Jews in Eastern Europe made their own ring-shaped baked product that was similar (or identical) to that of their neighbors, though the Jews gave it a Yiddish name, beygl. (To avoid confusion, I will use this spelling to refer to the European product, whereas bagel will be confined to the ringed bread that evolved in the United States.) The term originated in Eastern Europe sometime before the year 1500, though it is not documented in Yiddish until much later.11 The earliest description of the beygl I have found in a Hebrew source is from a collection of customs of R. Haim of Volozhin (d. 1821). It reads: I told him that it is my custom to eat three beygls for breakfast,12 and he told me that if so, you can eat three beygls that are kneaded with eggs that are a bit smaller than the measure of a [typical?] beygl.13

This short text—dealing with the issue of what quantity of beygl could be consumed without one being required to say the full grace after meals (birkat hamazon)—suggests that beygls were considerably smaller than their contemporary American counterparts. The grace after meals is said after consuming a meal containing a specified amount of bread, thus indicating that the beygl was made from a breadlike dough. Adding eggs to the dough would have moved the beygl into the category of pastry, which has different rules vis-à-vis the grace after meals.14 Alternatively (or in addition), “three beygls” may be alluding to the Yiddish proverb maintaining that “only from the third beygl is one satisfied.” This proverb, too, implies that beygls in Eastern Europe were smaller than American bagels.15 The beygl is also mentioned in hasidic sources and even from earlier dates. There is an anecdote in the earliest collection of hasidic stories that mentions beygls. It was told of the Baal Shem Tov (d. 1760) that once, while he was eating, he sensed that a man had fallen into a river. Still seated at the table, he cried out: “Fool! Have you not seen how many Gentiles there are in the field? Take your beygl and throw it in front of them, and they will come to you.” Shortly after, a man appeared at the Baal Shem Tov’s table and reported that he had indeed fallen into a river and that, by throwing a beygl, he had attracted the attention of Gentiles who saved him.16 It is reported that

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R. Menachem Mendel of Kotsk (d. 1859) once told his student R. Hanoch Levin of Alexander that when he spent an extended period of time praying at the grave of R. Leib of Szydlowiec, “every day a certain person brought him a beygl and water.”17 R. Meir Yehiel HaLevi Haltzshtok, the admor (hasidic master) of Ostrowiec (b. 1851), was the son of a beygl baker; he once quoted his father as saying: “Sometimes a fresh beygl is better than a stale challah.”18 However, it is from a Polish source that we learn that, from the 18th century, bagels were already associated with Jews. Jędrzej Kitowicz (d. 1804), a Polish literary historian, wrote disparagingly of the Ruthenian and Lithuanian deputies to the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that they “had been raised among Jewish people . . . [they] are used to receiving all the necessary goods from . . . Jewish people, and [they] are even fed on Jewish rolls and beygls.”19 It is likely that beygls were not uniform in size or appearance. Some early 20thcentury photographs of East European Jews indicate that the East European Jewish beygl was generally a thin ring similar in appearance to an obwarzanek.20 In the Lithuanian town of Trishik (Tryskiai), black beygls with large holes—presumably made from whole wheat or rye flour—were sold in the 1870s.21 It seems that in Poland and perhaps elsewhere, beygls were twisted in a manner similar to today’s obwarzanek. In Children of the Ghetto, Israel Zangwill mentions “beuglich or circular twisted rolls” that were eaten by Jews in London.22 In Miriam Ulinover’s poem, “Girl with Beygl,” written in the Warsaw ghetto: “First we roll the tempting dough to make a twisted pole / then put the ends together dear to make a rounded hole.”23 What seems clear is that the beygl was not exclusive to East European Jews, nor was it an iconic Jewish food in Eastern Europe.24 Generally speaking, beygls (as with other ring-shaped baked goods) were purchased on the street and eaten on the spot. I.L. Peretz describes a “beygl with butter,” but it is not clear whether this refers to a beygl sliced in half with the butter inserted in the middle or with a whole bagel smeared with butter on top.25 I have not found additional references to beygls being eaten with other foods. When Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe brought the beygl to America, it seems that it maintained at first the characteristics of a baked snack. In 1894, an exposé of shocking conditions in New York Jewish bakeries described “trays of pretzel biscuit” in reference to beygls.26 This suggests a thin and crisp product rather than the contemporary bread-like bagel. Similarly, in 1898, Abraham Cahan wrote a description of a woman who “carried a huge paper bag of bagels (ring shaped cakes), eggs and a pitcher of milk.” What is significant is that Cahan, who knew English and knew beygls, defined “bagels” as cakes rather than bread or rolls. In time, bagel baking became widespread in New York City—to the degree that it was one of the first unionized industries.27 As an article in the New York Times on the history of the bagel noted: “At a mere three ounces, about half the size of the bagel you’ll find at a corner coffee cart in Midtown Manhattan, union bagels were smaller and denser than their modern descendants, with a crustier crust and a chewier interior.”28 Bagels were apparently baked only by Jews. The other large New York immigrant groups, Italians and Irish, did not have a tradition of baking bagels, and there were no large populations of Slavic immigrants in New York City who could have

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continued the tradition of the East European beygl. Over time, the American bagel began to serve as a base for spreads and sandwiches, and bakers began to make it bigger, though with a smaller hole.29 Although the precise timing of this development is not clear, it seems to have taken place more or less when the second generation of East European Jewish immigrants began to reach adulthood. They were still eating the food their parents had snacked on—but not exactly, as their bagels were both bigger and were now clearly a bread item rather than a pastry. Lox is a term that currently applies to salted or smoked salmon.30 The word comes from the German (lachs) or Yiddish (laks), which means salmon. The technique of salting was well known in Eastern Europe, and Jews ate a great deal of salted fish— most often the inexpensive herring. Although Atlantic salmon was not unknown, it was not a standard element in the Jewish diet. When the Jews migrated to England and the United States, they took with them their taste for smoked and salted fish.31 Salted salmon is referred to in a responsum of R. Jacob Emden written in Altona in 1748,32 and it appears that this food was regarded as a delicacy among German Jews at the time. Kalonymos Kalman Epstein, a well-known hasidic rabbi (17511823), wrote in his Maor vashemesh: “In a lighthearted manner one can note that there is a fish that is called in our country lacus, and it has a larger fin than other fish and it is the most select of fish.”33 Avraham Danzig, a well-known non-hasidic contemporary of Epstein, also referred to lox; from what he writes, it seems that while the word lox is derived from the word for salmon, Jews applied it to various types of preserved fish. He makes reference to “other little fish . . . such as those that are called strangen and, in the language of Ashkenaz, laks fart.” It is quite possible that the “t” of laks fart is a typo, and that Danzig meant to write laks forl (in German, lachsforelle), referring to the European brown trout—“the dominant species in fish communities of cold-water streams” in Lithuania.34 The word strangen, which means trout in Yiddish,35 is likely derived from the Polish word for trout—pstrąg. Salmon, in Polish, is łosos´, such that Danzig was probably not referring to salmon and indeed saw laks as referring to a small fish. The popularity of smoked or salted salmon among Jews in America may be related to a rise in standard of living among the East European Jewish immigrants. Once settled and working, they had more available money to spend on food—including salmon, which most of them could not have afforded in Europe. Even more significant was the fact that the price of salted salmon came down in late 19th-century America, when great quantities of Pacific salmon began to be shipped east by railroad.36 An indication of the novelty of lox or smoked salmon in the Jewish diet was the query addressed in 1904 to Yehuda Eisenstein, a prominent European-born American rabbi, with regard to the kashrut of salmon products. The question seems to deal with canned fish and not the salted or smoked fish that is currently implied by the term lox: Cans of lox and salmon that are sold in stores to be eaten – how are they made and what kind of fish are they? My answer is that the salmon is a pure [that is, kosher] fish that has fins and scales and those that come in tin cans are boiled under pressure with steam when they are closed in the tight seal so that they excrete their own sauce.37

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From the question, it is clear that this was a popular delicacy; at the same time, the person who asked it, presumably someone who grew up in Eastern Europe, did not seem to be familiar with the fish. Eisenstein answered that cans of “lox and salmon” are indeed kosher, though his explanation of the canning process suggests that different types of fish were being used. The third component of the bagel/lox/cream cheese combo is a white cheese with a high fat content, a relatively long shelf life, and a mild flavor. Cream cheese is an American invention whose most notable characteristic is that it maintains its form at room temperature but is soft enough to be spreadable. It is no accident that the major piece of academic research on cream cheese, a doctoral dissertation by Mercedes Brighenti, is titled “Texture and Functionality of Cream Cheese.”38 Brighenti points out that the distinctive texture of cream cheese is a function of its being a concentrated, acid-induced gel.39 Cream cheese was apparently invented on a New York farm in the 1870s on the model of a European cheese known as Neufchatel. The American version was created by adding cream to the milk mixture from which the cheese was made. In time, other cheese-makers began to produce this new cheese. It is not clear when cream cheese began to be popular among Jews. Only around 1920 did a Jewish cheesemaker, Joseph Breakstone, begin to produce certified kosher cream cheese, which was sold by the company run by him and his brothers. Back in 1912, Breakstone’s had started to produce condensed milk; three years later, it began marketing milk powder. But the company apparently did not sense that there was a market for cream cheese until the 1920s, or shortly before.40 When did lox and cream cheese join up with the bagel? According to Mark Federman, owner of Russ and Daughters, a well-known New York supplier of ethnic Jewish foods, this combination was not widespread before 1940, even though, as noted, Jews were partial to cream cheese long before then.41 The food writer Arthur Schwartz noted that, according to his parents, they ate “pumpernickel or corn bread with smoked fish and dairy” during the depression and war years, but not bagels.42 Joan Nathan found that the link between bagels and cream cheese was definitely present by the early 1950s, quoting from an article written by Fannie Engle that spoke of a recipe for bagels published at that time in Family Circle magazine. The magazine instructed readers to spread their bagels with “sweet butter” and then to “place a small slice of smoked salmon on each. For variations, spread with cream cheese, anchovies or red caviar.” According to Nathan: “Engle, who later wrote The Jewish Festival Cookbook, did not mention the Jewish Sunday morning ritual of lox, bagel, and cream cheese—an American concoction that was just taking off, spurred on most probably by Joseph Kraft’s advertising blitz for Philadelphia Cream Cheese.”43

Falafel, Pita and Salad The role of falafel as a representative Israeli food is generally accepted; this identification has given rise to culinary and political interpretations. Erik Cohen, for instance, writes about a postcard depicting falafel that carries the text: “Falafel—Israel’s national snack.” Cohen asserts: “This apparently innocuous postcard is in fact a most

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telling metonymy of the political as well as symbolic domination of Jews over Arabs in contemporary Israel: falafel . . . is an Arab dish which was appropriated by Israeli Jewish culinary culture and made into an Israeli dish; it becomes an expression of political domination by means of the Israeli flag stuck into the food.”44 Like the bagel, Israeli falafel is usually eaten as a combination: falafel balls and salad in a pocket pita. As with the bagel, lox, and cream cheese combination, each of these components has a complicated history that has to be understood in order to assess the significance and meaning of the food. The pita (like the bagel) is popularly thought to be a traditional bread; actually, it is a relatively recent innovation. Various types of flat breads, usually round in shape, are common in the Middle East as well as in Central Asia and India, and can be eaten in a variety of ways. They are used to wrap other foods; they are dipped in sauces; and they can serve as a base for spreads. However, no flat bread other than the pita serves as a pocket for holding other foods. It is not clear where the term pita comes from. It is unlikely to be an Arabic word because there is no “p” in Arabic. Clifford A. Wright notes that “pita” sounds very much like pide, a form of Turkish bread: “These two breads sound like they are the same but they are not. Pita bread is the name for the ubiquitous flatbread of the Arab world that has a pocket. But in Arabic it is known as khubz arabi, not as pita bread. . . . Pide bread, on the other hand, is a Turkish and Greek flatbread without a pocket.”45 The word “pita” sounds as though it could be Aramaic, but since Aramaic is spoken today only in a few villages of Syria and in Kurdistan, this does not appear to be likely.46 Nonetheless, the term was used in both Lebanon and Eretz Israel. It is very close to the Hebrew word pat (bread), and even if it did not originate with Hebrew-speakers, it was certainly easy for them to adopt it. Pocket breads were not known in the medieval Arab cuisine, and it is not clear when they began to be made.47 Charles Perry, a leading food historian states: The medieval Arabs had an implement called a minsagha designed to punch holes in flatbread (as is done presently in Uzbekistan, where nan is baked in the tandoor), and doing so will prevent a pocket from forming. This doesn’t prove that they never intentionally allowed a pocket to form, of course. In Syrian Arabic, pocket pita is called kmaj, from the Turkic komech, which in Central Asia had referred to a bread cooked in ashes or on a heated hearthstone. I’m not saying that pocket pita is Turkish, but the fact that it was given a Turkic name does not suggest great antiquity in the Arab world.48

In his view, such bread is a recent innovation in the Muslim world.49 According to Shooky Galili, a journalist who writes a blog on hummus and everything that goes with it: I discussed the topic with old-timers who recall that there was falafel in a pita pocket in Tel Aviv in the 1940s and possibly already in the late 1930s. I discussed the matter with a food engineer who claims that it is impossible to bake pocket pitas in the traditional baking methods in Eretz Israel (and this agrees with what I know from my father’s family, who have lived for many generations in the Galilee).50

It would seem that baking pocket pitas in quantities is practical only with the use of western-style ovens with racks and, in particular, the use of commercial ovens that

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use conveyor belts and can offer precise control of time and heat.51 Currently, almost all pocket pitas are made with automated or semi-automated machinery. As seen in the following description, a high temperature is crucial for proper pita-baking: The ovens are kept at a very high temperature, between 800–900° F (426.6–482.2° C). The pita loaves move quickly through the ovens where they are exposed to the high heat for about one minute. The combination of the high heat and flash-baking causes the water in the dough to turn to steam thus forming the pita pocket by separating the upper and lower crusts.52

Such high temperatures are difficult to achieve even on a heated hearthstone, and keeping the temperature even is also not easy.53 Without the high temperature, the steam does not work its influence on the dough, and baking it too long is apt to burn the pita. Given the absence of reference to pocket pitas before the end of the 19th century and the fact that the product is less successful when baked in anything other than a western-style oven, it seems probable that pocket pita can be dated to the beginning of the 20th century.54 The novelty of the bread and the use of western technology in its production might have been factors in the employment of a non-Arabic term, reflecting the fact that pita was not part of the traditional Arab cuisine. Falafel, in Middle Eastern cooking, refers to round fried balls of spiced ground legumes. In Egypt, fava beans are generally used, though in the seaport town of Marsah Matruh, falafel balls were traditionally made of hyacinth beans with a bit of ground beef in the center.55 In Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Israel, chickpeas are usually used to make falafel.56 Falafel balls are convenient foods. They are easy to portion out and they do not spill or require special handling. They are not easily crushed nor are they sensitive to temperature. And they taste good. According to Clifford Wright: The Egyptian version of the falafel is so much a staple food in Egypt that the word ta’miyya [the Egyptian Arabic equivalent of falafel] derives, in fact, from the Arabic word for nourishment. . . . the best ta’miyya I ever had was in Marsa Matruh. . . . We had a newspaper cone full (that’s what street vendors wrap them up in).57

In similar fashion, a Yemenite falafel-seller used to walk around the Jewish neighborhoods of early 20th-century Jerusalem with a large tin of freshly made falafel, going from house to house to sell them.58 At present, there is a clear visual distinction between Jewish Israeli and Palestinian falafel. The Jewish Israeli version is round, whereas the Palestinian version is ovalshaped.59 Round balls are better than ovals for filling a pita, but ovals are better for holding and dipping in humus. Each shape thus fits a different eating use. It is generally agreed that falafel originated in Egypt. Many claim that falafel balls were first made by Copts to eat as an alternative for meat on their fast days; according to the hypothesis, their Muslim neighbors adopted this culinary delight, and falafel gradually spread from Egypt to other regions in the Middle East. To the best of my knowledge, there is no documentary evidence for the Coptic origin of falafel, and the term falafel does not appear to be a Coptic word (this is also the case for the term ta’miyya). Moreover, falafel is far from being an ancient food, despite the claims that are sometimes made. There is no reference to falafel in ancient Egypt,60 and it is also not mentioned in medieval sources. There is a good reason for this. Inexpensive fried

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foods such as falafel are dependent on the availability of inexpensive oil. Although olive oil was produced in the ancient Middle East, it was expensive, such that poor people could not use it for simple frying. Inexpensive vegetable cooking oil became available only in the modern period with the invention of more powerful presses and, later, the use of solvents to extract oils from various seeds and legumes. Therefore, while Egypt was probably one of the first places in antiquity where foods were fried, the technique of frying in deep oil is apparently relatively new to Egyptian cooking. Habiba Hassan-Wassaf writes: “Deep-frying is an imported habit that is less than 200 years old.” She adds: “At the present time, it is used in the cooking of the very popular fried fava bean patties known as ta’ameyya or falafel, a relatively new introduction.”61 Can the invention of falafel be dated more precisely? Paul Balta, a well-known French expert on the Middle East, claims that falafel: are hardly mentioned in literature before the 20th century and only appear after the occupation of Egypt by the English in 1882. The Egyptians were inspired to enhance them by other types of fried croquettes (fish, meat, vegetable) originating from India and introduced by the British troops who, coming from India, liked them.62

Sources from the early 19th century do not refer to falafel. The classic description by Edward Lane, the British orientalist, written in the early 1830s, mentions that “[a] very common dish for breakfast is ‘fool medammes’ or beans . . . slowly boiled during a whole night.”63 A description of the Coptic diet on meatless days, written around 1878, notes that the “usual fare consists of bread, onions, ful (beans), prepared with walnut or mustard-oil, and dukka (a kind of salad).”64 Again, there is no mention of falafel. However, after the late 19th century, references to ta’miyya or falafel are common. The claim that Indian cooking may have influenced the invention of falafel is reasonable. There are many fried foods in India that predate falafel and that are similar in shape and consistency. British soldiers familiar with vada, ambode, dal ke pakode and other fried foods might easily have experimented and encouraged resourceful Egyptian chefs to come up with a local equivalent.65 However, culinary influences are notoriously difficult to document, as anonymous chefs did not usually leave written records of their innovations and sources of inspiration. It should be noted, though, that the Cochin Jews of Kerala66 and the Jews of Calcutta, along with their neighbors, commonly ate a food known as parippu vada or filowri—fried balls of ground chunna ka dhal (split green peas).67 This food is strikingly similar to falafel; the term filowri is also reminiscent of falafel. Thus, the cuisine of Indian Jews might have been an inspiration for falafel. To this day, there are two terms for falafel in Egypt—falafel in Alexandria and ta’miyya in much of the rest of the country. The multiple terminology fits well (though it is, of course, no proof) with the notion of a recent innovation. Using ful (fava bean) balls as the basis of a deep-fried dish makes culinary sense, given the availability of inexpensive oil and the Indian model of fried legume balls. Therefore, falafel might well have been invented by more than one chef and given more than one name. In any event, it seems clear that falafel spread from Egypt through the Middle East, quite possibly originating in the port city of Alexandria.68 Although the precise timing is uncertain, falafel appears to have arrived in Beirut by the 1930s.69 At about

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the same time, it probably became popular in Mandatory Palestine. As Lilian Cornfeld wrote in 1939: Unseen revolutions are brewing in the world of food. Filafel, rather messy and dubious looking, has come into its own, claiming its place amongst foods of dietetic value. Formerly restricted to the sea shore and Oriental sections of Tel Aviv, these fried vegetable cakes can now be found in the very heart of the city, proclaiming their odoriferous presence from every street corner.70 

This description makes it clear that falafel eating was spreading, though it was not yet seen as a marker or a typical food of Jews living in Eretz Israel. However, by 1949, an American-born diarist could write: “I must make some notations on the falafel which, to Israel, is what the hot dog is to us.”71 The two main salad ingredients that traditionally join the falafel in the pita are the cucumber and the tomato. Whereas the cucumber has been grown in the Middle East for millennia, the tomato only reached the region at the end of the 19th century.72 The tomato, originating in the Americas, first came to Europe in the form of a decorative plant. It was apparently brought to Syria by John Barker, the British consul in Aleppo in the first quarter of the 19th century. From Syria, it spread during the 19th century to other regions in the vicinity.73 It is not clear when the combination of falafel and salad in a pita became popular among Jews in Eretz Israel.74 Yael Raviv seems to date it to the 1920s.75 However, this topic needs further research. Both the falafel and the bagel/lox combinations share a common characteristic— novelty. Neither falafel balls nor the pocket pita have long histories; the same is true of the tomato appearing in the falafel combination.76 The enlarged and bready bagel in its American incarnation is new, as is cream cheese. And though salted salmon has some claim to tradition, its place in the diet of Jews from Eastern Europe is fairly recent.77 At the same time, each ingredient of the lox and bagel combination was familiar to East European Jewish immigrants in New York. The American bagel had developed over time in the New York immigrant community. Although salted or smoked salmon may have been a novelty among immigrants, they were certainly familiar with salted herring. Salted fish had widespread appeal, and the move to lox could easily be regarded as an “upgrade.” On the face of it, cream cheese was totally new and did not resemble East European cheeses. Nonetheless, immigrants were familiar with a different and extremely popular spread that had similar qualities—schmaltz, or rendered chicken fat. Those who could afford it often spread it on bread, in particular challah. Cream cheese was another form of high-fat spread that went well on bread, and was also less expensive and less messy than schmaltz. For Jews who were careful about observing the laws of kashrut, it also had the advantage of not being a meat product. In contrast, the falafel combination that developed in Eretz Israel during the Mandate era was totally novel, both for the Jewish population as a whole and even more so for the East European immigrants who constituted a majority of the Jews at that time. The pita did not resemble the kinds of bread Jews (and non-Jews) used to eat in Eastern Europe. The shape was different, the flatness unfamiliar, and the use of a pocket was unheard of. The filling of fried falafel balls was also a novelty. East European Jewish cuisine did not include a great deal of fried food, since cooking oils

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were not easily available. (Goose fat, which was regarded as the most desirable fat for frying, was expensive.) In addition, falafel balls had a foreign taste for East European Jews, as they made use of “Oriental” spices such as cumin and coriander; only the shape of the balls, which resembled that of meatballs, was familiar. Finally, the fresh salad of cucumbers and tomatoes (and the tehina frequently dribbled on top) was something new for Jews of East European origin.78 As Tony Judt once noted: “My grandmother, who had made her way from Pilvistok to London via Antwerp, knew nothing of salad and she had never met a green vegetable she could not torture to death in a saucepan.”79

Different Messages and Meanings of Bagels and Falafel Both bagels and falafel are visibly distinctive, in large part because of their round shape. This strong element of visual recognition is an essential element of branding: there is a sense of eating something special when the food has a distinctive shape.80 At the same time, there are significant differences in the “message” carried by bagels and falafel for those consuming these two foods. The message of the bagel is nostalgia. As we have seen, the terms surrounding the bagel/lox combination are Yiddish and redolent of “the old country,” even though the actual ingredients were new at the time.81 Cream cheese, invented in America, also acquired a Yiddish name: schmear, derived from the Yiddish verb meaning “to spread.”82 The falafel combination, in contrast, evokes no nostalgia. At least for Jews of East European origin, the opposite is true: it is perceived to be foreign, or “Oriental.” It is a truism that East European immigrants to Eretz Israel were driven by a desire to create a new community that would be characterized by a new type of Jew.83 This was a form of rebellion against the past that found expression in many areas: language, dress, religion, and also food.84 The popularity of falafel made this point very clearly, even in the sense that the food was eaten on the street—a clear rejection of European middle-class values that required a formal meal to be eaten in the home.85 Falafel and bagels share a basic characteristic of rarely being homemade: they are most often purchased in stores or on the street. Yet there are significant differences between the two—falafel is usually eaten where it is made or sold, or afterwards, on the street, while bagels are taken home and generally eaten in a family meal.86 Falafel is also sold “as is,” the only option for the buyer being to add tehina, hot sauce, or a topping such as pickled vegetables or French fries, and it has limited potential to serve as a joint meal or as a meal taking place over an extended period of time. Bagel sandwiches, in contrast, are most often put together after they have been purchased. If so inclined, one can put something other than lox and cream cheese on the bagel, and it is certainly possible to vary the amounts of each filling ingredient. In this respect, the bagel combination is less standardized than the falafel. Moreover, bageleating tends to be more of a sociable event. Jewish immigrants to the United States often ate bagels as a family meal on Sunday morning, when no one was at work. The family element of bagel-eating fit in well with its invoking of the past and a sense of tradition and unity. (The novel custom of Sunday bagel breakfasts at synagogues achieved similar aims.) At the same time, since bagels were almost always storebought rather than homemade, eating them did not evoke comparisons with the

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mother’s cooking or point to a decline in tradition in the way that eating “home-style” Jewish food in a restaurant could do. On a deeper, more symbolic level, both the bagel and the falafel combinations admirably fit the model posited by Claude Lévi-Strauss with regard to the “culinary triangle” and the language of cooking and binary oppositions.87 The Israeli falafel includes a fresh (raw) vegetable salad and fried chickpea balls that no longer resemble their food source—indeed, they are often mistaken for meat, which in LéviStrauss’ terminology would make falafel the opposite of a raw vegetable. Bagels and lox present a similar binary opposition. Of all the fish products, the one that most visually resembles meat is lox. It is bright red, it does not fall apart on a fork, and it is cut in long slices. As a matter of fact, visually it resembles bacon. Thus, lox served on cream cheese resembles not only a binary opposite but a milk product combined with a meat product—an absolute and forbidden opposite, in terms of kashrut. The outward resemblance of bagel and lox to a milk and meat combination has additional significance. Gil Marks, a specialist in Jewish culinary history, has noted: When during the 1930’s, many Jews abstained from eating the then-stylish but unkosher American Sunday brunch classic, eggs Benedict, they substituted lox slices for the ham, a schmear of cream cheese for the hollandaise sauce, and a bagel for the English muffin. Thus was born an American classic. Neither lox nor cream cheese had ever touched a bagel in Europe.88

It may be that the appeal of the lox and cream cheese combination is akin to the Jewish fascination with Chinese food, as is suggested by Gaye Tuchman and Harry G. Levine’s classic essay of 1992, “Safe Treyf.”89 On the one hand, they note, there was a desire to escape the restrictions of the traditional Jewish diet; on the other, there was avoidance of a blatant confrontation with these restrictions. Lox and cream cheese represents a different resolution to the dilemma they describe. Unlike Chinese food, which looks more or less kosher even though it is not, the lox and bagel combination looks as though it was not kosher, whereas in fact it is.90 With this in mind, it is interesting to note that the color of tehina is similar to that of milk or cream. Falafel balls look like meatballs; in Egypt, they were even made with meat. Thus, falafel, like lox and cream cheese, could have the appearance of breaking with tradition even though it does not. Another salient characteristic of bagels and falafel is the time they are eaten. Many of the foods most commonly associated with Jews in the past were eaten at specific times and in specific contexts. Gefilte fish, for instance, was eaten specifically on the Sabbath, as it met the needs of Sabbath-observant Jews (being cooked in advance and requiring no reheating). The bagel and falafel, in contrast, are weekday foods. Bagels, as noted, are traditionally eaten on Sunday morning—a time with no ritual significance in Jewish tradition, whereas fresh falafel, eaten throughout the week, cannot be made (or purchased) by observant Jews on the Sabbath. If these foods are adopted as representative Jewish foods, one must conclude that the “Jewish” element is thoroughly secular.

Bagel and Falafel as Iconic Foods Jennifer Schiff Berg, a specialist in food studies, describes iconic foods as foods that “when consumed or even just imagined suggest links to specific places, culturally

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bound groups or communities.”91 Put somewhat differently, an icon serves to represent an object or a group; thus certain foods come to represent certain groups or communities.92 This seems to be a novel phenomenon.93 As Sidney Mintz observes: “A ‘national cuisine’ is a contradiction in terms. There can be regional cuisines, but not national cuisines. I think that for the most part, a national cuisine is simply a holistic artifice based on the foods of the people who live inside some political system, such as France or Spain.”94 At first glance, the notion of “iconic foods” does not appear to apply to Jews in America. After all, Jews in America do not usually define themselves as a “national” group, and they certainly are not defined as a people (such as, say, the French or the Spanish) who live in a particular political system. Rather, American Jewry is an amalgam of Jews originating from various parts of Europe—not only Eastern Europe— as well as from Muslim lands. Not all of them came from societies in which bread rings, salt fish, and schmaltz were common food items. Nonetheless, a homogenization process of sorts occurred in the United States, in which “Litvaks,” “Galitsianers,” and many others were transformed into generic “American Jews.” The modest bagel, as a shared food, had a role in this transformation, as well as being a product of this transformation. In this sense, it can be seen as an iconic food. An iconic food is a response to a basic issue of identity. American Jews are not easily categorized as a cultural or religious group. They may talk about Jewish culture, but most do not participate in visibly distinctive high-culture activities such as going to concerts of Jewish music or Jewish theater.95 While many belong to synagogues and observe certain religious rituals as rites of passage, they are hardly religious as a whole. Arnold Eisen argues that, “even if I am not content to restrict the definition of Jewish culture to works of high culture informed by the Jewish textual tradition that includes Maimonides and the Vilna Gaon, [I] am not prepared to cast the definition wide enough to include ‘bagels and lox.’”96 And yet that is the point: many Jews who eat bagels and lox are choosing a Jewish food but not high Jewish culture. Devorah Romanek, who analyzed “the production, consumption and broader meaning of three Jewish baked goods—matzos, challah and bagels—in the context of Diaspora communities” in Berlin and London, found (not surprisingly) that the least religious informants “ate bagels more than the two other types of bread. For them, bagels, or ‘beigels,’ were directly related to their identity as Jews,” whereas more observant Jews were less attached and even sometimes uncomfortable with bagels.97 Again, it should be noted that the Sunday morning consumption of bagels is usually a family event—thus a bagel can be seen as evoking not only a link with the past but also with family.98 At the same time, one of the virtues of the bagel as an ethnic food is that it can easily be enjoyed by non-Jews as well as Jews.99 Indeed, it has been argued that bagels “became firmly identified as ‘Jewish’ only as Jewish bakers began selling them to their multiethnic urban neighbors.”100 Perhaps an even more significant development was the selling of bagels in supermarkets, as ethnic stores are not always comfortable places for outsiders. The identity function of the bagel seems to be missed by food purists who bemoan the rarity of what they term “authentic” bagels (chewier and smaller than the massmarket product of today), and more recently, the decline of “authentic” lox.101 For most consumers, what is desirable is the bagel’s easily recognizable shape and evocative

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name (two important factors in branding), along with its convenience as a basis for a sandwich. Authenticity is not necessary for either purpose. Indeed, those who have recreated the “original” bagel have given it a culinary significance that would have bewildered Jewish immigrant consumers in the Lower East Side of New York—even as they would have been surprised by culinary experts who regard the bagel as their favorite Jewish food.102 The process of developing a new Jewish ethnic food was even more obvious in Eretz Israel, where a vigorous and conscious effort to create a national identity required the revival of a national language, a national history and, no less, national foods.103 Here falafel could fill a dual role. On the one hand (with regard to immigrants from Eastern Europe), it underscored the break between immediate past East European Jewish foods and the new “Oriental” world of Eretz Israel. At the same time, this food could be seen as a link with an (idealized) past. Among the Jewish public in Eretz Israel, Yemenite falafel was regarded as the most original and tastiest version. This is a bit odd, as falafel—whether in or out of a pita—was not a traditional Yemenite food, neither among Muslims104 nor among Jews.105 To understand the ascription of falafel to Yemenite Jews, it is necessary to consider their image. Yemenite Jews were widely regarded in the mid-20th century as the most faithful transmitters of a form of Jewish life that was closest to the biblical world—and if not the biblical world, at least the world of the Second Temple, which marked the last period of autonomous Jewish life in Eretz Israel.106 In this sense, eating “Yemenite” could be regarded as an act of bodily identification with the Zionist claim to the land of Israel. Among evolving nations, and especially among nations (and groups) of immigrants, there is a need to display and maintain distinctiveness as well as to demonstrate commonality among members of the group.107 The greater the sense that boundaries are falling and that identity cannot be taken for granted, the more the need to develop group markers. For this reason, dynamics of migration and cultural influence can stimulate a counter-reaction that seeks to maintain differences. Conversely, the more that differences are taken for granted, the less the need to formulate distinctive characteristics. Iconic foods are useful tools for this purpose, especially when national languages are abandoned among immigrant communities. As opposed to religion or even ceremonies, iconic foods can be shared (and appreciated) by non-members of the group, such that eating “iconic foods” is not necessarily perceived as an act of standoffishness or being closed to others. Yet at the same time, public appreciation of such foods is a vote in favor of linkage with the past and with other members of the group.108 “[S]eemingly unassuming foods of Jewish origin,” Berg notes, “play the most significant role in symbolic Judaism, offering people a daily, tangible, easy, yet non-invasive way to embrace Jewish heritage—albeit symbolically, not religiously.”109 It is therefore not surprising that “bageling” has recently been adopted as a term referring to the practice in which Jews identify themselves to other Jews by using “code” words.110 One example from the past that actually employed bagels was recounted by Joan Nathan: When my family first moved to Larchmont, N.Y., in 1946, my father had a feeling that the neighbors living behind us were Jewish. In those days, you didn’t broadcast your religion, so he devised a plan that would reveal their cultural background. We would go to the

190Shaul Stampfer Bronx and bring back some bagels. If our neighbors knew what the rolls were, they were Jewish. If they stared at them in bewilderment, we would know they were not.111

Today, however, “who doesn’t know what a bagel is?”112 In the case of falafel, two related developments are worthy of note. First, the identification of falafel with “Israeliness” has been vigorously contested by various individuals.113 To be sure, a “national” food can acquire its status without having been invented by members of the nation.114 But it is also the case that in the search for identity, history is not always relevant. For some, falafel has taken on the role of a national Palestinian dish—in a sense, a mirror image of the process among Jewish Israelis. In an article appearing in This Week in Palestine in 1998, for instance, it was claimed that “[a]lthough falafel has become the international symbol for healthy fastfood, it has been the Palestinian equivalent to the American hamburger for centuries.”115 Similarly, Maha Saca, director of the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem, is quoted as terming falafel “the best known Palestinian national food.”116 Elsewhere, falafel is characterized as an Arab food.117 The competing claims to ownership received cinematic treatment in an Oscar-winning short movie, The West Bank Story (2005), a musical parody of West Side Story that told the tale of adjacent and competing falafel restaurants, one of them Jewish Israeli and the other Arab Palestinian.118 Second, and no less interesting, is the rapid acceptance of a point of view—among some Jews—that the Jews living in Israel illegitimately adopted a food of another population.119 A statement such as that attributed to Ammiel Alcalay that “it’s total appropriation . . . linked to very concrete things like land and sustenance”120 makes this clear.121 The reality, as we have seen, is not so simple.

Conclusion What does the analysis and comparison of bagels and falafel teach us? Although the dynamics of migration, the issues of self-identification, and the spread of secularization are all well known, food history can be an important means of demonstrating both the degree of integration between these various dynamics and the fact that people often have contradictory goals—wanting to integrate into the surrounding society while at the same time maintaining a distinct cultural or ethnic identity. In many instances it is the ideological extremes that grab attention. The Yom Kippur dances and banquets sponsored by Jewish anarchists represent one extreme; on the other are various ultra-Orthodox sects that have not only adopted items of clothing (for instance, the shtreimel) once worn by the Polish nobility, but have also bestowed a measure of holiness on them. The non-vocal majority, however, often vote with their plates. We have seen that the rise of the bagel and falafel was far from accidental. Both foods express a perceived need both for change and for integration with the surrounding society, alongside a desire to maintain a distinctive—though not necessarily strictly traditional—identity.122 Writing in a somewhat different context, Molly Geiger Schuchat made the insightful point that “food style . . . becomes a means of self identity as well as a group-membership card . . . people tend to eat as they would like to be perceived, so that it is as much a matter of ‘you eat what you wish to be’ as

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of ‘you are what you eat.’”123 For many secular Jews, the bagel is a means for Jews to  display identification in a socially acceptable manner.124 Alternatively, as Josh Ozersky put it in his Time magazine article: “The bagel is a symbol of assimilation at any cost.”125 In all cases, the choice of which specific food will become iconic is made not by ideological or political leaders, but rather comes from below, from the grassroots. On paper, such foods may appear to express contradictory messages. In life, they can be tasty resolutions. In addition, the history of the bagel and falafel clarify a mechanism hinted at by Jonathan Sarna in his article “From Immigrants to Ethnics: Toward a New Theory of Ethnicity.”126 Sarna points out the important fact that immigrants usually did not see themselves as members of an ethnic group, but rather as members of much smaller groups, identifying, for instance, on the basis of a village or town. He suggests that it was precisely in their new places of residence that two factors, ascription and adversity, led immigrants to new forms of self-identity. There is no question that the East European Jewish immigrants to America did not see themselves as “East European Jews.” They identified themselves as Litvaks, Galitsianers, Hungarians, and the like. One of the most popular frameworks for organization were the landsmanshaftn that were focused on city or town of origin. However, within a mere two generations (and often earlier), these distinctions were more or less erased. In the case of Jews, additional factors beyond ascription (by non-Jewish Americans) and adversity (antisemitism) serve to account for this development. For instance, the move to the suburbs, which led many Jews to affiliate with locally based synagogues, greatly weakened their sense of sub-group identity. In addition, one might point to “Jewish foods” as an element that made it possible for individuals to identify as Jews without resorting to religious or other identity symbols. It may be no coincidence that the rise of the bagel paralleled the decline of Yiddish; language can be a very strong identity symbol, but only at the cost of social isolation. American Jews opted to adopt English as their new mother tongue, and yet key words in Yiddish continued to be used in conversation with other Jews, conveying the message that both speakers were part of a shared group. The terms bagel, lox, and schmear were not “Englishized.” Hence, although “gastronomic Judaism” is often used as a derisive term implying a Jewish identity devoid of meaning, it is a very strong factor in maintaining an ethnic Jewish identity. Falafel, too, was part of a self-conscious effort to create a new ethnic or national identity. As with their counterparts in America, the immigrants to Eretz Israel came from a variety of locales; the potential for maintenance of sub-group identity was very strong. (There are a number of parallels between the landsmanshaftn in New York and the various kollelim in the Old Yishuv that were tied to particular regions or countries in Europe or in the Muslim world.)127 The adoption of new foods that were novel to most Jewish immigrants in pre-state Palestine, alongside the adoption of a new language, Israeli Hebrew, was part of a process that was strikingly similar to what was going on in the United States. Ideologies are preached by intellectuals and propagandized through various channels, but their effectiveness is often limited. They are elite phenomena that say more about their creators than about the wider population. It is precisely in more down-toearth matters such as food practices, dress, and language that one can gain insights into the concerns and values of broader groups within society. Even more important,

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instead of seeing immigrant groups as passive groups that respond to ascription and adversity, it is possible to regard them as taking the initiative—even if in an unorganized or non-ideological manner—in the attempt to create usable and comfortable identities.128 In this regard, the stories of the bagel and falafel are very significant. They demonstrate the complex and often contradictory ways in which “ordinary” people tried to come to grips with very new circumstances. In short, these two simple foods epitomize the modern Jewish experience—and this is no accident.129

Notes I am grateful to Chaim Waxman and Dana Kaplan for their good counsel. If I can pretend to think like a sociologist—a very admirable goal—it is only because of their assistance! I also thank Claire Stampfer for her efficient and discreet bibliographical assistance and to Menachem Butler for similar help. 1. See Juliane Ochs Dweck, “‘Who Can Cater a Bris in Queens?’ Circumcision Meals in Contemporary America,” in Chosen Food: Cuisine Culture and American Jewish Identity, ed. Avi Decter and Juliana Ochs Dweck (Baltimore: 2011), 55–65. For touching evocations of the meaning of the bagel for one American Jewish writer, see Calvin Trillin, “The Lower East Side: A Sunday Morning Tale,” The New Yorker (24 February 1973), 112 and idem, “The Magic Bagel,” The New Yorker (27 March 2000), 53. For a more esoteric article on the importance of having experts design user-interface and information visualization, see Aaron Marcus, John Armitrage, Volker Frank, and Edward Guttman, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Design Bagel.com, But It Helps . . . and Other Matters,” in Human-Computer Interaction: Ergonomics and User Interfaces, vol. 1, ed. Hans-Jörg Bullinger and Jürgen Ziegler (Mahwah, N.J.: 1999), 516–520. See, too, 7thart.com/films/California-Shmeer, describing a 25-minute documentary film about bagels (2006); for a website devoted to bagels, see thepsychologyofbagels.com (accessed 22 July 2014). On the iconic role of falafel in the state of Israel, see, for instance, Yasmin Kay, “Tourist tip #15/Falafel,” Haaretz (English edition) (6 August 2012). Kay also deals with controversies regarding the “ownership” of falafel, as does Jodi Kantor, “A History of the Mideast in the Humble Chickpea,” New York Times (10 July 2002). The controversy has expanded to a struggle over the rights to hummus. On this, see Dafna Hirsch, “‘Hummus Is Best When It Is Fresh and Made by Arabs’: The Gourmetization of Hummus in Israel and the Return of the Repressed Arab,” American Ethnologist 38, no. 4 (November 2011), 617–630; idem, and Ofra Tene, “Hummus: The Making of an Israeli Culinary Cult,” Journal of Consumer Culture 13, no. 1 (March 2013), 25–45. Much more on hummus can be found on the web. See as well Ari Ariel, “The Hummus Wars,” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 12, no. 1 (Spring 2012), 34–42. For this topic in a broader theoretical context, see Nir Avieli and Rafi Grosglick, “Food and Power in the Middle East: Practical Concerns, Theoretical Considerations,” Food, Culture and Society 16, no. 2 (June 2013). See also Liora Gvion, Beyond Hummus and Falafel: Social and Political Aspects of Palestinian Food in Israel (Berkeley: 2012). 2. Here it is useful to bear in mind many of the insights raised in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s edited collection, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: 1983). 3. The entry was written by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. See Encyclopedia of Food & Culture, ed. Solomon Katz and William Weaver (New York: 2002), 150–152. For a general introduction to the bagel, see Maria Balinska, The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread (New Haven: 2008); Matthew Goodman, “The Rise and Fall of the Bagel,” Harvard Review 28 (Spring 2005), 91–99. Nancy Bryk describes the boiling process for bagels as follows: Each bakery has at least one huge kettle filled with boiling water and malt for reactivating the bagels. Water in these kettles must be at a rolling boil. The bagels (usually one board

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or 25 bagels at a time) are dropped into the kettle. In this hot kettle, the dormant yeast is reactivated. After about 90 seconds, the bagel comes up to the surface of the water in a “float.” Kettling with malt in the water helps put on a hard crust and retards drying. (“How Bagels are Made,” in Gale’s How Products are Made, online at madehow.com/Volume-4/ Bagel.html [accessed 4 May 2014].) 4. For example, one can find in Greece and Turkey a twisted sesame bread ring called koulouri (in Greece) and simit (in Turkey). This bread can be traced back to ancient Greece: see Antonia-Leda Matalas and Mary Yannakoulia, “Greek Street Food Vending: An Old Habit Turned New,” World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics 86 (2000), 1–24; esp. 3. Americans are familiar with the fried doughnut, which was invented during the First World War. In 1920, a Jewish immigrant to New York from Eastern Europe, Adolph Levitt, became the first to produce machine-made doughnuts. For more details and fascinating stories, see the book written by his granddaughter, Sally Levitt Steinberg, The Donut Book (New York: 1987), esp. 49, where the links between bagels and doughnuts are discussed. On bialys, see Mimi Sheraton, The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World (New York: 2000). 5. On the obwarzanek krakowski, see Izabela Czaja and Marcin Gadocha, Obwarzanek Krakwoski: Historia, tradycja, symbolika (Cracow: 2008). I thank Marcin Gadocha for his generosity in sending me a copy. He mentions the American Jewish bagel on p. 38. For a detailed description of the obwarzanek krakowski, see European Common Market Council Regulation (ED) NO 510/2006, “Obwarzanek Krakowski” ED NO: PL-PGI-005-0674, which sets up the criteria for recognizing it as a protected designation. 6. It should be noted that the bublik had an important role in Ukrainian folklore (it also appears in Jewish folklore, though much less frequently). For references to the bublik in popular Ukrainian culture, see N.F. Sumtsov, Simbolika Slavyanskikh Obryadov (Moscow: 1996). A description of bubliks can be found on Wikipedia (accessed 22 July 2014). Despite major efforts, I was not able to find a written source for this description. 7. On this little known but popular Belarusian and Russian product, see Svetlana Stankevich, “Abaranki sa Smorgonyai,” in Regianalnaya gazeta (Maladzychena, Belarus) (3 August 2009). 8. The basic book on the European pretzel is Irene Krauss’ Gelungen geschlungen: Das grosse Buch der Brezel (Tubingen: 2003). They are closely related in form and taste to the Israeli beigele, though the Israeli product is not as crisp. 9. A similar bread found in Finland, known as vesirinkeli, appears to share a common ancestry. 10. Shaul Stampfer, “The Geographic Background of East European Jewish Migration to the United States before World War I,” in Time and Migration across Nations, ed. Ira Glazier and Luigi De Rosa (New York: 1986), 220–230. 11. See Slownik Staropolski, vol. 1, part 2 (Warsaw: 1953), 73 (“begiel”); see also bis. uni-oldenburg.de/bis-verlag/wdlp/polnisch/begiel.pdf (accessed 22 July 2014). The online version of Deutsches Wörterbuch, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, brings references from the same period for use of the term in Germany. They note that it was especially common in Silesia—one of the early areas of Jewish settlement in Eastern Europe; see woerterbuchnetz .de/DWB?lemma=beugel (accessed 22 July 2014). I am grateful to Ruth von Bernuth for leading me to this invaluable resource. For data on contemporary usage of the term in Austria, which may well reflect earlier use, search for “beigel” at Datenbank zur deutschen Sprache in Österreich, online at oewb.retti.info/oewb/index.html (accessed 22 July 2014). On the word in Yiddish, see Mordecai Kosover, Yidishe makholim: a shtudye in kultur-geshikhte un shprakhforshung (New York: 1958), 129–130 and (for literary sources) Yehuda Elzet [Jehuda Leib Zlotnik], Yidishe makholim (Warsaw: 1920), 98–99. 12. Israel Kasovich, writing about his life as a Talmud student in Lithuania fifty years later, described bagels as “dough rings” and later wrote: “Never before had I feasted so sumptuously as at Hannah’s. For breakfast she used to give me a glass of milk and two baygel—a full glass of milk, mind you, and two large baygel” (Israel Kasovich, The Days of Our Years [New York: 1929]), 25, 26–27. Here as well the bagels seem to be smaller than those of today. 13. See the section “Sheiltot,” in Tosfot ma’aseh rav (Jerusalem: 1896), 19b. A parallel passage published in Hilkhot haGra uminhagav, ed. Moshe Sternbuch (Jerusalem: 1993), 147

194Shaul Stampfer reads: “. . . if so, one may eat three beyglakh kneaded in eggs that are very much smaller than the usual beygl.” 14. One is obligated to say the full grace after meals after consuming a kazayit (literally a measure of volume equal to an olive) of bread. In theory, one could be obligated to say the full grace after meals following a meal consisting of pastry. However, the amount of pastry consumed would need to be substantially greater. 15. Shirley Kumove, More Words, More Arrows: A Further Collection of Yiddish Folk Sayings (Detroit: 1999), 124. 16. Dan Ben-Amos and Jerome R. Mintz (trans. and eds.), In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov: The Earliest Collection of Legends about the Founder of Hasidism (Bloomington: 1970), 222. Although the story itself is not totally clear, what is significant for us is that a beygl is seen as a normal item for a Jewish traveler to have had with him. I am very grateful to Anat Helman for this reference. 17. Menahem Mendel of Kotsk, Emet veemunah (Jerusalem: 1940), 8 (par. 36). 18. R. Meir Yehiel told his students that when he was a little boy, his parents would wake up two hours after midnight in order to boil and bake the beygls. See the biographical sketch by R. Leibish Rosenberg in Meir ’einei ḥakhamim (Brooklyn: 1950), 6. The quote (which does not mention R. Meir Yehiel by name) is found at beyondbt.com/2006/02/07/fresh-bagel/ (accessed 23 July 2014). I could not find an older source. 19. See Jakub Goldberg and Adam Kaz´mierczyk, Sejm Czterech Ziem: z´ródła (Warsaw: 2011), 36–37. The English translation appears there; the Polish original has “kukielkami i obarzankami” for rolls and bagels. 20. See the undated photograph of Warsaw Jewish beygl sellers in Balinska, The Bagel, 81; a photograph from 1927 appears in ibid., 87. A photograph taken in 1938 in rural Poland shows a small beygl that appears to be 5–6 centimeters in diameter, significantly smaller than contemporary American bagels but thicker than an obwarzanek. The earlier depiction by Kajetan Kielisin´ski (d. 1849) of a 19th-century beygl seller (ibid., 45) also shows a thin beygl with a large hole. More photographs can be seen online at “‘People of a Thousand Towns’: The Online Catalog of Photographs of Jewish Life in Prewar Eastern Europe,” yivo1000towns.cjh. org/default.asp (accessed 23 July 2014). 21. Ita Hersch, My Childhood in Trishik (Johannesburg: 2000), 21. 22. Israel Zangwill, Children of the Ghetto (London: 1892), 83. 23. Translated by Sarah Traister Moskovitz and posted on the site: “Poetry in Hell: Warsaw Ghetto Poems from the Ringelblum Archives,” online at poetryinhell.org/home-lovelife/miriam-ulinover-girl-with-bagel/(accessed 23 July 2014). Miriam Ulinover was born in Lodz and became a popular poet. She continued writing poetry in the Lodz ghetto; from there, she and her daughter and granddaughter were sent to Auschwitz, where they were killed. Some of her poems were preserved in the Ringelblum archives. 24. See Edouard de Pomiane, The Jews of Poland: Recollections and Recipes, trans. Josephine Bacon (Garden Grove, Calif: 1985). This unique book, written by a sympathetic non-Jew and originally published in 1929, contains both recipes and a comprehensive description of Jewish food in Poland, but does not mention the beygl. 25. I.L. Peretz, “Nokh gefeldike yorn,” in Mayne zikhronos (Warsaw: 1965), 27. 26. Cited in Balinska, The Bagel, 108. 27. On bagel-makers’ union activity in New York, see Goodman, “The Rise and Fall of the Bagel”; on bagel unions in Los Angeles, see Caroline Luce, “Radicalism in the Ethnic Market— The Jewish Bakers Union of Los Angeles in the 1920s,” Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (June 2010). She writes: “ ‘buying union’ baked goods [became] synonymous with ‘buying Jewish,’ linking consumption to the expression of Jewish identity in Los Angeles” (p. 4). 28. Ed Levine, “Was Life Better When Bagels Were Smaller?” New York Times (31 December 2003). 29. Ibid. The bagel was not the only Jewish food to “grow” in America. The same thing happened to the knish. See Joel Denker, The World on a Plate: A Tour through the History of America’s Ethnic Cuisine (Lincoln: 2003), 69. For a discussion of growth in food sizes, see Marian Burros, “Eating Well,” New York Times (6 July 1994), online at nytimes.com/1994/07/06/

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garden/eating-well.html (accessed 23 July 2014); interview with Adam Pomerantz, “Why Bagels Have Gotten Bigger,” online at thedailymeal.com/temptee-when-not-toast-and-whybagels-are-bigger (accessed 23 July 2014). 30. See, for example, Erika Kinetz, “So Pink, So New York,” New York Times (22 September 2002). 31. On the predominant role of Jews in fish-smoking in England and America, see Claudia Roden, The Book of Jewish Food (New York: 1996), 69. On the history of H. Forman and Son (London), see spitalfieldslife.com/2011/08/04/at-h-forman-son-salmon-smokers/(accessed 23 July 2014). Jews apparently are attracted to cured fish more than other groups. Cherie Kassem wrote: “Smoked fish delicacies are enjoyed all over the world. . . . The largest market, however, is in urban areas of the eastern U.S., especially in large Jewish centers, where smoked salmon (‘lox’) are part of the daily diet.” See idem, Smoking Fish at Home—A Step by Step Guide (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Cooperative Extension Service, VPI-SG-300-2 [Blacksburg, Virginia: 1977]), introduction. 32. R. Jacob Emden, Sheilat yavets (Altona: 1759), 2:31a (responsum 29). 33. R. Kalonymos Kalman Epstein, Maor vashemesh, part 2 (Breslau: 1842), 276b–277a. It appears that the fish being referred to is the salmon. 34. Tomas Ruginis, “Diet and Prey Selectivity by Age-0 Brown Trout (Salmo Trutta L.) in Different Lowland Streams of Lithuania,” Acta Zoologica Lituanica 18, no. 2 (June 2008), 139. 35. See Uriel Weinreich, Modern English-Yiddish/Yiddish-English Dictionary (New York: 1968), where strange is translated as trout. 36. Kinetz, “So Pink, So New York.” 37. R. Yehuda Eisenstein, Otzar zikhronotai (New York: 1930), 353. 38. Mercedes Brighenti, “Texture and Functionality of Cream Cheese” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin [Madison], 2009). 39. Ibid., 86. See also Joshua Davis, “Schmear Campaign,” Wired (14 June 2006); Chanokphat Phadungath, “Cream Cheese Products: A Review,” Journal of Science Technology 27, no. 1 (2005), 191-199; S.L. Breidinger and J.F. Steffe, “Texture Map of Cream Cheese,” Journal of Food Science 66, no. 3 (April 2001), 453–456. 40. Jeffrey Marx, “Historical Outline of Breakstone Brothers Dairy” (December 2007), online at breakstone.us/Dairyhistory.htm (accessed 23 July 2014); idem, “‘The Days Had Come of Curds and Cream’: The Origins and Development of Cream Cheese in America, 1870–1880,” Food, Culture and Society 15, no. 2 (June 2012), 177–195. 41. Quoted in Arthur Schwartz, Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking (Berkeley: 2008), 159. 42. Ibid. 43. Joan Nathan, “A Short History of the Bagel,” Slate (12 November 2008), online at slate.com/articles/life/food/2008/11/a_short_history_of_the_bagel.html (accessed 23 July 2014). 44. Erik Cohen, “The Representation of Arabs and Jews on Postcards in Israel,” History of Photography 19, no. 3 (1995), 210. (I thank Nathan Shifris for the reference to this article.) As we shall see, almost nothing in this statement is correct. 45. Clifford A. Wright, Little Foods of the Mediterranean: 500 Fabulous Recipes for Antipasti, Tapas, Hors d’Oeuvre, Meze, and More (Boston: 2003), 432. 46. On the etymology of the word “pita,” see David L. Gold, “The Etymology of the English Bread Name pita (A Study in Jewish Intralinguistics),” Jewish Language Review (1984), 59–76; idem, “More on the Origins of the English Bread-name Pita” in idem, Jewish Linguistic Studies (Haifa: 1989), 42–52. Mordkhe Schaechter believed that it came from Yiddish and cited a poem by a Bessarabian Yiddish poet who refers to “pita.” However, he was unable to cite additional sources. See his article “Dos yidish shebekhtav in erets yisroel,” Yidishe sprakh 37, nos. 1–3 (1978–1980), 5, 22. The writer he cites is Zelik Barditshever, whose book, Lider mit nigunim was first published in Chernivtsi in 1939. Cf. Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, “Sheki’ei sefaradit-yehudit be’ivrit hah.adashah,” Pe’amim 56 (1993), 45–46 (she finds the source of the word in Judeo-Spanish).

196Shaul Stampfer 47. Gustaf Dalman, in his Arbeit und Sitte in Palastina, vol. 4, Brot, Öl und Wein (Güthersloh: 1935), makes no mention of pocket pitas in his detailed discussions of breads (pp. 84–87 and 112–116); it is unlikely that he would have ignored pocket pitas had they existed. Similarly, there is no reference to pocket pita in Mary Eliza Rogers’ Domestic Life in Palestine (Cincinnati: 1865), Ada Goodrich-Freer’s Things Seen in Palestine (London: 1913), or Guy Galezka’s Ph.D. thesis, “À la Redécouverte de la Palestine: Le Regard sur l’Autre dans les récits de voyage français en Terre sainte au dix-neuvième siècle” (Sorbonne, 2010). References to pocket pita are also missing in a more recent work, Lilia Zaouali’s Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World: A Concise History with 174 Recipes (Berkeley: 2007). 48. Email correspondence from Charles Perry (10 August 2011). 49. Ibid. He added: I am inclined to agree that it [pocket bread] is relatively recent. I find no reference to pocket bread in medieval Arab cookbooks. . . . Pocket pita is, of course, a bread cooked in the Roman-style brick oven, rather than in the tandoor. . . . People like to think that the popular foods of a region are of great antiquity. But one thing food history teaches is that cookery, like most cultural phenomena, is subject to fashion. See also Perry’s reference to “modern Arab pocket bread” in idem, A.J. Arberry and Maxime Rodinson, Medieval Arab Cookery: Papers by Maxime Rodinson and Charles Perry with a Reprint of a Baghdad Cookery Book (Totnes, Devon: 1998), 382 (n. 1). Nawal Nasrallah, an expert on Iraqi cookery, basically concurred with Charles Perry in a letter dated 5 November 2011. Supporting evidence may be found in a study of village breads, which are presumably traditional, in Egypt. In Karen Davis’ comprehensive study, A Survey of Egyptian Village Breads (Moscow, Idaho: 1985), she describes only two village breads that are baked to produce a pocket, the manottot (p. 101) and the bakuun (p. 155); although these are also flat, they are different from the pocket pita that is sold in Cairo and other major cities that are baked in commercial bakeries. For a worthwhile introduction to Egyptian flat breads, see museum.agropolis.fr/pages/expos/egypte/fr/cuisine/pains/index.htm (accessed 23 July 2014). 50. Letter from Shooky Galili (5 October 2011). See also this statement from his hummus blog, which is unfortunately unreferenced: “The pocket pita bread, now on every table in the middle-east, is a relatively new invention. Traditional Arab breads were flat too, but they weren’t hollow” (online at humus101.com/EN/2008/02/11/inside-the-israeli-pita/#more-99; accessed 23 July 2014). Fouad Jaby El-Haramein and Bashir Adleh described pocket pita in their article “Bread in Syria,” Food Reviews International 10, no. 4 (1994), 419–436. In the section titled “Bread in the 20th Century,” they write: “The main events of the modern era in terms of baking technology include baker’s yeast, the development of two layer flat (2LF) bread, the tunnel oven and automatic baking lines” (p. 428). They also note: “Not enough heat is developed in either the saaj or the tannour [traditional ovens] for the development of two layer breads” (p. 426). In an article on the history of the baking and milling industries in Syria by Fouad Jaby el-Haramein, the author dates the spread of the pocket pita in Syria to the mid-20th century. I thank Elhanan Miller for his assistance with the Arabic. Unfortunately, while I have a photocopy of the article, it is lacking bibliographical details. 51. This would explain why, in Jordan, pocket pita (kmaj) is found mainly in urban regions rather than in rural and presumably more traditional regions. See Ayed S. Amr, “A Preliminary Study of Arab Middle Eastern Breads with Reference to Jordan,”Dirasat, Agricultural Sciences 15, no. 10 (1988) 81–98, esp. 94 (Table II); it should be noted, however, that a different kind of pita, known as baladi, which can have pockets, can be found in rural areas. 52. See madehow.com/Volume-5/Pita-Bread.html (accessed 8 September 2014). Neither of the two standard books that describe the technology linked with pita-baking deal with the history of the technology or with the impact of mechanization on pocket pita-baking: see Jalal Qarooni, Flat Bread Technology (New York: 1996) and Kenneth J. Quail, Arabic Bread Production (St. Paul: 1996). When I contacted the authors directly, they had no additional information to add. The development of pocket pitas might also be related to increased availability of high gluten flour (I was unable to find information on the changing characteristics

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of flour in the Middle East in the modern period). On the importance of gluten in pita, see I. Toufeili et al., “The Role of Gluten Proteins in the Baking of Arabic Bread,” Journal of Cereal Science 30, no. 3 (November 1999), 255–265. 53. Nawal Abu Ghosh, author of Bishul ’aravi beeretz yisrael (Jerusalem: 1996) informed me in a telephone conversation on October 26, 2011 that her grandmother prepared pocket pitas on a tanaka, a tin container that was put on a kerosene burner. According to Nira Russo, pitot are now usually made on a khbaza—a device that helps create high temperatures. See idem, “Khbaza,” Haaretz (8 July 2004). 54. Anissa Helou, an expert on Mediterranean food and a native of Lebanon/Syria, notes that in pita bakeries today, “the process of making the bread is almost completely automated, resulting in perfect loaves in contrast to home preparation, which often yields imperfect results.” She adds: “However good your oven is, it will never produce the fierce heat of commercial ovens, some of which are still wood-fired, which causes the dough to puff up in seconds and the layers to separate equally.” See her blog at anissas.com/making-pita-bread/ (accessed 8 September 2014). 55. Wright, Little Foods of the Mediterranean, 390. 56. Ghillie Basan, The Middle Eastern Kitchen (London: 2001), 113. According to Nathan Dunevich, the falafel sold in Tel Aviv more than 70 years ago was generally made from fava beans; falafel sellers switched to chickpeas only after the immigration of Iraqi Jews after 1948, many of whom had a genetic intolerance to fava beans. See Dunevich, Mikiosk gazoz ’ad mis’adat shef (Tel Aviv: 2012), 166. 57. Wright, Little Foods of the Mediterranean. 58. My great-aunt, Malka Frank, who was my informant on this point, also said that falafel balls today don’t taste the same. 59. See a recipe and photo online at saveur.com/article/Recipes/Classic-Falafel (accessed 23 July 2014). 60. See Dr. George Sobhy Bey, “Survival of Ancient Egypt,” Bulletin de la Société D’Archéologie Copte 4 (1938), 63. 61. Habiba Hassan-Wassef, “Food Habits of the Egyptians: Newly Emerging Trends,” Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal 10, no. 6 (2004), 904. This fits with the point made by Paulina B. Lewicka in her Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes (Leiden: 2011): “The records referring to the street sale of cooked legumes are not as frequent as one might expect, considering their popularity in contemporary Cairo” (p. 252). Lewicka found no reference to falafel or to ta’miyya (or to pocket pita) in medieval sources. I made many attempts to contact Hassan-Wassef to obtain more information on the sources of her statement, but was unable to elicit a response. 62. See Paul Balta’s short publication Boire et manger en Méditerranée (not to be confused with a book of the same name by the same author), available online at en.casaarabe.es/ documents/download/138 (accessed 15 September 2014). On page 11 he writes: “Je suis le premier à avoir démontré avec Farouk Mardam Bey, qu’en réalité les falafels n’ont fait leur apparition qu’au début de la colonisation britannique, en 1882.” Balta was unable to respond to a query from me regarding the source for this claim, and despite many efforts, I was unable to communicate with Farouk Mardam Bey. I am indebted to Michael Silber for his extraordinary efforts to obtain materials for me that I could not find in Israel, and specifically for sending Balta’s publication to me. 63. Edward Lane, Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, vol. 1 (London: 1836), 164. See also Gilbert Joseph Gaspard de Chabrol in Description d’Egypte, vol. 18 (Paris, 1826), who writes: “il vit de légumes verts . . . fèves de marais . . . ces derniers alimens se vendent cuits” (p. 100). Again, there is no reference to frying. 64. K. Baedeker (ed.), Egypt—Handbook for Travellers (Leipzig: 1878), 308. 65. On vada and ambode, see K.T. Achaya, Historical Dictionary of Indian Food (Oxford: 2002). On another equivalent, dal ke pakode, see spicebuds.blogspot.co.il/2014/02/meetindian-cousin-of-falafel.html (accessed 24 July 2014). 66. This was confirmed to me in a personal communication (spring 2014) from Essi Sassoon, an expert in Cochinese Jewish cuisine.

198Shaul Stampfer 67. Mavis Hyman, Indian-Jewish Cooking (London: 1992), 74. A recipe for “falooree,” without reference to a Jewish connection, appeared in [anon.], The Indian Cookery Book: A Practical Handbook to the Kitchen in India (Calcutta: 1880), 62–63. 68. Anissa Helou, Lebanese Cuisine (London: 1998), 48. 69. The famed Sahyoun falafel shop opened in the early 1930s; see an online account at falafelsahyoun.com/company/our-history.aspx. According to the son of the founder, this was the first falafel shop in Lebanon. Even if this is an exaggeration, it is clear that falafel in Beirut was an interwar innovation. On Sahyoun falafel (and family rivalries), see dailystar.com.lb/ News/Lebanon-News/2012/Feb-02/161877-sahyoun-brothers-chose-falafel-over-family. ashx#axzz35gCGU1kn (accessed 24 July 2014). 70. Lilian Cornfeld, “Filafel Comes into Its Own,” Palestine Post (31 December 1939), 10. 71. Bernard M. Bloomfield, Israel Diary (New York: 1950), 58. The entry is dated 8 April 1949. 72. For those who rely on Wikipedia, note that the quote cited as referring to tomato cultivation in Eretz Israel in the late 19th century (online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Middle_ East_and_North_Africa (accessed 11 September 2014) is an incorrect citation. The source actually refers to the United States and is taken from Artemas Ward, Grocers Handbook and Directory (Philadelphia: 1883). 73. Edward Barker (ed.), Syria and Egypt under the Last Five Sultans of Turkey (London: 1876), 2:2. For descriptions of the tomato in Eretz Israel, see Reuven Sivan, Ha’agvaniyah (Jerusalem: 1971). 74. The adoption of falafel was part of a wider process. See Itamar Even-Zohar, “The Emergence of a Native Hebrew Culture in Palestine: 1882–1948,” Journal of Israeli History 2, no. 4 (Autumn 1981), 167–184. 75. Yael Raviv, “Recipe for a Nation: Jewish Nationalism and the Israeli State” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 2002); idem, “Falafel: A National Icon,” Gastronomica 3, no. 3 (Summer 2003), 20–25, esp. 20. 76. On the novelty of the combination of pita, falafel balls, and salad, see Philologos, “Chickpeas: On Language,” Forward (21 October 2005), online at forward.com/articles/2119/ chickpeas/(accessed 24 July 2014), and more recently, Anna Hanau, “The World of Jewish Cooking—According to Gil Marks” (21 May 2012), online at blogs.forward.com/the-jew-andthe-carrot/156586/the-world-of-jewish-cooking-according-to-gil-mar/(accessed 24 July 2014). 77. Novelty is not at all a unique phenomenon for an ethnic food. The differences between American pizza and Italian pizza are well known. Less well known is the story of tacos. See Jeffrey Pilcher, “Was the Taco Invented in Southern California?” Gastronomica 8, no. 1 (Winter 2008), 26–38. On the well-known “invention” of Chinese food in America, see, for example, Joel Denker, The World on a Plate: A Tour through the History of America’s Ethnic Cuisine (Lincoln: 2003). On the history of the fortune cookie, see Jennifer Lee, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food (New York: 2008), ch. 3; on the development of the lobster as an iconic food in Maine, see George Lewis, “The Maine Lobster as Regional Icon: Competing Images over Time and Social Class,” Food and Foodways 3, no. 4 (1989), 303–316. 78. The tomato in particular was unfamiliar as a food. In Eastern Europe, many Jews regarded the tomato as a forbidden food even though it was not prohibited by the laws of kashrut. See Sivan, Ha’agvaniyah; Marvin Herzog, “Channels of Systematic Extinction in Yiddish Dialects,” in For Max Weinreich on his Seventieth Birthday: Studies in Jewish Languages, Literature, and Society, ed. Lucy Dawidowicz (The Hague: 1964), 100; cf. Ofra Tene’s essay in this volume, esp. 52–53. 79. Tony Judt, “Food,” New York Review of Books Blog (25 November 2009), online at  nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2009/nov/25/food/(accessed 24 July 2014). On the salad in Jewish cuisine, see Rafi Sirkis, “Hasalat bamasoret hayehudit vehayisreelit,” in Ruth Sirkis, Sefer salatim ’olamiyim (Ramat Gan: 2003). 80. For an intriguing discussion of branding, see Bernie Gallagher, “Coca-Cola: Refreshing an Iconic Visual Identity” (July 2009), online at landor.com/pdfs/k9/BGallagher_CocaCola_­ 25Feb10.pdf (accessed 24 July 2014).

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81. See the fascinating doctoral thesis on home cooking by Anne R. Kaplan, “Ethnic Foodways in Everyday Life: Creativity and Change among Contemporary Minnesotans” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1984). Kaplan points out that, to be an ethnic food, a food has to be easily identifiable. Bagels meet this criterion both in their shape and name. Ordering a “bread ring” at a bakery does not have the same ethnic clout. 82. Philologos, “Now Shmear This,” Forward (10 February 2006), online at forward.com/ articles/1651/#ixzz1buRRmyHy (accessed 24 July 2014). 83. For a good introduction to this topic, see Israel Bartal, “‘Old Yishuv’” and ‘New Yishuv’: Image and Reality,” in The Jerusalem Cathedra: Studies in the History, Archaeology, Geography and Ethnography of the Land of Israel, vol. 1, ed. Lee I. Levine (Jerusalem: 1981), 215–231. 84. The issue of rejection and attraction to the perceived East European heritage is a complicated one. However, as Anat Helman pointed out to me, the adoption of Middle Eastern foods was paralleled by adoption of the Sephardi pronunciation of Hebrew in place of the traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation. Changes in dress, such as the adoption of shorts, can also be understood in this context. 85. On the willingness to eat new foods, see Even-Zohar, “The Emergence of a Native Hebrew Culture in Palestine,” 179–180; Raviv, “Falafel: A National Icon.” On falafel as a street food, see Liora Gvion-Rosenberg and Naomi Trostler, “Street Food Vending: The Israeli Scenario,” World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics 86 (2000), 155–168, esp. 158. 86. Paul Fieldhouse, “Eating Together: The Culture of the Family Meal,” Transition 37, no. 1 (Winter 2007-2008) 3–6. See also Robin Fox, Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective (Oxford: 2003). 87. Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Culinary Triangle” (trans. Peter Brooks), The Partisan Review 33, no. 4 (Fall 1966), 586–596; cf. Edmund Leach, “Oysters, Smoked Salmon, and Stilton Cheese,” in idem, Claude Lévi-Strauss (New York: 1970), 15–32. 88. Gil Marks, Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Hoboken: 2010), 36. 89. Gaye Tuchman and Harry G. Levine, “Safe Treyf,” online at qcpages.qc.cuny. edu/~hlevine/SAFE-TREYF.pdf (accessed 24 July 2014), originally published as “New York Jews and Chinese Food: The Social Construction of an Ethnic Pattern,” Contemporary Ethnography 22, no. 3 (October 1993), 382–407. 90. According to Stanley Regelson: “The coming together of these two foods [lox and cream cheese] produces a visual pun. Although a permitted combination, lox and cream cheese give the appearance of violating the strong taboo on mixing milkhic and fleyshik” (idem, “The Bagel: Symbol and Ritual at the Breakfast Table,” in The American Dimension: Cultural Myths and Social Realities, ed. W. Arens and Susan P. Montague [Port Washington: 1976], 135). Regelson’s suggestion that the combination can also be seen as a violation of the incest taboo is less convincing, as is his hypothesis that Jews have brunch on Sunday because this was the first day of creation. 91. Jennifer Schiff Berg, “From Pushcart Peddlers to Gourmet Take-Out: New York City’s Iconic Foods of Jewish Origin, 1920–2005” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 2006), 8. For a slightly different formulation, see idem, “Icon Foods,” in Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, vol. 2 (New York: 2003), 243–244. 92. See Marge E. Landsberg, “Icon in Semiotic Theory,” Current Anthropology 21, no. 1 (February 1980), 93–95. 93. Krishnendu Ray, “Nation and Cuisine: The Evidence from American Newspapers ca. 1830–2003,” Food and Foodways 16, no. 4 (2008), 259–297. Avoidance of certain foods, such as pork by Jews, is of course much older and was used as a marker of Jewish identity in many contexts. 94. Sidney W. Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Food, and the Past (Boston: 1996), 104. 95. Notwithstanding, “Jews are the most distinctive of all ethnic/racial and religious groups” (Tom Smith, Jewish Distinctiveness in America: A Statistical Portrait [New York: 2005], 27).

200Shaul Stampfer 96. Arnold Eisen, “In the Wilderness: Reflections on American Jewish Culture,” Jewish Social Studies (n.s.) 5, nos. 1–2 (Autumn 1998-Winter 1999), 26. 97. Devorah Romanek, “Diaspora Identities: Jewish Bakeries and Baked Goods in London and Berlin,” Transtext(e)s Transcultures 4 (2008), 59. For many observant Jews, kugel is more closely related to identity than bagels. For a profound and enlightening discussion of this point, see Allan Nadler, “Holy Kugel: The Sanctification of Ashkenazic Ethnic Foods in Hasidism,” in Studies in Jewish Civilization, vol. 15, Food and Judaism, ed. Leonard J. Greenspoon, Ronald A. Simkins, and Gerald Shapiro (Omaha: 2005), 193–214. 98. See Lin T. Humphrey, “Traditional Foods? Traditional Values?” Western Folklore 48, no. 2 (April 1989), 162–169. 99. For a pleasant introduction to some of the complications of ethnicity in the United States, see Andrew Greeley, Why Can’t They Be Like Us? Facts and Fallacies about Ethnic Differences and Group Conflicts in America (New York: 1969). I thank Chaim Waxman for the reference. It should be noted that the bagel is often regarded as a New York food, with emphasis on the place and not on Jews. For a delightful introduction to the topic, see Nicole Breskin’s “Losing Dough: How the New York City Bagel Survived Cultural Clashes, Dieting Infamy and Economic Disaster to Become a Symbol of Our Time” (Master’s thesis, Columbia University, 1976); also see the short video at losingdough.com/(accessed 19 August 2014). In this video, Jennifer Berg notes that in New York City, bagels are “Jewish,” whereas outside of New York City they are synonymous with New York, and outside of America they are regarded as an American food. See also Fath Davis Ruffins, “Reflecting on Ethnic Imagery in the Landscape of Commerce, 1945–1975,” in Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century, ed. Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern, and Matthias Judt (Cambridge: 1998) 379–406. 100. Donna Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (Cambridge, Mass.: 2000), 38. 101. See Ron Rosenbaum, “A Lox on Your House: How Smoked Salmon Sold Its Soul and Lost Its Flavor,” New Republic (29 January 2013). 102. Michael Solomonov, as quoted at blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/166744/ kitchen-chat-with-chef-michael-solomonov/(accessed 8 September 2014). 103. Raviv, Recipe for a Nation. 104. There is a Yemenite food known as bagya that is similar to falafel, but it is made with black-eyed peas rather than fava beans or chickpeas. See online description at yemeniyah. com/2011/08/02/bagya/(accessed 27 July 2014). I consulted with Annika Johansson, whose 1975 thesis at the University of Stockholm was titled “Food and Society: A Study of Yemeni Food Habits and Their Changes in the Context of Socio-economic Change.” “I think I can say,” she wrote, “that I never saw a falafel in what was then North Yemen. This seems to me a more Middle Eastern dish. Maybe it existed in former South Yemen (Aden) where I have never been” (email correspondence, 1 July 2014). 105. It is not mentioned in R. Amram Korah’s book on Yemenite Jewry, Sa’arat teiman (Jerusalem: 1954) nor in R. Yosef Kapah’s comprehensive work, Halikhot teiman (Jerusalem: 1978). The latter work contains an entire section devoted to Yemenite Jewish foods. This fact was corroborated by Bat-Zion Klorman-Eraqi and Menashe Anzi, both of whom are leading specialists in Yemenite Jewish studies. 106. Shlomo Dov Goitein, “’Al haḥayim hatziburiyim shel hayehudim beeretz teiman,” in Mordecai Kaplan Jubilee Volume (Hebrew section) (New York: 1953), 43–61 is a good example. 107. Eva Barlösius, Soziologie des Essens: Eine sozial- und kulturwissenschaftliche Einführung, 2nd. ed. (Weinheim: 2011), esp. section 6.4.2. Another useful study is Arjun Appadurai’s “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30, no. 1 (January 1988), 3–24; cf. Simone Cinotto, The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City (Champaign: 2013). I thank Dana Kaplan for the last two references. It is noteworthy that new iconic Jewish foods did not develop among Jews in the Soviet Union, nor did they appear in interwar Poland. On Russian Jews’ desire to return to traditional

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foods rather than to create new and distinctively Jewish foods, see Alice Stone Nakhimovsky, “You Are What They Ate: Russian Jews Reclaim Their Foodways,” Shofar 25, no. 1 (Fall 2006), 63–77. On Polish Jews, see Eve Jochnowitz, “Flavors of Memory: Jewish Food as Culinary Tourism in Poland,” Southern Folklore Quarterly 55, no. 3 (1998), 224–237. 108. For a fascinating example of the process of creating iconic national foods—and national identity—see Richard R. Wilk, “Food and Nationalism: The Origins of ‘Belizean Food,’ ” in Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies, ed. Warren Belasco and Philip Scranton (New York: 2002), 67–89. 109. Berg, “From Pushcart Peddlers to Gourmet Take-Out,” 37; idem, “From the Big Bagel to the Big Roti: The Evolution of New York City’s Jewish Food Icons,” Gastropolis: Food and New York City, ed. Annie Hauck-Lawson and Jonathan Deutsch (New York: 2009), 252–273. Alan Kraut made a similar point in his study “Ethnic Foodways: The Significance of Food in the Designation of Cultural Boundaries between Immigrant Groups in the U.S., 1840–1921,” Journal of American Culture 2, no. 3 (Fall 1979), 409–420. 110. For a history of the term, see Jessica Levine Kupferberg, “The Bagel Theory,” online at aish.com/jw/s/48922272.html (accessed 28 July 2014). She recounts the following: It all started when my friend Doodie Miller—who wears a kippah – was back in college and suffering through a tedious lecture. As the professor droned on, a previously-unknown young woman leaned over and whispered in his ear: “This class is as boring as my Zayde’s seder.” You see, the woman knew that she did not “look” Jewish, nor did she wear any identifying signs like a Star of David. So foregoing the awkward declaration, “I’m Jewish,” the girl devised a more nuanced—and frankly, cuter—way of heralding her heritage. See more recently Philologos, “The Great Bagel(ing) Mystery Has Been Solved! True Story of How a Tasty Noun Became an Odd Verb,” Forward (1 November 2013), online at forward. com/articles/186101/the-great-bageling-mystery-has-been-solved/#ixzz2mpDXaphP (accessed 28 July 2014). The term now appears in the Jewish English Lexicon. See online at jewish-languages.org/jewish-english-lexicon/words/36. 111. Nathan, “A Short History of the Bagel”; see also Michael Graetz, who recounts the “old joke about the non-Jew who orders ‘Jewish’ food for the first time in a New York restaurant, a bagel and lox. When the waiter brings the dish, the customer asks, “Ok, but tell me: which is the bagel and which is the lox?” (“K’lal Yisrael: Which Is the K’lal and Which Is the Yisrael?” Conservative Judaism 64, no. 3 [Spring 2013], 50–61). 112. Nathan, “A Short History of the Bagel.” 113. Kantor, “A History of the Mideast in the Humble Chickpea.” The challenge of creating a national identity is shared, of course, by Jews and Palestinians. Among those who have written on the topic, see Basem Ra’ad, Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean (London: 2010), esp. ch. 7; Zeina B. Ghandour, “Falafel King: Culinary Customs and National Narratives in Palestine (I),” Feminist Legal Studies 21, no. 3 (October 2013), 281–301. 114. In Egypt, for instance, kushari is regarded as a national dish. See Amir Atiatalla, “Top 10 Delicious and Unique Egyptian Foods,” online at listverse.com/2011/10/28/top-10-delicious-and-unique-egyptian-foods/(accessed 28 July 2014). Similarly, the American hot dog and hamburger, while obviously of German origin, is clearly American—that is, the combination of the sausage with a bun and toppings made it into a distinctive American dish. See Bruce Kraig and Patty Carroll, Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America (Lanham: 2012). A ­sophisticated discussion about the impact of the Palestinian origin of falafel on Jewish Israelis is found in Yael Raviv’s article “National Identity on a Plate,” Palestine-Israel Journal 8–9 (2002), 164–172. 115. Anon., “Abu Shanab (Uncle Mustache) Falafel,” This Week in Palestine 1 (May 1998), online at thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=866&ed=84&edid=84 (accessed 26 June 2014). 116. Quoted in Tim Jon Semmerlin, Israeli and Palestinian Postcards: Presentations of National Self (Austin: 2004), 36. 117. A fine example is Adam Heffez, “The Falafel Index: A Way to Assess Purchasing Power in The Middle East,” Forbes (28 May 2014), online at onforb.es/1mRgFD7 (accessed 9 September 2014).

202Shaul Stampfer 118. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank_Story. 119. See some of the studies cited in Liora Gvion, “Narrating Modernity and Tradition: The Case of Palestinian Food in Israel,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 16, no. 4 (2009), 391–341. 120. See Kantor, “A History of the Mideast in the Humble Chickpea.” 121. The video movie Falafel Road, made with the participation of Oreet Ashery, is a similar phenomenon. See Sousan Hammad, “Israel’s Falafel Food Fight,” online at aljazeera.com/ indepth/features/2011/03/201138105549300940.html (accessed 28 July 2014). For another aspect of the complicated issue of cultural ownership, see Susan Scafidi, Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law (New Brunswick: 2005). 122. As Lynne Scholefield put it: “[B]eing Jewish does not necessarily mean being religious; it does involve bagels and schnitzel but it also includes eating McDonald’s” (“Bagels, Schnitzel and McDonald’s—‘Fuzzy Frontiers’ of Jewish Identity in an English Jewish Secondary School,” British Journal of Religious Education 26, no. 3 [2004]), 246). 123. Molly Geiger Schuchat, “Hungarian Refugees in America and Their Counterparts in Hungary” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1971), 90. I was not able to see this dissertation; it is cited in Susan Kalcˇík, “Ethnic Foodways in America: Symbol and the Performance of Identity,” in Ethnic and Regional Foodways in the United States: The Performance of Group Identity, ed. Linda Keller Brown and Kay Mussell (Knoxville: 1985), 54. 124. For a refreshingly different reading of the bagel, see Elihu Katz and Jacob J. Feldman, “The Voyage of the Bagel,” International Journal of Cultural Studies 2, no. 1 (April 1999), 5–10. 125. Josh Ozersky, “Bagels: An American Tragedy,” Time (29 June 2011), online at time. com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2080346,00.html (accessed 28 July 2014). 126. Jonathan Sarna, “From Immigrants to Ethnics: Toward a New Theory of Ethnicity,” Ethnicity 5 (1978), 370–378. 127. One should not exaggerate regarding the similarities between these two institutions. For valuable correctives, see Anat Helman, “Hues of Adjustment: Landsmanshaftn in InterWar New York and Tel-Aviv,” Jewish History 20, no. 1 (March 2006), 41–67. 128. As Jenna Weissman Joselit noted: “The clergy and the sisterhood might rail against the popular inclination to . . . identify Judaism solely with ‘bagels and lox and gefilte fish,’ but the folk saw things differently. Little troubled by inconsistencies or contradictions of the burdens of the past, they fashioned a home-grown American Jewishness. Heavy on sentiment and light on ritual, their version came closest to a singularly modern understanding of American religious culture” (The Wonders of America, 294–295). 129. Since this essay was submitted, a number of new or additional articles and sources have come to my attention. Svetlana Pogodina’s forthcoming study deals with food and images of Jews among nonJews in the Latgalia region of Latvia (which includes the urban center Daugavpils, formerly known as Dinaburg or Dvinsk). The people she interviewed recalled that, in the interwar period, one of the popular baked goods sold by Jews was the baranki—as will be recalled, this is a ring-shaped bread very similar to the bagel. This supports a view that the identification of Jews with bagels did not necessarily begin in America. I thank her for sharing her paper with me before publication. Darra Goldstein offers a great deal of information on the spread of the “bagel culture” in the United States in her article “Will Matzoh Go Mainstream? Jewish Food in America,” The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review, vol. 4, ed. Barry Glassner and Jeremy Schoenberg (Los Angeles: 2005), 1–35. The first Jewish cookbook published in America was probably Esther Levy’s Jewish Cookery Book (Philadelphia: 1871). On p. 136 there is a recipe for “cream cheese.” Although the resulting product is not identical with today’s product, it is clear that the term itself dates back to the 19th century. One of the authoritative sources on food in the Islamic world is David Waines’ Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Muslim Societies (Leiden: 2010). There is no reference to pita or pocket breads in it, which fits in with the view that the pocket pita is a modern bread.

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An article by Aziza Sami titled “A Typical Egyptian Food of Surprisingly Non-Egyptian Origin: Taameya (Falafel)” appeared on the online Al Tahrir News Network on 9 November 2014; see online at tnnegypt.com/a-typical-egyptian-food-of-surprisingly-non-egyptian-origintaameya-falafel/(accessed 11 February 2015). Sami quotes Habiba Hassan-Wassaf, who expands on the views quoted in my essay. According to Hassan-Wassaf: “Falafel was first introduced into Egypt by immigrants from the regions of Lebanon and Syria. They mixed fava beans with parsley, cumin, coriander and other herbs and fried them in the shape of patties, giving them the ‘falafel.’ The Egyptian version of falafel was made of herbs and fava beans (as opposed to the chickpeas of hummus more typical of the Levant).” As my essay indicates, this claim is difficult to back up. The interest in falafel as a socially and politically significant food has not abated. See Ronald Ranta and Yonatan Mendel, “Consuming Palestine: Palestine and Palestinians in Israeli food culture,” Ethnicities 14, no. 3 (2014), 412–435, which discusses the “appropriation” of falafel in the context of the role that Palestine and the Arab-Palestinians have had on Israeli national identity through the examination of Israeli food culture. . . . [T]he process of encounter changed to replacement, appropriation and deliberate forgetting and rewriting of the past. In relation to Israeli food culture, the Arab-Palestinian food element was marginalised, blurred and reinterpreted as belonging to the Zionist settlers, or as being brought to Israel by the Mizrahi-Jews [quoted from abstract]. While there is something to this argument, the same claim could probably made for the Palestinians. The authors accept the widely held view that “falafel is a traditional Arab sandwich, whose name originates from the 4th century in the Coptic community in Egypt”; in reality, as we have shown, it is a very modern food and the eating of falafel in a sandwich was very possibly an innovation of Jews living in Jaffa or Jerusalem.

The Contemporary Jewish Food Movement in North America: A Report from the Field(s) Andrea Most (University of Toronto)

The politics of food production and consumption have dominated headlines in North America for more than a decade, and in response, many religious groups have been reconsidering their own food practices.1 In the case of Judaism, there is a detailed and highly prescribed set of laws and rituals about food as well as a well-developed system of ethical principles concerning the way in which individuals interact with animals, the earth, and those who labor to provide food. It is no accident, therefore, that in North America, Jews have been at the forefront of those offering theological and cultural responses to issues connected with food production, marketing, and consumption. The Jewish food movement, as it has come to be called, comprises a loosely organized group of food, social justice, agricultural, and environmental organizations, initiatives, and educational and farming programs that engage hundreds of thousands of North American Jews on an annual basis.2 In recent years, all of the major North American denominations have incorporated aspects of the Jewish food movement into their official programming.3 Hazon (lit. “vision”), a Jewish food and environmental organization in New York, has become the locus for the movement, hosting annual multi-day Jewish food conferences that draw up to a thousand participants; practicing high-level advocacy (at the White House, the United Nations, and elsewhere); developing print and on-line educational resources; serving as a support system for Jewish farm projects, farmer training centers, internship programs, and community gardens; and finally, acting as an umbrella for a broad network of Jewish community-supported agriculture programs (CSAs) that connect synagogues and Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) with local farms.4 The Jewish food movement is already having an impact on the practice of contemporary Judaism; it may very well prove to be the foundation of a new kind of North American Judaism for the 21st century. The Jewish food movement is quite new, and my own research in this area is still in its formative stage. This article is, therefore, a kind of interim report in which I  highlight three areas of activity that have acquired increasing momentum in the North American Jewish community and that suggest many fascinating possibilities 204

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for future research. I write here simultaneously as a scholar of Jewish studies and as a participant in the movement. I have served as the founder of a Jewish CSA, a board member of the leading Jewish environmental organization in Canada (Shoresh), a co-creator of a new Jewish farm project in Ontario (Bela Farm), and a member of the Hazon Food Council. My own involvement in the movement has been largely focused on the greater Toronto area, and I draw on this experience in a number of the stories I tell below. The research and writing of this essay was largely completed in 2011 and 2012. Given that the movement is dynamic and growing, with numbers and programs changing extremely quickly, this essay of necessity captures only some of the key features of an increasingly important aspect of North American Jewish engagement with food and food issues at a specific moment in time.

New Jews/A New Diaspora Among the most significant aspects of the Jewish food movement are the deep ties that are developing between urban Jewish communities, rural farmers (both Jewish and non-Jewish), and the farmland itself. For nearly two centuries, most North American Jews self-identified as urban—or suburban—and considered themselves happily divorced both from the hands-on work of growing and procuring food and from the complex agricultural laws that take up so much space in Jewish texts and serve as the oft-overlooked foundation for many Jewish holidays and rituals. Almost fifty years ago, comedian Lenny Bruce famously said: “If you live in New York or any other big city, you are Jewish. . . . [I]t doesn’t even matter if you’re Catholic, if you live in New York, you’re Jewish.” Conversely, “if you live in Butte, Montana,” or any other similarly rural place, “you’re going to be goyish even if you are Jewish.”5 Bruce’s routine became well known because it seemed to express a truism of American Jewish life. When Philip Roth wrote about an Edenic pastoral landscape in Goodbye, Columbus, he described a suburban world in which the air temperature is carefully controlled, fruit grows in refrigerators, and sporting goods grow on trees.6 Eddie Cantor, Mickey Katz, Mel Brooks, and Gene Wilder all used images of Jewish cowboys for comic effect.7 The clear implication of these oft-repeated clichés was that, in the 20th century, diaspora Jews were fundamentally alienated from rural life. On a more serious note, Cynthia Ozick, in her well-known essay on Jewish diaspora culture, “Towards a New Yiddish,” articulated the discomfort many Jews felt in relation to the materiality of land in America: “When the neighbor’s mower noisily cuts his grass,” she writes, “I suppose he watches the grass fly up and thinks about that. When I cut my grass I tunnel through the buzz and think of the earth beneath the grass—the grass flies up over something sweet and deep, but borrowed, transient.”8 To be sure, Jews have had pastoral dreams in the past, and Jewish farming movements are nothing new. Beginning with the Jewish Enlightenment of the early 19th century, agricultural labor was seen as a way to put poor Jews to work or to regenerate a people overly concentrated in peddling, money-lending, and mercantile activities, pursuits considered insalubrious by cultures with strong pastoral traditions.9 Philanthropic movements, largely funded by wealthy urban Jews, worked to settle poor Jews on agricultural lands in Russia, Argentina, the United States, and Canada,

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with varying degrees of success.10 The most significant Jewish agricultural project of the modern period was, of course, Zionism, which saw farming as a way to regenerate the people by connecting them to their homeland, building an economy, and developing a healthy national self-image.11 All of these projects shared two fundamental features: they emerged from the anxiety surrounding Jewish dispossession and minority status, and they were largely secular. The current Jewish food movement differs from these earlier agricultural movements in important ways. While it celebrates connection to the land, it does not focus on the largely secular purposes of assimilation or nation-building. Rather, contemporary Jewish farming projects offer ways to be more Jewish—both religiously and culturally—within a diaspora context. Indeed, Jewish farming pursuits have provided a gateway for otherwise secular Jews to re-discover religious practice and have created opportunities for observant Jews to reinterpret aspects of their religion in an ecologically conscious, 21st-century context.12 For instance, the Jewish farmer training program Adamah (lit. “land”), located at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut, runs a three-month summer fellowship that combines organic farming, sustainable living, Jewish learning, and community building.13 Adamah-niks, as they are called, learn to cultivate the farm on the property, producing vegetables and fruits for a local CSA, a line of kosher pickles, and various goat milk products including cheese and yogurt.14 The Adamah truck carries the slogan “Young Jewish Farmers Changing the World One Pickle at a Time”; according to its website, graduates of the Adamah program have become rabbis, teachers, food justice activists, chefs, and (of course), farmers.15 More recently, the founder of Adamah, Adam Berman, established a West Coast version of the program in Berkeley, California. “Urban Adamah” leads interns through similar agricultural and spiritual training, but focuses explicitly on urban agriculture and social justice work.16 On its website, the Kayam (lit. “sustained”) Farm at the Pearlstone Center outside of Baltimore describes the multiple Jewish and environmental purposes of its educational programs: With our hands dirty we can more deeply appreciate the real pleasure and importance of local sustainable food. With our minds and hearts full, we can contribute to social and environmental progress happening all around us. And with our souls engaged, we can immerse ourselves in the ancient land-based traditions of our ancestors, reconnecting with the lost agrarian foundation of Jewish civilization.17

Kayam emphasizes text study as much as practical skills. Its educators have developed a number of educational resources, including Hadran Alach, a sourcebook on land, agriculture, and sustainability that includes biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and contemporary primary sources relating to the core concepts of Jewish agricultural law.18 Kayam’s programs are notable for the ways in which they intertwine text study with hands-on, land-based learning. One example is the complex Hebrew calendar garden illustrating the importance of each month in botanical and agricultural terms: The garden contains twelve triangular raised beds arranged in a circle, each one representing a Hebrew month. . . . According to mystical Jewish sources . . . , each Hebrew month is associated with one of the 12 tribes. Each month has its own color, body part, spiritual

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energy, and kavana-intention. We have begun to bring these intricacies to life, painting each bed according to its month’s color, and by designating Jewish holidays with perennial plants.19

Another educational project, the Jewish Farm School (JFS) in upstate New York, intensively trains budding farmers on the two-acre Eden Village Farm, which provides food for a Jewish summer camp located on the property. The campers at Eden Village work with staff from the Jewish Farm School to grow the food they will eat every day, along with special foods connected with Jewish observance; among other things, they squeeze grapes for their Shabbat grape juice and harvest wheat for their Shabbat challah.20 In addition to farm apprenticeships for young adults (similar to those at Adamah) and the Eden Village summer camp program, the Jewish Farm School runs gap-year programs for high school graduates, alternative spring breaks for university students, teacher training for Jewish educators, urban sustainability programs for a general audience, and a variety of programs for Jewish organizations, synagogues, JCCs, and schools. Another enterprise, the Yiddish Farm (Goshen, New York), combines organic farm training with immersion in Yiddish language and culture.21 Although Yiddish cultural organizations have traditionally been secular in their outlook, the Yiddish Farm offers kosher meals, prayer services, and Torah study. The event calendar for 2012/2013, for instance, featured a weekend program in which participants were scheduled to partake of “locally raised kosher venison, Yiddish theater games, and an intensive study of Parshas Vayigash, which contains the first mention of the land of Goshen in the Torah.”22 As will be seen, the linkage between the land of Goshen, New York and the biblical land of Goshen was not accidental, but rather indicates an important shift in Jewish diasporic thinking. Jewish farming is also taking root at community gardens and in urban centers across North America. Kavannah Garden in Vaughn, Ontario, for example, serves as a teaching garden for the Toronto Jewish community, combining agricultural skills with Jewish learning; most of the vegetables that are grown are donated to local residents in need. The sponsoring organization, Shoresh (lit. “root”), is also in the process of developing Bela Farm, a major 100-acre center for land-based sustainable Judaism, located an hour northwest of Toronto.23 The creative team at Bela Farm has spent the last three years unpacking the details of how “land-based Judaism” might be practiced and how their property can serve as a demonstration model.24 Ekar Farm (the name is a play on two different Hebrew words; it can mean “farmer” or “the crux of the matter”), a five-acre, mixed-produce farm in the heart of Denver, Colorado, grows vegetables for the local Jewish Family Service Food Pantry and also rents out multiple small garden plots to local residents eager to produce their own food. Temple Shalom, a Reform congregation in Aberdeen, New Jersey, runs Gan Tikvah, the “garden of hope,” and in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation, one of the oldest Reform synagogues in America, grows organic produce on 2,500 square feet of what used to be the synagogue lawn. In the summer of 2014, the home page of its website proudly announced that more than 9,000 pounds of produce had been grown and donated to local shelters and people in need.25 These Jewish farms and gardens received an official stamp of recognition in 2010, when the Jewish Community Centers of North America launched JCC Grows, a campaign designed to

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encourage Jewish community centers and JCC-sponsored summer camps to grow their own food gardens and to donate a portion of the produce to the hungry, a ­revitalization not only of the Jewish connection to local land, but also of the ancient law of peah, which mandates that farmers leave a portion of their harvest for the poor. The burgeoning interest among thousands of North American Jews in organic farming represents a departure from what has long been considered a traditional economic path for upper-middle-class North American Jews: university education, post-graduate degrees, and a professional career. In an article titled “A Jewish Farmer Grows in America,” published in the Forward (the most widely read English-language Jewish newspaper in North America) in October 2011, Ben Harris—a former journalist—wrote of his own choice to pursue farming: The first time I met an American Jewish farmer was at a falafel joint near the Yeshiva University campus in Manhattan in 2008. He was an Ivy League grad, several years younger than I, and at the time I found him utterly bewildering. I simply couldn’t fathom why an educated Jewish kid would choose to eke out a living in farming. Actual farming . . . was brutish, unsophisticated and intellectually undemanding—or so I imagined. It wasn’t the kind of thing that should have attracted a smart suburban kid, someone from an aspiring Jewish family populated by doctors and lawyers, someone whose community had subtly reinforced the belief that the intellect (or the stock portfolio) is the only thing worth cultivating. Someone, in other words, much like myself.26

Harris goes on to describe his disaffection with journalism and his eventual move to a Jewish organic farm in Vermont in similar socioeconomic terms: “What once seemed like social slippage, like a voluntary descent down the economic ladder, had become my life.” Here it is important to note that Harris, along with many others in the Jewish farm movement, is not interested in communal living, socialism, or noble poverty, as was often the case with similarly idealistic Jews of previous generations. Rather, he and others like him seek to create viable farms that can support a family in a modest but sustainable lifestyle. Harris’ resistance to the typical Jewish narrative of upward mobility in America leads to a description of the physical, material, and ultimately spiritual impact of farm work. He acknowledges the many Jewish-based reasons why he and his peers have chosen farming—environmental stewardship, social justice, connection to a lost agrarian heritage—and he also speaks movingly of the new meaning of Shabbat in his life. But he largely focuses on the materiality of the work, which lures many involved in the broader food movement, but which has specifically Jewish connotations as well: What really drew me to farming is the satisfaction of the thing itself. Compared to writing stories for a living, farming feels undeniably real. I’ve learned to manipulate real things— tractors, seeds and soil organisms—rather than just bits on a computer screen. The fruits of my labor can, literally, be touched and sniffed and placed in some hungry person’s mouth. The tangibility, and its obvious value, have become far more meaningful to me than the pleasures to be had cranking out the news. . . . Farming . . . requires the competence to make something real and useful out of earth and water. . . . The impact of that is hard to overstate. What I once saw as work unbefitting a middle-class Jewish kid I’ve come to see as nothing less than redemptive.

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Harris and others express a reverent connection—with explicit Jewish overtones—to local landscapes in places as disparate as Long Island, Texas, California, and Ontario. In the past, expressions of Jewish attachment to land were customarily reserved almost exclusively for the land of Israel. This fact points to a largely unacknowledged but persistent question about the status of Zionism and diaspora in the 21st century, especially in North America. Although there is a Jewish food movement in Israel, and some in the North American movement have made common cause with organic farmers in Israel, there is no sense that Israeli farming is more authentic or more Jewish than that of North America. On the contrary, the Jewish food movement asks us to reconsider the meaning of diaspora for those who have found not only a Jewish home, but also Jewish land, in North America.

A New Judaism The Jewish food movement has also given rise to significant and often radical reinterpretations of Jewish law (halakhah) and practice, as was the case with feminist Jewish ritual creativity a few decades ago. New (or re-discovered) agricultural practices are spilling out beyond Jewish agricultural ventures to revitalize the broader Jewish community, inspiring programs that unite environmental and spiritual goals. Such goals tap into the broader-based Community Supported Agriculture movement, which over the past twenty years has changed the way in which numerous communities and individuals receive fresh produce, working to stop and even reverse the decline of small family farms in North America.27 CSAs create a solid economic and social bond between farmer and customer, thus fostering valuable ties between rural and urban communities. Before each growing season, CSA members purchase a share in the farmer’s harvest. When harvesting begins, the farmer brings produce to a central pickup site, usually on a weekly basis (sometimes on the farm, more often in a nearby urban center). This system has ensured financial viability for many small farms that might otherwise have gone bankrupt; receiving cash upfront allows farmers both to plan ahead and to invest in the necessary seeds and tools. In addition, CSA members share in the risks and benefits of the farm business, as the vagaries of weather, pests, and other factors affect the amount and quality of produce each member receives. In consequence, they develop a close relationship with the farmers who grow their food and become acutely aware of the seasonality of the food they eat.28 With the encouragement and support of Hazon, the Jewish food movement’s umbrella organization, JCCs and synagogues across North America have created a continent-wide network of Jewish CSAs.29 Operating in a manner similar to their non-Jewish counterparts, they have in addition a religious and communal focus: beyond picking up vegetables, visiting the farm, and learning how to preserve the harvest (activities common in many CSA communities), members of Hazon CSAs participate in events linking agricultural issues to Jewish holidays; attend learning sessions that connect Jewish law to ethical eating practices; and receive a weekly newsletter that includes updated versions of traditional Jewish recipes and readings of passages from Jewish texts that shed light on ethical, health, kashrut, and environmental concerns.30 Jewish CSA members are re-animating biblical agriculture laws and relating to Jewish holidays in the context of the seasons in which they occur. For most Jewish

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CSAs in North America (with the exception of a lucky few in Texas and California that have nearly year-round subscriptions), the CSA season coincides with the summer and fall holidays; as a result, thousands of North American Jews now observe these festivals with a greater appreciation of their agricultural roots. This, in turn, has spurred the creative re-invention of rituals to reflect contemporary environmental values with regard to the growing and preparing of food. For many communities, Shavuot marks the beginning of the CSA season. In consequence, many traditional all-night Shavuot learning sessions have begun to incorporate discussions about the two central foods of Shavuot—milk and wheat—in light of agricultural matters. The importance of dairy on Shavuot comes into focus when participants hear that the cows and goats on their CSA farm are having babies, that the milk of their mothers is flowing, and that the farmers are beginning to make fresh cheese. A typical pre-Shavuot workshop might therefore include a ricotta or yogurtmaking workshop, using fresh goat milk from a local farm.31 Similarly, discussions of the wheat harvest in ancient times gain renewed relevance when participants supplement a study of bread in the Jewish tradition with a hands-on project: examining stalks of wheat, separating the wheat from the chaff, grinding the wheat berries into flour, and baking challah from that flour, as many did at a Hazon food conference in 2008.32 In similar fashion, Rosh Hashanah provides a springboard for numerous CSA activities involving the traditional apples and honey. At my own Narayever-Everdale CSA in Toronto, for example, one pre-Rosh Hashanah farm visit involved apple picking and a “meet the bees” event in which a beekeeper from a local farm demonstrated the process by which honey is made and collected. Members learned about the central role bees play in organic agriculture and discussed the ways in which bee populations are threatened by disease from pesticide exposure. Another year, the same group held a pre-Rosh Hashanah tasting and recipe exchange of traditional holiday foods from around the world, all made with locally available ingredients, most from the CSA. Participants in the event also included members of the First Narayever Congregation who did not belong to the CSA as well as the farmers who grew and delivered the produce, honey, eggs, and flour. Congregants ordered apples and honey directly from the farm for their holiday tables (these have become regular items in CSA pickups in the weeks before the High Holidays). They also sampled some organic foods that were distinctly not local—pomegranates and dates—and this led to a discussion regarding the difficult decisions one must make whenever one enters a grocery store. Attendees decided that certain imported foods, especially those from Israel, provide important continuity with tradition and can be considered environmentally acceptable if eaten at prescribed times in the year. Many urban CSAs schedule annual farm visits to coincide with Sukkot in order to make the obvious, but too often overlooked, connection between the harvest decorations in a typical synagogue or home sukkah (gourds, cranberry or popcorn chains, and the like) and the actual harvest underway in the fields. For a number of years, sukkot at synagogues in the CSA network have been adorned with decorations provided by CSA farmers. The First Narayever Congregation’s sukkah is regularly decorated with gourds, squashes, sheaves of wheat and native grasses, as well as branches on the top (skhakh), all of which arrive with the CSA delivery just before Sukkot. CSA farmers, many of whom are not Jewish, have a particular appreciation for Sukkot, as it references the work they do in more direct and timely ways than does the secular

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Thanksgiving holiday. At the First Narayever Congregation, for instance, all of the farmers are acknowledged during Sukkot in handouts at Sukkot services, in a thankyou email, and in laminated posters hung in the sukkah itself. In 2010, the NarayeverEverdale CSA hosted a visit to Everdale Farm during the holiday in which participants built a temporary sukkah and then hosted a potluck lunch. Having recently studied the history of the tradition of ushpizin (the mitzvah of inviting guests into the sukkah), the CSA members invited the Everdale farmers to eat together with them, an act that further cemented their mutually supportive relationship. Another year, the CSA organized a “local lulav” text study and project, researching the legally prescribed and symbolic importance of each of the four traditional components of the lulav (palm branch, willow, myrtle, and etrog [citron]) and then discussing how one might re­interpret this richly meaningful symbol in a contemporary context by means of incorporating locally available plants. Other Hazon CSAs have organized gleaning projects at their Sukkot farm visits, harvesting the leftover produce and then donating it to local food banks, in this way re-animating the ancient biblical law of peah.33 The creativity inspired by CSA programs has gained depth in light of pressing moral concerns regarding contemporary understandings of kashrut. In 2008, evidence of serious violations of health, safety, immigration, and animal welfare laws was uncovered at Agriprocessors, the world’s largest kosher meat processing plant, located in Postville, Iowa. The violations were so widespread and so heavily publicized that major Jewish institutions were compelled to respond, specifically with regard to the relationship between Jewish ethics and the laws of kashrut.34 The cognitive dissonance that arose from the synchronicity of the Agriprocessors scandal and the growing involvement of synagogues in local CSAs led to a good deal of soul-searching. On the one hand, many synagogues were making a strong Jewish-oriented commitment to support local and organic farmers; on the other, the food they served for their kiddush lunches, special events, and holiday celebrations was standard kosher catering fare— potentially tasty, but not necessarily ethically sourced, healthy, local, or seasonal. Hazon gave direction to this communal discussion with the publication in 2008 of Food for Thought, a sourcebook on Jews, food, and contemporary life. The radical nature of the conversation that Hazon aimed to inspire with this book—namely, that values of the food movement can be taken as Jewish values (and vice versa) was apparent in its introduction: The challenges of Jewish life and of contemporary life intersect through the prism of food. Keeping kosher has been for three thousand years a central motif of Jewish life. It has linked ethics, culture, religion and family. . . . Meantime, how you eat has become, in other ways, a key challenge—some would say obsession—of the world we now live in. . . . Our food systems in North America, the UK, Israel and around the world are out of balance. Our eating has become symbolic of our lives: hurried, reactive, disconnected from land, family, tradition and place. This is the world we live in. What now do we do? How can we, in Reb Shlomo [Carlebach]’s words, enable Torah to be a commentary on our daily lives, and our lives a commentary on the Torah?35

Spurred by Hazon’s call to action, individual synagogues and Jewish institutions across North America are in the process of developing food policies that incorporate both kashrut and the values of the food movement. This process involves careful

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study of Jewish texts pertaining to fair labor practices, management of the earth’s resources, proper care and treatment of animals, and obligations related to preserving human health; the ultimate goal is to communally redefine the notion of kashrut— that is, what’s fit to eat. In one instance in which I was involved, members of the First Narayever Congre­ gation in Toronto began to actively question the synagogue’s food practices. We were becoming increasingly aware that food being served at the weekly kiddush lunch bore little resemblance to the food delivered by the CSA and certainly did not reflect the ethical values we were actively discussing at CSA events. This contradiction led to the creation of a committee (which I chaired) to study the Jewish ethical implications of the food served at the synagogue, whose recommendations ultimately resulted in the adoption of a sustainable food initiative. A few interesting developments are worthy of note. First, the project fosters a deep community engagement with the laws of kashrut. Among the questions that have arisen: does whole-grain, freshly milled flour need a hekhsher (kosher certification)? What about apple cider? Who or what determines if cheese made with vegetarian rennet is kosher? These kinds of questions have challenged both the rabbi and congregants to go back to the sources, to understand the reasons behind particular congregational decisions, and to make—and defend—independent choices on the part of our rabbi and the food committee. The initiative also requires the congregation to re-think what constitutes “traditional” Jewish food in an era in which some of those foods have become untenable. For instance, congregants accustomed to tuna salad on Saturdays are learning about the near extinction of certain kinds of tuna and the health problems inherent in eating others. The apparently seasonless and ubiquitous fruit platter of melons, pineapple, and strawberries has been replaced by local seasonal fresh and dried fruits, nuts, and homemade cakes and cookies. Finally, the initiative has raised consciousness about the lack of local and organic kosher options and is encouraging community members to demand better choices.36 Hazon has recognized that this kind of sustainability initiative represents a powerful impetus for large-scale change in eating habits, purchasing practices, and foodrelated values of the organized Jewish community in North America (and beyond). In 2010, it published the Hazon Food Guide and simultaneously launched a “Food Audit” program, through which synagogues and JCCs assess the food practices in their institutions, build grass-roots support for change, and implement programs that will move their members toward sustainability and food justice.37 The basic ideas inherent in the program have already taken root at the highest levels of American government: in April 2012, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack hosted a “Food and Justice Passover Seder” which, according to the USDA’s blog, “centered on the themes of hunger, access to healthy food, sustainable food production, and fair treatment for farm workers.”38 Beyond such initiatives, there has been a growing awareness and rethinking of certain assumptions underlying the decision-making process with regard to food in most mainstream North American Jewish communities. In the wake of the Agriprocessors scandal, Orthodox Union rabbis assured their constituents that meat purchased from Agriprocessors was kosher. In so doing, they turned a blind eye to all manner of other violations of Jewish law occurring on the factory floor, claiming that their only job

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was to certify the health of the animal that had been slaughtered and to assure that other technical aspects of the slaughter (for instance, the prescribed sharpness of the knife) were in accordance with Jewish law.39 The rest, they argued, should be left to the civil authorities. Yet the assumption that only certain areas of Jewish law fall under the purview of certifying rabbis raises important questions about the relative value of other laws in assessing kashrut. If workers are treated unjustly, or animals are being tortured—both of which are proscribed in the Torah—why should these matters take a back seat to the more technical laws of animal slaughter? A second assumption concerns those who have the authority to issue kosher certification. It has long been a given that only Orthodox rabbis have such authority; certainly it is the case that Orthodox Jews, as a group, are more likely to care about kashrut, and thus large industrial food processors use Orthodox supervisors exclusively when they seek to have a product certified as kosher. But why should other movements in Judaism cede authority in this area to the Orthodox, especially if they argue for a different relationship between the laws of animal slaughter and other laws? Finally, as described at length by Sue Fishkoff in her book Kosher Nation (2010), the notion of rabbinic supervision is a relatively recent development in Jewish practice, one that came about in the era of industrialized food production.40 Fishkoff notes that an outside authority is needed to certify that food produced in a factory is kosher, given that consumers cannot check for themselves. In localized food systems, however, no certification is needed because food is generally not packaged (where would one put the certification stamp?) and, more fundamentally, because the consumer knows exactly where the food comes from and how it was produced. The entire food certification structure maintained by the Orthodox Union, the Council of Orthodox rabbis, and a number of local Orthodox organizations (along with some individual Orthodox rabbis) is therefore in service of an industrialized system—the very system the food movement aims to bypass. So the question arises: is the hekhsher necessary, or even ethically appropriate? Can the consumer of locally grown foods bypass the hekhsher altogether and make decisions based on personal knowledge and trust? In 2008, immediately following the Agriprocessors scandal, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism responded to these questions with a commission to develop a new certification known as the Magen Tzedek (lit., “shield of justice”) that would be given to kosher food products that meet ethical and halakhic criteria as determined by a board of Conservative rabbis. As the website for the program states: The Magen Tzedek Commission . . . combines the rabbinic tradition of Torah with Jewish values of social justice, assuring consumers and retailers that kosher food products have been produced in keeping with exemplary Jewish ethics in the area of labor concerns, animal welfare, environmental impact, consumer issues and corporate integrity. The cornerstone of the program is the Magen Tzedek Standard, a proprietary set of standards that meet or exceed industry best practices for treatment of workers, animals, and the Earth; and delineates the criteria a food manufacturer must meet to achieve certification. Upon successful certification, the Magen Tzedek Commission will award its Shield of Justice seal which can be displayed on food packaging.41

The Magen Tzedek seal argues for many of the values of the Jewish food movement at the highest levels of Jewish institutional life; what it emphatically does not do is

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assert Conservative rabbinic authority in the determination of kashrut. As its mission statement notes: “The Magen Tzedek seal is available only for products that currently carry a traditional Hekhsher seal from an authorized kosher certification agency. It is not intended as a replacement, but rather a complementary enhancement to a brand’s reputation.” Despite this caveat, relations with the Orthodox Union over the Magen Tzedek remain frosty, as Fishkoff noted in a JTA article from April 2011. Nonetheless, she reported, the Magen Tzedek initiative is encouraging more Conservative rabbis to become mashgiḥ im (supervisors of kashrut).42 This movement among Conservative rabbis is paralleled by a movement among Orthodox and Conservative laypeople to seek out healthier and more ethically produced sources of kosher meat. In the past six years, a number of organic kosher meat co-ops have been established; these bypass the industrial kosher meat industry by offering meat that comes from grass-fed animals raised outside the factory farm system.43 The two most successful ventures on the East Coast, KOL Foods and Grow and Behold, are run by members of the Jewish food movement who have chosen to learn the laws of sheḥ itah (ritual slaughter) in order to meet the increasing consumer demand for pastured kosher meats; for instance, Naftali Hanau (owner of Grow and Behold Kosher Pastured Meats in New York City), is a graduate of Adamah and a trained horticulturalist and environmentalist.44 KOL Foods, an organic kosher meat service that works with farmers on the East Coast of the United States, is marked by a further innovation in that it is one of the only (if not the only) kosher meat businesses run by a woman. Devora Kimmelman-Block, the founder and head of the company, operates in a world that has been traditionally closed to women: cutting deals with cattle ranchers, visiting slaughterhouses, learning about the kosher butchering process, and—perhaps most challenging—convincing the Orthodox Union to give kosher certification to KOL Food meat products. Overall, women are playing a significant role in the Jewish food movement as farmers, entrepreneurs, activists, and cooks. While it is too soon to fully assess the impact of this phenomenon, it seems that women such as Kimmelman-Block are reshaping expectations for Jewish women in Jewish institutional life.45 For scholars, the Jewish food movement offers a key contemporary example of the centrality of food and food-related rituals to the identity construction of individual 21st-century Jews. The energy and creativity of the Jewish food movement has the potential to change not only individual food and identity choices, but to bring about a spiritual, ethical, and material revitalization in North American Jewish life. A line from Pirkei Avot is often quoted at food movement events: “Where there is no flour, there is no Torah; where there is no Torah, there is no flour.” The Hebrew word translated here as “flour” (kemaḥ ) signifies not only flour but also bread, and, more generally, sustenance. These lines point to the fundamental intertwining of Jewish ethics and Jewish sustenance, an ideal that lies at the heart of the movement. Activists in the Jewish food movement are dedicated to bringing the Torah to life in new ways through the material practices, rituals, and laws of farming, cooking and eating; they are likewise dedicated to the deep contemplation of what flour—or bread, or sustenance—means for contemporary Jewish spiritual life. This reciprocal relationship between bread and Torah lies at the heart of a new vision for what might best be understood as sustainable Judaism, an evolving practice that is rooted both in tradition and in the earth and that has the potential to bear fruit for generations to come.

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Notes 1. On the politics of food production and consumption, see, for instance, the popular documentary film Food, Inc. (2008); Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the AllAmerican Meal (Boston: 2001); Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (New York: 2006). On religious responses, see, for instance, the Aleph Sacred Foods Project, which brought together representatives from Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim groups (online at aleph. org/sacredfoods.htm [accessed 9 July 2014]); Faith in Place, which brings together a wide diversity of religious groups in the Chicago area to work together on issues of sustainability (online at faithinplace.org/about/mission-statement [accessed 9 July 2014). 2. While there are currently no hard numbers for Jewish food movement activities, the Green Hevra network recently released a study, titled Gleanings from Our Field, on the participation of North American Jews in Jewish environmental, farming, food, and outdoor initiatives, most of which have a food or agricultural component. According to the report, which polled 124 organizations, more than 200,000 North American Jews took part in programs with a food or environmental focus in 2012–2013. (It is, of course, possible that a portion of the participants took part in multiple programs.) For the full report, along with a listing of organizations comprising Green Hevra and organizations that were polled for the study, see greenhevra.org/gleanings-from-our-field-green-hevra-report-2014.html (accessed 3 September 2014). 3. For example, the Union for Reform Judaism now promotes a series of “Green Table, Just Table” programs and resources on its website: urj.org/life/food (accessed 3 September 2014). This series was launched in 2009 by Rabbi Eric Yoffie in a Shabbat morning sermon delivered before 3,500 rabbis at the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial conference in Toronto. In 2009, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism initiated the Magen Tzedek Program, which will be discussed later in this essay. Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox social justice organization, also took up the issue of food ethics by initiating a Tav HaYosher seal, which certifies that kosher restaurants are following fair labor practices; online at utzedek.org/tavhayosher/what-is-tav-hayosher.html (accessed 3 September 2014). 4. For extensive information on Hazon’s activities, see its website at hazon.org. 5. Lenny Bruce, “Jewish and Goyish,” in The Essential Lenny Bruce, ed. John Cohen (New York: 1967), 41–42. 6. Philip Roth, Goodbye Columbus and Five Short Stories (Boston: 1959), 43. 7. See, for example, Eddie Cantor in Whoopee (1930), Mickey Katz’s songs “Duvid Crockett” (online at youtube.com/watch?v=VwczIc4FNV0 [accessed 9 July 2014]) and “Haim Afn Range” (RCA, 1946) (the latter is Katz’s first recorded single); Mel Brooks’ film Blazing Saddles (1974), and Gene Wilder’s starring role in The Frisco Kid (1979). 8. Cynthia Ozick, “Towards a New Yiddish,” in idem, Art and Ardor: Essays (New York: 1984), 159. 9. Derek Penslar, Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (Berkeley: 2001). 10. Jonathan L. Dekel-Chen, Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924–1941 (New Haven: 2005). 11. On Zionism and farming, see Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism: Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State (New York: 1981); Howard Sachar, A History of Israel (New York: 1979); Anita Shapira, Berl: The Biography of a Socialist Zionist (New York: 1984); Boaz Neumann, Land and Desire in Early Zionism (Waltham: 2011). 12. Among the issues are eco-kashrut—see Arthur Waskow, Torah of the Earth: Exploring 4000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought (Woodstock, Vt: 2000); new approaches to animal welfare in Judaism—see Aaron Gross, “The Question of the Creature: Animals, Theology, and Levinas’s Dog,” in Creaturely Theology: God, Humans and other Animals, ed. Celia DeaneDrummond and David Clough (London: 2009); and the ethics of meat-eating—see Jonathan Safran-Foer, Eating Animals (Boston: 2009). 13. According to its online mission statement, “Adamah connects people to their roots: to the land, to community, to Judaism, and to themselves by providing educational programs and

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products in order to build a more sustainable world” (isabellafreedman.org/email/adamah/ winter2010/email.html; accessed 3 September 2014). On the summer program, see the website for the Isabella Friedman Jewish Retreat Center newsletter (online at isabellafreedman.org/ adamah#news; accessed 9 July 2104). 14. For a recent overview of Adamah’s programs and its place within the larger Jewish farming movement, see Michael Tortorello, “New Gleanings from a Jewish Farm,” New York Times (23 July 2014). 15. hazon.org/adamah/adamah-fellowship/alumni (accessed 15 July 2014). 16. For more information on Urban Adamah, see its website at urbanadamah.org. 17. For details, see the website: pearlstonecenter.org/community-education (accessed 3 September 2014). 18. For details, see the website: pearlstonecenter.org/curriculum-resources (accessed 3 Sep­ tember 2014). 19. For details on the Chai Ve’Kayam program, see ibid. (the quote in the text, which originally appeared online in 2012, is no longer accessible). The curriculum is based on the pardes system of interpretation, referring to the four levels of interpretation of Jewish texts: peshat (simple meaning), remez (hints of deep hidden meaning), derash (interpretation of meaning), and sod (secret, mystical meaning). Plants in each section of the garden stand for a mode of interpreting each month. 20. For details, see the website: edenvillagecamp.org. 21. For details, see the website: yiddishfarm.org. 22. This information, taken from my notes, appeared on an online advertisement that was most probably posted in the fall of 2012. 23. For details, see the website: shoresh.ca. 24. The mission statement and core values of Bela Farm can be found at: shoresh.ca/belafarm (accessed 3 September 2014). 25. See its website: kamii.org (accessed 15 August 2014). 26. Ben Harris, “A Jewish Farmer Grows in America,” Forward (14 October 2011), 17. 27. For useful maps, facts, and figures about the CSA movement, see localharvest.org. See also the Alternative Farms Information Center of the USDA (nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa .shtml), which includes the most up-to-date information collected by government agencies (accessed 9 July 2014). 28. Veteran members of Hazon-sponsored CSAs in the northeast are used to fielding queries regarding the limited variety of fruits and vegetables distributed in the first part of June, which consists mainly of storage crops from the previous year’s harvest—potatoes, beets, carrots, and the like—along with some early season vegetables such as spring salad greens, asparagus, and strawberries. Weekly newsletters counsel patience, assuring new members that by August and September they will be overwhelmed by the bounty available to them. 29. In 2012, there were 68 Hazon CSA sites across North America. More than 4,500 households and approximately 22,000 individuals enjoyed Hazon CSA produce that year, and 500,000 pounds of produce were purchased from 54 partner farms (representing more than $2 million in sales). In 2013, Hazon CSAs mounted more than 100 on-farm educational events, and Sukkot gleaning projects alone enabled the donation of 31,500 pounds of food to emergency food providers. These figures do not include numerous Jewish CSAs that are not affiliated with Hazon, including those managed by Shoresh in Toronto, which comprise close to 200 households. For Hazon CSA facts, see hazon.org/jewish-food-movement/communitysupported-agriculture (accessed 3 September 2014). 30. A typical weekly note from the Hazon office regarding CSA newsletters reads as follows: “I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving. In this week’s newsletter you’ll find: a recipe for potage, a vegetable soup; a blog post from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism about Temple Isaiah’s CSA; an interesting article from Mother Nature Network about traditional farming methods; a d’var torah for parashat Vayishlach (12/10); and lastly, this week’s veggie tip for butternut squash, a great addition to the ‘potage’ recipe” (email from Anna Hanau, 30 November 2011).

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31. For one of many examples of cheese-making workshops from a group in Chicago, see Urban Jewish Homesteading, 2011 Workshop Series, online at events.r20.constantcontact .com/register/event?oeidk=a07e3ri2vv856fce40d&llr=mozhp5dab. (accessed 3 September 2014). 32. I attended that Hazon Food Conference with my family and watched my children participate in this program. 33. The burgeoning interest in canning and preserving has also had an impact on Sukkot observance: recipes for etrog marmalade abound, and many bloggers note with satisfaction that their etrogim are no longer going to waste. One blogger, The Velveteen Rabbi, suggests canning the marmalade for use on Tu B’Shevat. She notes that this act connects her to seasonality and spirituality in a profoundly material way: As always, preserving some of the available abundance feels both like a practical act and a spiritual one. Practical because this means the fruits aren’t going to waste; spiritual because preserving the harvest feels like a way of saying thank-you for the many blessings in my life. And, of course, because this act becomes a way of stitching together two disparate points on the holiday calendar. The applesauce I put up at the start of Sukkot will grace our potato latkes in December; the etrog marmalade will be eaten at Tu BiShvat; and next thing I know, it will be spring again. (“Velveteen Rabbi,” online at velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2009/10/sukkot-harvest.html [accessed 7 July 2014]); cf. “The Jew and the Carrot,” online at blogs.forward.com/the-jewand-the-carrot/131765/(accessed 7 July 2014), which offers a slightly more adventurous marmalade recipe. This blog received a comment noting the potential toxicity of the etrog (because of heavy use of pesticides) and calling for a “former Adamah-nik” to start a sustainable citron farm. 34. For an excellent overview of the Agriprocessors incident, and the reaction it inspired, see Sue Fishkoff, Kosher Nation (New York: 2010). 35. Nigel Savage and Anna Stevenson (eds.), Food For Thought: Hazon’s Sourcebook on Jews, Food & Contemporary Life (New York: 2007), x. 36. For the sustainable food initiative eventually adopted by the Board of the First Narayever Congregation, see narayever.ca/food-2 (accessed 3 September 2014). 37. On the Food Audit program, see the pilot project description, online at hazon.org/ resources/food-guide (accessed 9 July 2014). 38. “Let All Who Are Hungry Come and Eat” (posted 5 April 2012), online at blogs.usda. gov/2012/04/05/let-all-who-are-hungry-come-and-eat-a-food-and-justice-seder-at-usda/ (accessed 7 July 2014). 39. Fishkoff, Kosher Nation, 291–293. 40. Ibid., ch. 3. 41. For more information, see the Magen Tzedek website at magentzedek.org. 42. Sue Fishkoff, “Conservatives Taking Kashrut Challenge up a Notch,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) (11 April 2011), online at jta.org/2011/04/11/life-religion/conservatives-taking-kashrut-challenge-up-a-notch (accessed 7 July 2014). 43. See Samantha M Shapiro, “Kosher Wars,” New York Times Magazine (12 October 2008). 44. See Rebecca Spence, “DIY Shechitah: Kosher Slaughter in the Backyard,” JTA (21 November 2013), online at jta.org/2013/11/21/life-religion/kosher-slaughter-in-the-backyard (accessed 3 September 2014). 45. Chana Widawski, “Returning to the Garden,” Lillith (Fall 2012), 29–33. This article deals with the role of women in the new Jewish food and farming movement, with a special focus on Shoresh and the work at Bela Farm.

Jews and Fat: Thoughts toward a History of an Image in the Second Age of Biology Sander L. Gilman (Emory University)

The act of assigning bodily qualities to a collective as if it were an individual is as ancient as the oldest written sources. This is certainly the case with regard to the history of stereotypes of Jews. The very human question of how Jewish difference has been created in the world that Jews inhabit, and how Jews have responded to the creation of their biological difference, remains contested. How is Jewish religious or cultural difference translated into biological difference? Yosef Yerushalmi argued decades ago that “racial” biology was not an invention of 19th-century Europe but rather had already existed in late medieval Spain.1 In fact, it antedated even that earlier period: wherever Jews were seen to be different, this difference was often defined as biological and therefore immutable. Thus, Jewish character was defined through the Jewish body: Jews were evil because of their inheritance as Jews; their visible biological difference made it possible to read their corrupt souls. This has been part of the history of stereotyping of the Jews from the earliest written records (whether Egyptian or Roman or the early Church, Mantho or Tacitus or John Chrysostom). From the “nose” to the “toes,” the Jew’s body is marked by the Jew’s character. This fantasy haunts the history of Jews in the diaspora from Babylon on the Euphrates to Babylon on Long Island. Today, we face a new and very odd reappearance of this biologization of the Jew in the newest fantasies about a “Jewish” genetic identity; now, as it was in the 19th century, it is often the diseases attributed to the collective labeled “the Jew” that mark this phenomenon. Each discussion of scientific markers for a unitary biological definition of the Jews fails the litmus test of constancy, but this seems not to be a problem. Certain contemporary geneticists follow in the lead of Karl Lueger, the 19th-century antisemitic mayor of Vienna, defining who “a Jew” is and then regarding bodily qualities as reflecting a total collective. I am fascinated by this history and how it plays out against notions of human difference as well as self-contradicting scientific models. The more we learn today about the inherent mutability and interaction of genetic information, the less we can predict outcomes. Evaluating risk, as most scientists and physicians know, is not the same as 218

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prediction. Yet older, “predictive” biological categories such as “race” have reappeared in the genetic literature over the past twenty years with remarkable frequency.2 Thus, Tay-Sachs was first labeled a “Jewish genetic disease” by Bernard Sachs in 1887 in light of the fact that it had a higher frequency among “Jews,” actually a limited cohort of Ashkenazi Jews and their offspring. Today it is seen as one of a cluster of “Jewish genetic diseases.” As Anne Roiphe, in her paean to “The Jewish Chromosome,” noted in 2000: For Ashkenazi Jews, this [chromosome] has probably blessed us with some of our finer attributes but it has also permitted certain Jewish illnesses to last through the centuries. The latest science offers us hope not simply for eliminating Tay-Sachs but Canavans and Gouchers, genetically linked breast cancer and other tragic conditions. When Nehemiah, rebuilding the destroyed temple, exiled the non-Jewish wives gathered in Jerusalem he was, albeit unintentionally, keeping the gene pool pure at the expense of perpetuating some unfortunately bent chromosomes.3

Yet Tay-Sachs also appears in the same genetic mutation among the Cajuns on Louisiana and, in a different mutation, among the Québécoise. Is it a “Catholic” disease there? Lynn B. Jorde and Stephen P. Wooding have noted that “new genetic data has enabled scientists to re-examine the relationship between human genetic variation and ‘race.’ ” They continue: These [genetic] clusters are also correlated with some traditional concepts of race, but the correlations are imperfect because genetic variation tends to be distributed in a continuous, overlapping fashion among populations. Therefore, ancestry, or even race, may in some cases prove useful in the biomedical setting, but direct assessment of disease-related genetic variation will ultimately yield more accurate and beneficial information.4

According to Francis Collins, head of the American Human Genome Project: The downside of using race, whether in research or in the practice of medicine, is that we are reifying it as if it has more biological significance than it deserves. Race is an imperfect surrogate for the causative information we seek. To the extent that we continue to use it, we are suggesting to the rest of the world that it is very reliable and that racial categories have more biological meaning than they do. We may even appear to suggest something that I know is not true: that there are bright lines between populations and that races are biologically distinct.5

Indeed, dangerous bright lines outline physical fantasies with regard to Jewish difference.

The Pathology of Obesity The Jews were the litmus test for race in the 19th century, during what has been termed the first age of biology. The 19th-century practice of labeling Jews as a “diseased” race was a means of categorizing them as inferior within the terms of 19th-century scientific racism. Let us look for a moment at a disease—diabetes—that today is not a “Jewish” disease (or is it)?6

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In the fall of 1888, the Parisian neurologist Jean Martin Charcot described to Sigmund Freud the predisposition of Jews for specific forms of illness such as diabetes, noting that “the exploration [of underlying causes] is easy” because the illness was attributed to intramarriage among the Jews. Jewish “incest” left its mark on the Jewish body in the form of diabetes as well as on the Jewish soul. Even in the standard medical handbook of the day, this myth is perpetuated: All authorities agree that the Hebrew race is particularly susceptible. . . . The factors occasioning this greater susceptibility in Hebrews are not well understood. It has been variously ascribed to greater instability of the nervous system, fondness for sweets and overeating, and sedentary habits particularly among the better classes.7

Nervous rich Jews nibbling and gorging on expensive food, growing fat and then fatter in the process, is one of the assumed causes of diabetes. The fact in its time was that Jews (defined as a race) had this disease. (Diabetes was still defined in the 19th century as a single disease. It was only in 1936 that the distinction between “juvenile” and “late onset” diabetes was made. The debate continues as to whether the latter is a lifestyle disease or has a genetic underpinning, and whether “Jews” have a specific genetic mutation that may make them susceptible.)8 There are complex views concerning the alleged Jewish predisposition to this illness. The dichotomy of “nature” versus “nurture” (today seen as antiquated, yet still so very powerful) does not free collectives such as the “Jews” from pathology. Thus “Jews” may inherit a biological tendency toward diabetes, or they may exacerbate this inheritance by cultural practices such as “inbreeding,” or else such illnesses may simply be a physical manifestation of their inherent character. The British eugenicist George Pitt-Rivers attributed the increased rate of diabetes among the Jews to “the passionate nature of their temperaments.” He noted that, by the 1920s, diabetes was commonly called a “Jewish disease.”9 Jews were inherently diseased, a quality that distinguished them from the “healthy” peoples of Europe and defined them as part of an inferior racial group. Over and over again, it was the obesity inherent in the Jew’s body (and soul) that was seen as the cause of the illness. Jews are fat, and that gross bodily appearance reflects the avarice of the Jew’s soul, down to and including his aversion to work. Thus “the Mediterranean and Oriental races contain numerous large, obese people, of ‘matronic’ type, eating large amounts of farinaceous food and taking too little exercise.”10 In the diaspora, the assumption is that the Jew is diabetic because of his predisposition to fat, not because of any other predisposing factor. Jews inherited their tendency toward fat because of their lifestyle, which was a reflection of their innate character. “Nature” trumps “culture” even among emancipated Jews. That is to say, Jews inherit the compulsive eating patterns of their ancestors and are therefore fat even as children. Their obesity and their diabetes are a reflection of their poor hygienic traditions, precisely the opposite of claims made by 19th-century Jewish reformers who saw Judaism as the rational religion of hygiene. It is the retrograde “Oriental,” not the modern western Jew, who presents the worst-case scenario for this line of argument. Such Jews, according to much of the late 19th-century literature critical of Jewish ritual practice, are inherent hypocrites.11 They will in fact eat anything and everything, yet claim that their religious practice precludes them from consuming any­ thing that is not kosher. Obesity becomes here an external sign of hypocrisy.

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The notion that the fat Jewish body could be reformed is part of Zionist ideology, not only in Max Nordau’s call for a new “muscle Jew” in 1905 but in Theodor Herzl’s assumption that the Jewish body was adaptive to its environment and therefore could change: “Education can be achieved only through shock treatment. Darwin’s theory of imitation [Darwinsche Mimikry] will be validated. The Jews will adapt. They are like seals that have been thrown back into the water by an accident of nature . . . if they return to dry land and manage to stay there for a few generations, their fins will change back into legs.”12 And, by assumption, their fat, degenerate urban bodies will slim down into the bodies of farmers and workers, and their souls will lose the stench of the counting house. Yet hidden within the modern, acculturated body of the Jew is a racially defined Jew whose body betrays itself. Thus William-Frédéric Edwards, a physician, argued in 1829 that races remained constant all over the world.13 Edwards’ proof for this was the “stability” of the Jews.14 This view remains consistent through and beyond the Bible scholar Friedrich Delitzsch’s lectures on “Babel and Bible” before Emperor Wilhelm II in 1902, in which he stressed the unchanging nature of the character and physiognomy of the Jews.15 One sign of this was the obese body and its predisposition to diabetes. But are the “Jews” the undiluted biological continuation of the “People of the Book,” even though the biblical records from Abraham to Moses to the Babylonian exile note the ongoing incorporation of other peoples into the socalled biological substratum of the “Jews”? Are Jews what they are (“Jews”‘) because they are immutable, or because they are an ongoing religious and ethnic group with wide deviation from any easily defined biological norm?

A Look at the Historiography Any answer to such questions demands a look at the history of the claim of the Jewish predisposition to obesity and thus to diabetes. In the fabled Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), the American public health scientist Maurice Fishberg and the Anglo-Australian anthropologist Joseph Jacobs provide an essay on “diathesis,” that is, the “predisposition to certain forms of disease.” In their view, French writers like [Jean-Martin] Charcot, [Étienne] Lancereaux, and [Charles] Féré have said that rheumatic and gouty diathesis is more wide-spread among Jews than among any other European race. The groups of diseases recognized by the French under the names “arthritism” and “herpetism” are by some writers said to be common among the Jews. By “arthritism” they understand a certain group of diseases, usually due to disturbances of the normal metabolism, which manifest themselves primarily as chronic rheumatism and gout, but which also include other morbid processes, such as diabetes, gall-stones, stone[s] in the kidneys, obesity, and some diseases of the skin.16

But Fishberg and Jacobs dismiss this: [T]hese peculiar tendencies have sometimes been due to somatic characteristics, and in such cases the diseases are designated as “racial.” But in the majority of cases these diatheses are due to certain habits of life, diet, or environment, or to social causes; and the diseases which result from the diatheses can not be called “racial,” because when the social conditions are changed the liability to the disease disappears.17

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For them, the cause of disease is the stress of modern life among Jews. Thus “when stocks fall, diabetes rises on Wall Street. . . . The only reasonable explanation of the frequency of the disease among Jews is their extreme nervousness, for they are the most nervous of civilized people.”18 Yet even here the interpretation of Jewish obesity is linked to the power of science to justify the concatenation of biological categories such as “the Jews.” For Fishberg and Jacobs, the Jews as a biological category are East European and therefore, in their imagination, urban. Fishberg maintains this view in what came to be the standard study in English of Jews and race, his The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment (1911).19 Several of Fishberg and Jacob’s contemporaries who studied Jews of East European origin who were living in Britain or America noted that the laws of kashrut worked in favor of healthier food (to paraphrase a contemporary view, Moses was the first hygienist): “The food of the Russian Jews is considered to be above reproach. The meat consumed, as is well known, has, before being placed on sale, undergone a thorough inspection as to the health of the animal killed. The meat is therefore more wholesome and more fit for human consumption than that in the average non-Jewish butcher shop.” In addition, it was noted, the East European Jewish diet was rich in fish. At the same time, the amount of “healthy” food consumed was relatively small: [A]nother important fact is that the Jews do not eat much:—a pound of meat per diem is sufficient for a poor family of a husband, wife and a few children. While this may be partly due to the expense—kosher meat is very expensive . . . still it is a fact that the wellto-do eat comparatively less than non-Jews. Gluttony is considered a sin among the Russian Jews. This trait has also been retained from Russia, where the multitude of the Jews are very poor, and food, particularly meat, is expensive, because of the special tax levied on kosher meat (takse). Jewish women generally differ from the men in this respect. You will quite often meet a woman who likes to eat much and well. This, added to the fact that the Jewish women usually do nothing but housework after marriage, is probably the reason why obesity is more frequently met with among them than among nonJewish women.20

In this reading, it is gender differences that provide a clue as to why “Jews” are considered overweight (and therefore ill). If we turn to Raphael Patai’s The Jewish Mind (1977), the chapter on “Jews and Obesity” reflects the complex relationship between cultural, functionalist, and biological models—all of them mixed in a dark soup that reflects the stereotyping of the Jewish body. Patai begins with an acknowledgement and a caveat: “A phenomenon related to the Jewish concern for health is the incidence of obesity among Jews. However, the historical documentation of Jewish eating habits, which are the prime factor in obesity, is all but lacking.”21 For Patai, eating habits and not genetics determine “Jewish” obesity. Biblical Jews (that is, the varying depictions of Jews found in the complex and historically widely dateable texts of the Bible) are rarely fat: Poetic imagination and exaggeration aside, until the emergence of modern American urban sedentary civilization, throughout history the problem people everywhere faced was not how to escape obesity, but how to find enough food to keep body and soul together. The Middle East was no exception. Corpulence, in such circumstances, had to be rare, and if it occurred it was confined to some members of the leisured classes.22

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And yet there is a clearly developmental and psychological turn to Patai’s assumption of scarcity (famine) and the desirability of obesity: The great concern of Jewish mothers with feeding their children is probably a result of the dire poverty in which most of the Jews lived for hundreds of years both in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East. In the shtetl, whenever there was acute scarcity of food, which was quite a common occurrence, it was “natural” to feed the children first, while the parents, especially the mothers, would go hungry. Thus to give food came to be symbolic of maternal love, just as the first expression of a mother’s love for her child was to give him her breast.23

Actually, evidence from the 19th-century famine in Ireland as well as the Ukrainian and Chinese famines of the 20th century indicate exactly the opposite: children were regularly sold, abandoned, or even eaten so that adults could survive.24 Yet here Patai (as did his predecessors) uses the East European Jew as the model for what is ideally Jewish. With Patai, it is not just historic scarcity but the developmental model that is at the core of the perceived link between Jews and obesity. Jews, like all human beings, begin with notions of nurturing and yet these notions can become distorted by experiences such as the shortage of foods. And it is the traditional 20th-century nuclear family, defined by Patai as the self-evident biological center of Jewish identity, that perpetuates this notion: “Growing up in such a Jewish house, the child inevitably observed and absorbed the eating habits of his parents. He saw that his mother kept the best for the father, who needed good food to keep up his strength.”25 But of course the tradition that Patai is mythologizing in the 1970s is not that of the East European Jewish family in the New World and Western Europe, with its high rate of paternal abandonment and parental death. Rather, he is building on the post-Holocaust view espoused by Elizabeth Herzog and Mark Zborowski in their Life is with People (1952): the idealized and now vanished Jewish world of the East European Jews. For Patai, an emaciated Tevye (with his extended family) grows fat and happy once he meets the rich foods of the “goldene medine.” Patai employs psychoanalytic readings as further proof of the universality of this experience: Theodor Reik . . . tells a modern American-Jewish anecdote. . . : “A Jewish gangster walked into an ambush and received serious bullet wounds. With his last strength he climbed the stairs to his mother’s apartment and rang the bell. ‘Mama!’ he cried, when she opened the door. But she, unaware of the son’s state, said: ‘Eat first, talk later.’ ” Generalizing, Reik remarks: “Jewish jokes ascribe to mothers an inclination to stuff their children, and worry that their sons do not eat enough or not the right food. It is as if Jewish mothers tried to make the nutritional symbiosis of babyhood and with it the dependence of the children on them permanent.26

In Patai’s view, historical shifts also help to account for the Jewish tendency toward obesity. The widespread abandonment of dietary laws during the Enlightenment era, and the resultant weakening of restrictions on Jews eating together with non-Jews, looms as a major historical feature in Patai’s reading of the history of Jewish obesity. By the 19th century, he writes, the chafing of Reform-minded Jews at the dietary laws continued, as can be seen from a statement by John K. Rayner, of the London Liberal Synagogue: “To create the impression that [the concern with eating habits] is one of Judaism’s chief preoccupations is to debase

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it in the eyes of Jews and non-Jews.” This contrasts sharply with the enlightened Orthodox Jewish view, which holds that by observing the dietary laws and reciting the prescribed benedictions before and after meals, the Jew introduces an element of sanctity into the otherwise entirely mundane, physical, and animalistic act of eating. In either case, the Jewish tendency to overeat and to be overly preoccupied with food continues.27

Patai concludes his analysis by focusing more specifically on U.S. Jewry: Jews still seem to spend a greater proportion of their income on food than do other groups in America. . . . As Seymour Leventman put it, “The ‘gastronomic syndrome’ lingers on in the passion for bagels and lox, knishes, blintzes, rye bread, kosher or kosher-style delicatessen, and for good food in general.”28

This is the world of “kosher-style,” not glatt kosher, a world defined by social criteria rather than religious practice, determined by nostalgic memory rather than daily religious ritual. Nostalgia and not excess is what drives American Jews to overeat. Meanwhile, the gender-based stereotype of the J[ewish] A[merican] P[rincess], an exaggeration of negative images of the western woman, continues to see the Jewish woman as obese. In The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt (2005), Ruth Andrew Ellenson comments that “obesity is worse than terrorism, an epidemic worse than AIDS . . . You know how to keep kosher: For example, here’s what might be on the menu tonight: a spinach salad covered with Bac-Os (Jews love that fake bacon!) . . . ”29 The anxiety about a Jewish predisposition to obesity is linked to a question of character, and modern Jewish character is defined by hypocrisy with regard to food. Pseudo-bacon may be kosher, but it also signals the duplicity of modern Judaism vis-à-vis religious practice. Yes—a salad to reduce Jewish obesity, but that salad will be sprinkled with pseudo-bacon, a sign of belonging in America. Orthodox Jewish women have recently been revealed as suffering from eating disorders, including obesity, as often as their secular and non-traditional sisters.30 Anorexia nervosa seems now to be a topic of concern in the religious community as it has been in the secular one. According to the New York Times: a 1996 study of an Orthodox high school in Brooklyn, found 1 in 19 girls had an eating disorder—about 50 percent higher than in the general population at the time. The 1996 study was done with the agreement that it would not be published. The other study, done in 2008, looked at 868 Jewish and non-Jewish high school students in Toronto and found that 25 percent of the Jewish girls suffered from eating disorders that merited treatment, compared with 18 percent of the non-Jewish girls.31

According to Rabbi Saul Zucker, educational director for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the underreporting (not of obesity, but anorexia) among these young women reflects the stigma associated with mental illness.32 But the explanation offered by the Times with regard to this newly recognized problem strikes one as a 21st-century reversal of Patai’s post-Holocaust claims about the East European nuclear family and the function of food: Food plays a central role in Jewish family and religious life, and both the Friday night dinner and the midday Sabbath meal, as well as holiday meals, can be multicourse affairs. But fast days—when no food or water is consumed for 25 hours—are also sprinkled

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throughout the year, often preceded or followed by a large meal. . . . Passover Seders, which traditionally include matzo and four cups of wine, along with soup, gefilte fish, brisket and potato kugel, are a particular challenge, experts say. For women who struggle with eating disorders, they can be an invitation to purging.33

Once one leaves the realm of stereotyping or self-stereotyping, the reality of the Jews as a religious community (rather than as a biological cohort) seems to tell exactly the opposite tale. There does seem to be a religious hierarchy of fat—and not only in the United States. There has been an obsession amounting to a moral panic surrounding the explosion of obesity in our contemporary world. There has been a claim offered that obesity is the result of a “normal” genetic predisposition to accumulate body fat in order to preclude starvation in times of famine. This is the “ob-gen” or “obesity gene” (or “thrifty-gene”) argument, which was developed in the 1990s through work on the genetics of obesity in mice, with findings then extrapolated to human beings. The question, however, remained why specific cohorts became fatter than others. In an important paper on the sociology of obesity, the Purdue medical sociologist Kenneth Ferraro looked at the corollary between belonging to a religious denomination and being obese.34 Baptists were the fattest of them all, followed by other Protestant groups. The rule seems to be: the more fundamentalist you are, the fatter you will be. Roman Catholics and then Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists (with their vegetarian diet), and other “non-traditionalist” Christian groups were at the middle of his scale, and Jews (and other non-Christians) made up the thin end of his sample. In Baptist churches one out of four members of the congregation are obese, in contrast to an obesity rate of only one percent among synagogue-attending Jews. Yet relative to the Jews, Catholics too had a high rate of obesity, about 17 percent. Synagogue-going Jews are middle-class, and middle-class individuals are far less likely than poor people to be obese.35 Recently, epidemiological work has looked at this phenomenon globally. In a 2012 study of 2,433 participants, aged 20 to 32, who were followed for 18 years, “the high frequency of religious participation was associated with a significantly greater incidence of obesity.”36 The key is not “religious” or “ethnic” (using a pseudo-racial model such as “Jews”) but rather religious observance. In other words, the more religious you were, the fatter you became—no matter what your ethnic background. The research offered no other explanation other than religion. In Israel, where obesity rates are high and comparable to those in the United States, middle-class Jews are more fit or at least less obese than their “low socio-economic” contemporaries. Obesity, according to a 2009 study, is “strongly related to gender, age, social status, sleeping habits, hookah smoking, and parental educational status.”37 A comparative study of different groups among the Israeli population showed that older Arab women (defined neither as Christian nor Muslim) comprised the most obese segment of the Israeli population.38 Another study narrowed the focus, arguing that “the prevalence of current obesity was 52% in Arab women compared to 31% in Jewish women.”39 Culture, rather than genetics, appeared to be the underlying cause of obesity. “Fewer Arabs reported measuring their body weight and Arab women were less frequently advised to maintain an active lifestyle.”40 Perhaps a cultural rationale was necessary, given the study’s assumption that a close genetic link exists between Jews and Arabs. Notwithstanding, echoes of Oertel’s “fat Jewesses of Tunis”41 in the image of the semitic body (now of Arab women) persist.

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Obesity and the Genetics of the Jews Today Today, diabetes is not generally considered a Jewish illness—indeed, it is never catalogued as one of the so-called “Jewish genetic diseases.” Yet that may be about to change, as congenital hyperinsulinism of infancy, a form of type-1 diabetes, has now been linked to Ashkenazi Jews, leading to the recommendation that it be “included in the genetic screening program for the Ashkenazi Jewish population.”42 Research on diabetes in general, however, now follows the so-called thrifty genotype hypothesis that had been suggested in 1964. Simply stated, it has been observed that when mice are transferred from a harsh (underfed) to a benign (adequately fed) environment, they gain weight and are hyperglycemic.43 In the case of first-generation groups of immigrants to the United States in the late 19th century or in Israel today, one finds a substantial rise in the incidence of diabetes. For instance, Yemenite Jews, who came from a background of poverty and poor nutrition, showed an extremely low index of type-1 diabetes when they first arrived in Israel in the late 1940s and early 1950s.This index, however, skyrocketed after just a short time of living in their new environment.44 In a classic study titled Genetic Disorders among the Jewish People (1979), Richard Merle Goodman argued against any predisposition of the Jews for diabetes. At the same time, the “question of obesity in Jews—Ashkenazi or non-Ashkenazi—remains unanswered, for proper epidemiological studies are lacking to evaluate this matter. Most authorities in the field recognize that the tendency to obesity can be inherited.”45 How this tendency is passed on from generation to generation is a matter for the newest science of genetics. Goodman’s work illustrates how studies of diabetes and other diseases still consider genetic cohorts in terms of categories of race. But of course, race has again become a stigmatized term. Ironically, the new term of choice is “ethnicity”—a term that has no self-conscious biological implications (the term itself was coined in the 19th century as an alternative to race). For instance, a 2011 paper coming from the Emory School of Public Health, titled “Jewish Ethnicity and Pancreatic Cancer Mortality in a Large U.S. Cohort,” argues that “[a]fter adjusting for age, sex, smoking, body mass index, and diabetes, pancreatic cancer mortality was higher among Jewish participants than among non-Jewish whites.”46 In the realm of diabetes research and ethnic cohorts, Michael Boehnke and his colleagues looked at variations in a region of chromosome 20 among people from Finland. They identified four variants near the HNF4α gene that occurred more frequently in people with type-2 diabetes than in those without the disease.47 M. Alan Permutt of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri found two additional variations near the same gene that were associated with diabetes in an Ashkenazi Jewish population.48 These and other “biological” explanations, however, contain an ideological component. While diabetes, both type-1 and type-2, are no longer seen as haunting the “Jew” (whether undefined or else defined as East European, Ashkenazi, or as a wandering people), the notion that Jewish genetic diseases have “meaning” has not vanished. In 2006, Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, and Henry Harpending—all anthropologists at the University of Utah—made quite a splash with a published study in which they suggested that Jewish “superior” intelligence was the result of selective “in-breeding.” Their paper, “Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence,” argued that Jewish intel-

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ligence is simply a compensatory “genetic error” linked to other “Jewish” genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs, Gaucher’s disease, or Fanconi’s anemia. Significantly, obesity and diabetes are not included in the litany of “Jewish” diseases. As the authors write, “perhaps most of the characteristic Ashkenazi genetic diseases fall into this category [of illnesses compensated by some group advantage]. Selection has imposed a heavy human cost: not crippling at the population level, cheaper than the malariadefense mutations like sickle cell and G6PD deficiency, but tragic nonetheless.”49 Every brilliant Jew is simultaneously a frail (if not a fat) Jew, living the life of the mind rather than that of the body. Geneticist Neil Risch of the University of California states that numerous studies over the past decades have documented biological differences among the races with regard to susceptibility and the natural history of chronic diseases. While Risch opposes claims that heterozygote advantage may account for the carrier frequency of lysosomal storage diseases in “Ashkenazi Jews,” he is comfortable using race as a category of analysis: What is your definition of races? If you define it a certain way, maybe that’s a valid statement. There is obviously still disagreement. . . . Scientists always disagree! A lot of the problem is terminology. I’m not even sure what race means, people use it in many different ways . . . but that doesn’t preclude you from using it or the fact that it has utility.50

The Columbia University geneticist Robert Pollack is much more dismissive of the claim that specific genetic qualities may define abstractions such as intelligence and perhaps obesity: “But all characteristics of a person that we perceive to be interesting—like intelligence, kindness, musical ability, obnoxiousness—to the extent that these have a genetic component, it will be contained in thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of genes. We have no capacity at present to measure that.”51 Race is not the equivalent of a genetic cohort: complex, ephemeral qualities such as “obesity” are poor proof of racial transmission. And yet the science that insists on using cultural categories as if they were biological categories allows the assumption that these very different manners of understanding human complexity can be reduced to a single force. As a recent study of the sociology of race has noted: One respondent, who was involved in studies on Jewish populations, mentioned that his research was likely to be misinterpreted and misused by some, but insisted that it was out of his hands. He said that people used to approach him and ask whether it could be “genetically” tested if they were Jewish. He was adamant to stress that being Jewish was not about genetics and it was wrong that this research was interpreted this way, but claimed that he had no control over these types of “popular” representations of his work.52

Science, however, does have a responsibility in terms of the implications inherent in the presentation of findings; all science is ideological—though some science is less tendentious than others. The complex argument for a Jewish genetic inheritance—one that would prove that all Jews of the priestly class (kohanim) are descended from Aaron—underlies much of the recent claims.53 Like Patai’s reliance on psychoanalysis, such claims (recently withdrawn by some of its advocates) demand a new universal definition of the Jews that would include all “legitimate” Jews—and none of those who “merely” claim to be Jews because they practice the religion (in one form or the other) or historically or

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ethnically self-identify as Jews. Such claims of a uniform genetic origin eliminate the bugbear of self-definition and replace it with the claim of objective fact, namely, the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH), the existence of which remains highly contested.54 Yet these claims for a Jewish gene seem to avoid any claims to a relationship to the so-called “Jewish genetic diseases.” Indeed, the analyses of disease-related genes of higher prevalence in the Ashkenazi Jewish population indicate that only a minority of traits show signs of positive selection.55 The epidemiologic prevalence of certain genetically transmitted diseases (such as breast cancer) in specific and clearly limited groups of people with some Jewish ancestry is a problem of human variability. Individual Jews can transmit genetic diseases as can members of any other group that share some common genetic mutation. This is not a reflection of their Jewish identity but their own limited and specific biological inheritance. It is their biological ancestry, not their religion or ethnic identity, that underlies these mutations, and they often transcend the greater group (as with Tay-Sachs) or are limited to a specific if extended family tree (as with Fanconi anemia). In sum, given the broad genetic diversity of the Jews, it is not possible to come up with a universal biological or genetic definition of “being Jewish,” even though it may be the case that any single genetic line of individual Jews may show the transmission of mutations that can lead to disease. Notwithstanding, claims of a “Jewish predisposition” to certain diseases continue to exist. These provide a fascinating continuation of an age-old theme: the history of Jews and obesity is as engaging and relevant a topic today as it was 150 years ago.

Notes 1. Yosef Yerushalmi, Assimilation and Racial Anti-Semitism: The Iberian and the German Models (Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture) (New York: 1982). 2. The debates about Jews and genes are now captured in a series of monographs. On the one side are those that argue that Jewish genetics is a reality: David B. Goldstein, Jacob’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History (New Haven: 2008); Jon Entine, Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People (New York: 2007); Harry Ostrer, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People (New York: 2012); and at least one that argues quite the opposite: Nadia Abu El-Haj, The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology (Chicago: 2012). 3. Anne Roiphe, “The Jewish Chromosome,” The Jerusalem Report (11 September 2000), 54. 4. Lynn B. Jorde and Stephen P. Wooding, “Genetic Variation, Classification and ‘Race,’ ” Nature Genetics 36 (November 2004) S28-S33. 5. “Race and Medicine: Not a Black and White Question,” The Economist (12 April 2006), 80. 6. See much of my earlier work on this topic; see also Arleen Marcia Tuchman, “Diabetes and Race: A Historical Perspective,” American Journal of Public Health 101 (January 2011), 24–33. 7. William Osler (ed.), Modern Medicine: Its Theory and Practice (Philadelphia: 1914), 674. 8. Michal Bronstein, Anne Pisanté, Benjamin Yakir, Ariel Darvasi, “Type 2 Diabetes Susceptibility Loci in the Ashkenazi Jewish population,” Human Genetics 124, no. 1 (August 2008), 101–104. 9. George Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, The Clash of Culture and the Contact of Races (London: 1927), 82. 10. Enrico Greppi, “Influence of Exogenous and Endogenous Factors on Longevity,” Gerontologia Clinica 3, no. 1 (1961), 11; cited in editorial, “Nutrition and Age,” British Medical Journal 3 (1968), 629–630.

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11. Robin Judd, Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843–1933 (Ithaca: 2007). 12. Quoted in Alex Bein, Theodor Herzl (Vienna: 1974), 173. 13. Martin S. Staum, Labeling People: French Scholars on Society, Race, and Empire 1815–1848 (Montreal: 2003). 14. Ibid., 129. 15. Bill T. Arnold and David B. Weisberg, “A Centennial Review of Friedrich Delitzsch’s ‘Babel und Bibel’ Lectures, Journal of Biblical Literature 121, no. 3 (Autumn 2002), 441–457. 16. Joseph Jacobs and Maurice Fishberg, “Diathesis,” The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: 1901–1906), 4: 574. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 554–556. 19. Maurice Fishberg, The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment (New York: 1911). 20. Charles Seligman Bernheimer, The Russian Jew in the United States: Studies of Social Conditions in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago; With a Description of Rural Settlements (Philadelphia: 1905), 289. 21. Raphael Patai, The Jewish Mind (New York: 1977), 447. 22. Ibid., 448. 23. Ibid., 449; cf. Colleen Rand and Albert J. Stunkard, “Obesity and Psychoanalysis,” American Journal of Psychiatry 135, no. 5 (May 1978), 547–551. 24. See most recently Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62 (London: 2011). 25. Patai, The Jewish Mind, 449. 26. Ibid., 450–451. 27. Ibid., 452. 28. Ibid. 29. Ruth Andrew Ellenson, The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt (New York: 2005), 273. 30. Marjorie C. Feinson and Adi Meir, “Disordered Eating and Religious Observance: A Focus on Ultra-orthodox Jews in an Adult Community Study,” International Journal of Eating Disorders 45, no. 1 (January 2012), 101–109. 31. Roni Caryn Rabin, “Rabbis Sound an Alarm over Eating Disorders,” New York Times (12 April 2011). 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Krista M.C. Cline, Kenneth F. Ferraro, “Does Religion Increase the Prevalence and Incidence of Obesity in Adulthood?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45, no. 2 (June 2006), 269–281. 35. See Sander L. Gilman, Obesity: The Biography (Oxford: 2010). 36. Matthew Feinstein, Kiang Liu, Hongyan Ning, George Fitchett, Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, “Incident Obesity and Cardiovascular Risk Factors between Young Adulthood and Middle Age by Religious Involvement: The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study,” Preventive Medicine 54, no. 2 (February 2012), 117–121. 37. Dorit Nitzan Kaluski, Getachew Demem Mazengia, Tal Shimony, Rebecca Goldsmith, Elliot M. Berry, “Prevalence and Determinants of Physical Activity and Lifestyle in Relation to Obesity among Schoolchildren in Israel,” Public Health Nutrition 12, no. 6 (June 2009), 774–782. 38. Lital Keinan-Boker, Nitzan Noyman, Ayelet Chinich, Manfred S. Green, Dorit NitzanKaluski, “Overweight and Obesity Prevalence in Israel: Findings of the First National Health and Nutrition Survey (MABAT),” Journal of the Israeli Medical Association 7, no. 4 (April 2005), 219–223. 39. Ofra Kalter-Leibovici et al., “Obesity among Arabs and Jews in Israel: A Populationbased Study,” Journal of the Israeli Medical Association 9, no. 7 (July 2007), 525–530. 40. Ibid. 525. 41. Max J. Oertel, “Obesity,” in Twentieth Century Practice, vol. 2, Nutritive Disorders, ed. Thomas J. Stedman (London: 1895–1900), 626–725, esp. 647. Oertel was perhaps the most quoted authority on obesity at the beginning of the 20th century.

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42. Benjamin Glaser et al., “ABCC8 Mutation Allele Frequency in the Ashkenazi Jewish Population and Risk of Focal Hyperinsulinemic Hypoglycemia,” Genetic Medicine 13, no. 10 (October 2011), 891–894. 43. Richard M. Goodman, Genetic Disorders among the Jewish People (Baltimore: 1979), 334–341 (citing Knut Schmidt-Nielsen, Howard B. Haines, and Donald B. Hackel, “Diabetes Mellitus in the Sand Rat Induced by Standard Laboratory Diets,” Science 143 [14 February 1964], 689). See also Arthur E. Mourant, Ada C. Kopec, Kazimiera Domaniewska-Sobczak, The Genetics of the Jews: Research Monographs on Human Population Biology (Oxford: 1978). For a more recent work, see Steven Kaplan, “If There Are No Races, How Can Jews be a ‘Race’?” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 2, no. 1 (2003), 79–96. 44. Naomi Weintrob et al., “Type 1 Diabetes Environmental Factors and Correspondence Analysis of HLA Class II Genes in the Yemenite Jewish Community in Israel,” Diabetes Care 24, no. 4 (April 2001), 650–653. 45. Richard Merle Goodman, Genetic Disorders among the Jewish People (Baltimore: 1979), 337, 435. 46. Ronald C. Eldridge, Susan M. Gapstur, Christina C. Newton, Michael Goodman, Alpha V. Patel, Eric J. Jacobs, “Jewish Ethnicity and Pancreatic Cancer Mortality in a Large U.S. Cohort,” Cancer Epidemiological Biomarkers Preview 20 (2011), 691–698. 47. Karen L. Mohlke and Michael Boehnke, “The Role of HNF4A Variants in the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes,” Current Diabetes Reports 5 (2005), 149–156. 48. Latisha D. Love-Gregory et al., “A Common Polymorphism in the Upstream Promoter (P2) Region of the Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 4α (HNF4α) Gene on Chromosome 20q is Associated With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and Appears to Contribute to the Evidence for Linkage in an Ashkenazi Jewish Population,” Diabetes 53, no. 4 (April 2004), 1134–1140. 49. Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, and Henry Harpending, “Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence,” Journal of Biosocial Science 38, no. 5 (September 2006), 659–693. 50. Jane Gitschier, “The Whole Side of It—An Interview with Neil Risch,” PLoS Genetics 1 (2005), online at plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.0010014 (accessed 1 June 2014). 51. Abraham Rabinovich, “Farewell to Jewish Gene-ius,” The Jerusalem Post (30 November 1998), 6. 52. Yulia Egorova, “DNA Evidence? The Impact of Genetic Research on Historical Debates,” BioSocieties 5, no. 3 (September 2010), 348–365. 53. Mark G. Thomas, Karl Skorecki, Haim Ben-Amid, Tudor Parfitt, Neil Bradman, and David B. Goldstein, “Origins of Old Testament Priests,” Nature 394 (9 July 1998), 138–139. 54. Michael F. Hammer et al., “Extended Y Chromosome Haplotypes Resolve Multiple and Unique Lineages of the Jewish Priesthood,” Human Genetics 126, no. 5 (November 2009), 707–717; Anatole Alex Klyosov (2009), “Comment on the Paper: Extended Y Chromosome Haplotypes Resolve Multiple and Unique Lineages of the Jewish Priesthood,” ibid., 719–724; Hammer et al., “Response,” ibid., 725–726. 55. Steven M. Bray, Jennifer G. Mulle, Anne F. Dodd, Ann E. Pulver, Stephen Wooding, and Stephen T. Warren, “Signatures of Founder Effects, Admixture, and Selection in the Ashkenazi Jewish Population,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 37 (14 September 2010), online at pnas.org/content/107/37/16222.full (accessed 1 June 2014).

Paradoxes of Jews and Their Foods Richard Wilk (Indiana University)

My father, Max Wilk, was an observant Jew, going to synagogue at least a few times a year, overseeing family celebrations of Jewish holidays, and making sure his sons had some religious training. But his real temple was Gold’s delicatessen in Westport, Connecticut, where he was a regular denizen for more than 40 years. He went to sit and have some soup and gossip, and also to purchase ingredients for the ritual Sunday brunch at home: bagels, cream cheese, whole smoked whitefish, and sliced smoked salmon. Since we lived in the suburbs far from New York City, it was a treat when something special appeared from the high temples of delicatessen in the big city, per­ haps some smoked sturgeon or crusty bialys. We did not eat much that would be identifiable as “Jewish food” in our house; my parents were passionate and cosmopolitan eaters who visited many countries and al­ ways “traveled on their stomachs.” My mother, Barbara, trained at Cordon Bleu in Paris after the Second World War when she was a correspondent for United Press International and was just as likely to cook cassoulet or coq au vin as she was to serve her brisket, blintzes, or some of the Hungarian specialties she had learned from her grandmother, a famously good cook. She was emphatically not a baker—her mother­ in-law had that role in the family, and it says something about their relationship that my father’s mother went to the grave without passing along her recipes, including the one for her glorious schnecken, one of the highlights of my childhood. But from early in my life I also learned that my family’s passionate love of food was unusual. The mostly Protestant and Catholic children with whom I went to ele­ mentary school seemed happy to eat bland and stereotypical diets, and when I stayed over at friends’ houses I ate strange things such as canned spaghetti and fried spam. As an adolescent, I just accepted that this culinary gulf of difference was part of what made me Jewish. After our family had moved around to different places I could see that in general Jews enjoyed their food, were engaged with eating, cared about family food traditions, and connected with one another through sharing lore, knowledge, recipes, and meals, more than most of the Gentiles I met. These opinions, and many other assumptions about Jews, were significantly shaken during an extended stay in Israel, working on archaeological projects, when I was an undergraduate in 1971. As many of the essays in this symposium document, Israeli cuisine at the time was often basic and functional: lunches at one kibbutz where we 231

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stayed consisted of a boiled egg, a cucumber, a tomato, and a piece of white bread. The kibbutzniks seemed to be conceding to the overdetermined cultural meaning of food by their diligent efforts to deny its importance. In the academic world as well, the topic of food seems to have an unusual attrac­ tion for Jews (perhaps more so in the United States than in Europe). At a recent American research symposium on food, an informal survey over coffee revealed that almost three quarters of the participating professors identified themselves as Jewish. Compared to the general student body at my university, I see more Jewish students in my food studies classes, and friends report a similar phenomenon at other universi­ ties. And there is certainly a superabundance of books about Jewish food, scholarly and popular, religious and secular. So what is it about Jews and food? What do the essays in this volume reveal?

Food, Remembering, and Forgetting Judaism as a faith is more concerned with prescribing what people should not eat than in telling people what they should. Jewish people have found many ways to build cuisines within these rules. Food, if anything, expressed the incredibly diverse histor­ ical experience of Jews—both their adaptability and their resistance to change. In this, Jews and their food turn out to be quite typical of what food historians are finding about many other cultures. That is: sometimes food customs appear to be like a rock, an immovable source of continuity and strength that people cling to as a font of mem­ ory and meaning, the steel cables that hold together families and communities. Yet at other times, foodways change in the blink of an eye; old traditions are dropped and forgotten overnight. Periods of great stability seem to alternate with episodes in which food habits, tastes, and beliefs change very quickly, as new staple foods, modes of eating, and spices replace old ones—the Mintz Paradox, as it might be called.1 Not all dietary change is episodic. There are also gradual processes of merging and blending through which new elements—ingredients, cooking implements, dishes, spices, and condiments—are added to the old, sometimes replacing, and in other cases creating new combinations. In my book Home Cooking in the Global Village (2006), I provide labels such as “substitution,” “submersion,” and “wrapping” for some of these forms of gradual change in cuisine.2 In contrast, the essays in this sym­ posium, many of which focus on the role of memory, present a form of change that is more complex than a gradual shift from one state to another—more recursive, self-conscious, and self-referential. The change here is more cyclic, or perhaps “rhythmic” would be a better description, because while food in the present may be evocative of the past, it can never be a perfect replication, as it is always being pro­ duced and consumed in a new social context. No meal can be an exact repeat of the ones before it, because of the irreversibility of time; the diners will get older, the ­tablecloth accumulates stains, the vegetables you buy this year are subtly different from the ones you cooked last year. You simply cannot eat the same food twice. Nevertheless, memory constantly juxtaposes the food we are eating in the present with foods we have eaten in the past. While many authors have discussed the way this can evoke happy memories of childhood, as with Proust’s famous petit madeleine, fewer have

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taken on the issue of the more complex process through which food memory can be used to transcend painful memories, to resolve the violence of oppression and bondage through a process of deliberation, choice, and pleasure. Let me give some examples. In the United States, many have written about “soul food” as representing a survival of the kinds of cooking that were imposed on slaves by the strictures of plantation labor, where they often had to make do with low-quality and cheap ingredients. More recently, however, writers such as Doris Witt and Psyche Williams-Forson have shown how Afro-American food traditions can be seen not as mere carryovers or survivals, but as a form of resistance and reappropriation, as the descendants of slaves use their culinary traditions as a basis for careers as cooks, restaurateurs, and food vendors— thus turning the emblems of poverty into symbols of pride.3 This process of reinven­ tion is never complete, and it reflects political, geographic and class differences. Another historical example of people who transformed foods of bondage into pleasure were the 18th- and 19th-century merchant seamen about whom I have written else­ where.4 In the Age of Sail, the crews of ships often had to subsist for months at a time on tough and greasy salted meat or fish, accompanied by weevil-ridden hard biscuits, prepared in the most rudimentary ways. On long voyages their health suffered, and many thousands died of scurvy and other nutritional diseases. Contemporary narra­ tives are full of bitter complaints about the terrible quality of rations, which prompted more mutinies and rebellions than any other cause. But it was also noted that retired sailors, late in life, often missed their “salt horse” and “hard tack” and cherished the memories of youth and adventure that the flavors and textures brought back.5 This ex­ ample hints at some of the ways that the bodily experience of food can be transformed through memory, finding sweetness even from times of trial and suffering. Loyalty to the foods of poverty can also be a way of reminding both the self and the next generation of sacrifices and hardships, and the impermanence of wealth. My mother’s father, though a prosperous surgeon, ate a plain salt herring for breakfast every morning. Like many of the Jewish immigrants who achieved wealth after growing up in poverty, he enjoyed his success, but he also missed the sense of community and closeness with relatives, the busy kitchen full of simple but sustaining foods—all of which were part of his youth in a New York tenement.6 These complex motives often transform the poverty foods of one era into the beloved national dishes of another. What Irish-Americans, Newfoundlanders, and Jewish Americans today cherish as “corned beef ” is no more than the bulk salted beef that was the cheapest preserved an­ imal protein of the 16th-19th centuries. The wretched, low-quality salted cod that was once fed to slaves is now the basis for the Jamaican national dish of “ackee and salt fish.”7 Is this a victory over humiliation, a message that has crossed generations? Hagit Lavsky’s essay on feeding Jews in postwar Germany describes a very sim­ ilar process: people can form close personal and cultural attachments to the foods that remind them of pain and suffering, as well as to those that have pleasant or happy associations. There are many good reasons why people want to remind themselves of a painful past, to learn to live with it rather than try to deny it or escape from it. Rescuing pleasures from painful and traumatic experience can be a necessary and noble process, though one that mostly seems unconscious and subliminal. Esther Meir-Glitzenstein’s essay, in contrast, gives the example of an Iraqi immigrant who at first refused to eat herring, then decided to try it, and eventually grew to love it.

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This example emphasizes a key point: making connections, and developing or losing the tastes for particular foods, can be overt, conscious, and political acts. People may choose to develop tastes for particular things, to change their diet through perseverance and willful development of habits. One of the most fascinating and im­ portant aspects of food preference and taste is that it so often crosses the boundary between conscious and unconscious, decisive and habitual, intentional and inci­ dental.8 Many of the cuisines discussed by the authors in this symposium have this recursive quality to them, where the memory of food is playing an active role in the present, and represents in some way the process through which people born and raised in one culture are dealing with dislocations that involved complex mixtures of choice and compulsion. While the acts of remembrance are often visible, easy to discuss and study, acts of forgetting are much more subtle, as Ofra Tene’s essay makes abundantly clear. For some immigrant groups, it makes sense to give in to the pressure of the majority, to abandon, forget, and even suppress heritage, and to integrate rather than resist.9 But people rarely mark the process or moment of forgetting, the passing of a taste, the demotion of a favorite food, the loss of the memory of a favorite smell or evocative sound from the kitchen. These things slip away, as if forgetting was a natural process. And rather than being opposites, remembering and forgetting are often partners, working together in subtle ways at both individual and social levels. In this, Jews are similar to other peoples caught up in the massive global dislocations of the 20th cen­ tury.

Some Interesting Parallels I am not a scholar of Judaism. Instead the major topic of my studies of food has been the process of globalization, as seen through the lens of a small and peripheral coun­ try, Belize (formerly British Honduras), on the margins of the Caribbean and Latin America. My goal has been to show how a small place can be both completely unique and at the same time absolutely typical of the kinds of problems that all peoples face in their dealings with globalization, whether in the form of colonialism, imperialism, or consumer capitalism.10 This background leads me to read the essays in this symposium with a generaliz­ ing and comparative question in mind. Perhaps there is something about being a small multicultural nation in a thoroughly globalized and cosmopolitan world that gives food a special position as a mediator between the local and the global? I have suggested as much in my own work. Belize is about the same size and shape as Israel, except that it faces East on a sheltered sea rather than West, and it has a compara­ tively miniscule population of about 350,000 people. There are other parallels—its colonial master was Britain, and its independence was long delayed due to the hos­ tility of a neighboring country (Guatemala), which continues to press territorial claims to this day. The national culture is patched together from nine different ethnic groups who came mostly as refugees or, in the case of Africans, as slaves. Yucatec Maya arrived in the 1840s and 1850s, fleeing the Caste War in neigh­ boring Yucatan. Mennonites from Mexico and Canada (via Ukraine) began to settle

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Belize in the 1950s, following a long historical sequence of schisms and dislocations, always in an attempt to keep their culture and religious practices pure. All the eclectic strands of Belizean immigrants—returning indigenous Mayas, Chinese economic migrants, Garifuna Afro-Antilleans, East Indian plantation laborers, refugees from recent civil wars in nearby Hispanic Republics, and lately a flood of North American entrepreneurs and retirees—have, almost without noticing, forged a common “cre­ ole” culture with its own language (Kriol) and cuisine. At the same time, all the immigrant groups maintain a sentimental and sometimes vociferous attachment to their separate historical roots and present themselves as having distinct foods, music, dress, and dance, all of which are put on proud display at every national festival and carnival. In the meantime, their children have become Belizeans, an identity they often discover only when they migrate to the United States and find themselves lumped together with Jamaicans or Mexicans. The official narrative of the state is multiculturalism, a unified Belize forged together from diver­ sity—in reality, a defanged form of cultural diversity that is distinctly ornamental and domesticated. When ethnic groups demand rights to land, oil, or other valuable re­ sources, government cooperation and munificence comes to an abrupt halt.11 As displaced persons, almost every group in Belize shares a common story of hav­ ing an original “home,” a voyage, dislocation, trial, or passage, followed by a period of resettlement, reintegration, and adaptation. Anthropologists should recognize in this the dramatic form of a classic rite of passage, though there is also an uncanny parallel with the “hero” myth that weaves universally through world mythology and folklore, according to Joseph Campbell.12 In either situation there is an initial state of stability, a dislocation or transformation, and then a new state marked by new strengths and weaknesses. The hero that emerges (whether an individual or a group) is more powerful but also has deep flaws, and there may be many cycles of trials and rebirths. The power of this kind of narrative—repeated endlessly in popular enter­ tainment and drama—is so great that it becomes a schema, a template for under­ standing real events, and a guide to making decisions.13 If there is a reason why this story seems so universal and fundamental, I doubt that it can be found in the universal properties of the human psyche (as sought by LeviStrauss) or through neuroscience (which seems to be continually finding a new bundle of neurons responsible for any given thought or emotion). Instead, dislocating and moving people from place to place has been absolutely essential to meeting the labor needs of global capitalism as it has expanded and changed over the last five hundred years. Mercantile capitalism required mobile armies and navies, traders, factors, diplomats, and bankers. Plantation capitalism and colonialism drove millions off their land and repopulated it with imported slaves, and the commercialization of agriculture and growth of industrialism displaced hundreds of millions more. Sidney Mintz has been the scholar who, more than any other, has reminded us that food has been an intimate part of the transformations wrought by global capitalism, finding important connections between the stories of people who are culturally distinct and otherwise quite distant from one another. Food can be an instrument of power and control as well as a form of resistance and a means of seeking justice. The essays in this symposium tell parts of the same global story, from different points of view. The oppression and genocide visited on the Jewish people can be seen

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as the product of fascistic nationalism in a single country and era, but it can also be compared with other historical patterns. Indeed, scientific and vernacular racism seems to have been the ideological partner of brutal forms of colonialism in many parts of the world, from King Leopold’s Congo to Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The global expansion of European capitalism began with the violent expulsion of Moors and Jews from the Iberian peninsula in the 15th century, and was extended overseas in the murderous regime of slavery that destroyed the indigenous cultures of the Caribbean archipelago within a century of Columbus’ blundering arrival. The saga of misery and pain that accompanied the African slave trade continued for almost three centuries. Systematic starvation and the genocide of subject peoples were prac­ ticed extensively in the British Empire, beginning in Ireland during the potato fam­ ines, continuing in the Bengal famines of the 1880s, and culminating in the invention of concentration camps during the Boer Wars and the Bengal famine of 1943.14 Hundreds of millions of people, including Jews, were driven into motion and suf­ fering by these global political-economic events. Unlike many others, Jews kept alive a religious tradition that retained the memory of past repression, bondage, and dias­ pora. But Jews were not unique in using food as a central symbol and substance in rituals that maintained social memory of past oppression, forging a close connection between the general social memory of the group and the experiences of individuals and families. In many cultures, food has been the vital link that connects people across time and among one another in social groups at the levels of the household, regions, ethnic groups, and the nation.

The Narrative of Loss and Reconstruction It is important to remember that, while global processes of dislocation and transfor­ mation are all real and are connected in very specific historically verifiable ways, the specific histories people tell to account for their own roles are narratives, crafted from memories through collective and individual efforts, but always in a particular moment. Their goal is to communicate a moral lesson and express complex emo­ tions, not to record events for historians. The stories are informative, but they are not in themselves history, because their narrative structures leave out so much. Let me give an example. The Kekchi Maya people of Belize (I did my dissertation fieldwork among them in 1979 and 1980) were identified closely with a variety of the modernization narra­ tive. According to this story, they had once been peaceful and independent subsist­ ence farmers living in the rainforest. In the 1950s, the government built roads and encouraged them to grow cash crops; missionaries arrived; schools were built. In consequence, they became modern, English-speaking Belizeans with electricity and running water. In the beginning of my fieldwork, I accepted this story, but my histor­ ical research quickly revealed that the past was far more complex: the imagined pri­ mordial state of peace and independence had never existed, at least not since the Spanish conquest. In the 19th century, the Kekchi had been driven off their land and farms, becoming peasants, almost slaves, on German-owned and operated coffee plantations.15

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In a similar way, the narratives that appear in this symposium tend to portray the process of dislocation and relocation as a kind of rite of passage, where people start in one state, go through a dramatic transition, and end up in another relatively stable condition. The Ethiopian Jews discussed by Hagar Salamon remember the Ethiopia they left in a particular way, namely, as a place where they slaughtered cattle commu­ nally and distributed meat through lottery. But did they ever buy meat in a market? Did all members of the community participate in the lottery? Did this customary practice itself have a complex and perhaps disputed history? These details are lost to the narrative structure of the rite of passage. The Iraqi Jewish migrants in MeirGlitzenstein’s essay remember the date palms and the delicious smells coming from the kitchen at home, the wonderful fried crisp fish from the river—not the clouds of flies that swarmed the spot where the fish were cleaned, or the prolonged haggling with the vendors, or the rancid smell when the oil was too old. The shape of narrative tends to flatten out the details of the pre-transformative period. The key elements of reconstruction, the period in which new cuisines are reassembled after dislocation and migration, are shaped by the complex diversity of concrete memory, on the one hand, and the creativity of fusion and adaptation, on the other. The symposium is exceptionally rich in examples that show us how religion provides a central cultural backbone for the construction of meaningful connections with the past through food. While there are definitely commonalities, each of the mi­ grant groups discussed here faced different problems of memory and adaptation, depending on where they were coming from, what resources they brought with them, and what kind of country they were migrating into. Migrating to a nascent Palestine under British rule in the 1930s presented a different set of problems and opportuni­ ties from those faced by European Ashkenazim arriving in the immediate postwar period, or those of Ethiopian Jews who confronted a fully formed national culture in the 1990s. The essays portray the process of reconstruction in two distinct ways. In the first, Jews must continue to negotiate their insider/outsider status as minority “ethnic” members of a larger national culture, in Mexico (Paulette Kershenovich Schuster), the Soviet Union (Anna Shternshis), and the United States (Sander Gilman, Shaul Stampfer). There is a relevant comparative literature on other migrant communities, including the Chinese diaspora, overseas Greeks, and Bengali communities in the United States and the UK.16 This could be profitably used to compare the experiences of Jews with other migrants, looking for similarities and differences. The second di­ rection is the complex process of nation-building, and again there is a good deal of comparative material to work with, including my own on the incomplete genesis of Belizean food.17 As Liora Gvion’s essay shows, building a national cuisine is inherently problem­ atic in a culturally diverse and divided setting in which the past is contested. Typically the state normalizes and supports some cultural traditions and suppresses or margin­ alizes others, which can lead to open discussion and public debate about cultural policy, in which food is a powerful symbol that has a weight and importance in it­ self, beyond the things it stands for. It is equally possible that debate over national dishes can become anachronistic in an era in which post-Fordist production, micro­ marketing, and internet sales make it possible to be ethnic and global as a viable and

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cosmopolitan alternative to being national. Transnational capitalism of the kind envi­ sioned by Thomas L. Friedman in The World is Flat (2005) requires a mobile cosmo­ politan class that can adapt to any setting while keeping one foot in a “home base.” There is always conflict involved in constructing local, ethnic, and national cui­ sines, particularly between those who seek a return to the past by purification and eliminating the alien, and others who want to adapt, innovate, and create new hybrids. In this struggle, authenticity and tradition become important tools in a cultural poli­ tics about compromise and resistance, often involving complex differences between generations, classes, and genders. The essays in this volume include many con­ vincing examples of how food is both the medium and the symbol of conflicts over heritage and identity. Nevertheless, given this richness and the abundance of comparative material, it is curiously difficult to arrive at more precise generalizations about how food plays a role in cultural change, as both symbol and substance. In the next section, I suggest that this is a product of a failure of analytical language. To put it briefly and baldly, we are not specific about what we are comparing when we speak of food, so it is very difficult to draw useful comparisons between cases.

A More Precise Language Scholars once tried to draw a division between the physical substance of food and its cultural content and context, imagining a primordial state in which humans simply put edible substances in their mouth without thinking about them, literally “hand to mouth.” In practice, everything about our interactions with food is culturally coded, with the marginally possible exception of the initial breast-feeding of human milk. Another fundamental distinction is that between cooking as a lived practice, and food as a discursive and rhetorical object. This is the distinction Jack Goody makes between cooking and cuisine.18 Cooking is customary and unself-conscious: people eat what is normative, and make distinctions more about quantity than quality. Cuisine, in contrast, is an object of public debate and distinction in the sense of the word as used by Bourdieu; it requires the development and use of new forms of cul­ tural capital, and according to Goody it is a characteristic of class-based societies with highly productive agriculture. Cooking is deeply embedded in the daily life of any given culture. Cuisine, however, is a matter of public display, discussion, and performance. The idea that some kinds of society have cooking whereas others have cuisine does not seem to stand up well to comparative ethnography.19 In every culture, some kinds of food preparation and consumption are routine and relatively thoughtless, while others are elaborate, complex, and require expertise beyond the ordinary. Psychologists have discovered that a good deal of food consumption in class-based industrialized societies is “mindless” and unreflective, so this is hardly a quality of hoe-cultivating Africans.20 Sociologists also produce strong evidence that daily diets in developed countries are the product of norms and constraints, rather than individual choices or decisions.21 The kinds of choices offered on a daily basis in routine situations are extremely limited; just as an example, as my daughter was growing up in the 1990s,

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I surveyed hundreds of “children’s menus” in American restaurants, which mostly repeat five basic, safe dishes (fried chicken “fingers,” macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, hamburgers, and grilled cheese sandwiches). The fact that so much cooking and eating is routine and unreflective, unremarkable and rarely discussed, does not mean that people do not think and talk about food. But it is clear that there is a world of difference between the daily bowl of porridge with honey and a feast for a visiting relative where no expense is spared. In thinking about Jewish food as a whole, it would seem worthwhile to maintain this distinction, and it would help us a great deal in thinking about the relationship between restaurant meals and the food people eat at home. With regard to Nir Avieli’s essay, for instance, perhaps the taste for size and abundance only applies to the special setting of the cui­ sine of restaurant food? Eating out and eating at home do not necessarily follow the same rules; I suspect that in many ways they are opposites. A closely related distinction is that between food practices that are embodied, di­ rectly experienced with the senses, and those that are expressed in discourse, visual display, and the kinds of sensory stimulation we often cultivate in connoisseurship. Food scientists have long known that in each culture people have completely uncon­ scious predispositions for foods with a particular texture and “mouth-feel,” culturally conditioned palates that interpret some combinations as harmonious and others as jarring and unpleasant, or even disgusting. Just the act of watching someone eat something unusual or culturally “inedible,” such as insects or jellyfish, can make people physically ill. Without being aware of it, we have completely absorbed a cul­ tural sensorium. This argument has been extended into the social world in practice-theory approaches that concentrate on the ways that the separate activities of shopping, preparation, consumption, and disposal are bound together into patterned “practices.” These prac­ tices are embodied through ritualized activities such as brushing teeth, walking the dog, or drinking a cup of tea—a collection of tasks and projects held together by unvoiced understandings. Going out for a Chinese dinner on the weekend or partici­ pating in a Sunday morning brunch, for example, may be defined as patterned prac­ tices.22 As opposed to these examples, there may be few rules for the conduct of lunch in a faculty lounge, and eating there may not even be recognized as a specific meal; consequently, it may not qualify as a patterned practice. In contrast to the notion that food practices are mostly habits and routines, a number of scholars and popular media focus on the constant quest for novelty and fashion in food consumption. In many countries the rising middle class is engaged in a seem­ ingly endless search for the newest food trends and fads, getting to know the farmer whose olives were crushed for your oil, talking at parties about chefs and restaurants, reading cookbooks and food writing, and watching televised food programs. We still lack sustained ethnographic work on such “foodies,” but there is no reason why the quest for novelty cannot exist alongside heavily routinized practices and cul­ turally embedded bodily routines.23 In reality, the discursive and embodied qualities of food often have a close relationship with each other. The Jewish food activists described by Andrea Most, for example, first discuss and debate food as part of a po­ litical and philosophical effort to think about how they want to build a lifestyle in relationship to work and consumption. They screen different foods for their political

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and environmental meaning before actually trying them out with their mouths, noses, and bellies. Foods that may be discursively “hot” may end up gradually becoming more familiar and routinized; we may even teach ourselves to like certain foods, or learn to feel disgusted by foods that might otherwise taste good, on ethical or aes­ thetic grounds. Foodies in the United States are currently learning to like new kinds of fermented foods such as kombucha, and Sandor Katz reports on others who are experimenting with fermented meat.24 Food engages both our conscious mind and our culturally patterned senses, and indeed we respond to food with our whole bod­ ies, so that our response to food includes how we digest it, and how it affects or even causes medical symptoms.25 It may seem that “food” is itself a self-evident and objective category, certainly capable of supporting comparison across cultures and over time. Yet the boundaries are consistently problematic; shading into medicine and tonic along one dimension, and dissolving through stews into soups and beverages to water in another. When archaeologists write about food, they often mean the sources of staples, plants, ani­ mals, and raw ingredients: how many mammoths a year? A food sociologist, in con­ trast, can study food by observing hundreds of meals, watching carefully who serves whom and how dishes are passed from hand to hand, while monitoring conversations and paying absolutely no attention to what is actually eaten or how it tastes. Both are studies of “food,” yet they have as little in common as a butcher and a worker in a sewage treatment plant. Part of the problem I am presenting here is historical, exposing the arbitrariness of the way academic disciplinary cultures have claimed portions of the world as their territory. Another aspect of the problem is metaphysical and philosophical, dealing with essences and the question of whether humans make order in the world, or dis­ cover and order what already exists. But a large part is simply a lack of definition and a kind of lexical sloppiness that has produced a flowering of creative scholarship that fails to build any larger structure of knowledge, find any regularities or structural similarities, or even note contradictions and totally opposed findings. In reading this symposium, I found that the topics and arguments were much eas­ ier to compare and connect with one another when I used a more precise lexicon for what the authors meant when they referred to food, foodstuffs, diet, cooking, and a number of other food-related terms. It was also important to distinguish between references to food as a physical substance as opposed to social and cultural acts and meanings that surround and involve food, such as dining out, cooking, and remem­ bering. For the sake of clarity I present a basic set of terms below, elaborating on sugges­ tions that appear in an article I co-authored:26 1. Foodstuffs are raw or processed ingredients, some of which can be eaten di­ rectly without preparation (for instance, fresh fruit). Foodstuffs become ingre­ dients when they are prepared, processed, manipulated and/or combined with other substances, through cooking. 2. Dishes are foodstuffs or ingredients transformed through specific procedures, usually named. Some are common and widely recognized, others unique; they may be formalized through recipes.

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3. Meals are specific culturally recognized eating events, often combining particu­ lar dishes with social rules and a “grammar” that prescribes an order of presen­ tation and various rules of combination and separation.27 4. Cuisine is a combination of foodstuffs, dishes, and meals that characterize a particular group of people, location, period, or corporate entity. A cuisine may be named and recognized, or it may be deeply embedded in daily routines and practices while at the same time unrecognized and inchoate. There may be jus­ tification for using the analytical term foodway when the distinction of a cuisine is apparent to the social scientist, but not to those who are embedded in the culture. “Cuisine” would then be reserved only for cases in which the foodway has been recognized and named, becoming a discursive object as well as some­ thing that can be observed. 5. Diet is an abstraction for the total of what an individual or group of consumers eat over a specified period. It is most often applied to a total of ingredients and foodstuffs, rather than to modes of preparation or serving. Diet relates to meals in the same way that climate relates to specific weather events. (Thus, we may regard the terminology found in items 1–4 above as levels of analysis of the diet as a whole.) The elements in this hierarchy are not tied together in the same ways at each level. Foodstuffs become dishes through processing, preparation, and cooking. Other ingre­ dients may be required—equipment, fuel, and non-food ingredients such as minerals (salt) and water—and preparation usually requires labor, knowledge, and skills. But meals are made through the application of other kinds of knowledge and labor, and tend to be more socially prescribed. Their key qualities are the participants (a daily “family meal” is actually quite rare among human cultures), timing during the day and in the calendar, and the order and sequence of dishes. A cuisine, for its part, can have both emic and etic manifestations; it may be recognized only by outsiders through contrast with other groups, or it can become widely recognized and appreciated by the members of a society, or some sub-group or class within that society as a repre­ sentation of a particular place, group, or time. Some societies recognize several cuisines, characteristic of particular regions, ethnic groups, religions, seasons, occupations, or class fragments. A national or ethnic cuisine is a further abstraction that bears an even more tenuous relationship to the actual diet. As Livia Barbosa and I found when collecting recipes for rice-and-beans dishes from around the Americas, in some coun­ tries the national dish is actually eaten by the majority of the population for two or even three meals a day, while in other countries, equally passionate about their national dish, it is actually eaten by a minority perhaps once a week.28

Advancing the Analysis of Jewish Food If we begin to separate the levels within the concept of “Jewish food,” we can speak more accurately about the ways in which an ethnic or national cuisine is shaped by different, and sometimes contradictory, processes. Several of the essays here, for ex­ ample, those of Orit Rozin and Hagit Lavsky, discuss the tensions that occur when

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the foodstuffs and ingredients essential to a cuisine are no longer available, or have become prohibitively expensive. In these situations, people have to learn to develop new dishes that incorporate unaccustomed ingredients, using an existing grammar of flavor and texture combinations and familiar cooking techniques to produce dishes that fit into acceptable meals. Other essays are concerned instead with a full-fledged collision between two different cuisines, each with its own foodstuffs, dishes, and modes of serving. In these instances, older people prove much less flexible than youth. A lifelong habituation to cold borscht with sour cream before the main course leaves the diner feeling unfilled and unhappy when confronted with a plate of hummus and olives. Young people, in contrast, are more apt to experiment with new combina­ tions of ingredients and dishes and are willing to try meals that seem disordered, “ungrammatical,” or even disgusting to their elders. Notwithstanding, young people can find it difficult to combat the conditioning effects of childhood food routines, even those they have learned to hate. Another point that emerges when we use a common lexicon is that nostalgia and memories are not usually attached to an entire cuisine, but rather to emblematic and meaningful dishes or particular ingredients. A good example is the way that corned beef, bagels, and smoked fish (the latter two discussed by Shaul Stampfer) have come to substitute for the entire cuisine developed by European Jewish immigrants in New York and other major cities. Many of the dishes that were quite essential to that cui­ sine—salted herring, heavy dumplings, knishes, kasha, stuffed cabbage, and thick soups—were deeply associated with poverty, and as individuals and families found their ways into the middle class they stopped eating many of them, or relegated them to special occasions. Part of the problem of what Andrew Heinze calls “adapting to abundance” was coping with the ambiguity of a culture both deeply loved and at the same time identified with poverty and oppression.29 Keeping the structure of meals while making use of innovative dishes, substituting expensive ingredients for cheap ones, and promoting special holiday dishes to the status of daily fare: all are common strategies for upwardly mobile people who want to sanitize their cultural connections with the past. Substituting dishes for a cuisine is very much like the literary trope of synecdoche, where one small part stands for the whole. It is very common for food to be used as a way to stereotype a nation or ethnic group, as when the English call the French “Frogs,” and the French call the English “Les Rosbifs.”30 In a similar way, Proust’s famous madeleines were the dish that unlocked an entire world of memories and con­ nections with people and places. Subtle color, small changes in light, or the smell of particular ingredients may become the focus of nostalgia for an entire era or place; C. Nadia Seremetakis has a wonderfully evocative essay about the role that horta (wild greens) play in Greek cuisine, and how gathering, sorting, washing, and cooking the plants activated all the senses, not just vision and taste, to produce an ineffable experience connecting people and cuisine.31 Here, rather than merely stand­ ing for the whole, the small part is the very connection that binds people and cuisine into one cultural entity. Another advantage of separating out meals from other levels of analysis is clearly exposed in Lavsky’s essay on the diets of Jews living in DP camps in the aftermath of the Second World War. The lack of adequate quantities of food was one issue,

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closely connected to the mostly unfamiliar, non-kosher, or unsavory ingredients pro­ vided. Yet eating meals cooked by others in a large anonymous room was an equally important issue. Cooking and serving your own food creates a circle of domesticity, and sharing meals is a kind of commensality that may be more important in recon­ structing a shattered culture than the actual dishes served at the table. Clever cooks can turn unfamiliar ingredients into dishes that evoke memory—which can serve as adequate impostors given adverse circumstance—but no amount of culinary artifice can change the atmosphere of a mass food service. Taking away the commensality of a shared meal by feeding people a uniform ra­ tion in a large noisy room has subtle effects. These apply not only to oppressive situ­ ations such as meals in prisons and detention camps, but also to ceremonial dinners, meals in military mess halls, school cafeterias, kibbutz dining rooms, factory can­ teens, and feasts at weddings, funerals, and other life-cycle events. Archaeologists have recently begun to trace the history and prehistory of feasting and communal dining, which goes back at least to the Middle Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean, and which may actually be an older and more primordial form of gathering, given the role that fire and cooking may have played in the early evolution of our species.32 Israel itself is therefore close to the historic hearth of human commensality. The pal­ aces and temples of early states were often used for storing equipment and ingredi­ ents for massive public feasts and sacrifices that may have involved the entire populace, demonstrating as well as symbolizing the material and spiritual connec­ tions between people, leaders, and supernatural powers.33 If large feasts and institutional meals can make even the most familiar foods seem anonymous or alienating, the essays in this symposium implicitly and explicitly show that the reverse situation is also common. A familiar and comforting setting for a meal, the rituals of the table, the rules of precedence, the order of dishes, and even the right tableware, bowls, plates, forks, and other implements—having all of these can make it almost irrelevant whether the food itself is unpalatable, inadequate, or alien. Observing the familiar order of the laws of kashrut, the ritual of the Sabbath dinner, the seder and other shared festive meals, maintains a clear sense of continuity whatever the location and the ingredients. Creative cooks substitute ingredients in ways that create dishes that can imitate or stand in for those specified by religious tradition. These examples show how the meal specifically as a social event, rather than food itself, is a complex institution worthy of more study, particularly in regard to its crucial role in maintaining the domestic as opposed to written traditions of Judaism. If we keep better track of the different levels of analysis, we can also gain insight into the puzzle that I posed at the beginning of this essay, namely, how is it that cui­ sines sometimes seem so resistant to change, and at other times seem so malleable and fickle? Nir Avieli’s discussion of the fate of Spanish tapas in Israel provides a fascinating case study in resistance and change. As I read his argument, it was not the ingredients, the flavors, or the content of the dishes themselves that proved an ob­ stacle to Israeli acceptance of tapas. Instead, diners objected to the more fundamental disruption of the order and definition of the meal. They did not want a dinner com­ posed of many small individual dishes. They might have been happy with a kind of sampler plate with a little bit of everything—a familiar “mezze” style of antipasto

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quite common in Mediterranean cuisines. But the mezze is followed by a substantial main course, which was not forthcoming in the tapas bar. We may abstract from this case study a more general proposition, anticipated by Mary Douglas in her essay on “deciphering a meal,” that—other things being equal—meal structure is one of the most conservative and resistant parts of a cuisine.34 We might even tentatively advance a broader proposition for the way in which diets and foodways change over time. Rapid change at one level of the foodway (foodstuffs, dishes, meals) is always accompanied by rigid stability at another level. By this I mean, for example, that North Americans are willing to accept a new cate­ gory of dish such as sushi and new ingredients such as sea urchin roe into their diet, but these must be made to fit into the fixed grammar of a North American restaurant meal: that is, one starts off with a drink order, followed by an order of soup, salad, or appetizer, then a main course (a platter with the sushi or sashimi selections, in this case) followed by some sort of sweet, if only a piece of candy with the bill. This is far from the way in which sushi is eaten in Japan, where it originally developed as a casual snack for gamblers. Using the same proposition that stability at one level may compensate for fluidity at another, I would argue that when we see a major change in the structure of meals, their order, structure, and timing, we should expect that people will work very hard to stabilize ingredients and dishes. In the case of Brazilian immigrants to the United States, for example, the work schedule may necessitate doing without a large family lunch in the middle of the day, a cherished meal. At the same time, Brazilian immi­ grants are noteworthy for their determination to maintain a basic Brazilian cuisine. Whereas in Brazil the cuisine is regionally divided, rich, and extremely eclectic, in the United States, migrants tend toward a more rigid definition of the national cui­ sine, one that is heavily weighted toward common-denominator staple foods such as cassava flour (farina), black beans, and rice. Wherever Brazilians congregate in the United States, they find ways to import their favorite staples in order to maintain the cuisine, despite forced changes in the structure of meals. While this seems to be a common pattern in migrant communities, there is also enough variation to suggest that there are more dynamics to be discovered.35 Cuisines themselves are representational, discursive constructs, based on general­ izations over varying periods of times. In this they are like the abstraction of “cli­ mate,” which is a statistical construction based on the actual phenomenon of weather over a specified area and timespan. Because of this abstraction, cuisine is always in play, subject to debate and dispute. People are constantly advancing their own agen­ das in defining cuisine, often as a way of creating and maintaining social boundaries: defining a people or a nation in space and history. Culinary nationalisms and local­ isms are continually contending with cosmopolitism and the allure of the exotic, in a field of dispute that seems permanently unstable.36 Where dishes are physical objects with sensory qualities, meals are social events, and cuisines are cultural constructs. Why should we lump them all together as part of the same analysis? Distinguishing between levels of analysis can help us understand how national, ethnic, or regional cuisines can appear to be constant while they continually absorb new ingredients and dishes. Elsewhere I have suggested that new foodstuffs and dishes can enter a community through a variety of pathways, generally starting at the

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top of the class hierarchy and moving downwards (as with Mintz’s example of sugar in Britain) or entering through youth or street cultures and then becoming more broadly popular, the general path of fast food.37 In contemporary North American food culture, the educated middle class seems to have become the major innovators.38 Media personalities, chefs, and even politicians may endorse a given item or reject it; magazines, popular dieticians, and the wellness industry take positions on its positive or negative effects on health or appearance. Small businesses thrive on new tastes but then stumble as they try to expand, and the really successful businesses are eventu­ ally bought up by major food processing multinationals. Food becomes part of broader fashion cycles, and manufacturers present an endless number of new options on the shelves of ever-larger supermarkets and hypermarkets. Restaurants and food fashions come and go, so that in the long run, the food marketplace acts as a kind of selective arena in a Darwinian struggle for continuing culinary survival. These highly visible, public, and even political aspects of cuisine can easily dis­ tract us from the fact that everything ultimately depends on those who produce food­ stuffs. The contributions by Shternshis, Lavsky, and Rozin remind us of times when food supplies were limited, whereas the essays by Meir-Glitzenstein, Schuster, and Salamon take us into the settings in which cooks struggle with unfamiliar foodstuffs and engage in the kind of improvisational dance that always characterizes the kitchen. Northern Europeans knew about edible roots such as turnips and rutabagas, so that when the potato came along—once they were convinced it was not poi­ sonous—they knew what to do with it. Tomatoes were a much greater problem, and it should be no surprise that they were incorporated through the process I have called “submersion” in which they were used in sauces and gravies; chopped up and cooked, they could appear at first as a seasoning, and only later as a dominant flavor in themselves. New ingredients can also be incorporated into old established dishes through wrapping and folding, by which means they are hidden out of sight, covered in crust, rolled in sheets of dough, pushed into an edible leaf, or stuffed into the in­ terior of an animal.

Reaching for Some Conclusions In March 2012, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Communist island nation of Cuba and had an extended meeting with Fidel Castro that was widely reported to be friendly and cordial. The two octogenarians were apparently able to converse in such broad terms, using such disparate language and examples, that they never actually had to argue. I believe that contemporary studies of food are in a similar situation, as illus­ trated by the studies in this symposium and equally well by other recent anthologies on food. The essays here are kaleidoscopic rather than comprehensive, in that they show us parts of the intricate and fascinating stories of how Jewish lives have intersected with their experiences of food and eating. The diversity and historical scope of this group of essays serves to provide a clear sense of the central topic of the symposium as I frame it above—what is special about the relationship between Jews and food? The answers are particular, various, deeply historical, and intimately connected to the

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processes of settlement, diaspora, and resettlement that have been part of the Jewish experience. As I suggest, while Jewish history has been unique, especially when it comes to understanding foodways and cuisine, we could benefit from careful com­ parisons with the experiences of other peoples who have been driven into diaspora and resettlement—sometimes many times—under economic pressure, political op­ pression, and religious persecution. Because food studies are in such a pre-paradigmatic state, the authors of these essays lack a common lexicon, a corpus of established comparative examples, and basic theoretical propositions. They do not agree on what they mean when they dis­ cuss so basic a concept as “food.” Each author approaches the given topic from a particular disciplinary tradition, making use of diverse methodologies, modes of anal­ ysis, and standards for evaluating evidence. This makes it very hard for the authors to engage with one another even at the level attained by Benedict XVI and Castro. This is hardly a failure of scholarship, and is no reflection on the authors’ high level of skill in their areas of research and writing. Instead it mirrors the way in which the topic of food has been neglected, marginalized, and butchered into little pieces, most bits claimed unsystematically by different academic fields.39 The contributions to this symposium nevertheless present fertile ground for the next stage in the development of food studies. At this point, rather than more exam­ ples and case studies, we need to build mid-range interpretive theoretical tools on the order of the terminology and propositions I have developed above. Certainly this rich and complex imagined object, Jewish food, has the potential to energize a continuing conversation among scholars and diners for many years to come.

Notes 1. Sidney Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Power, and the Past (Boston: 1997). 2. These terms will later be discussed. 3. Psyche A. Williams-Forson, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (Chapel Hill: 2006); Doris Witt, Black Hunger: Food and the Politics of U.S. Identity (New York: 1999). See also Robert Dirks (“What Early Dietary Studies of African Americans Tell Us about Soul Foods,” Repast 26, no. 2 [2010], 8–18), who shows how recent an invention “soul food” traditions really are. 4. Richard Wilk, “Poverty and Excess in Binge Economies,” Economic Anthropology 1, no. 1 (January 2014), 66–79. 5. Margaret S. Creighton, Dogwatch and Liberty Days: Seafaring Life in the Nineteenth Century (Salem: 1982). 6. Andrew R. Heinze, Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption, and the Search for American Identity (New York: 1990). 7. Ackee (Blighia sapida) is a tree fruit from West Africa that, when ripe and cooked, has the consistency of scrambled egg. 8. Richard Wilk, “The Edge of Agency: Routines, Habits and Volition,” in Time, Consumption and Everyday Life: Practice, Materiality and Culture, ed. Elizabeth Shove, Frank Trentmann, and Richard Wilk (Oxford: 2009), 143–156. 9. This was certainly the fate of many 19th-century immigrant groups (and their cuisines) in the United States, particularly in the face of strong pressure from the state and educational systems, not to mention the popular panic aroused by the immigrants and the consequent waves of violence against them, especially before and after the First World War. See Harvey

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Levenstein, Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet (Oakland: 2003). Also see Galia Sabar and Rachel Posner, “Remembering the Past and Constructing the Future over a Communal Plate,” Food, Culture and Society 16, no. 2 (June 2013), 197–222. 10. My approach divides globalization into phases; a finer set of divisions is used by Rafi Grosglik and Uri Ram to describe the history of the globalization of Chinese food in Israel; see their “Authentic, Speedy and Hybrid,” Food, Culture and Society 16, no. 2 (June 2013), 223–243. 11. For a general history of Belize, see Ann Sutherland, The Making of Belize: Globalization in the Margins (Westport: 1998); on its ethnicity, see Laurie Kroshus Medina, Negotiating Economic Development: Identity Formation and Collective Action in Belize (Tucson: 2004); Mark Moberg, Myths of Ethnicity & Nation: Immigration, Work and Identity in the Belize Banana Industry (Knoxville: 1997). 12. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: 1949). 13. Dorothy Holland and Naomi Quinn (eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought (Cambridge: 1987). 14. Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (London: 2001). 15. Richard Wilk, “The Search for Tradition in Southern Belize: A Personal Narrative,” America Indigena 47, no. 2 (January-March 1987), 77–95; idem, Household Ecology: Economic Change and Domestic Life among the Kekchi Maya of Belize (DeKalb: 1997). 16. See David Y.H. Wu and Sidney C.H. Cheung (eds.), The Globalization of Chinese Food (Honolulu: 2002); Manpreet Janeja, Transactions in Taste: The Collaborative Lives of Everyday Bengali Food (New Delhi: 2009); Krishnendu Ray and Tulasi Srinivas (eds.) Curried Cultures: Globalization, Food, and South Asia (Berkeley: 2012); David E. Sutton, Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory (Oxford: 2001). 17. Warren Belasco and Philip Scranton (eds.), Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies (New York: 2001). 18. Jack Goody, Cooking, Cuisine, and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology (Cambridge: 1982). 19. See, for example, Steven Sangren, “Dialectics in Comparative Sociology: Reflections on Jack Goody’s Cooking, Cuisine, and Class,” Food and Foodways 3, no. 3 (1989), 197–202; also see Joachim Theis, “Changing Patterns of Food Consumption in Central Kordofan, Sudan,” in Changing Food Habits: Case Studies from Africa, South America and Europe, ed. Carola Lentz (Abingdon: 1999), 91–110; Gerd Spittler, “In Praise of the Simple Meal: African and European Food Culture Compared,” in ibid., 27–42. 20. Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (New York: 2010). 21. Alan Warde and Lydia Martens, “A Sociological Approach to Food Choice: The Case of Eating Out,” in “The Nation’s Diet”: The Social Science of Food Choice, ed. Anne Murcott (London: 1998). 22. Bente Halkier, Consumption Challenged: Food in Medialised Everyday Lives (Burlington: 2010); Elizabeth Shove, Mika Pantzar, and Matt Watson, The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and How It Changes (London: 2012); see also a special issue of the Journal of Consumer Culture on practice theory (vol. 11, no. 1), ed. Alan Warde and Bente Halkier (March 2011). 23. Fabio Parasecoli, Bite Me: Food in Popular Culture (Oxford: 2008); Josée Johnston and Shyon Baumann, Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape (New York: 2009). 24. Sandor Ellix Katz, The Revolution Will Not be Microwaved: Inside America’s Under­ ground Food Movements (White River Junction, Vt.: 2006). 25. The intersection of food and digestion has recently been discussed by several histori­ ans, and it would appear to be a subject worth pursuing ethnographically. 26. Leigh Bush, Adrianne Bryant, and Richard Wilk, “The History of Globalization and the Food Supply,” in The Handbook of Food Research, ed. Anne Murcott, Peter Jackson, and Warren Belasco (London: 2013). We do not explicitly use Mary Douglas’ or Michael Halliday’s terminologies, which had a much more restricted purpose of defining the structured substitutability

248Richard Wilk of the components of meals—in other words, which dishes can stand in for others in the same category. So we can think, for example, of a snack as having two alternate menus, either sweet plus hot drink or salty plus beer. The menu tells us that the salty category for American college students can include pretzels, potato chips, or nuts, but excludes anything wet or any animal products such as dried shrimp. See Michael Halliday, “Categories of the Theory of Grammar,” World, Journal of the Linguistic Circle of New York 17 (1963), 241–291. 27. Mary Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” in Myth, Symbol and Culture, ed. Clifford Geertz (New York: 1971), 61–82. 28. Richard Wilk and Livia Barbosa (eds.), Rice and Beans: A Unique Dish in a Hundred Places (London: 2012). 29. Heinze, Adapting to Abundance. 30. Ben Rogers, Beef and Liberty: Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Patriots (New York: 2004). 31. C. Nadia Seremetakis, “The Memory of the Senses (part 1): Marks of the Transitory,” in The Senses Still, ed. by C. Nadia Seremetakis (Boulder: 1994), 1–19. 32. Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (New York: 2010). 33. Martin Jones, Feast: Why Humans Share Food (Oxford: 2008); Julie Hruby, “Feasting and Ceramics: A View From the Palace of Nestor at Pylos” (Ph.D. diss., University of Cincinnati, 2006), online at etd.ohiolink.edu/ap/6?102216003166067:P0_SEARCH:NO: (accessed 1 July 2014). 34. Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal.” 35. See, in particular, Janeja, Transactions in Taste; Krishnendu Ray, The Migrant’s Table: Meals and Memories in Bengali-American Households (Philadelphia: 2004). 36. The literature on these issues is discussed in Richard Wilk, “Completely Unique but Appealing to Everyone: Managing Difference on the Globalized Menu of National and Ethnic Foods,” in The Globalization of Food, ed. David Inglis and Debra Gimlin (Oxford: 2009), 185–196. 37. Richard Wilk, “Loving People, Hating What They Eat: Marginal Foods and Social Boundaries,” in Reimagining Marginalized Foods: Global Processes, Local Places, ed. Elizabeth Finnis (Tuscon: 2012), 15–33. 38. Johnston and Baumann, Foodies. 39. I discuss topical butchery at greater length in “The Limits of Discipline: Towards Interdisciplinary Food Studies,” Physiology and Behavior 107, no. 4 (November 2012), online at sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938412001825 (accessed 1 July 2014). Others have recently addressed the lack of core concepts in food studies—see, for example, Warren Belasco, Food: The Key Concepts (Oxford: 2008); Andy Smith, Jeffrey M. Pilcher, and Darra Goldstein, “Food Scholarship and Food Writing,” Food, Culture and Society 13, no. 3 (September 2010), 319–329.

Review Essays

Exploring the Universe of Camps and Ghettos: Classifications and Interpretations of the Nazi Topography of Terror

Geoffrey P. Megargee (ed.), The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, vol. 1, Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business and Administration Main Office (WVHA). Bloomington: Indiana University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009. 1,796 pp. Dan Michman, The Emergence of Jewish Ghettos during the Holocaust, trans. Lenn J. Schramm. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 191 pp. Guy Miron and Shlomit Shulhani (eds.), The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust, 2 vols. + DVD. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009. 1,166 pp. On March 3, 2013, the New York Times featured an article on the large-scale research project conducted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), a multi-volume Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos that would document all sites of detention, forced labor, and murder set up in Nazi-controlled Europe between 1933 and 1945. In a preview of its findings, the research team led by Geoffrey P. Megargee announced that it had cataloged 42,500 camps and ghettos, in which an estimated 15 to 20 million people were imprisoned. These staggering figures reportedly stunned even senior historians of Nazi terror; according to the article, “the project was changing the understanding among Holocaust scholars of how the camps and ghettos evolved.” To emphasize the high news value of the story, the paper published it under the sensational but somewhat absurd headline: “The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking.”1 The New York Times feature was soon picked up by other international media. In Germany, where research on the Nazi concentration camps pioneered and where it has increased exponentially during the last decades, prominent scholars expressed their reservations. In fact, they were surprised more by the media hype and the press’ fascination for superlatives than by the actual results. Ulrich Herbert, co-editor of an influential anthology on the history, development, and organization of the concentration camp system,2 confirmed the high number of camps and ghettos reported by his American colleagues but also stressed that the mere counting and cataloguing of Nazi sites of detention would not enhance understanding of the Holocaust, the murder of the Jews of Europe. According to Herbert, most of the locations included in the 251

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USHMM encyclopedia—in fact, more than 35,000—were camps for non-­Jewish foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war. As their fate was essentially different from that of the Jews in that they had greater chances of surviving their imprisonment, the popular perception of the numbers as leading to a new understanding of the Holocaust “misses the point completely.” Although the USHMM’s calculation attests to the gigantic scale of the Nazi policy of persecution, the various processes in which it had manifested itself—expulsion, forced labor, systematic mass murder, starvation, and ethnic cleansing—could not simply be subsumed under the term “Holocaust.”3 Wolfgang Benz, the leading authority on the study of concentration camps in Germany, expressed his irritation with the designation “encyclopedia” for the USHMM’s compilation. For his own very similar project, the nine-volume Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, he carefully avoided the term.4 In light of the significant gaps that still exist in the research of the Nazi topography of terror, the seminal work that he co-edited with the former director of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, Barbara Distel, could at best be called a “summary or documentation of what we know today.” An encyclopedia, in contrast, “claims to give its reader, in a concise form, all the important information on a certain topic.” With historical knowledge still incomplete, the term was thus misleading.5 The debate surrounding the New York Times story not only strikingly affirmed the differences in academic cultures and the incontestably better skills of the Americans in marketing their research and bringing it to wider public attention, but also brought to the fore two fundamental issues that shall be addressed in this review of two encyclopedic works and one monograph study. The first touches upon the balance of empirical and analytical methods in the process of gaining historical knowledge. While classifying, quantifying, and delimiting the universe of camps and ghettos is necessary for basic research, a true understanding of the Nazi topography of terror demands the interpretation and conceptualization of this “raw material.” In other words, the wealth of assembled empirical information documenting, one by one, the existence of a great number of individual detention sites needs to be embedded within a broader systematic context that accounts both for the policies and practices of Nazi persecution and the underlying cultural/intellectual discourse. Second, the prominence of the term “Holocaust” in the titles of the works under review invites reflection on two different trends in the research of Nazi camps and ghettos. On the one hand, there are scholars who focus exclusively on those sites of detention that played a role in the persecution and annihilation of the European Jews. On the other hand, the analytical framework of the so-called “coercion camps” (Zwangslager), applied by other scholars, emphasizes the institutional breadth and structural diversity of the camp universe with its different groups of victims. This approach, which has recently gained currency, looks at a broad variety of sites of detention and allows for an understanding of the similarities and differences among them.6 A first attempt to classify these coer­ cion camps was undertaken in 1990 by Gudrun Schwarz. The resulting Die natio­ nalsozialistischen Lager established 17 different categories of camps—among them concentration camps, ghettos, extermination centers, POW camps, forced labor camps, work reeducation camps, camps for Sinti and Roma, youth camps, and police custody camps—and can thus be regarded as the precursor of all later encyclopedias.7

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The first volume of the USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos encompasses the youth camps (for teenagers who had become noticed for their deviant behavior) in Lodz, Moringen, and Uckermark (the latter two located in Germany), 110 early camps of the prewar years, and 23 main concentration camp complexes organized under the SS Inspectorate of Concentration Camps (IKL), from 1942 Office Group D in the newly established SS Business and Administration Main Office (WVHA). The last section, which constitutes the bulk of the volume, includes concentration camps that have become symbolic and deeply anchored in public consciousness, such as Auschwitz and Buchenwald. It also presents lesser-known sites such as Wewelsburg along with descriptions of the SS Baubrigaden and SS Eisenbahn­ baubrigaden, which were deployed from 1942 to clear rubble in German cities targeted by Allied aerial bombing. Each of the three main sections—youth camps, early camps, and SS concentration camps—is introduced by a brief but informed overview essay, which gives the reader the necessary context to place individual detention sites in the complex whole of the system of the Nazi concentration camps. Entries are arranged alphabetically within each section. The segment on the SS concentration camps contains one further subdivision: after the general introduction, subsections follow for each of the main concentration camps, and within each of these there are essays on that camp’s sub-camps, again in alphabetical order. In total, the volume introduces close to 900 sub-camp sites. A very useful index of places and names, as well as organizations and enterprises, helps to refer readers straight to the information they are seeking. The editorial team of the USHMM encyclopedia was well advised to rely on the work of more than 200 external researchers, many of whom have contributed as well to the series compiled by Benz and Distel. Entries pertaining to the sub-camps are of more or less the same length and structure in both reference works, whereas the articles on the main camps point to a major difference between this volume and Der Ort des Terrors. In the German compilation, these articles run from 30 to 60 pages and are designed as detailed histories of the individual sites, complete with a historiographic presentation of the current state of research. In contrast, the respective entries in the USHMM encyclopedia cover 5 to 6 pages on average. This concise form is by no means a disadvantage, as it enables the reader to quickly find important information and basic facts about a main camp. On the whole, the entries succeed in presenting a wealth of empirical information with clarity, style, and sensitivity: not an easy task, given the limited space. Many authors use survivor testimonies and bio­ graphical case studies to add a more personal note to what would otherwise have been a rather monotonous assembly of facts and figures. With their stories thus present in the narrative, the USHMM encyclopedia fulfills its avowed goal of commemorating and honoring the victims of the concentration camp cosmos. Motivated by the declared purpose to encourage further studies, each entry lists key documents as well as published and archival sources on the site in question—a very welcome and helpful service for the academic user, which is lacking in the German equivalent. The presentation also benefits from the inclusion of maps, photographs, and pictures from the museum’s large collection. The emergence of encyclopedias on the camps and ghettos not only attests to the institutionalization of what has proven to be one of the most vibrant fields of research

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in Nazi history. With this field becoming increasingly specialized and with sources scattered over many countries, such reference works also seem to be a natural solution for holding the masses of information together and for making them available to a more general readership. However, when preparing historical knowledge for presen­ tation in an encyclopedia, the greatest challenge is undoubtedly that of dealing with issues that arouse controversy among experts. Doing justice to ongoing scholarly debates and, at the same time, confidently setting a normative structure within which to organize information is a task that calls to mind the squaring of a circle. In concentration camp historiography, the central arguments revolve around the questions of periodization and classification. Historians discuss, sometimes heatedly, those points in the development of the camps that signify quantitative or qualitative changes; that is, if and from when one can talk about a “system” of concentration camps. Second, historians contest precisely which locations from the bewildering array of persecution sites one can, in the strictest sense, classify as “concentration camps.” The question whether the so-called “early camps” were indeed, “fundamentally different from those that were established after 1936” (p. 183) seems to be a particularly burning issue.8 The editorial team has been aware of these challenges; while acknowledging that their decision to group early and later camps into two different sections “was, by necessity, a somewhat subjective one” (p. xxxvi), their approach follows Karin Orth’s 1999 organizational-institutional study, Das System der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager.9 In this still-to-be-translated standard work, Orth urges a strict differentiation between SS concentration camps and early camps. In an overview article for the Encyclopedia, Orth presents this argument anew and, when referring to the period before 1936, states that “for this phase the term concentration camp has to be discarded. The more appropriate term . . . is the term early camp” (p. 183). Objections or modifications to this narrow typology have been made by scholars who, in the decade after the publication of Orth’s study, extensively researched the prewar period of the history of the concentration camps. In light of their findings, which attributed great significance to distinct prewar camps, Orth’s definition and, accordingly, the USHMM encyclopedia’s set-up can be challenged.10 Especially problematic are the transition cases of Esterwegen (closed in 1936), Sachsenburg (closed in 1937), and Lichtenburg (closed in 1937–1939)—camps that, although eventually made subordinate under the SS Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, are not counted among the SS concentration camps, but are rather grouped in the section of the “early camps.” Dachau, in contrast, although operating from March 1933 onwards, is not to be found in this section. A form of presentation that moves away from a justifiable, but sometimes too monolithic typology to capture the dynamic of development should be considered as a serious alternative. To some extent, the chronological approach chosen by Benz and Distel, which presents Dachau together with other early camps, seems to be more appropriate. However, the excellent essay of Joseph Robert White that introduces the section on the early camps seems to reconcile the tension. Here, continuities between both phases are stressed by highlighting how “certain features of the early camps persisted under the IKL, in the process paving the way for more destructive policies” (p. 11). From White’s astute observations it becomes very clear that the legacy of the early camps left a clear imprint on the evolution of the later system.

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All in all, the USHMM encyclopedia is a most welcome contribution to the history and memory of the Nazi concentration camps. For scholars, this first volume is a valuable reference work whose great strength lies first and foremost in the transfer of knowledge, bringing the hitherto mostly German discourse to the wider international audience. The subsequent six volumes of the encyclopedia will cover ghettos, military camps, detention centers run by Nazi Germany’s allies and satellites, extermination and detention camps under the SS and police (including the Operation Reinhard camps), forced labor camps, and other miscellaneous sites such as the killing centers of the T4 “euthanasia” program. While the first volume marks a convincing start, it will be possible to judge the full extent of the contribution only when all the volumes are published—a goal that the museum envisages for 2018. The USHMM’s institutional counterpart in Israel, Yad Vashem, also began the new millennium with ambitious large-scale research projects. One of them is The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust, which in its printed form was published concurrently with the first volume of the USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. Together with two other projects that document the railway network of the deportation transports as well as the various killing sites of the Jews in the occupied Soviet Union, the ghetto encyclopedia is designed to map out in detail the infrastructure and vast logistics of the Holocaust. Guided by the attempt to understand the totality of the persecution and annihilation of the Jews of Europe, the rationale underlying Yad Vashem’s research differs from those of the encyclopedic projects conducted in America and Germany, which explore Nazi policies of persecution more broadly. According to Dan Michman, head of Yad Vashem’s research institute and one of the principal contributors to the encyclopedia, his foreign colleagues’ “decision to put ghettos together with camps points to an understanding that they basically present one logic of incarcerating ‘enemies’ of National Socialism.” This approach, however, runs the risk of neglecting the specific character of the ghettos, whose emergence “was unique and entirely different from the concentration camp idea.”11 In contrast, the Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust is committed to presenting the uniqueness of the ghetto as “a core phenomenon of Jewish life under the Nazis” (p. xiii), and thus puts great emphasis on the internal life of the ghettos and the responses of the Jews to their persecution. Various survival strategies employed to keep the ghetto inhabitants spiritually and physically alive are impressively highlighted. For historians Yehuda Bauer and Israel Gutman, “[t]his kind of reaction of the doomed victims is unequalled in other genocidal situations” (p. vii). In the six-year process of compiling the encyclopedia, the team of scholars coordinated by editor-in-chief Guy Miron and his co-editor Shlomit Shulhani were faced with the many challenges and complexities of research on the ghettos. With historiography notably lagging behind that on the Nazi camps, the ghettoization phenomenon remains “under-researched and under-theorized.”12 Moreover, the historian’s quest for sources is much more difficult. In contrast to the SS concentration camps, which were incorporated into an organized system that produced its own internal documentation, there was no central authority managing the ghettos, which were at best a regional, and often a local phenomenon. The records of the recently opened archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany, for example,

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which proved vital for the USHMM encyclopedia on the concentration camps, contain large gaps regarding the ghettos. With German documentation scarce and inconsistent, research needs to rely largely on diaries, letters, memoirs, and testimonies produced by those who lived and died in the ghettos. Driven not least by a moral imperative to testify and preserve for posterity the memory of atrocities perpetrated by the German occupiers, Jews went to great lengths to chronicle the histories of the ghettos. In collective endeavors, secret archives were established in places such as Bialystok, Kovno, Lodz, Vilna, and, most significantly, Warsaw, where Emanuel Ringelblum directed the Oyneg shabes documentation (p. 911).13 Recent studies such as Gustavo Corni’s and Andrea Löw’s social histories of the ghetto “from below” have made fruitful use of these sources.14 Close to 1,100 ghettos are documented in the two-part Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust. Among them are those established in the big cities of Lodz, Warsaw, Lublin, Vilna, Bialystok, Cracow, and Kovno, which dominate both public and scholarly awareness. As overcrowded holding pens for some 750,000 persons all told (p. xiv), the attention they attract is surely justifiable. However, while historical literature on these major sites is available, the Yad Vashem encyclopedia, for the first time, documents the existence of hundreds of smaller ghettos dotting the East European map between the Baltic and the Black seas. Mirroring the current state of knowledge, entries range in length from a quarter of a page up to 25 pages in the case of the well-documented Warsaw ghetto. Overarching themes and patterns of ghettoization are discussed in three introductions to the encyclopedia. In his linguisticcultural study of the concept of the ghetto, Dan Michman reviews the historiography as well as the roots and development of the ghetto phenomenon. He shows that just as the Nazi regime never pursued a conclusive policy of ghettoization, so the term “ghetto” itself was never officially defined and in fact underwent many semantic transformations. Hence, the emergence of the ghettos in Eastern Europe during the war must not be regarded as the implementation of a single fixed concept guiding Nazi anti-Jewish policy, let alone “a conceptual stage on the road toward the Final Solution” (p. xxxix). (Michman’s essay was later expanded into the monograph under review, and thus a more detailed engagement with his arguments will follow below.) A second general introduction, authored by Miron and Shulhani, is more functional in nature. It explains the structure of the Yad Vashem encyclopedia, offering illuminating insights into the research process and pointing to the complexities of presenting a multifaceted historical phenomenon that spanned several countries with constantly shifting borders and various languages of different alphabets. Most importantly, Miron and Shulhani analyze the geographical patterns and regional characteristics of the ghettoization phenomenon, emphasizing that the “length of time in which Jews were incarcerated in ghettos, the patterns of self-government . . . , and the process whereby the Jews in the ghettos were murdered differed greatly from country to country and from region to region” (p. xlv). As a result of varying conditions, different prewar structures of Jewish communities, changing topographies (as well as administrative authority), and the proximity or distance to the front, Jews experienced the ghettos differently in West and Central Poland, in East Poland and the Baltic states, and in the Soviet Union, Romania, and Hungary.

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Finally, Nina Springer-Aharoni introduces the reader to “Ghetto Photographs as Historical Documentation.” Some 250 photographs stemming from various sources are included in the encyclopedia. While members of the Wehrmacht Propagan­ dakompanien took most of the official ghetto pictures, civilians and other German soldiers viewed the sites through the lenses of their private cameras. Furthermore, there are pictures taken by Jewish photographers, some of whom (for instance, Mendel Grossman and Henryk Ross in Lodz) worked for the ghetto administration. Springer-Aharoni rightly points out that despite their apparent factuality, all visual images of the ghetto are “tendentious,” “biased products” (pp. lxxiii, lxxxv). In particular, propaganda films such as that shot in Theresienstadt in 1944 are expressions of a deliberate “policy of deception” meant to transmit a false picture of the Jews’ “good life” in the ghetto (p. lxviii). Despite the introduction’s emphasis on the importance of the caption (p. lxiv), a few occasional errors have slipped into the Yad Vashem encyclopedia. Mistranslations from pictured German signs demarcating the ghetto boundaries, for example, transform Wehrmachtsangehörige (Wehrmacht personnel) into “relatives of Wehrmacht soldiers” (p. 44) and refer to the prohibition of “entry and exit” where the original reads Befahren und Betreten (access on foot or vehicle) (p. 750). On the whole, the introduction remains very much focused on photography, with only a few observations on film footage of the ghettos. This is regrettable, especially since a DVD with historical films is appended to the encyclopedia and the reader would have benefited from a more detailed reflection on the methodological issues surrounding the use and understanding of moving pictures. The same is true for the paintings, sketches, and objects from the rich holdings of Yad Vashem’s art museum and artifacts collection that are reproduced in color in the second volume. As with photography and film, these are important sources that attest to the history, material culture, and representation of the ghettos. When reading through the more than 1,000-page Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust, one observation emerges most strongly: there was no typical ghetto. The dynamic picture that arises from the panoramic view provided here reveals difference rather than uniformity. Starting with the very term: not all ghettos were referred to as such. In Warsaw or Cracow, for example, the Germans used the term Jüdischer Wohnbezirk (“Jewish residential quarter”). Living conditions of the Jews in the ghettos were influenced by different economics and systems of labor, which varied from “laissez-faire capitalism in Warsaw” to “centralized control in Lodz,” the model-style “working ghetto” in which inhabitants toiled in more than 100 factories and workshops set up within its walls (pp. ix, 407). Furthermore, ghettos varied in their form and structure. While Jews were often isolated in specific neighborhoods—some, but not all, traditional Jewish dwelling places—ghettos were also improvised in synagogues, schools, prisons, factory buildings, barns, brickyards, or, as in the case of Velizh (located in the Smolensk District of the USSR in an area that remained under German military administration), in pigsties on the outskirts of town (p. 872). In Szydlowiec, in the Kielce district of Poland, the entire town with the exception of two streets was turned into a ghetto (p. 803). The fact that the Szydlowiec ghetto remained open, allowing for relatively free movement in and out, points to different methods of guarding. In contrast to the Lodz ghetto, which was hermetically sealed from the beginning, many others remained open. Piotrkow Trybunalski,

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in Poland’s Lodz district—which, to the best of our knowledge, was the first ghetto created by the Germans in occupied Eastern Europe—was not fenced until the spring of 1942, when the Poles living within its boundaries were ordered to leave (p. 595). Moreover, ghetto topography could significantly change even at a single site. After the mass deportations of summer 1942 had dramatically decimated the population of the Warsaw ghetto, it was broken up into three isolated sections (p. 914). In Kovno, supervision of the ghetto was eventually transferred to the SS, which converted it into a concentration camp in autumn 1943 (pp. 295–296). A number of ghettos were subdivided into two parts, with able-bodied workers and their families separated from the rest of the inhabitants. In many places, the so-called “ghetto A” soon resembled more of a labor camp while “ghetto B” faced the constant danger of “liquidation.” Finally, there were different patterns of Jewish headship (Judenräte) and self-government at work in the ghettos. Most unusual, perhaps, was the group of women that organized life in the Telsiai ghetto in Lithuania after all the men had been murdered. All things considered, one can only agree with Michael Berenbaum, who in his foreword to the Yad Vashem encyclopedia corrects the widespread misconception that “the story of the ghettos is well-known and the fate of each ghetto was the same.” Instead, “the devil is in the details and the truth of what happened during the Shoah is found in the particular, town by town, community by community, city by city” (p. viii). Precisely because the ghetto phenomenon was so heterogeneous and complex, its classification and presentation in encyclopedic form is all the more difficult. The Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust can define the ghetto only very broadly as “any part of a pre-existing settlement occupied by Nazi Germany where Jews were forcibly confined for at least a few weeks” (p. xl). In a number of cases, striking similarities in topographical and organizational features complicate the distinction between ghetto and camp. Theresienstadt, the fortress town in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia that has long been discussed as a borderline case, is included. Amsterdam, however, has no entry because most Jews never lived in the city’s “Jewish Quarter” and most of the quarter’s population remained non-Jewish (p. lxii). A major question for the editors was whether or not to include the so-called Judenhäuser, the “Jewish houses” of German cities, where Jews were required to live from 1939 onwards. While ultimately these sites of forced geographical concentration were left out because of differences in terms of policy and internal organization, an introductory article on the subject is appended. In the Romanian-controlled areas, including Transnistria, the identification of ghettos is most problematic. In the absence of reliable information and in light of the difficulties of clearly distinguishing between ghetto, labor camp, and concentration camp, many detention sites in these territories did not fit the editors’ definition of a ghetto. A list with more than 140 of these excluded places can be found in the appendix. In the case of the Romanian ghettos, the encyclopedia thus clearly reaches its limits and becomes a documentation in the sense outlined by Benz: it mirrors the state of research, which is far from complete or comprehensive. In terms of encouraging future research on the ghettos, it would have been a good idea to extend the bibliography to include references to sources. In the by-now-­ published second volume of the USHMM encyclopedia, which covers the ghettos in German-occupied Eastern Europe, each entry concludes with a list of published and

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archival material. Furthermore, powerful quotes from Jewish testimonies are inserted into the entries.15 By and large, anyone studying the history of the ghettos should consult both reference works, which complement one another well. They are structured differently, with Yad Vashem pursuing a straightforward alphabetical order that is somewhat more reader-friendly than the USHMM’s geographical organization of the entries into 19 regional sections. Moreover, while the Yad Vashem work puts greater emphasis on the Jewish perspective and documents in detail life inside the ghettos as well as the Jews’ many forms of resistance, the USHMM project focuses more on the German authorities and their various ghettoization policies, some of which resulted from discussions between the so-called “productionists,” who intended to profit from Jewish forced labor in the ghettos, and the “attritionists” eager to decimate the incarcerated Jews through starvation and disease.16 To the universal question concerning how historical knowledge that is still in the process of being generated can be organized into a normative framework, Yad Vashem has come up with a convincing solution. An online edition of the Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust is currently under construction, which will make the data more easily and widely accessible. Moreover, the virtual format allows both for updating and for the use of new technologies to tell the history of the ghettos through various media. It is to be hoped that the online version of the impressive and thoroughly researched print version will eventually be available not only in Hebrew, as presently announced, but also in English.17 Just how gigantic the dimension of the camp and ghetto universe really was, begins to dawn on anyone who pages through the hefty volumes of the encyclopedias. To make sense of the empirical wealth and to prevent the reader from getting lost in detail, there is a need for interpretation and structure that embeds the information on  the great number of individual localities into a broader historical context. Dan Michman offers such analytical underpinning, in concise and stimulating manner, in his linguistic-cultural study, The Emergence of Jewish Ghettos during the Holocaust. The book advances an original and fascinating conceptual history of the term “ghetto.” In order to explain the diversity of the ghettos of the Nazi period and their gradual and inconsistent introduction, which remained geographically limited to Eastern Europe, Michman explores the historical origins of the ghetto phenomenon. His objective is to answer the question, “[w]hen exactly did the idea of establishing ghettos for Jews take shape in the minds of Third Reich officials who dealt with Judenpolitik (anti-Jewish policies)?” (p. 2). Over the course of eleven chronologically ordered chapters, Michman traces the various semantic shifts that the word “ghetto” underwent from its first appearance in the early modern age until its use during the cataclysm of the Final Solution. Although the phenomenon of separate Jewish neighborhoods existed previously, the term has its source in early 16th-century Venice, where the Senate decreed in 1516 that Jews should live on an island known as “Ghetto Nuovo.” With the introduction of the ghetto, the city allowed for a vital Jewish settlement and an organized community life, whereas before only individual Jews were permitted to reside in Venice. Hence, Michman stresses, the term “ghetto” did “not originally have a negative connotation” (p. 20). Only after it had been adopted by Pope Paul IV to designate the walled and gated compulsory neighborhood for the Jews established in 1555 in Rome, was the

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ghetto perceived as a site of enforced social isolation of Jews. It was not until the 19th century that the term had spread all over Europe. In an era in which the Emancipation had abolished the physical ghetto, it took on a more metaphorical meaning and morphed into a cultural concept signifying the conscious separation of Jews by means of social norms or state legislation. In this “virtual” sense, the term “ghetto” was used by Jews in prewar Nazi Germany as a reflection of their deteriorating condition, persecution, and ever-growing exclusion from society (pp. 39–40). Michman states that a critical “semantic turning-point” (p. 45) in the meaning of the term occurred in the late 1930s. While the Nazis had barely used the word during the peacetime years of the Third Reich, it now began to penetrate the racial-­ideological discourse of anti-Jewish policymakers. Academic backing was offered by “scholars” such as Peter-Heinz Seraphim of the University of Königsberg’s Institute for East European Economy. His 1938 pseudo-scientific book, Das Judentum im osteuropäischen Raum, is one of the lesser-known sources that Michman’s analysis brings to light.18 In full compliance with Nazi antisemitism, Seraphim characterized the poor and overcrowded Jewish neighborhoods of East European cities—the already existing traditional ghettos—as dangerous centers of power “where the Jewish essence is molded . . . in order to exert from here, from the business centers, an influence on the surroundings and on the nations among whom the Jews live” (p. 48). With the help of maps, charts, and figures that are reproduced in Michman’s study (pp. 50–59), Seraphim warned of the spreading of this Jewish influence and thus propagated what Michman poignantly calls “the Ostjuden peril” (p. 119). And with the start of Hitler’s war on Poland, this stereotype of the “Ostjude,” the antisemitically distorted cultural image of the East European Jew, seemed to materialize en masse before the eyes of the German invaders. Building on Israel Gutman’s earlier observations, Michman emphasizes that the psychological impact of the physical and face-to-face encounter with the Jews of the East on ghettoization policies cannot be underestimated.19 Hence, he concludes: “It was fear of the Ostjuden peril that produced the first Nazi ghettos in 1939 and 1940” (p. 146). With the transition from peace to war, a new sense was added to the term “ghetto,” which was now perceived as a place where the German occupation authorities forcibly concentrated the Jews in order to contain what was understood to be their “malign influence” (p. 69). A last “alteration in the meaning and purpose of the ghetto” (p. 124) is detected by Michman to have taken place after Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union and the launching of the Final Solution, the systematic mass extermination of the Jews of Europe, in 1941. While so far the ghettos had functioned as a “defensive measure” (p. 82) to keep the “Ostjuden peril” in check until the regime worked out a comprehensive solution for the “Jewish Question”—up to this point, the aim had been expulsion—they now became more like camps that served diverse ad hoc needs. As Michman shows, some ghettos resembled sites of forced labor that offered a limited number of Jews a chance to survive while the killing operations were raging all around. The ghettos also functioned as way stations for the deportation transports to the extermination centers (p. 149). Living conditions were much harsher in the post1941 ghettos, which mostly remained a very short-term expedient. The fact that most ghettos in the Soviet Union were not established immediately after the German occupation, but rather only after a Jewish leadership structure had been installed, leads

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Michman to assert most vigorously that “[w]e must not speak of ‘ghetto’ and ‘Judenrat’ as if they were conjoined twins” (p. 151). Not only were there Jewish headships in places in which no ghetto was ever established, there were also ghettos without a Judenrat, as in the case of Berdichev, in the Zhitomir district of Ukraine (pp. 118–119). Relating his research findings on the historical semantics of the ghetto concept to broader questions about the nature of the Nazi regime and the evolution of its antiJewish policy, Michman maintains that just as the Nazis never precisely defined the term, so the ghettos emerged without a central plan or a systematic pattern. Correctly, he stresses that ghettoization was not a uniform phenomenon, but rather resulted from diverse grassroots initiatives undertaken by executive occupation officials in the field to whom the higher echelon of the regime granted broad (albeit unarticulated) leeway for action. Hence, one can only agree with his plea to refer to the Nazi ghettos in the plural (p. 148). Michman’s ultimate conclusion that the ghettos were not a necessary preliminary step on the road to the Final Solution (p. 154) is accurate and important, though not entirely novel. With his vigorous denial of any direct, causal link between the emergence of the ghettos and the destruction of the European Jews, Michman in fact preaches to the converted: the intentionalist thesis once advanced by Léon Poliakov and Raul Hilberg, according to which a systematic ghettoization policy inevitably led to the Final Solution (pp. 9–11), has long been dismantled and needs no further refutation. In addition, Michman’s negative appraisal of the more recent scholarship “based on erroneous generalizations rather than on an empirical approach to history” demands to be placed in a more nuanced perspective. Among others, Michman criticizes Christopher Browning, whose 1986 study of the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos sparked new research, for his dwelling on a one-sided understanding of the ghettos derived solely “from the administrative-planning perspective” of German occupation officials (p. 146).20 Michman too readily dismisses the “organizational and bureaucratic rationales” on which Browning based his analysis of the establishment of the ghettos. His insistence that the ghettos were established because of “the deep fear of ‘the Jews,’ especially the Ostjuden” (p. 82) is problematic not because it proposes to seek an explanation also in the realm of Nazi ideology, but because it presents the cultural-semantic approach to the study of the Holocaust-era ghettos as the only one that bears true and comprehensive explanatory potential. The historical reality, however, was more complex. Ideology and Nazi antisemitism were tied in with the ­practicalities on the ground—material and logistical problems, military necessity, and economic considerations. Furthermore, the restructuring of urban space and the forced concentration of Jews in ghettos was part of a greater population policy that targeted as well huge numbers of Poles and Germans.21 The ideologically motivated “Germanization” of the newly conquered Lebensraum (“living space”) in the East clearly affected the resettlement and expulsion of the Jews, but this important factor is largely neglected in Michman’s study. On the whole, it remains Dan Michman’s great merit to have opened up a novel and fruitful perspective on the history of the Nazi ghettos. His cultural-semantic analysis of the ghetto phenomenon yields many new insights and makes for a valuable addition to the existing scholarship. Combined with the structural-organizational

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analyses of Browning and others; the new social histories of the ghetto as advanced by Corni and Löw; recent studies on labor and the economics of the ghettos; and research such as that undertaken by Tim Cole, which pursues a spatial approach to ghettoization, Michman’s work furthers our understanding of the multifaceted and complex detention sites that existed within the Nazi topography of terror.22 Kim Wünschmann University of Sussex

Notes 1. Eric Lichtblau, “The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking,” New York Times (3 March 2013), online at nytimes.com/2013/03/03/sunday-review/the-holocaust-just-got-more-shocking .html (accessed 3 January 2014). 2. See Ulrich Herbert, Karin Orth, and Christoph Dieckmann (eds.), Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager: Entwicklung und Struktur, 2 vols. (Göttingen: 1998). 3. Ulrich Herbert, “Wissenschaftliche Zählung von NS-Lagern: Leben und Tod ist keine akademische Frage,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (5 March 2013), online at faz.net/­aktuell/ feuilleton/wissenschaftliche-zaehlung-von-ns-lagern-leben-oder-tod-ist-keine-akademischefrage-12103953.html (accessed 4 January 2014). 4. See Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel (eds.), Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, 9 vols. (Munich: 2005–2009). 5. Lydia Klöckner, “Benz kritisiert ‘Grössenwahn’ von US-Holocaust-Studie,” ZeitOnline (7 March 2013) zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2013-03/Wolfgang-Benz-KonzentrationslagerInterview (accessed 5 January 2014). Benz also acknowledged that his own project, despite scholarly acclaim and the fact that it quickly became the standard reference work for research on the Nazi camps, had never garnered such enormous media attention. German universities, he concluded, were not as successful in publicizing their research on National Socialism. 6. See Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, and Angelika Königseder (eds.), National­ sozialistische Zwangslager: Strukturen und Regionen—Täter und Opfer (Berlin: 2011); Janine Doerry, Alexandra Klei, Elisabeth Thalhofer, and Karsten Wilke (eds.), NS-Zwangslager in Westdeutschland, Frankreich und den Niederlanden: Geschichte und Erinnerung (Paderborn: 2008); Wolfgang Benz, “Nationalsozialistische Zwangslager: Ein Überblick,” in Benz and Distel (eds.), Der Ort des Terrors, 1:1–29; idem, “The World of National Socialist Camps: Places of Exclusion, Discrimination, Extermination,” in Jewish Studies at the Central European University Yearbook 4 (Budapest: 2004–2005), 27–39. The analytical framework of the Nazi Zwangslager is to be distinguished from another recent approach that researches the camp as a characteristic institution of the 20th century. This even broader approach considers camps of exclusion, terror, and destruction side by side with so-called “inclusion camps” that were set up to discipline and enforce the Nazi worldview on those who were defined as members of German society (for example, Hitler Youth camps). Moreover, it expands the analysis beyond Nazi Germany to take into account camps that were established by other regimes, at  other times, and in other regions of the world. See Kiran Klaus Patel, “‘Auslese’ und ‘Ausmerze’: Das Janusgesicht der nationalsozialistischen Lager,” in Zeitschrift für Geschichts­ wissenschaft 54, no. 4 (2006), 339–365; Michael Wildt, “Funktionswandel der nationalsozi­ alistischen Lager,” in Mittelweg 36, vol. 20, no. 4 (August-September 2011), 76–86; Bettina Greiner and Alan Kramer (eds.), Die Welt der Lager: Zur “Erfolgsgeschichte” einer Institution (Hamburg: 2013). 7. Gudrun Schwarz, Die nationalsozialistischen Lager (Frankfurt: 1990). 8. See Günter Morsch, “Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen, Sachenshausen-Oranienburg,” in Herbert, Orth, and Dieckmann (eds.), Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, ­111–134; Falk Pingel, “Konzeption und Praxis der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager 1933 bis 1938: Kommentierende Bemerkungen,” in ibid., 148–163.

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9. Karin Orth, Das System der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager: eine politische Organisationsgeschichte (Hamburg: 1999). 10. See Carina Baganz, Erziehung zur “Volksgemeinschaft”? Die frühen Konzentration­ slager in Sachsen, 1933–1934/37 (Berlin: 2005), 24; Stefan Hördler, “KZ und SS-Standort: Eine Verortung des Komplexes Lichtenburg,” in Sigrid Jacobeit and Stefan Hördler (eds.), Lichtenburg: Ein deutsches Konzentrationslager (Berlin: 2009), 13. 11. Dan Michman, The Emergence of the Jewish Ghettos during the Holocaust (New York: 2011), 154. See also David B. Green, “A Conversation with Dan Michman,” Haaretz (27 May 2010), online at haaretz.com/culture/books/a-conversation-with-dan-michman-1.292587 (accessed 20 January 2014). 12. Tim Cole, “Ghettoization,” in Dan Stone (ed.), The Historiography of the Holocaust (New York: 2004), 83. 13. On these early documentation efforts, see Laura Jockusch, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe (Oxford: 2012), 33–36. 14. See Gustavo Corni, Hitler’s Ghettos: Voices from a Beleaguered Society, 1939–1944 (London: 2002); Andrea Löw, Juden im Ghetto Litzmannstadt: Lebensbedingungen, Selbstwahr­ nehmung, Verhalten (Göttingen: 2006). 15. See The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe, ed. Geoffrey P. Megargee and Martin Dean (Bloomington: 2012). In contrast to the Yad Vashem encyclopedia, this volume excludes the Hungarian and Romanian ghettos. Among other detention sites run by European states affiliated with Nazi Germany, these will be presented in the forthcoming third volume of the USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos. 16. The terms “productionists” and “attritionists” were coined by Christopher Browning. See Christopher R. Browning (with contributions by Jürgen Matthäus), The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Lincoln: 2004), 113; idem, “Introduction,” in USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 2, xxvii. 17. See Ofer Aderet, “If a Ghetto is Liquidated and No One Lives to Remember It, Can It Be Memorialized? The New Online Hebrew Version of a Special Encyclopedia Tries to Tell the Story of the 1,200 Jewish Ghettos during the Holocaust,” Haaretz (27 January 2012), online at haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/if-a-ghetto-is-liquidated-and-no-onelives-to-remember-it-can-it-be-memorialized.premium-1.496532 (accessed 26 January 2014). 18. Peter-Heinz Seraphim, Das Judentum im osteuropäischen Raum (Essen: 1938). An illuminating discussion and contextualization of Seraphim’s book can be found in Götz Aly and Susanne Heim’s standard work on the crucial role of civil servants and academics in aiding the planning of the Holocaust. See Vordenker der Vernichtung: Auschwitz und die deutschen Pläne für eine neue europäische Ordnung, revised ed. (Frankfurt: 2013), 78–88. 19. See Israel Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt (Bloomington: 1982), 8–12. 20. See Christopher R. Browning, “Nazi Ghettoization Policy in Poland, 1939–1941,” in Central European History 19, no. 4 (December 1986), 343–368. 21. See Browning, Origins of the Final Solution, 36–110. 22. See Browning, “Nazi Ghettoization Policy in Poland, 1939-1941”; idem, Origins of the Final Solution, 111–168; Corni, Hitler’s Ghettos; Löw, Juden im Ghetto Litzmannstadt; Tim Cole, Holocaust City: The Making of a Jewish Ghetto (London: 2003); Jürgen Hensel and Stephan Lehnstaedt (eds.), Arbeit in den nationalsozialistischen Ghettos (Osnabrück: 2013). Some contributions in the Hensel/Lehnstaedt collection also critically reflect on the compensation practices and rulings of German courts that, following the 2002 Bundestag law on German Social Security Ghetto Pensions (ZRGB), decided on some 70,000 claims by survivors who had been employed for some form of wages during their internment.

The Literary Character of the Haskalah

Olga Litvak, Haskalah: The Romantic Movement in Judaism. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012. xvii + 226 pp. Among the virtues of Olga Litvak’s latest book is her demonstration that the philosophical and historical significance of Haskalah literature is not as clear as we used to believe. According to the provocative suggestion made in Haskalah: The Romantic Movement in Judaism, the importance of this body of literature lies precisely in the maskilim’s insistence on forgoing ideological clarity. Previous scholars have assessed Haskalah literature largely in terms of its ability to nudge Jewish society toward accepting a version of European Enlightenment. Litvak, however, replaces contentbased analysis with a literary analysis that gleans political insights from the texts themselves. Litvak does not assume that the texts identify fully with their own official, enlightened, meaning. Consequently, she reads Haskalah literature with a grain of sober irony, which allows her to shed new light on the Haskalah movement as a whole. Rather than simply measuring the level of relative audacity implied in a certain thinker’s critique of Jewish tradition,1 she focuses our attention on the maskilim’s sometimes tortured relationship with their own ideals as torchbearers of the secularist or proto-secularist ideology. She performs the difficult maneuver of foregrounding the literary aspects of the Haskalah without ever losing sight of its historical significance. The intriguingly paradoxical outcome is a series of deconstructive interpretations that seek to change the way we construe the historical meaning of the Haskalah. Interpretations of Haskalah literature tend to regard the movement as consisting of a system of thought and practice aimed at modernizing Jewish culture and Jewish life. Depending on the critic, this more or less systematic literature is seen either as a trenchant critique of traditional Judaism, or as a moderate attempt to harmonize modern Jewish life with some basic tenets of the European Enlightenment. Haskalah, in other words, is often defined as an ideology: either aimed at the general enlightenment of the Jews, or else attempting to formulate a more uniquely defined Jewish Enlightenment. Assuming full convergence between the text and its author’s intentions, such accounts often fail to capture the maskilim’s complex and ambivalent attitude regarding that ideology. Litvak approaches the subject quite differently, as she places a stronger stress on the writings of the maskilim, which often betray unexpected reactions to Enlightenment ideology. This novel awareness of the written aspect of Haskalah literature bears crucial consequences for Litvak’s reconstruction of the broader meaning of the Haskalah. 264

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The maskilim, she argues, are much closer to the Romantics in their disbelief in progressive history—their belated, adverse reaction to modernity—than they are to ideologues of the Age of Reason. Their literary works are fraught with incessant selfcritique and deep skepticism regarding both the aims of a possible Jewish Enlightenment, and even more so, their own ability—as a group of marginal intellectuals—to alter the course of history. Litvak’s presentation should not be regarded as yet another attempt to situate the Haskalah—a central but not foundational expression of Jewish modernity—on the ready-made spectrum of moderate or radical enlightenments, as these are defined in, say, Jonathan Israel’s monumental work.2 Litvak reframes the terms of the whole argument when she makes it clear that the crux of Haskalah is not its philosophical or political stance but rather its (implicit or explicit) views regarding what culture can or cannot do in the world. In this sense, the Haskalah is romantic. It is, she notes, a “romantic ideology of culture” (pp. 26, 39), indeed an ideology of high and maledominated culture that promotes a conservative, grumbling, and at times whimsical critique of Enlightenment’s vision of modernity. Much like Israel Bartal, Litvak believes that the Haskalah is not a cause of modernity, but one of its outcomes.3 She radicalizes Bartal’s claims, however, by stressing that the maskilim’s reaction to modernity is primarily adverse and critical. This fundamental contention amounts to a veritable paradigm shift in the study of the Haskalah. Supporters of what I would call the first paradigm of Haskalah scholarship (primarily scholars of the “East European school of Jewish history,” active in the 1950s and 1960s) believed that the maskilim perceived European modernity as an object of passionate imitation. They saw the Haskalah as a one-track, ideologically driven movement whose main motivation was to secularize Jewish life, leave the Jewish ghetto, and adapt universal European culture. In the second paradigm of Haskalah scholarship (developed by Michael Stanislawski, Shmuel Feiner, David Sorkin, Bartal and many others, beginning in the mid-1980s), scholars argued that European modernity initiated a more cautious process of social and intellectual change. They believed that European modernity and Enlightenment encouraged the maskilim to pursue an inner Jewish process of intellectual renewal whose aim was to harmonize Jewish religion with modernity. Finally, supporters of the third paradigm of Haskalah studies, which I believe comes into its own with Litvak’s latest work, declare that the maskilim are neither blind imitators of modernity, nor moderate creators of a renewed Judaism compatible with modernity. Rather, the maskilim are primarily critics of modernity. This paradigmatic shift requires some elaboration. The first target of Litvak’s critique is the first phase of Haskalah studies, or the notion that Haskalah literature is a “treasonous art,” as she puts it (p. 115), an ideological literary enterprise that seeks to perform an (often concealed) critique of traditional religious belief or institutions. Viewing the Haskalah in the framework of the “secularization thesis,” prominent literary historians such as Joseph Klausner or David Knaani believed that the Haskalah was a first move in what they perceived as Jewish history’s progress toward modernization and secularization. In the field of Jewish history, historians such as Jacob Katz maintained that the main force initiating and guiding Jewish modernization was the Haskalah as formed in Berlin by Moses Mendelssohn and his circle. Katz argued that philosophical and ideological factors were the engine driving the Jewish move

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“out of the shtetl,” which was essentially a movement toward the gradual enlightenment of the Jews.4 As elaborated in Litvak’s copious narrative, Katz’s model has been replaced, since the 1980s, with a less ideologically driven, less Berlin-centered view of Jewish European modernity. Thus historians such as Todd Endelman have substituted a local and social history of the Haskalah for teleological and ideological readings, replacing Enlightenment ideology with a vast array of modernizing factors, of which the Haskalah is only one—if at all (pp. 51–52). Current historians of the Haskalah engage in what Nancy Sinkoff recently called a “conservative” or moderate reading of the movement.5 The Haskalah is no longer seen as a critique of religion, but rather as a harmonizing mediation of reason and revelation, a new iteration of Jewish faith, rather than an adversarial secularizing act. Attempting a “historical definition of the Haskalah,” Shmuel Feiner points to an important “dualism” implicit in the worldview of the maskilim. A typical adherent of the Haskalah “did not propose a total abrogation of tradition, but sought to redress an imbalance by adding to his library new works in Hebrew and other languages, [adopting] new ideas without rejecting more traditional ones.”6 Feiner replaces the radical abrogation or subtraction of religion with a more moderate narrative in which “conversion to Haskalah” is no longer a matter of “burning bridges through assimilation or baptism” but rather “a transposition from a world depicted as one-dimensional to a more complex world.”7 The maskilim’s main goal is to expose and “transpose” Judaism to the new demands of modernity and Enlightenment.8 Litvak counters this widely accepted view of Haskalah with two arguments, the first historical, the second philosophical. First, she claims that the Haskalah is not a Jewish branch of European Enlightenment, because the two movements flourished in entirely divergent social and political circumstances. Haskalah and the Enlightenment occurred in different times and in different places. Viewing the Haskalah as a belated version of West European Enlightenment “fails to address all the ways in which the Haskalah represents a characteristic development of Eastern European culture” (p. 23). Second, in Litvak’s reading, the maskilim refuse to underwrite the “Enlightenment assertion” of a “rational certainty” or a rational, self-justifying universe. Much more akin to Kant’s definition of Enlightenment as an incessant critique, the maskilim emerged from a decidedly post-Enlightenment experience of doubt, as they felt and said—in a variety of ways—that “the very idea of a rational universe had become unstuck from its moorings in reality” (p. 24). Litvak’s analysis makes a compelling argument for decoupling the Haskalah from European Enlightenment, whether it is interpreted as an Enlightenment of the Jews (what I called the first phase of Haskalah scholarship) or as a Jewish Enlightenment (second phase). For the Haskalah, argues Litvak, is not “enlightenment” at all. What is it, then? Litvak believes the Haskalah is a post-Enlightenment critique of the 18th-century view of modernity, a romantic movement that seeks to develop not a modern-friendly version of Judaism, but rather a stubbornly critical ideal of highcultural, male-centered Judaism that, like Romanticism, is also expressive of the modern gulf between theory and praxis, between low and high culture, between the market and the intellectuals. The Haskalah is not a recipe for real enlightenment—Jewish or Gentile. Rather, it is an attempt to produce a blissful fantasy—often a rationalist fantasy, to be sure—about reality, a fantasy of regained wholeness that is fraught with

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self-deconstructing language and romantic irony. The Haskalah expresses a full awareness of its practical impossibility, its utopian naiveté, and its tragic belatedness. Thus the Haskalah is a conception of Jewish culture, language, and literature whose main accomplishment is its affectation of superiority and criticism toward modern reality. This wistful elevation above reality should not be confused with simple notions of rationalist or progressive critiques of culture. Rather than an avant-garde Jewish march toward modernity, Litvak portrays the Haskalah as the unnerved, skeptical rearguard of a column that has already passed by. The maskilim’s self-fashioning as highbrow intellectuals is both maintained and defeated by their subjective skepticism and objective powerlessness. It should be made clear, though, that the relationship between Litvak’s account and that of her predecessors is not simply polemical. Litvak would not deny that maskilim adopted some elements from the European Enlightenment. Her point is that the Haskalah’s attitude toward modernity differs from that of the European Enlightenment because, in contradistinction to the latter, the maskilim did not perceive modern reality as a trusted promise of future plenitude. They saw it, rather, as a broken reality in need of retroactive spiritual repair. This temporal inversion is, I believe, the single most important insight in Litvak’s work. The Haskalah is romantic because of its deep-seated awareness of coming into being after modernity. It has a strong sense of the tragic rift between the sphere of culture and the sphere of power. Feiner and Sorkin are wrong not because they misapprehended the doctrine of the Haskalah, but because they misconstrued the temporal structure within which Haskalah literature is written. Rather than an ideology directed toward a modern shaping of the future, the literary character of the Haskalah suggests a temporal structure that is more regressive and reactive than progressive and projective. Haskalah literature is a product of post-Enlightenment critique, not a Jewish version of Enlightenment optimism. When a maskil puts forward his (they were mostly male) program, he is not suggesting a blueprint for future corrections but rather a “modern ideology of culture” (p. 26), which, as he knows full well, is an act of intellectual condescension whose actual consequences for reality are, at the very least, doubtful, and at the very best, fraught with irony. For Litvak, the divergence between Haskalah and Enlightenment comes into full view in the maskilim’s experience of nature and natural beauty. Considering “human happiness as the supreme purpose of nature,”9 Enlightenment philosophy urges the human mind to reveal nature as a rational universe built for the benefit of the human species. Furthermore, the “systematic spirit” of Enlightenment encourages man to believe that scientific inquiry could lead him to a clearer perception of God’s wisdom.10 While similar elements do occur in many places in the Haskalah, Litvak’s reconstruction shows in various ways that this picture of a reassuring order sanctioned by God comes under significant attack in maskilic literature. Theodicy, transcendence, and optimism—the basic elements of Enlightenment metaphysics—are the object of grave qualms and contention in major Haskalah texts. Indeed, I would add that the predominance of bleak allegorical plays in Haskalah literature is likewise an expression of serious misgivings regarding the notion of a well-ordered universe open to human understanding.11 One of the cornerstones of Enlightenment’s rationalist aesthetic is the premise that aesthetic pleasure is a sensuous mediation of the world’s perfection.12 In contradistinction

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to this “reassured and comforted” (p. 31) experience of perfection, the maskilic evocations and depictions of nature—Shlomo Levisohn’s Melitzat yeshurun (1816) is the most obvious example—are arguably much more akin to the unnerving experience of the romantic sublime than they are to the Enlightenment picture of nature. The maskilic subject’s reaction to transcendent reality is “awed and overwhelmed,” as Litvak puts it (p. 31); in its literary or philosophical representation, the Haskalah is much closer to Coleridge and Schiller’s picture of nature than to that of Newton or Leibniz (ibid.). Never accepting the new realities of emancipation, individualism, embourgeoisement, or the feminization of Jewish popular culture, Litvak’s Haskalah is an intellectual venture in which literature sustains itself as “a form of resistance to the pressure of the marketplace” (p. 39; see also p. 29). And yet this consciousness of being the last bastion of high culture is replete, as I noted earlier, with irony. The maskilim construct an intellectual edifice but reveal a very clear sense of its lack of social power. As Litvak amply shows in her contrarian reading of Joseph Perl’s Revealer of Secrets (1819), the anti-maskilic antagonists are always more powerful and seductive than their sterile maskilic counterparts. Litvak’s readings in the maskilic corpus foreground the “alliance of the skeptics” (my term) that links together the great luminaries of Haskalah letters—from Men­ delssohn’s skepticism regarding the notion of historical progress, to the depiction by Sholem Y. Abramovitsh (Mendele Mokher Sforim) of the shtetl as a repugnant world whose rejection of social reform is, paradoxically, its sole redeeming quality. Indeed, maskilic literary writing is less about adherence to doctrine and more about the ill-fated encounter between the call for social change and reform and unyielding history. In her interpretation of Mendelssohn, for instance, Litvak stresses the latter’s effort to ground and legitimize Jewish ceremonial law as a “living script.” In a much cited paragraph of Jerusalem (1782), Mendelssohn argues that Jewish law is a remnant of the concrete and positive law and must be retained lest the meaning of law be completely lost to modern man. Consistent with other “third phase” readings of Mendelssohn, Jewish law is retained—in this case, as a linguistic safeguard against the excessively abstract character of Enlightenment theories of social contract and natural right. Litvak’s elaborate treatment of Perl’s Revealer of Secrets significantly complicates the prevailing understanding of the maskilic critique of Hasidism. Beyond its sterile presentation of the protagonist, Perl’s work questions the authority of the protagonist’s knowledge. According to Litvak, Perl’s way of telling the story reveals “a difference between the transcendent ideal of knowledge and the inescapable reality that knowledge comes in contradictory forms, mediated by the informers who provide it” (p. 117). The contaminated nature of mediation, which Litvak connects to the form of the novel, encourages “a counter-intuitive reading of desire that unsettles the status of Revealer of Secrets as a straightforward primer of anti-Hasidic invective” (p. 120). As Abraham Mapu’s novels demonstrate, female desire is another factor that hinders the coalescing of Haskalah literature into a representative medium of progressive doctrine. In both Love of Zion (1853) and Guilt of Samaria (1865), the sheer force of  female desire undermines the regnant reading of Mapu’s work as promoting a splendid vision of political sovereignty, in which “human desire could be aligned with universal morality” (p. 145). Judah Leib Gordon’s famous poem The Tip of the Yud

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(1875) is another instance of a maskilic standoff between doctrinal reform and stubborn social facts. In this poem, the male representative of the maskilim, ironically named Phoebus (Apollo), becomes the main target of Gordon’s critique. Gordon’s text abandons the abused female protagonist of the poem within the confines of the Jewish community and conveys no realistically or politically viable message: it neither calls for rescuing Jewish women from this society, nor does it give us any reason to hope that the maskil—who fades away by the end of the narrative—may ever gain the power to change women’s status in the Jewish community (pp. 147–156). Finally, Litvak’s analysis of Mendele’s The Abridged Travels of Benjamin III (1878) unintentionally refutes the nationalist interpretation given to this work in a tightly argued article (not mentioned by Litvak) published by Dan Miron and Anita Norich in 1978.13 While Miron and Norich assert that the novel urges modern Jews to adopt contemporary European notions of sovereignty, colonial politics, and citizenship, Litvak demonstrates that it actually offers a rebuttal of such views, as it commends, in various ways, pre-embourgeoisement experiences of selfhood and citizenship. Litvak’s detailed survey of Haskalah scholarship provides a clear view of the evolving ways in which historians interpreted the movement. She shows that historians have used (or abused) every conceivable meta-historical structure—Enlightenment, nationalism, Marxism, critical theory—for embedding Haskalah in the fabric of European modernity. Her critical narrative of 20th-century Haskalah scholarship can be read, then, as a moral tale about Jewish historians and Hebrew literary scholars’ evolving attitude toward this master narrative.14 Modernity—gazed at with a great deal of passionate fascination by scholars of the first phase of Haskalah studies—became a moderate role model for Jewish renewal in the second phase of Haskalah studies, but lost all its normative power in the current, postcolonial atmosphere that urges us seek out subaltern, oppositional voices.15 For Litvak, however, this problematic emerges seamlessly from the texts, thanks to her exceptional ability to read literary texts as sources of counterintuitive historical reconstruction. Anchored in the rhetoric of the maskilic text, Litvak’s work amounts to a compelling picture of Jewish modernity, a torn and ambivalent modernity that hopes to keep the Haskalah as a restraining fantasy, an expression of incessant critique of the various facts of modernity. In this broad sense, Litvak is not alone. The writers who share the third paradigm of Haskalah scholarship demonstrate that the crux of the movement does not lie in radical secularization or moderate renewal of religion, but rather in a critical stance toward modernity. In this third paradigm, the Haskalah no longer accepts the main tenets of European enlightenment—natural religion, individual citizenship, disenchanting rationality—as providing the key for the “transposition” of Judaism into modern times. Litvak’s understanding of Haskalah as Romanticism is closely related to Jonathan Hess’ and Andrea Schatz’s demonstration of how religious notions reemerge and reassert themselves in the Haskalah as elements that obstruct and block the universalizing thrust of modernity.16 It is also aligned with Aamir Mufti’s contention that the maskilim articulated fully politicized, subaltern expressions of social critique.17 For all these writers, and many others, Haskalah is a belated, post-enlightenment, conflictual elaboration of Judaism. Amir Banbaji Ben-Gurion University

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Notes 1. This has become common practice in Haskalah scholarship, at least since Emanuel Etkes’ article “Immanent Factors and External Influences in the Development of the Haskalah Movement in Russia,” in Toward Modernity: The European Jewish Model, ed. Jacob Katz (New York: 1987), 1–12. 2. Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity (Oxford: 2001). 3. Israel Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772–1881 (Philadelphia: 2002). 4. Jacob Katz, Masoret umashber (Jerusalem: 1958); idem, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation 1770–1870 (Cambridge, Mass.: 1973). 5. Nancy Sinkoff, Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands (Providence: 2004), 9–10. For additional criticism of first phase Haskalah scholarship, see David Sorkin, The Berlin Haskalah and German Religious Thought (London: 2000), 2–4; Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772–1881, 8–13; Moti Zalkin, “Bein ‘ba’alei enoshiyut’ leva’alei haleumiyut: gilgulei meḥkar haneurot hayehudit bimdinat yisrael,” Zion 74 (2009) 177–193; Litvak, 49–64. 6. Shmuel Feiner, “Towards a Historical Definition of the Haskalah,” in New Perspectives on the Haskalah, ed. Shmuel Feiner and David Sorkin (London: 2000), 211. 7. Ibid. 8. For similar formulations of this view, see Sorkin, The Berlin Haskalah and German Religious Thought, 40–62, Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe, 122; and Christoph Schulte, Die Jüdische Aufklärung: Philosophie, Religion, Geschichte (Munich: 2002), 40, 43. 9. Walter Benjamin, The Origins of German Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborne (London: 1977), 170. 10. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, trans. Fritz Koelln and James Pettegrove (Princeton: 1979), 282. 11. Amir Banbaji, “The Broken Promise of Transcendence: A New Reading of the Haskalah Allegory,” Prooftexts 31, no. 3 (Fall 2011), 143–180. 12. Frederick C. Beiser, Diotima’s Children: German Aesthetic Rationalism from Leibniz to Lessing (Oxford: 2009), 9–12. 13. Dan Miron and Anita Norich, “The Politics of Benjamin III: Intellectual Significance and Its Formal Correlatives, in Sh. Y. Abramovitsh’s ‘Masoes Benyomin Hashlishi,’” in The Field of Yiddish: Fourth Collection, ed. Marvin I. Herzog, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Dan Miron, and Ruth Wisse (Philadelphia: 1980), 1–115. 14. For cautionary reminders regarding postcolonial discourse’s use of Europe, modernity and Enlightenment, see Daniel Carey and Lynn Festa (eds.) Postcolonial Enlightenment: Eighteenth-Century Colonialism and Post-Colonial Theory (Oxford: 2009), 10–18; Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton: 2000), 3–22. 15. For a similar trend in the study of European Enlightenment, see Carey and Festa (eds.) Postcolonial Enlightenment. 16. Andrea Schatz, Sprache in der Zerstreuung: Die Säkularisierung des Hebräischen im 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen: 2009); Jonathan Hess, Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity (New Haven: 2002); see also Willi Goetschel, Spinoza’s Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing and Heine (Madison: 2004). 17. Aamir R. Mufti, Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture (Princeton: 2007).

Book Reviews

Antisemitism, Holocaust, and Genocide

Evan Burr Bukey, Jews and Intermarriage in Nazi Austria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xvi + 216 pp. This important addition to scholarly research on the Holocaust focuses on the experiences of interfaith couples and their mixed (mischling) offspring in 19th- and 20thcentury Austria. The author, a highly respected emeritus professor of history at the University of Arkansas, bases his research on archival review and interviews with survivors. One of the strengths of this book is its presentation of historical and sociocultural contexts. For example, Bukey points out that the Jews in Protestant Germany had lived in that society for centuries whereas Jews began immigrating to Catholic Austria only in 1867. Jews in Germany had an easier time assimilating into German culture than did Jews in Catholic Austria because they had been “German” for generations and because Protestant beliefs and practices were more progressive than those of Catholicism. Moreover, from the outset, Austrian Jewry was split into contentious factions with diverse religious, political, and cultural perspectives and practices. Throughout history, people in non-dominant groups have attempted conversion and/or intermarriage in order to enter the dominant group. In the latter half of the 19th century and in the early 20th century, urban Austrian Jewish intellectuals made headway into the professional class of professors, physicians, musicians, artists, lawyers, and the like. In fact, the late 1890s provided the context for the development of Freudian psychoanalytic theory and treatment, with many Jews becoming prominent in the field. As in Germany, Austrian Jews experienced conscious conflict between their religious, ethnic, and national identities. Many fought in the First World War, held respected positions in their businesses and professions, and assumed that they were valued for their loyalty and contributions to society. Believing, thus, that their national identities were salient, the Jews for many years intermarried with Catholic Austrians—some to better their own status, some because of changing religious beliefs, and some because of particular personal circumstances. Moreover, many Jews went one step further and converted to Catholicism. Bukey provides much statistical data on the phenomenon, though there is scant information about the thoughts and feelings of people who intermarried and of their respective families. Bukey does point out, however, that intermarried Jews were shunned by the Jewish community. As in Germany, most successful Jews as well as intermarried Jews did not think that Nazism would bother them too much. Intermarried Jews no longer considered themselves to be Jewish. However, the racial classification system of the Nuremberg Laws of 273

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1935 affected all Jews, including those who were intermarried. The psychological defenses of denial and minimalizing were further broken by the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938. At this point, both intermarried and other Jews hastened to appeal their racial classification, to emigrate, to divorce, or to become baptized. There ensued major upheaval among those with any Jewish blood and a desperate search for documentation of non-Jewish ancestors to help bolster appeals for reclassification. Because Hitler was inconsistent in his criteria for Jewish classification, anyone with even a drop of Jewish blood experienced fear, and survival became the priority for individual members of any intermarried family, whether Jewish or Aryan. Bukey reports that Hitler had a dilemma, namely, how to deal with intermarried Jews without alienating Aryan relatives, and also without losing whatever economic benefits were associated with Jews. Thus, those in privileged positions, such as financiers and industrialists, were far more apt to meet with success in changing their racial classification— some 60 percent succeeded in doing so. In separate chapters, the author discusses the 7–10 percent divorce rate among intermarried couples, whether by choice or through coercion, for political or for personal reasons, and the degradation and danger that increased for anyone who had more than one Jewish grandparent. He notes that more males than females were persecuted, particularly those who were in professions or had successful businesses. Interestingly, however, 90 percent of the intermarried Jews in Austria and Germany survived, in large part because racial laws and policies were so inconsistently revised and applied. This statistic raises some interesting moral questions about perpetrators and victims among intermarried couples—for instance, what separated those who would sacrifice anything for survival from those who refused to compromise their principles. Indeed, such questions apply to both intermarried and other Jews of that time; what one espouses may be different from the way in which one behaves under perilous circumstances. Not surprisingly, those who did return to Austria after the war faced ingrained antisemitism and hostility. Moreover, antisemitism continues to this day in Austria. In contrast to Germany, Austria has neither expressed remorse nor made many attempts to go beyond the minimum in reparations—psychological as well as remunerative. Although this book is informative and rich in statistical detail, it is disappointing in its lack of detail about the individuals who are the main subject—as a psychologist, I would have wanted to know more about their thoughts and feelings as well as those of their parents and subsequent progeny. We can only learn that by means of letters, diaries, and oral testimonies, many of which Bukey mentions without elaboration. How did Jewish (including intermarried Jewish) parents deal with the identity conflicts of the times? What attitudes and views were transmitted consciously and unconsciously to their offspring? How did these identity conflicts affect one’s view of self, others, relationships, and the world? How did Aryan family members feel about intermarriage? How did this play out after the war? And, in a more contemporary context, might the experiences of these intermarried Jews help us understand the increasing intermarriage rate of today’s Jews in western cultures? Barbara F. Okun Northeastern University

Biography, History, and the Social Sciences

Pierre Birnbaum, La République et le cochon. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2013. 193 pp. La République et le cochon is the latest effort by the noted French sociologist to examine the tensions between ethnic and religious particularism and French society’s demands for full integration. A discursive essay addressed to interested lay readers rather than a scholarly monograph, the work examines the association of participation in the French collective with the sharing of a common table, and particularly the consumption of pork and pork products. The issue has been a major theme in recent attacks made by both right-wing elements and radical secularists on the Muslim adherence to the laws of hallal meat. Birnbaum, however, insists that the act of sharing in a common meal lies at the heart of a much earlier debate beginning in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution concerning the ability of observant Jews to become full members of French society. More generally, the author suggests that the reappearance of the debate over the commitment of minority groups to the collective signals the reemergence of a biological definition of the French nation that “triumphed” in the Vichy regime during the Second World War. Birnbaum argues that the serving and eating of pork and ham are deeply embedded in French social and political life. (In the first pages of the book, he offers an overview of the culinary preferences of commoners, political leaders, and public figures— from the banquets and peasant meals of the ancien régime to the table of French president François Hollande.) Subsequent chapters focus on the role of the ideal of the communal table in shaping attitudes toward Jews. Birnbaum insists that it was a prevailing theme in the debates in the 18th and 19th centuries over Jewish emancipation and the granting of citizenship. Leaders of the French Revolution and later the Terror reinforced the importance of eating together by staging communal banquets that were said to symbolize “a public activity by citizens that collectively affirms their fraternal brotherhood [fraternité]” (p. 77). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Birnbaum argues, the degree to which Jewish dietary laws prevented participation in public life was a subject of concern not only in French society in general but also in the Jewish community. The author devotes an entire chapter, for example, to a debate that raged in the pages of the French Jewish press from 1900 (during the height of the Dreyfus affair) through the 1930s between Orthodox defenders of kashrut and Salomon Reinach, a proponent of liberal reform. A penultimate chapter examines the movement to ban ritual slaughtering (sheḥitah) in the early 20th century and ends with a brief discussion of the Third Reich’s opposition to ritual slaughtering and the spread of the ban throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. 275

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Birnbaum’s concentration on French society’s insistence upon the shared consumption of food leads him at times to mistake a symptom for a cause of anti-Jewish sentiment. Thus, he ignores other issues, such as economic activity and the hope for a return to Zion, that have been central tropes in the debates over Jewish citizenship and assimilation since 1789. In his effort to find as many examples as possible to fit his thesis, the author occasionally ventures far afield. The aforementioned chapter on the movement to ban ritual slaughter, for example, focuses mainly on Switzerland, since (as the author himself admits) the issue was never a major concern in France. One may also question how significant the hostility to kashrut and ritual slaughter has been in the development of French antisemitism. Birnbaum never clearly explains, for example, the relationship between the current attack upon hallal laws and the writings and slogans of modern-day French antisemites, many of whom are radical Muslims. Despite these limitations, the work does provide the reader with important insights into French attitudes toward ethnic particularism. In a useful concluding chapter, Birnbaum compares and contrasts the attitudes of the United States, England, Germany, and France on the question of whether the existence of what he calls the “petite société,” that is, the existence of a separate Jewish communal sphere, prevents full integration. In the first three countries, he argues, Jews did not generally seek out positions in the public sector and thus faced few obstacles in their desire to retain religious rituals. In addition, an emphasis upon cultural pluralism and individualism in America and to some extent in England allowed, and continues to allow, for the maintenance of communal practices, such as kashrut and ’eruvim, that are recognized by government authorities. In France, in contrast, the problem of the boundaries between the public and the private became more acute beginning in the period of the Third Republic, when members of Jewish bourgeois elites sought out state positions, a subject that Birnbaum has examined in a previous work, Les fous de la République (1992). More generally, the French revolutionary dream of a “regenerated” society, ignorant of divisions and committed to a “cult of reason” accepted by all citizens, has made public acceptance of the continued survival of rituals specific to Jews more tenuous, especially in periods experiencing an upsurge in antisemitism (p. 152). In recent years, Birnbaum maintains, French society has become more open to accommodating the needs of ethnic and religious minorities, as evidenced in the serving of kosher meals in the Palais d’Elysée, the acceptance of special Jewish sections in cemeteries, and the permission granted to Jewish students to be absent from classes during holidays. Yet the author worries about the future. As he writes in the concluding paragraph, the recent “return of the pig,” along with controversies about kosher and hallal meat, the revival of antisemitism and xenophobia, the rise of domestic terrorism, and the decline of a strong state—and the attendant Jewish retreat from the public sphere, in the form of the resurgence of what Birnbaum describes as “identity behavior” (comportements identitaires)—all threaten to deal a “fatal blow” to the republican dream (p. 154). David Weinberg Wayne State University

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Yossi Goldstein, Golda: biografiyah. Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2012. 649 pp. This biography of Golda Meir comes as part of Yossi Goldstein’s impressively prolific biography project devoted to Zionist political and cultural figures, particularly from the Mapai (Labor Zionist) elite. As acknowledged by Goldstein in the volume’s preface (p. 9), this work is avowedly revisionist in its effort to challenge the decidedly low standing of Meir in contemporary Israeli culture. In critics’ eyes, Golda was myopic about regional political realities and about Israeli society’s sub-ethnic tensions, and—most serious of all—failed as a leader in the period of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Goldstein’s positive revision of Meir’s legacy stands in contrast to his previous, dour biography of Yitzhak Rabin, which was published in 2006 to a public that may not have been emotionally prepared for a detached, critical portrait of the assassinated prime minister. In this sense, the current volume, with its roundly appreciative tone, bears a closer resemblance to Goldstein’s 2003 biography of Levi Eshkol, though the Eshkol biography is even more expansive. Golda reads as a disappointed leftist’s re-thinking of Meir’s legacy. Given the failure of the peace process in the 1990s and Israel’s current predicament(s), the viewpoint Goldstein repeatedly attributes to Meir—namely, her belief that Arabs invariably want to destroy Israel, and that none of their peace overtures can be trusted—appears to have acquired a kind of retrospective pertinence. Although the notion that Israel could rely solely on its own military prowess after June 1967 was symptomatic of a “national psychosis about brute strength” (p. 597), Goldstein never explicitly faults Meir for not trying to negotiate with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat prior to October 1973 or for refusing to take King Hussein’s warnings about an imminent attack seriously. Instead, he stresses that her attitude was a reliable, consistent, and candidly blunt reflection of the way most Israelis thought before the Yom Kippur War. This explains why, until the time of the war, she was ranked as the most popular prime minister in the country’s history (ibid.). Given all this, Goldstein needs to account for the gap between what the “actual record” of Meir’s doings has led him to conclude, and the overwhelmingly negative legacy his subject left in Israel (as opposed to Jewish communities overseas, where she has consistently been revered). He does this in his conclusion, which is somewhat disingenuous. Golda’s negative reputation, he writes, stems from the “psychology of national collective memoir”—his argument being that a historian can, and must, be distanced from such “psychology” in the course of doing research. (Others might note that a historian, along with his or her writings, is necessarily part of that psychology.) Goldstein also repeatedly argues that uncomfortable moments and remarks in Meir’s career were “taken out of context,” not acknowledging that there is validity to the way in which heroes (or anti-heroes) are popularly perceived, regardless of what appears in official documents. For instance, when Israelis today criticize Golda for her condescending characterization of Mizrahi Black Panther activists in April 1971 (in her words, they were “not nice”), they are not necessarily overlooking the many admirable things she did for their parents or grandparents in her role as minister

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of labor twenty years earlier. Rather, given their understanding of Golda’s character and cultural bearing, they find it impossible to believe that she was alert to what Mizrahi activists were trying to communicate by the end of the 1960s. Although Goldstein offers gruelingly detailed descriptions of the intergenerational in-fighting in the Mapai party, he fails to consider whether the country would have fared better under the leadership of younger, more dynamic politicians. To be sure, defense minister Moshe Dayan, stunned by the attack, did not function well during the first days of the Yom Kippur War, whereas Meir retained her composure. Nonetheless, most Israelis (then and now), believe that the country was ill-served by its aging, European-born leadership. Mapai is widely regarded as having been both overly focused on retaining its power and badly out of touch with the realities on the ground. Goldstein’s meticulous account of the warning signs Meir ignored before October 1973 are arresting, if not disturbing—often, the empirical evidence in this volume pulls the reader in directions other than the one Goldstein points to in his proclamations of intent. Moreover, with the declassification of government records, a growing corpus of scholarship is regarding Meir’s failed diplomatic work as a key causal factor in the October 1973 debacle.1 Considering all this, it is not implausible to wonder whether Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Yigal Alon, or others would have ended up in the same place on October 6, 1973. Goldstein, however, gives the matter short shrift. This is ironic, given his extensive scholarship on Zionist Israeli culture and Israeli sociopolitical realities. When it comes to the Yom Kippur War, one of the most traumatic episodes in Israeli history, Goldstein seems to abandon any commitment to seeing events the way most Israelis view them. At least since Greek times, there has been no democracy with such a high level of citizen participation in military affairs as Israel. For this reason, Israelis tend to be particularly unsparing in their judgment of military leadership performance. They set the bar high, and they know that Meir could have—and should have—done better. This is a biography that is realistic about Golda Meir in every way other than its attempt to sneak below that bar on the topic of paramount significance in her life. Matthew Silver Max Stern College of Emek Yezreel

Note 1.  See, for instance, Yigal Kipnis, 1973: haderekh lamilḥamah (Or Yehudah: 2012).

Sebastian Hoepfner, Jewish Organizations in Transatlantic Perspective: Patterns of Contemporary Jewish Politics in Germany and the United States. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012. xv + 364 pp. As the last displaced persons camps closed in West Germany during the 1950s, several thousand Jews remained in the country. Most expected to move on, especially

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to  the United States; indeed, the image often associated with Jewish life in West Germany was a packed suitcase. Yet the German economic “miracle” of the late 1950s, a lower living standard in Israel, and the reassuring presence of U.S. troops made an impact on migrants pondering their options. Thus, there was a cautious revival of Jewish settlement in Germany, marked by the reestablishment of several dozen Jewish communities. The main centers were (West) Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich. By the late 1950s, a bit fewer than 30,000 Jews lived in West Germany. This number had decreased slightly by 1989 to about 27,000. The organized Jewish community in East Germany was much smaller, comprising only a few hundred individuals in 1989. The end of the Cold War sparked a sudden and dramatic transformation of Jewish communities in West and East Germany. Against the backdrop of rising antisemitic discrimination in the Soviet Union, the first and last democratically elected government of East Germany publicly offered Jews from the Soviet Union automatic asylum in the spring of 1990. The proponents of this policy declared that the East German Communist regime had not taken sufficient responsibility for crimes committed by Germans, and in the name of Germany specifically, against Jews between 1933 and 1945. Following German reunification in October 1990, the governments of the German Länder (states) decided to continue the East German open-door policy toward Jews from the Soviet Union. The German state designated these Jews as “refugees,” even though the overwhelming majority based their decision to move to Germany on economic factors. Most Jews from the Soviet Union and its successor states settled in Israel and, to a lesser degree, in the United States. More than 150,000, however, opted for Germany, which within a few years emerged as an important center of Jewish life. Only in 2005 did the federal German government begin to restrict the immigration of Jews (and ethnic Germans) from the former Soviet Union. This transformation explains why it is worthwhile taking a closer look at the (re-)organization of Jewish life in Germany after 1945. A thorough analysis of Jewish community life after the mid-1950s remains a desideratum. Thanks in part to a small boom of Russian-language newspapers, more is known about the 1990s, but a detailed survey that makes use of Russian-language sources (and interviews) has not been compiled. Unfortunately, Sebastian Hoepfner’s Jewish Organizations in Transatlantic Per­ spective does not provide a thorough analysis of organized Jewish life in Germany in the last two decades. He does not raise the question why Jews who moved to (West) Germany between 1945 and 2005 accommodated to the pre-1933 state-regulated community model and why this model remained in place in a unified Germany after 1990. Hoepfner, a political scientist, discusses “Jewish politics” in the United States and Germany, focusing on self-organization, institution building, and lobbying on the leadership (rather than the grassroots) level. Readers have to digest much political science jargon and negotiate their way through a maze of subchapters. The complicated organization and expansive footnotes betray the book’s origins as a partly revised doctoral dissertation. Curiously, the author does not explain why he decided to study Jewish self-organization in Germany and the United States. The origins, evolution, and organization of Jewish life in the United States have been extensively researched. Hoepfner does reference the key works, notably by the late Daniel J. Elazar. It remains unclear why he devotes the bulk of the study (200 of 350 pages) to the main American Jewish organizations, their functions and objectives. Admittedly, parts of this lengthy section are

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based on the author’s research and interviews. But Hoepfner adds nothing substantially new to the debate. Somewhat ironically, he recognizes that the make-up of American Jewish communities is hardly typical. His discussion demonstrates how much the pluralist American democracy and society continue to shape organized American Jewish life, and vice versa. The organized Jewish community in the United States is by far the largest in the diaspora, but it can hardly serve as a model for other communities in smaller countries with distinct political traditions. Indeed, it might have been much more interesting if Hoepfner had looked at the evolution and transformation of Jewish communities in post-1945 Britain and France before shifting the discussion to Germany. The comparatively short 60-page section on Germany will be of most interest to non-German readers, even though it lacks depth in comparison with the exhaustive section on Jewish life in the United States. For instance, on p. 263, Hoepfner outlines how, in 2003, the Central Council of Jewish Communities in Germany redefined its relationship to the federal government and secured long-term funding. This topic has not been discussed by other scholars in detail. Yet instead of providing analysis, Hoepfner relates to the negotiations resulting in a new agreement as a well-known fact. And while mentioning repeatedly that representatives of the state of Israel (most famously President Ezer Weizman during a 1996 visit) called on Jews in Germany to move to Israel, sometimes criticizing them harshly for living in the country of the perpetrators, Hoepfner does not sufficiently explore the impact of these statements on leading Jewish representatives in Germany. Ultimately, then, Jewish Organizations in Transatlantic Perspective fails to engage with general questions about the function of Jewish communities and their relationship to societies and different levels of the state. Tobias Brinkmann Penn State University

Alice Kessler-Harris, A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2012. 439 pp. With three biographies of Lillian Hellman (1905–1984) and a fourth work that treats her passionate life with the writer Dashiell Hammett, as well as the playwright’s own three memoirs (An Unfinished Woman, Pentimento, and Scoundrel Time), it is fair to ask why Alice Kessler-Harris, a pioneer of American women’s history, decided to write a new biography of this “difficult woman.” What was so significant about her life as to merit another book? What is at stake in a reassessment of her political and personal commitments? And, perhaps more relevant to these pages: why should historians of the Jews pay attention to figures like Hellman, whose Jewishness was defined primarily by ancestry rather than affiliation? Paraphrasing the title of a classic article on this last question, we (historians of the Jews) might well ask, “Should We Take Notice of Lillian Hellman? Reflections on the Domain of Jewish History.”1 In my opinion, we should, but not necessarily for the reasons that compelled KesslerHarris to undertake this biography.

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A biography of Lillian Hellman is relevant to modern Jewish history for three main reasons. First, her life intersected with one of the most complex aspects of 20thcentury Jewish life: the fateful encounter with Communism particularly and with the Left generally. Second, as a so-called “marginal” Jew, to use Lionel Trilling’s phrase, Hellman represented the sui generis ability of Jews in the United States to exit the Jewish community without encountering any significant antisemitism. Third, Hellman’s gender was an essential component in how she negotiated her career in her lifetime, and the significance of her gender is one of the components of her life that is being contested today by historians. The inclusion of gender and of women as categories of historical analysis has revolutionized modern Jewish historiography since the late 1960s. Several female historians of Jewish origin who were not trained as historians of the Jews per se (among them Gerda Lerner, Joan Scott, Natalie Zemon Davis, Linda Gordon, and KesslerHarris herself) were drawn to the study of radical, progressive, and liminal women, many of whom were also of Jewish origin. These trail-blazing historians also uncovered the neglected histories of women of color and working-class women, highlighting the nexus between left-wing politics and historiographic trends. The study of Hellman, therefore, fits well into David Hollinger’s call for historians of American Jews to pay attention not merely to “communalist” but also to “dispersionist” figures.2 Hollinger believes that Jewish history in America will be made relevant to American historiography if it is denationalized. In other words, Hellman is important to historians of modern Jewry, of which America is a part, because she represents a type of modern Jew who is marginal to organized Jewish life, central to new, 20th-century forms of modernist cultural production, and engaged with left-wing politics. We could make a long list of individuals of this type on both sides of the Atlantic. This said, Kessler-Harris’s biography is concerned with other issues, primarily a reassessment of Hellman’s rise and fall in the public eye. In her words: “This then is a book (a biography if you will) about a woman, about the idea of a woman, and about the world that formed and shaped her” (p. 5). The book’s thematic chapters treat Hellman’s brief southern childhood, Hollywood writing successes, complicated sex and love lives, political activism, and financial moxie, among other topics. Yet, ultimately, Kessler-Harris wants to explore why Hellman was valorized early in her life for defying the House Un-American Activities Committee’s badgering in 1952, but was not forgiven by her peers or by historians for her unwillingness to condemn involvement with the Communist party. Hellman justified the purges of the 1930s and had participated in the Popular Front, an international campaign of cooperation with non-Communist, formerly suspicious “bourgeois” parties in the struggle against capitalism. She also ignored Soviet persecution of non-Communist leftists in the Spanish Civil War and supported the Hitler-Stalin pact. In Pentimento (1973), she transposed the real-life story of Muriel Gardner, an American anti-fascist activist in prewar Vienna, onto her lifelong friend “Julia,” the subject of a popular film partly based on the book. Famously and damningly, the New York intellectual Mary McCarthy pilloried Hellman on the Dick Cavett Show in 1980 for being an unregenerate liar and unrepentant Stalinist. Hellman responded with a life-draining libel suit against McCarthy, which never made it to court. McCarthy’s accusations, however, stuck. Kessler-Harris wants to give Hellman another hearing. Her book emphasizes that Hellman had a lifelong commitment to fighting fascism and defending civil rights.

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She hated bullies, and Joseph McCarthy was the worst of them. Seeking to deflect the preoccupation with Hellman’s Communism, Kessler-Harris concludes that “her politics remained a moral politics vested in the belief that too much attention was being paid to the Soviets, too little to civil liberties in America” (p. 269, emphasis added). Earlier, she states: “Hellman’s moralism (her insistence that she stood for truth, loyalty, antagonism to corruption, commitment to social justice, and racial equalitarianism) may have been her undoing, placing her, as it did, at the fulcrum of ideological disagreement” (p. 10). According to Kessler-Harris, Hellman believed that a better world was possible, and she was dedicated to an “ethic of justice” (p. 102). The problem with these assertions is that Kessler-Harris does not interrogate or historicize her own implicit praise for Hellman’s “moral” anti-fascism. What is the meaning of the term “moral politics,” and was it the same in the interwar period, during the Second World War, and afterwards? What was moral about justifying Stalin’s handing over western Poland—with a Jewish population exceeding 2,000,000—to the Nazis in August 1939? And if much of the evidence of Stalin’s authoritarianism was already known to anarchists and socialists soon after he came to power (cf. Emma Goldman’s My Disillusionment in Russia, 1923), let alone to leftist writers as significant as John Dos Passos, George Orwell, and I.F. Stone, what was moral about her refusal to condemn Soviet terror? Similarly problematic is Kessler-Harris’ failure to distinguish between Communism and socialism. These terms—and the groups associated with them—had rent the international Left from the time of the Bolshevik seizure of power. Kessler-Harris, however, seems to regard them as basically the same: “In 1936 and 1937, the heyday of the Popular Front and the moment when the New Deal seemed to be veering leftward, Hellman found in a broadly defined socialism the value system she held dear. In the Communist party, to which Hammett probably already belonged, she saw the opportunity to oppose fascism and construct a political path for socialism” (p. 121). The historical problem is that fealty to Communism often meant implacable opposition to socialism, most famously exposed by Orwell in Homage to Catalonia, which describes how supporters of Stalin deliberately fought against non-Communist socialists and anarchists during the Spanish Civil War. Likewise, trade unions in the 1920s had to contend with Communist efforts to “bore from within,” a strategy that often pitted the latter against socialist and other left-wing activists. For historians of the Jews, one need look no further than the dissolution of any autonomous forms of Jewish socialism in the Soviet Union as early as 1920. All biographies, perhaps, run the risk of a certain hagiography. Kessler-Harris’s book, oddly, does not paint a particularly flattering portrait of her subject. Hellman’s political myopia and stubborn defensiveness sullied her artistic achievements. The evidence from A Difficult Woman affirms that Hellman was a fabulist, making up components of her past and willfully forgetting inconvenient episodes in her life. But she was also a highly successful writer, an independent financial actor, a sexual free spirit, and a lifelong advocate of racial justice; for a woman in 20th-century America, these were no small accomplishments. To achieve them, one had to be “difficult.” Hellman’s life is significant for U.S. historians and historians of modern Jewry. It illustrates how fundamentally different the stakes were for Communists in the United States as opposed to those living in Europe and thus challenges historians to grapple with American political difference. McCarthyism was symptomatic of the vulnerability

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of U.S. democracy to demagogues; at the same time, the blacklist was not the gulag. Hellman’s life also confirms the observation that, in the 20th century, Jews were definable as a social type even if they had no ethnic/linguistic/religious or geographic affiliation with other Jews. Their “difference” was palpable. At the same time, notwithstanding the social antisemitism of the 1920s and 1930s, a woman of Hellman’s talents and ambition could become almost anything she wanted—a fact that again underscores the distinctiveness of the American Jewish experience. Finally, Hellman, like many other American Jews, was entranced by the fact that, more than any other self-defined left-wing group, Communists fought for racial inclusivity. Communist Jews, as well as other Jews on the Left and among liberals, believed that fighting racial discrimination compelled the country to honor its founding promise of equality under the law. Expanding the boundaries of civic toleration, as evidenced by the predominance of Jewish women in the feminist movement and of Jews in the emergence of the new social history of the 1970s, is a Jewish story. For all of these reasons, Hellman’s life very much fits into the domain of modern Jewish history. She may not have been exemplary, but her life is an exemplar of the range of political and personal options available to Jews in the American diaspora. Nancy Sinkoff Rutgers University

Notes 1.  Ezra Mendelsohn, “Should We Take Notice of Bertha Weill? Reflections on the Domain of Jewish History,” Jewish Social Studies (New Series) 1 (Fall 1994), 22–39. 2.  David A. Hollinger, “Communalist and Dispersionist Approaches to American Jewish History in an Increasingly Post-Jewish Era,” American Jewish History 95, no.1 (March 2009), 1–32.

Guy Miron, The Waning of Emancipation: Jewish History, Memory and the Rise of Fascism in Germany, France and Hungary. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012. x + 308 pp. Guy Miron has given us an impressive work outlining the ways in which Jews in the 1930s confronted the end of their emancipation in three different countries: Germany, France, and Hungary. By including this last example, Miron extends the traditional comparison between the first two western countries to an eastern Central European country that had also undergone an emancipatory process. With the rise of the Nazi threat in the 1930s, Jews in each of these countries perceived a waning level of integration. Nevertheless, well past the initial Nazi seizure of power, many of them, especially among the liberal elite, remained confident in their future. In France and in Hungary, it was argued that the new wave of antisemitism was an imported German invention that was foreign to their countries’ tradition. In reaction, Jews celebrated their long-term integration—for instance, the 900th anniversary of the

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Worms synagogue, or, in Hungary, the ninth centenary of Saint Stephen, the sacred king (on another occasion commemorating Saint Stephen, Erno Munkacsi, the director of the Jewish museum of Budapest, noted that “members of our faith and blood have resided here as early as the days of the Hungarian king and were already among the supporters of the motherland” [p. 174]). Jews also took pride in past victories of their nation, such as the battle of Valmy (1792) or the battle of Verdun during the First World War, and among the heroes in their pantheon were Abbé Gregoire, Léon Gambetta, Adolphe Crémieux, and Emile Zola (in France), Moses Mendelssohn, Gotthold Lessing, and Alexander von Humboldt (in Germany), and (in Hungary), Lajos Kossuth. Even among many who were critical of assimilation, there was no desire to return to the era preceding emancipation. In Germany, for instance, Markus Elias, an Orthodox Jewish educator, argued in 1935 that “the vast majority of those Jews to whom we are linked by our blood and fate . . . are not ready to add a cultural ghetto to the social ghetto. Can we return today to the pre-Mendelssohn era? If we do, we should build for ourselves a ghetto within a ghetto, a fortified wall around our own children” (p. 51). And in Hungary, Aladár Komlós wrote: “we do not want to accept an incorrect argument that the mistakes of the assimilation have brought us to the current situation, have torn us apart from Europe and led to the rebuilding of the ghetto’s wall around us. On the contrary! The Jewish ghetto culture was not only shallow; it was also more dangerous to life!” (p. 201). Notwithstanding, the weakening of emancipation called into question the value of assimilation and renewed the discussion regarding the lost values of ghetto culture. Although almost all liberal Jews in France, Germany, and Hungary rejected the notion of a “return to the ghetto,” the idea was now and again broached, mainly among Orthodox or immigrant Jews. In Hungary, Endre Sós (a liberal) commented that “we Jews of Hungary were good Hungarians and bad Jews” (p. 181). By the same token, in Germany, Jewish communal leader Alfred Hirschberg wrote in July 1933: “At the end of a Jewish development in Germany which lasted one hundred and twenty years and was found[ed] on the ambiguous concept of emancipation, we stand today before a situation more difficult in many respects than was the starting point” and called for a “new emancipation” (p. 33). In France, an important liberal figure, Maurice Liber, praised emancipation while criticizing what he called “the passive emancipation,” the notion that Judaism was merely a religion and that belonging to it was a purely individual act (p. 94). Others, Miron notes, saw Mendelssohn as a “misleading light” (p. 64). Yet most Jews wanted, at the least, to maintain their “internal emancipation,” even if “external emancipation” (p. 61) had suddenly vanished. At the same time, facing official policies that destroyed their rights, excluded them from the public realm, and even threatened their lives, some Jews, though “small in number,” became extremely critical of any process of assimilation and began wondering if the return to the ghetto would not be a better solution to preserve the Jewish nation, culture, and religion. For Simon Schwab, a German rabbi, “the ghetto in which our forefathers were confined in the Middle Ages has been disgraceful but life within it was a triumph full of light” (p. 49). Another rabbi (and Zionist), Joachim Prinz, wrote Wir Juden (1934), which offered a rehabilitation of ghetto life. For Schwab and Prinz, assimilation inevitably led to negation—that is, the brutal exclusion of Jews from the body of the nation.

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On this issue, Miron offers us an unexpected and superb analysis of the situation in France. Despite the fact that in France, as opposed to the German or the Hungarian cases, “most of the immigrants’ spokespeople—national Jewish, Socialists and Communists alike—shared the French Jewish belief in the heritage of the Revolution” (p. 109), numerous (and previously unknown) articles written in the Yiddish press tell a different story. A number of prominent immigrants, among them Eliyahu Tcherikower (a student of Simon Dubnov), Aaron Singalovski, Wolf Weviorka, and Arnold Mandel became strongly critical about the extent of assimilation and, following the Yiddish poet Yaacov Glatshteyn, who already left for the United States, would be almost ready to say, like him, good night: “In a proud step, out of my own initiative, I return to the ghetto” (p. 132). Miron has much more to say on the internal differences among Jews facing the devastating new threat to their integration and well-being. For each country, he outlines the various responses to the brutal change of Jews’ status; what awaits further evaluation is the varying size and importance of each group and sub-group in the three countries. One would also like to see a systematic comparative analysis of the issues discussed by Miron, along with a more thorough normative explanation (using independent variables such as kind of state and state/church relations) of how French, German, and Hungarian Jewries, whatever their “parallel” reactions to the waning of emancipation, followed different paths. In the meantime, however, Miron has given us much to ponder in this innovative, brilliant, and well-researched book. Pierre Birnbaum Université Paris 1

Stephen Sharot, Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011. xi + 317 pp. Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities, consisting of essays written by Stephen Sharot that were published over the course of three and a half decades, is a genuine scholarly achievement in the area of Jewish sociology. Its contents traverse time and geography, considering religious issues and identities in diverse Jewish communities ranging from Kaifeng in Imperial China to Renaissance Italy, up to contemporary Israel and the United States. Throughout the book, Sharot sets his analyses in the context of contemporary scholarly debates. Given the amplitude of this work, it is difficult to summarize in the space of a short review. At the risk of oversimplifying, I would say that Sharot’s point is as follows: under the diverse circumstances of their life conditions throughout history and across the world, Jews underwent manifold forms of syncretism and acculturation. They were obliged to make major concessions with regard to their distinctiveness vis-à-vis their environments; as a result, growing differences emerged between communities. At the same time, as a world religion, Jews have also known processes typical of other religions: millenarianism, messianism, and antinomianism. These, however, were to some extent “Judaized.”

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The book is divided into four parts. The first compares religious developments in pre-modern and early modern Jewish communities. Sharot shows how the social structures of various societies, and the position of Jews within them, influenced interactions between Jews and non-Jews. In Kaifeng, for example, the Jewish community remained vibrant over a period of several centuries, despite its isolation in the middle of a huge continent. This situation was due in part to the flexibility of Chinese religious pluralism, but also to the Jews’ readiness to acculturate. Further on, Sharot analyzes the expressions of popular religion, focusing especially on the phenomenon of saints who fulfill the role of self-appointed intercessors between the “people” and the divinity. Sharot underlines the fact that neither Islam nor Judaism built an encompassing church structure that would institutionalize the notion of sainthood; in consequence, Jewish and Muslim “saints” rarely, if ever, came from the ranks of established clerical elites. Sharot’s detailed analyses of Sufism in North Africa and Hasidism in Eastern Europe demonstrate how alternative religious movements and the saints that were their emblematic figures were actually major forces of religious change and transformation. To some extent, the second part of the book overlaps with the last chapter of the previous part, dealing with Jewish messianic-millennial and antinomian religious movements in the pre-modern and early modern period. Sharot considers the relative impact of theologies of thaumaturgy (focusing on miracle-working and divine intervention) as opposed to those stressing the transformative power of carrying out God’s commandments in the everyday world. In its essence, he contends, Judaism is oriented toward the latter. Notwithstanding, various millenarian movements and messianic mystic groups have emerged throughout the history of Judaism, most often during times of crisis and persecution, and especially among Sephardi communities. The Shabbetai Zvi movement was a good illustration of this phenomenon; more recently, there has been an upsurge of messianism among Ashkenazim in the context of the growth and dynamics of the Chabad movement. The third section of the book deals with the relationship between religion and ethnicity in modern Judaism. Sharot discusses the separation of these two concepts in the wake of the emancipation of western Jews and the multiple formulations of Jewish identities that consequently emerged. Sharot’s assessment is that Jewish ethnicity is structurally founded in religious institutions; hence, there is a symbiosis between the two, though one or the other may become predominant, depending on circumstances. Ethnicity, in his view, has become predominant among American Jews, whereas in Israel, Judaism has been formulated as a national identity that grants a large role to religion and religious symbols despite the fact that many Israelis are not themselves religious. After reviewing the abundant literature (including some of his own research), Sharot concludes that few Jewish Israelis define themselves solely on the basis of a national Israeli identity; most also adhere, in varying degrees, to Jewishness and, further, to a more specific ethnic identity. In general, the secular public shows a relatively low degree of attachment to any additional identity beyond “Israeli Jewishness”; in contrast, traditional Jews—in particular, those of Middle Eastern origins—often relate as well to a more narrow ethnic identity (based on specific geographical origins) as well as to a more encompassing ethnic identity (for instance, Mizrahi).

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In the last part of the book, Sharot analyzes developments in Judaism in the modern period in the light of theoretical debates in the field of the sociology of religion concerning such issues as secularization, fundamentalism, and public religion. In particular, he demonstrates that, contrary to the classic theoretical stance, a steep decline in religiosity in the wake of the breakup of cohesive local communities, exposure to scientific education, and involvement in broad-based political and civilian institutions have not prevented a parallel trend of neotraditionalism. This is not simply a matter of conservative fundamentalists rejecting modernity entirely or in part. Rather, modernity itself has provided appropriate conditions for the strengthening of neotraditionalism, in part through the reorganization of traditional structures on the basis of local voluntaristic groups. Here and elsewhere in the volume, Sharot also deals with Jewish ethnicity in a comparative context. His general assessment is that Jews, while certainly comparable to other ethnic groups in certain respects, are an exceptional case insofar as their identity is characterized by a fusion of religion and ethnicity. As is common in collected works written over a long period of time, there is a certain lack of cohesion among the various parts. Sharot tackles this problem with numerous introductory and afterword sections, which do not entirely succeed in producing a wellintegrated volume. Notwithstanding, Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities contains numerous insights and contributions to scholarly knowledge, and it should be regarded as a very useful compendium of diverse and interesting topics and data. Eliezer Ben-Rafael Tel Aviv University

Azriel Shohet, The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941, ed. Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman; trans. Faigie Tropper and Moshe Rosman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. xxxiv + 754 pp. This is the second volume to appear in English of a major publication project (in Hebrew) on the history of the Jews in the twin towns of Pinsk and Karlin. Its history is described by Moshe Rosman in the introduction to the first of these volumes to be translated, Mordechai Nadav’s The Jews of Pinsk, 1506–1880 (2008). As Rosman explains, the project began as a yizker-bukh prepared by emigrants from Pinsk in Israel, which was then expanded to include two scholarly volumes under the editorship of Wolf Zeev Rabinowitsch, the first published in 1973 and the second in 1977.1 Along with essays in Hebrew and English on a large range of topics, these works featured two scholarly monographs, the first by Nadav and the second by Azriel Shohet, which form the basis of the two volumes translated into English. Nadav’s volume was a model micro-history that shed new light on numerous aspects of the history of the Jews of Poland-Lithuania and the Russian partition, including the functioning of the Jewish community (kehilah), the response of the town elite to the emergence of Hasidism, the nature of the Haskalah, and the economic evolution of the town. Karlin-Pinsk was strategically located at the convergence of two roads

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and at the confluence of two rivers. This proved crucial to its early growth but was also the source of its economic decline in the late 19th century, when the new railway undermined the importance of river traffic. The present volume begins with the wave of pogroms in 1881 and ends with the Soviet occupation of Pinsk, which lasted from September 16, 1939 until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. An epilogue by Zvi Gitelman gives a short account of the mass murder of the Jews in the town and of the community’s postwar history.2 While providing a wealth of information, this volume has fewer revelations than its predecessor. Shohet, who was born in 1906 in Motol, near Pinsk, worked for many years in Israel as a high school teacher and as an instructor at the Hebrew Teachers’ Seminary before becoming a member of the faculty of what was to become the University of Haifa in 1964, retiring in 1975. His historical approach is heavily factographic and also reflects the state of knowledge of the period in which it was written; thus, it does not take into account the many new developments in the scholarship of the area or the opening of the Polish, Belarusian, and Russian archives. The book is based, above all, on the Yiddish and Hebrew press and on material in Israeli and American archives, principally the Central Archives of the Jewish People, the Central Zionist Archives, the Joint Distribution Committee archives, and the YIVO archives. No Polish or Russian archives have been consulted. In addition, Polish and Russian secondary works, even those published before 1993 (the year of Shohet’s death), are largely absent from the bibliography. Nevertheless, there is much to be learned from this compendious volume. By 1881, the largely Jewish character of Pinsk had long been established. When the first modern census was taken in the Tsarist Empire in 1897, there were 21,065 Jews out of a total population of 28,368, accounting for 74.6 percent of the total; by 1914, the population of the town had grown to 38,686, of which Jews made up 72.2 percent. The Jewish population fell during and after the First World War—according to the Polish census of 1931, it was then 20,220, or approximately 63.4 percent of the population. Its largely Jewish character made Pinsk similar to towns like Białystok or Berdichev, although these were larger in size. The year 1881 was not a major turning point in the history of the town. Pinsk, as was the case in the whole of historic Lithuania, was not affected by the wave of pogroms that began in that year, partly because of the strong action taken by the authorities and partly because the area had not been much affected by the commercialization of agriculture, which had exacerbated relations between Jews and their neighbors in the south. It may be too, that this was an area where, at least until the impact of modernity, Christian-Jewish relations were relatively harmonious. Rather than anti-Jewish hostility, it was the economic decline of the town, caused by the shifting of trade routes and the diminishing importance of river traffic (especially from the 1890s onwards), that led to the large-scale emigration of the Jewish population between 1897 and 1931. The revolutionary crisis of the Tsarist Empire between 1904 and 1907 brought modern Jewish politics to the town. The bitter conflicts between the various Zionist and socialist groupings are graphically described in the volume. Even more disastrous was the impact of the First World War, which saw the town first occupied by the Germans and then, during the Russian Civil War, by a succession of repressive regimes—Ukrainian, Bolshevik, and ultimately Polish. Shohet provides a shocking

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and detailed account of the judicial murder of 35 Jews that was carried out by the first Polish occupation regime in April 1919.3 As he shows, there was no basis for the view that these individuals had been organizing a Communist insurrection—in fact, they had been attending a public meeting to consider how to allocate Passover aid. Shohet relies on a large range of memoir and newspaper material and gives a good description of the way the Polish government attempted to deal with this atrocity. Unfortunately, his account does not make use of official documents published by Jerzy Tomaszewski, in particular the report of the military commission established by the Polish Army.4 The names of some of the Poles involved are also garbled—thus the name of the Minister of War, General Józef Krzysztof Leśniewski, is spelled Liszniewski; that of Colonel Stefan Strzemiński, who headed the Military Commission, is reproduced as Staszminski; and that of the Polish-American volunteer Lieutenant Francis Fronczak is given as Franczak. The book provides an extremely detailed account of the different religious, political, and cultural movements in Pinsk in the interwar period, as well as much material on Jewish culture and education and on Jewish communal and social welfare institutions. Shohet demonstrates how both local government and kehilah elections during the 1930s saw a significant increase in the support for the Left, above all the Bund. However, the account of general political developments is swamped by the enormous amount of detail provided on the individual parties; this section would have benefited from a fuller description of the functioning of local and communal self-government and of the relations of the municipality with the Polish central government. What Shohet does make clear is that the attempt of the government after 1935 to strengthen the Polish minority in Polesie contributed to the further undermining of the economy of Pinsk. The description of the Soviet occupation is disappointing. Much recent scholarship in this area has attempted to elucidate the degree of Jewish support for the new regime and the extent to which this was responsible for the wave of anti-Jewish violence that followed the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Those looking for information on these topics will not find it in this volume. Overall, however, this is an impressive and very complete account of Jewish life in Pinsk. Although it sometimes fails to contextualize the position of the Jews or to take into account the scholarship that was available at the time to the author, it remains a testament to his dedication to the subject and constitutes a major resource for all those interested in the history of the Jews of Eastern Europe. Antony Polonsky Brandeis University

Notes 1.  The original yizker-bukh was published in 1966 by the Association of the Jews of Pinsk as Pinsk: Sefer ’edut vezikaron lekehilat Pinsk-Karlin, ed. Nahman Tamir (Mirski). 2. This topic is dealt with at greater length in the yizker-bukh, in an article by Nahum Boneh (Mular), “Shoah vemered bepinsk,” which appeared in an English translation in the first volume edited by Rabinowitsch; unfortunately, it was not included in the volume under review.

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3.  Shohet later wrote an expanded account; see “Parshat hapogrom bePinsk baḥamishah beapril 1919,” Gal-Ed 1 (1973), 135–173. 4.  Jerzy Tomaszewski, “Pinsk, Saturday 5 April 1919,” in Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies, vol. 1 (Oxford: 1986), 226–251.

Gerald Sorin, Howard Fast: Life and Literature in the Left Lane. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. xi + 512 pp. The Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, which was held at the WaldorfAstoria Hotel in the spring of 1949, was a Communist front operation that a few anti-Communist intellectuals crashed. Among them was the critic Dwight Macdonald, the independent radical who mischievously accepted an invitation from the novelist Howard Fast to join him and his comrades at a conference reception. Macdonald detested the politics and literature that Fast personified. For Fast was not merely a fervent Stalinist; his fiction also flaunted the “mid-cult” sensibility that was corrupting both the energy of folk art and the sublimity of high art. And yet, once he met him, Macdonald discovered that he and Fast had a good deal in common. They shared a culture (which consisted of having read the same books), championed the same underdogs (such as Negroes and Jews), and even faced common adversaries (such as the church and the State Department). The Waldorf-Astoria social occasion was a rare instance of comity among the left intelligentsia,1 even though the episode is unmentioned in this superbly researched, eminently readable, and highly critical biography of the writer who, by the late 1940s, “had become the public face of the Communist Party in America” (p. 1). Posterity has not been kind to Howard Fast (1914–2003). By mid-century, he was among the most famous and most prolific American novelists of his time. Most commercial novelists would have envied the sales figures that made him wealthy. (His readership was admittedly boosted by the translations that flooded the Eastern bloc countries.) Gerald Sorin, who is himself a prolific historian of American Jewry, estimates that about a hundred million copies of Fast’s nearly one hundred books flew off the shelves, making him perhaps “the most widely read writer of the twentieth century” (p. 2). In sales, Fast was certainly unsurpassed in his specialty, historical fiction. He was the Sir Walter Scott of “scientific socialism,” in which genre he is perhaps best known for Spartacus (1951), a book that was translated into more than thirty languages, including Russian, Chinese, Hebrew, and Yiddish. The anti-Communist blacklist forced Fast to publish Spartacus himself, and for a few decades it was “the only self-published best seller in literary history” (p. 242). Even Fast’s FBI file (which Sorin pried loose under the Freedom of Information Act) was huge, running to some 1,600 pages. Fast had joined the Communist party in 1943; when he quit fourteen years later, the New York Times considered the resignation front-page news. Moscow’s Literatnaya Gazeta also took notice, calling him “a slanderer, an opportunist, a bourgeois nationalist,” and not least a “reactionary agent . . . of Zionism” (p. 324). Such ingratitude! Fast had after all accepted a Stalin Peace Prize in 1954, and no American writer had ever been so willing to parrot the coarseness of Soviet propaganda.

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The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) consisted, in his words, of “a group of native fascists” (p. 120) and Fast denied the right of “fascists, native or foreign, to mouth their lies, their attacks upon democracy” (p. 75). He was a victim of the Red Scare that coincided with the smash-up of the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union. Convicted of contempt of Congress in 1947, Fast served three months in jail three years later; as a “security risk,” he was also denied a passport. No wonder that such an atmosphere constituted “the last moment before fascism” (p. 198). The Mundt-Nixon bill of the mid-century congressional assault upon the Communist party was “an open, unashamed and brazen law for a fascist America” (p. 144). Though Fast had endorsed the application of the Smith Act in the prosecution of Trotskyists, when the same law was applied to the Communist leadership a decade later, he decried it as betokening “the horror of fascism” (p. 247). During the election of 1952, Fast downplayed the military record of the presidential candidate who had crushed the Third Reich. “Working people know,” Fast asserted, that “Eisenhower represents fascism” (p. 261). If Jewish communal agencies were to accept the guilty verdict in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, such complicity would mean submission to “the fate which fascism historically reserves for Jewish people everywhere” (p. 251). Banned from speaking on several campuses, Fast was free to teach at the Jefferson School of Social Science, where he offered a course on “Fascism and the Novel.” One exemplary practitioner of that genre, Franz Kafka, was smeared as “a petty-bourgeois German fascist” (p. 191). Had the word “fascism” not been coined, Fast might have been rendered speechless. In 1952, on the ticket of the American Labor party, he trolled for voters in the 23rd congressional district of New York, where he warned of the plans of the Truman administration to install “a Fascist concentration camp system” (p. 259). But in a field of four, Fast finished fourth. Even the Republican candidate came out ahead of him, humiliating him in this heavily Jewish section of the Bronx. New York was nevertheless roots. The family name had been Fastov; his parents were immigrant Jews who had bequeathed grinding poverty to “Howie” and his four siblings. His education consisted of the city’s public schools and public libraries, where he discovered Mark Twain and especially Jack London. It is impossible not to admire Fast’s pluck and determination to make the vocation of writing, which he did almost daily, his exit from the cul-de-sac of destitution. He wrote about Jews (Romance of a People [1941], My Glorious Brothers [1948], Moses: Son of Egypt [1958]); he wrote about the Cheyenne (The Last Frontier [1941]); he wrote for young adults, and also for readers of such diverse publications as Coronet, PM, and the Daily Worker. Citizen Tom Paine (1943) and April Morning (1961) were acclaimed novels about the anti-imperialist struggle also known as the American Revolution. Freedom Road (1944) dealt sympathetically with South Carolina freedmen during Reconstruction, and earned the praise of Eleanor Roosevelt in her newspaper column, “My Day.” Over the course of a decade, it sold almost thirty million copies and was translated into 82 languages. The party nevertheless disapproved of the novel. Its liberal use of the word “nigger” collided with a zealous internal campaign against “white chauvinism” (p. 70). Even the detective story writer and devoted leftist Dashiell Hammett called Freedom Road “over-simplified” (p. 67). How did Fast manage to write so much? A partial explanation is plagiarism. His fictionalized biography of Governor John Peter Altgeld, The American (1946), drew

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heavily—but without attribution—upon Harry Barnard’s biography, Eagle Forgotten (1938). Fast’s 1941 portrayal of an 18th-century Jewish financier stole from Charles Edward Russell’s Haym Salomon and the Revolution (1930). Sorin calls The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti (1953) a “theft of intellectual property” (pp. 277, 279) because the book is so indebted to Felix Frankfurter’s famous exposé of procedural flaws in the cause célèbre of the 1920s. And even though Fast told one of W.E.B. Du Bois’ biographers how much Du Bois’ pioneering historical volume, Black Reconstruction (1935), had inspired the composition of Freedom Road, it is not listed among the book’s sources. Plagiarism may be an occupational hazard for authors of historical fiction because of their dependence upon scholarship to launch their evocations of time and place. Fast might have immunized himself against such accusations and lawsuits by responsibly citing his sources. He did not. Nor did his politics enhance his art. It “was mostly flat, one-dimensional, distorted by ideology” (p. 6), especially because the crude taste of the apparatchiks had to be considered and assuaged. If a novelist ignores “the dialectic, his work will be completely stagnant,” Fast insisted (p. 78)—a peculiar assertion made during a decade highlighted by works as brilliant as William Faulkner’s “The Bear” (1942), Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men (1946), and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead (1948). Sorin argues that Fast’s artistry declined while he belonged to the party, which is when his “literary slide began” (p. 4), though an exception is made for Spartacus. It was adapted to the screen in 1960; Sorin claims that Fast wrote a significant portion of the dialogue, though only Dalton Trumbo is credited as scenarist. As an ex-Communist who had wriggled away from the party during the Cold War, Fast encountered no obstacles in appealing to the marketplace and he became enormously rich, especially through the popularity of a six-volume family saga titled The Immigrants (1977–1997). Subpoenas were thus replaced with substantial royalty checks, enabling Fast and his wife, the former Bette Cohen, to enjoy a very comfortable suburban life in New Jersey and Connecticut, and even, for a spell—swimming pool included—in Beverly Hills. There, as his onetime daughter-in-law, the novelist and poet Erica Jong, observed in her inimitable way, “he was fucking every actress in sight” (p. 368). Fast adhered to a double standard in political morality, cutting so much slack to the Soviet Union and refusing until 1957 to acknowledge its systemic brutality. But he and his wife did not subscribe to a double standard in sexual conduct. On the subject of Stalinist Russia, Fast was a prisoner of delusions. He was also a prisoner of sex, his frequent infidelities and compulsive pursuit of affairs (one with his own sister-in-law) causing incalculable pain to his wife, an artist whose loyalty to the Soviet myth was—if anything—fiercer than his. She responded with affairs of her own. Somehow the Fasts’ marriage lasted 57 years. Bette C. Fast died in 1994; five years later, the 85-year-old widower married Mimi O’Connor, who was more than a third of a century younger. Meanwhile, he had managed to alienate and to anger both his son and his daughter, and their resentments could easily boil over (as they do on the pages of this biography). He was certainly capable of bursts of generosity and kindness to his relatives and to others, especially if they were comrades. But the trail of bitterness, indignation, and grievance that Fast left behind may have exceeded the norm for our species. His children and his widow cooperated with Sorin in making this biography so rich and full, though the personality that comes through has something repellent about

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it—self-centered, self-righteous, abrasive. For insight into Fast’s politics, Sorin consulted the papers deposited at the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Other material located in Fast’s home in Old Greenwich was made available, and the archival website that Steve Trussel has developed was indispensable. Sorin has made good use of all of these resources. He also forthrightly exposes the novelist’s tortuous relation to his own Jewish identity. Many of his books deal directly with the Jewish experience, ranging from Haym Salomon’s patriotic support of the American Revolution to the doomed gallantry of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and several other novels feature Jewish characters. Fast’s emotional engagement with the subject of Jewish destiny cannot be contested; he wrote about Jews before it became chic or commercially advantageous in the United States to do so. In 1958, Fast claimed that he had “always respected Zionists” (p. 337), and soon thereafter the resolute secularist even joined a synagogue (Manhattan’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue). But his reluctance to confront the compelling evidence of Soviet antisemitism, for example, when such independence and candor would have mattered, demonstrated the limits of Fast’s loyalty to the Jewish people. The commitment to Communism did not permit cadres to have any other gods before them. Although Fast exaggerated the scope and intensity of the Red Scare—to the point of believing that he was officially targeted for assassination—he was undeniably a victim of unjustifiable censorship. His books, after all, were banned in public schools; once the momentum of New Deal and Fair Deal progressivism was exhausted, his voice was stilled on college campuses and on the radio. Sorin suspects that political pressures may have contributed to the horrific interludes of cluster headaches that punctuated Fast’s days and nights with terrible pain. But on his Stalinism (which lingered in the form of alibis even after the public break with the party), his biographer is unforgiving—and rightly so. “For ideological single-mindedness and silence in the face of great crimes committed in the Soviet Union, Howard Fast stands guilty,” Sorin concludes. “This must remain central in assessing his life” (p. 406). Stephen J. Whitfield Brandeis University

Note 1.  Dwight Macdonald, “The Waldorf Conference,” special insert, Politics 6 (Winter 1949), 32-D.

 Scott Ury, Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2012. xxii + 415 pp. In Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry, Scott Ury, an associate professor at Tel Aviv University, focuses on the Jewish dimension of Warsaw—possibly the most “Jewish” city in pre-First World

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War Europe—in the light of processes of urbanization, alienation, and the new mass politics of turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe. In 1900, Warsaw numbered some 780,000 inhabitants, 30 percent of them Jewish. Five years later, as detailed by Ury, it was swept up in the revolutionary activity that was initiated throughout the Russian Empire. For the last fifty years or so, historians of the Jewish people have been grappling with an explanation of modernity, which has generally involved the examination of Jewish institutions, intellectuals, the press, party politics, and philanthropy—but only rarely a consideration of the human dimension. Ury, in contrast, asks questions about individuals: How did it feel for a Jew to leave a shtetl and arrive in Warsaw? What did shtetl Jews encounter there, and how did they respond to their new environment? To illustrate the loneliness many of them felt, Ury quotes from a letter of 17-year-old David Ben-Gurion (then Gruen): Yaakov Bogato went home on Monday and who knows when he will return . . . and I remain here alone, alone and depressed. Oh, how great is my sorrow and how heavy is my heart these days! For even when one is sad, one’s load can be lightened when one has someone to whom one can turn and tell one’s sorrows and woes. But what could be worse than to suffer so much that your heart is shattered to pieces out of sheer loneliness!!! (p. 52).

According to Ury, feelings of anonymity and alienation among Jews were connected with urbanization, the experience of living in a modern metropolis, and the loss of community. In Warsaw, the inner angst that was felt by many was paralleled by exterior disorder—crime was a major problem, with professional gangs preying on visitors and recent immigrants. Other problems in the city included poverty, prostitution, and low wages. Jews could hardly count on help from one another when traditional Jewish solidarity was replaced by exploitation. Focusing on the intersection between the social and political spheres in Warsaw, Ury points to politics, revolution, pogroms, and the role of the Jewish intelligentsia as forces for social, communal, and political change. Rather than viewing Jewish politics in the context of competition among groups espousing different ideologies, he argues that Jewish politics underwent transformation under the new conditions of urban life. In his reading, the Bund, revolutionary parties, Zionism, and even liberal movements were all part of larger processes related to the shift from shtetl to city. Following Eli Lederhendler, Ury emphasizes the role of the press as a new medium of communal information, with editors serving as leaders: in a functional sense, the press replaced traditional religious institutions. Similarly, the coffee house took the place of the study hall (beys-medresh) as a meeting place for networking. The political uprising of 1905 sped up these processes. During the revolution itself, there was a rush to get involved in the remaking of Warsaw society and even the Russian Empire. Activism of various kinds expanded; self-help became a catchword. Workers were involved in self-education, credit unions, and of course the struggle for political rights. In the aftermath, Jews participated in elections to the Duma, although suffrage was limited to males who had paid at least 50 rubles in taxes. The campaign among Jewish politicians to get out the Jewish vote led to fear and then anger among Polish nationalists, who felt that Jews could not be trusted to put “Polish” interests first; there were also accusations against Litvak Jews, who were seen as embodying

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Russian Jewish interests. Polish progressives, in contrast, argued at first in favor of equality of rights for all the peoples who lived in Poland. As shown by Ury, conflicting claims of nationalism prevented Jews and Poles from coming to a mutually beneficial compromise and led to the demise of liberal visions. This rigorous and innovative book applies some of the central theoretical models of today’s historical scholarship regarding nationalism, urbanization, and culture to modern Jewish history. In particular, Ury examines why modernity has been so cruel to the Jews; his conclusion is that the modern city generated a way of life that led to a sense of ennui for the Jewish individual, and hence to a personal and collective search for a way out of a perceived state of powerlessness. As he shows, Warsaw— truly one of the greatest Jewish cities in the world (memorialized, among others, by Itzhak Leib Peretz and Isaac Bashevis Singer)—was at the same time a center of misery, pain, depression, and cruelty. In fact, it was this very modern mixture of urbanization and alienation that laid the foundation for the birth of modern Jewish politics. Brian Horowitz Tulane University Kalman Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation: Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in Poland. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. xxi + 389 pp. A-lemay hostu ibergeentfert dayn folk tsu di midbershe zemder? Dayn erd vert undz fremd, un der himl—nokh fremder. Der zunfargei asht; nor er blit af tsu morgns dokh vider. Mir morgenen nit, un mir faln tsum tol, in der nider. (Why have you delivered your people to the desert sands? Your earth has become foreign to us, and even more so the sky. The sunset burns to ash, but shines forth on the morrow. For us there is no morning, and we fall ever downward.)1 Noah Prylucki (b. Berdichev, 1882-d. Vilna, 1941) is neither a conventional nor an obvious subject for a monograph. True, he is fairly well known as a journalist and as an autodidactic scholar of Yiddish culture, and he did indeed contribute to various spheres (such as linguistics, literature, ethnography and theater) in Warsaw in the heyday of modern East European Jewry. Yet his engagement in these scholarly fields has frequently been portrayed as that of an enthusiastic dilettante. This opinion, no doubt, reflects the aspirations of the Vilna intellectual elite, led by the academic Max Weinreich, to differentiate itself by way of contrast to the “folk culture” based in Warsaw.

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Kalman Weiser is unimpressed by this historical verdict, critically examining it as he relates his protagonist’s fascinating life story. Weiser maintains that Prylucki’s involvement in “Folkism” reflected a deliberate choice on the part of a professional lawyer who was also a social and political activist. Prylucki campaigned for the civil rights of the Jewish minority, and particularly for its right to preserve its culture and language in the Polish nation state. He founded an intellectual/political Jewish secular movement named Folkspartey (People’s Party), which regarded Yiddish as the foundation for modern Jewish identity. He also fought for the right to secular Jewish education in the Yiddish language in kindergartens and schools, regarding this right as fundamental for the implementation and maintenance of Jewish cultural autonomy in the diaspora. Weiser focuses on this intriguing political aspect of Prylucki’s life while underscoring its link to his cultural works. Jewish People, Yiddish Nation, the first biographical monograph to be written on Prylucki, traces his life and work up to his murder at the hands of the Nazis. Its primary novelty is in demonstrating how the various components of his intellectual activity stem from his political manifesto. Yet this is not only a biography that delicately traces the work and tragic fate of a Polish Yiddishist, or merely a precise historical documentation of the rise and decline of the People’s Party that he founded. Rather, it may also prove compelling to a more general readership—those interested in fundamental problems confronting not only modern East European Jewry, but also every­ one who lived through the flowering of modern nationalism. Can a stable, secular national identity, based not on territory but merely on common language and culture, persist throughout history? Can a stable, secular, non-national, ethnic identity be sustained over time amid a host nation state? What does a non-nationalist ethnic identity amount to? These were some of the questions Prylucki grappled with; another issue considered by Weiser is whether the failure of political movements such as Folkspartey was a matter of mere contingent circumstances. As is well known, there were two basic stands regarding the issue of secular ethnic identity within the Jewish political sphere of that time. On the one hand, Ahad Ha’am’s spiritual Zionism and Po’alei Zion shared a belief (despite many differences between them) that a territory—be it merely symbolic in nature—was vital to maintaining a new, stable, non-religious Jewish identity. On the other hand were the Bund, Folkism (in the form preached by Simon Dubnov), and Prylucki’s Folkspartey, which held the opposite view. Under Dubnov’s influence, Prylucki regarded Yiddish culture as the most important element in the creation of a new Jewish identity. Weiser argues that all of the above-mentioned movements advanced “languagebased nationalism” (p. xiii). This, I think, is overstating the case. The principal disagreement between movements such as the Bund, the Folkspartey, and the various trends of Zionism revolved around the question whether linguistic identity was suffi­ cient to sustain a newly emerging Jewish identity (Jewish, not necessarily national). One wonders whether the members of the Bund or variously affiliated U.S. Jews of that time (and all the more so those of today) would have accepted Weiser’s terminology and characterization. In my view, this does not portray precisely the historical problem in its historical context. It would have been preferable to discuss the budding process of these delicate and complex issues in terms of “secular, language-based Jewish identity,” since, as mentioned, at the core of the debate was the question whether

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and how a new Jewish identity (Jewish and not necessarily national) could survive and sustain itself in the absence of religion and territory. Apart from this, the book is to be commended for its meticulous historical research. The first chapter, “Jewish Life, Language and Politics in Poland,” can serve as a comprehensive introduction for students seeking to familiarize themselves with the cultural background vital to the evolution of modern Jewish culture in Eastern Europe in general and in interwar Warsaw in particular. The second and third chapters, “The Making of a Jewish Nationalist: Noah Prylucki and the Warsaw Yiddish Press” and “Creating Modern Yiddish Culture,” do a good job of surveying various aspects of modernity (urbanism, secularization, and so forth), and clarifying how these issues underlie modern Jewish identity—for example, the role of the city as the infrastructure that facilitated and encouraged the growth of modern secular Jewish culture, and in particular the role of the press in crystallizing a new Jewish identity. In retrospect, it is easy to discern the challenge that faced the Hebraist Zionists engaged in modernizing Judaism, namely, the revival of a “dead” language and the “redemption” of a historical mythical territory. It is far more difficult to appreciate the complexity of the challenge confronting Yiddishists who sought to renew a Jewry devoid of territory, precisely because they sought to generate and sustain a cohesive collective identity free of the common scaffold of modern (territory-based) nationalism. Like many intellectual Yiddishist leaders (including, among others, Ber Borokhov, Vladimir Medem, and Khayim Zhitlovski) Prylucki was not part of the Jewish masses. Some of these activists also adopted Yiddish at a relatively advanced age, devoting considerable time and effort to mastering the language. Their endeavor, so it transpires, was no less artificial than that of their colleagues, the “revivers” of Hebrew. Both of these groups have left us the fascinating heritage of a quest to preserve and to renew a collective identity amid the tumultuous conditions of modernity. Weiser’s book is to be commended for its captivating portrait of the quest, and of one of its key figures. Gali Drucker Bar-Am The Hebrew University

Note 1.  Avrom Sutzkever, “Tsaytlid,” dedicated to Noah Prylucki, in idem, Valdiks (Vilna: 1940), 83.

Religion, Thought, and Culture

Nathan Abrams, The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012. x + 258 pp. The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema is an expression of the relatively new and growing interest in the way cinema presents Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness. What is unique about this book is its breadth—unlike many books on the subject, it does not limit itself to any niche or narrow issue but rather references more than 300 films from every existing genre. Its emphasis is on cinema worldwide from the last two decades (excluding, however, the Israeli film industry). The book, containing eight chapters, can be divided into two sections. The first five chapters focus on various aspects of cinematic depictions of Jews and Judaism, and the changes that took place over time. According to Abrams, the year 1990 marked a transition. From this point onwards, cinema moved from stereotypical representations of Jews to much more nuanced portrayals. The last two chapters are dedicated to the way in which Jews are depicted through food and—quite surprisingly—through bathrooms. The latter, according to Abrams, is a domain of anxiety, humiliation, and symbolic castration, signifying crucial (and sometimes even lifethreatening) differences between Jews and Gentiles. Another chapter is dedicated to the transformation in the cinematic portrayal of Judaism. Abrams argues that whereas the cinema previously approached Judaism solely from an ethnic standpoint and as represented by only one denomination, it is now more likely to show both ideological components of Judaism and its plethora of denominations. Most of the book, though, is dedicated to an extensive demonstration of Abram’s main argument. Among many other changes, he shows how the “passive” Jew— depicted in the years prior to 1990 as the ultimate innocent victim—is no longer necessarily innocent; in more recent films, the aggressor may also be Jewish. “Tough” Jews are more likely to be complex characters grappling with ethical and moral issues. The “Jewess,” formerly depicted only in stereotypic manner as a too-devoted/neurotic mother, a spoiled Jewish princess, a mysterious, victim-like “belle juive,” or the female version of a schlemiel, is now more often an independent, assertive woman (in Wanted [2008], she is a beautiful assassin played by Angelina Jolie). The new Jewish man and woman no longer deny their sexuality. Jewish characters appear in the nude, sometimes in the act of sexual intercourse—and not necessarily with their spouses. According to Abrams, such changes can mainly be attributed to a new generation of Jewish filmmakers (both male and female) brought up in the United States. This new generation, raised in a rich and diverse educational system, is characterized by 298

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self-confidence and a sense of sureness with regard to its ethnic, cultural and/or religious identity. Thus, young Jewish filmmakers are unafraid of bringing their own point of view of Jewishness to the screen, as well as to public debate. Abrams’ main arguments are subject to challenge. It is problematic, for instance, to point to sociological changes alone in explaining the change in cinematic portrayals of Jews and Judaism. The fact is that cinema is influenced by many other elements—artistic, cultural, ideological, and economic. In addition, the sociological facets of change are more subtle than Abrams indicates. The entry of American-born Jews into the industry was not as sharply delineated in time; moreover (as Abrams himself acknowledges), Jews are a diverse and heterogeneous group. Finally, given that so many artists are involved in the film industry, it seems reasonable to assume that changes in perception would come about in a more gradual way, counter to Abrams’ claim that the year 1990 marked a dividing line. One might also question Abrams’ analysis of how stereotypical portrayals of Jews gradually gave way to what he regards as more “normal” depictions. To be sure, following years in which Jews featured mainly as victims, they are now shown both as victims and as aggressors. In a somewhat extreme example, the film The Believer (2001) features a young man of religious Jewish background who turns into an active neo-Nazi. The question is whether this signifies a “normalizing” of the Jew, as opposed to an acting-out in response to trauma. That is to say, a Jew joining a neo-Nazi movement can represent a counter-reaction to the Jewish “addiction” to the role of victim—a normal response to an abnormal condition that does not, however, lead to a more normal situation. In similar fashion, the Jew previously portrayed as “nonerotic” is now being presented as “hyper-erotic” (for example, in the 2008 comedy You Don’t Mess with the Zohan), in a way that provides no sense of normality. And does the Jewish vengeance in the film Inglourious Basterds (2009) serve the purpose of showing Jews as strong, or alternatively, is it more likely to be regarded as a fantasy that emphasizes the extent of Jewish passivity during the Holocaust? Such questions attest to the importance of discussing the Jewish image in cinema. The New Jew in Film makes a real contribution to that discussion with its clear and challenging arguments, its genre-crossing analysis, and its numerous detailed examples that provide a springboard for further research. Aharon Feuerstein The Hebrew University

Hamutal Bar-Yosef, Mysticism in Twentieth Century Hebrew Literature. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010. 441 pp. There is an unusually complex relationship between modern Hebrew literature and the world of Jewish tradition. By the beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew literature had become a distinctly autonomous body of literature—separate from traditional religious sources—that was propelled by a desire for innovation, the heritage of the Haskakah, and the influence of secularism, processes of assimilation, and fruitful

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correspondence with non-Jewish literatures. Thus, one of the dominant characteristics of Hebrew writing in the past century was its departure from the realms of tradition, celebrating (but also at times mourning) the crisis and loss of traditional life structures and the disappearance of ancient modes of writing. Modern Hebrew writing also became a medium for reflecting the “new” against the “old,” the “actual” against the “ancient,” and the “secular” against the “religious,” signifying the fall of tradition as a sad yet necessary point of departure. Hayim Nahman Bialik’s poems mourning the disappearance of study as a Jewish modus of being, Micah Yosef Berdyczewsky’s stories on the experience of heresy and eroticism, and S.Y. Agnon’s novels on the vanishing of the communities of prayer, are among the familiar examples of this grappling with the modern as against the traditional. The assumption that modern Hebrew literature is essentially secular has all too often led writers and critics to regard literature and tradition as occupying opposite poles. One should, however, recognize the artfulness of tradition, its silent wisdom and its hidden power, as doing so allows for an examination of the paths in which tradition continues to shape modern Hebrew experience. Accepting the inevitable, crucial role of tradition in the modernist process of poetical creation; tracing the transformation of theological knowledge into “secular” frameworks of literature; and acknowledging the dependence of “the new” on the return of (spiritual) forms from the past should bring us to a different conception of the Hebrew world of letters. From this perspective, modern Hebrew literature can be seen as a radical interpretation of the Jewish tradition, in which theological notions, motifs, and methods are de/re-contextualized and emptied/refilled with new poetical and political meanings. Mysticism is one of the realms of Jewish tradition that was imprinted on the movement of modern Hebrew literature. Beyond its definition as a theological discourse dealing with certain religious functions such as the unmediated experience of the sacred and unity with the divine, mysticism implies radical theories of language (such as those regarding God’s name), paradigms of narration, models of representation, and methods of translation. Thus it can be regarded as a rich field of literary activity that is open to poetical interpretation and adaptation. This “poetical” view of the nature of mysticism is embraced by Hamutal Bar-Yosef in the comprehensive volume under review, which shows how elements of the Jewish mystical discourse were transformed and interwoven in the world of modern Hebrew literature. Pointing to mysticism’s universal, autonomous nature as a spiritual language, BarYosef focuses on its “secular” implications in the world of modernist and contemporary Hebrew writers. She argues that modern Hebrew literature, being less preoccupied with traditional aspects of the ecstatic experience (that is, unity with God), is dedicated in part to symbolic expressions of emotions and anxieties and the physiological experiences of elevation and decline. Mysticism thus becomes more free, spontaneous, and literarily detailed; its forms are diverse, and its modes are more playful. Hebrew mystical poetry expresses solitude, loss, and crisis, and it also mourns the disappearance of the sacred and its radical transformations and abstractions. As with more traditional mysticism, it juxtaposes eroticism and images of holiness; it also

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celebrates togetherness and friendship (ḥ avruta). What is absent is the notion of devotion to God, replaced by the idea of the nation or a (poetical) self-fashioning. Take, for example, the subject of erotic desire, which in modern Hebrew literature is not understood exclusively as an allegorical representation of the human longing for hidden sacredness, but rather as a real, concrete, personal matter. In this context, Bar-Yosef studies the image of the “sacred woman,” which reflects not only the notion of the shekhinah and the (re-)presentation of God as being-in-the-world, but also the poem (and the poetical situation) itself. Elsewhere, she considers the historical contextualization of the Jewish literary project, stressing the neo-Romantic turn in Jewish writing and thought around 1900, when Hebrew writers (accepting the influence of Hasidism) began to incorporate mystical figures in their works. Bar-Yosef also deals with political implications of mystical poetry, linking the mystical turn in Hebrew literature with the spiritual aspects of the Zionist enterprise. For instance, in her interpretation of Yitzhak Lamdan’s 1927 poem Massada, which she considers in conjunction with Bialik’s “Scroll of Fire,” she hints at “a mystical path to the Zionist goal” (p. 284) as realized in Lamdan’s long poem, drawing on the image of the national group as a sacred body built on gestures of sacrifice. In the last chapter of her book, Bar-Yosef examines the notion of apocalyptic writing, looking mainly at the dialectics of redemption and destruction in Hebrew and Yiddish poems. Here, as in other sections of the book, she notes non-Jewish elements that became incorporated into the world of Hebrew letters. For instance, she reads the mystical/apocalyptic visions appearing throughout Uri Zvi Greenberg’s work—which expresses specifically Jewish experiences of the 20th century—as heavily loaded with Christian “Last Day” symbolism. The vision of redemption through total destruction and collective suffering, the author shows, was also a major theme in some of Natan Alterman’s cycles of poems, expressing the radical anxieties and desires of existence in the early years of the state. Grounded in excellent scholarship, Mysticism in Twentieth Century Hebrew Literature is a wide-ranging and comprehensive work. Bar-Yosef is very familiar with the Hebrew literary field and draws rich portraits of 20th-century poetic circles. At times, her thesis seems to be somewhat overstated—while she provides examples of what she sees as non-mystical writing in Hebrew, her broad definition and extensive interpretation of the phenomenon can make it appear as though mysticism can be found almost anywhere. Similarly, Bar-Yosef’s frequent juxtaposing of works by different authors provides numerous rich interpretations but in some instances is overly dialectical. Overall, however, this work is a gift to the field of Jewish and Hebrew literary studies, offering as well a fruitful perspective for the study of Israeli culture through and beyond secularism. Although written in English, it has the sound of a text being spoken in Hebrew—the tone sometimes hesitant, more often assertive. In my mind, the voice is that of a scholar-poet (Bar-Yosef is both) bringing us, in translation, her word on the world of modern Hebrew literature. Galili Shahar Tel Aviv University

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Book Reviews

Aliza Cohen-Mushlin et al., Synagogues in Lithuania: A Catalogue, 2 vols. Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Arts Press, 2010–2012; vol. 1 (A-M), 336 pp; vol. 2 (N-Z), 471 pp. While I, the grandchild of East European immigrants, was growing up in London in the 1970s, in der heim (or, as my mother calls it, in d’r’eim) was a faraway place full of fascination for me. Somehow I was too inhibited in my mother’s presence to ask “the Zeide”—my sole remaining grandfather—about life in the Old Country before the First World War. As a teenager facing conscription, he had fled, first to Johannesburg and then to Whitechapel. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the world has completely changed. Nearly a million Soviet Jews and their families left for Israel, while half a million (mainly Catholic) Poles flocked to Britain looking for work. Russian, once a language learned only by specialists and spies, is today heard on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as well as in London and Manchester. Former Soviet bloc countries are reaching out to tourists and are opening their archives to researchers. Among the first to take up the new opportunities to travel in the opposite direction, often in pursuit of the fashion to investigate family history, were the grandchildren of Jews who came to Britain and America during the great migration between 1881 and 1914. The past twenty years have also seen the publication of serious studies of East European history and culture that would simply not have been possible for most of the 20th century—or even when I did my doctorate in the 1980s on Anglo-JewishRussian relations during the Russian Revolution of 1917.1 Synagogues in Lithuania is the first definitive study of the material vestiges of Jewish places of worship in a re-emergent state whose Jewry was first decimated by Fascism (of both the German and Lithuanian varieties) and then finished off by Communism. The two volumes are arranged as an alphabetical gazetteer of towns within the present-day borders of independent Lithuania. Naturally, I eagerly awaited the second volume, as it includes my grandfather’s birthplace, Shavel. I leafed through the S’s until I found “Siauliai,” the present-day Lithuanian name of this town (which, the book informs me, is now “the fourth largest city of Lithuania”). On the contents page and under each entry, the more familiar Yiddish place name, helpfully written in Hebrew characters, is given side by side with its Lithuanian equivalent. Variant Yiddish transliterations (Shavl, Shaval) and alternative names in Polish (Szawle) and Russian Cyrillic (Shavli) are also supplied. An index of place names (in Latin script), in which all of the different spellings are cross-referenced, appears at the end of volume 2. Even so, initially, I had a problem finding Memel (or Meml), which is catalogued not where I had expected, under “M” at the end of vol. 1, but rather under “K” for Klaipéda, the Russian name for this important Baltic port. Likewise, the detailed map of Lithuania that appears on the fold-out front cover of both volumes gives the present-day names of towns, cities, and regions. All of this is somewhat off-putting to those of us (“half-Livaks” like me) whose Jewish geography of Lite is rooted in Yiddish place names in the Pale of Settlement (Kovno Guberniya), or in the heritage of famous yeshiva towns such as Ponevezh and Telz. Jews had lived in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since the 14th century. From the late 16th century they enjoyed considerable internal autonomy thanks to the creation of the Polish “Council of the Four Lands” (Va’ad arba’ aratzot) and its Lithuanian

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equivalent in the combined Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. The Jewish community system (kahal) was inherited by the tsars of Russia after the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. Lithuanian Jewry was submerged into the gigantic ghetto of the Pale of Settlement until the Russian Revolution; it emerged partially and fleetingly in an independent state in the interwar period (1918–1941), only to disappear into the Soviet bloc until 1991. Of a community of about 220,000 Yiddish-speaking Jews on the eve of the Second World War—of whom some 60,000 lived in the capital, Vilna [now Vilnius], the celebrated “Jerusalem of Lithuania”—only about five percent survived the Holocaust. An estimated 4,000 Jews live in Lithuania today, mostly in Vilnius. Synagogues in Lithuania, the result of a three-year field survey funded by the Lithuanian government and a private American Jewish foundation, was made possible by the political and demographic upheavals of the last twenty years. The research was carried out by a collaborative team of scholars in Vilnius and Israel. In the mid1990s, while I was at the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I had the privilege of working with both of the Israeli post-Soviet emigrés, architect Sergey Kravtsov and historian Vladimir (Volodya) Levin. They provide very useful introductory essays on the historical, political, and social context (Levin) and the architecture of the Lithuanian synagogue (Kravtsov). Levin’s definitions and sociological explanations of the Yiddish words shul, shulhof/shulhoyf, shtibl, and kloyz are of particular interest. Historically, the latter two terms applied mainly to the places of worship of hasidic minyanim that were usually found within private houses or on the premises of larger synagogues. According to Levin, “the name shtibl was rarely used in Lithuania,” where hasidim were famously in the minority (thanks to the vigorous opposition of the Vilna Gaon in the 18th century and his successors in the next), whereas “Kloyz was widespread throughout Eastern Europe” (vol. 1, p. 20). In today’s revivalist, English-speaking Orthodox Jewish world, the term kloyz is virtually defunct, whereas shtibl is applied indiscriminately to any small, non-purpose-built synagogue. Kravtsov provides the architectural history. He describes the development of the synagogue in Lithuania in terms of plan, elevations, massing, and decoration. The well-known distinction between masonry and timber synagogues is explored, as is the evolution of the “four pillar” and equal “nine-bay” plans with central bimah, and the external influence of successive European architectural styles (Baroque, neo-classical, and Historicist) imported from France, Germany, and Russia. The craftsmanship that characterized the lost wooden synagogues with their intricately carved Torah arks and colorful wall paintings—representative of a golden age of Jewish decorative art in Eastern Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries—spread to Lithuania. Remarkably, since the 1990s, several surviving wooden synagogues have turned up in Lithuania, although, disappointingly, these look more like sheds than the multi-hipped roofed concoctions of prewar Poland and Ukraine. Each of the 59 catalogue entries begins with a potted history of the town in question and of its Jewish community. A chart summarizes the town’s complicated political and administrative history—an extremely useful aide mémoire for a part of the world in which the boundaries of Yiddishland were apt periodically to shift between Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, and Lithuanians. The researchers have combed the Lithuanian archives for plans and photographs of towns and buildings; these liberally

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punctuate the well-designed pages of the two volumes. Each entry concludes with a section documenting individual surviving synagogues, with photographs of their current condition. The paucity of surviving structures and their dilapidated or abandoned state contrast depressingly with the surprisingly rich historical documentation. (The hardly typical and rather eclectic Choral Synagogues in Vilnius and Kaunas [Kovno], which have been restored, are today the only prewar synagogues in active use in the whole of Lithuania.) The entry on Vilnius is the most comprehensive in the book, covering more than one hundred pages and featuring a detailed appendix, rich in archival material, that seeks to trace every Jewish prayer house that existed in the capital before the Second World War. Each entry includes a schematic map that plots the spatial relationship between the synagogue(s) and churches—usually Catholic, but sometimes Orthodox or Protestant. These maps are of academic interest only. They are of no practical use to the traveler looking for an accurate street plan. Synagogues in Lithuania is an impressive piece of scholarship (though it could have done with a native English-speaking editor to iron out some of the quirks of the notquite-perfect “Russian” English). It will provide indispensable background reading for the informed traveler. However, Anglophone tourists looking for practical information can still do no better than Ruth Ellen Gruber’s pioneering Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe, first published in 1992, which has recently been updated and expanded. Gruber also lists cemeteries that are mostly absent from the catalogue under review. Nor, these days, should we underestimate the power of Google Earth. Sharman Kadish Jewish Heritage UK

Note 1.  Sharman Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews (London: 1992).

David Ellenson and Daniel Gordis, Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. x + 206 pp. In Pledges of Jewish Allegiance, David Ellenson and Daniel Gordis analyze the attitudes of 19th- and 20th-century European, American, and Israeli Orthodox rabbis toward conversion to Judaism, as these are reflected in the responsa literature. In the authors’ view (with which I agree), rabbis’ personalities and worldviews are the most important factors accounting for the difference between liberal and conservative hala­ khic decisions. However, specific sociological contexts and theories—in particular, those of Charles Liebman—are also taken into consideration. The authors do a very good job of analyzing the various decisions and frequently point out the great extent to which public policy is involved in the decision-making process. It is intriguing to see how two Orthodox rabbis living in the same period in

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the same country can come to diverse or even completely opposite conclusions, both basing their decisions on halakhic precedent. What is usually at issue is the rabbi’s stance vis-à-vis the demand that a candidate for conversion adhere to strict observance of the religious commandments, with some rabbis being less stringent in this regard. As Ellenson and Gordis show, halakhic arbiters (poskim) can arrive at disparate decisions even in cases in which they espouse the same public policy. In cases involving intermarriage, for example, one rabbi may rule against a potential convert in order to discourage conversion for the sake of marrying a Jew, whereas another may rule in favor, reasoning that the convert’s Jewish commitment may be enhanced by having a Jewish spouse. Both rabbis are opposed to intermarriage, but seek to combat it in opposite ways. Given that “public policy” is rarely alluded to in the responsa, Ellenson and Gordis deserve kudos for going beyond the technical legal arguments, reading between the lines and elucidating the larger question with which each posek is coping. As we all know, the 19th and 20th centuries were times of religious and cultural upheavals for the Jewish people. Whereas most Jews at the beginning of the 19th century were “Orthodox” in their observance of the religious commandments (though the term itself was not yet in use), a clear majority were non-Orthodox by the end of the 20th century. Through their in-depth analysis of one single issue, conversion, Ellenson and Gordis aid readers in better understanding the changes occurring within Judaism. Since it is impossible to discuss most of the specific contents of the book in a short review, I have chosen to elaborate on the authors’ discussion of one posek—R. Shlomo Goren, who served both as chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces and, later, as chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Israel. Two of the more celebrated (or notorious) cases with which Goren dealt were the Seidman case and the Langer case. In the first instance, Helen Seidman, a Gentile woman who lived in a secular kibbutz, converted to Judaism in a Reform conversion in Israel. After the conversion, in 1970, she applied to the Ministry of the Interior to be registered as a Jew. Her request was denied. She then turned to the courts, and the Supreme Court sided with her and ordered the ministry to register her as a Jew. This decision caused an uproar in Orthodox circles, to the extent that religious parties in the government headed by Golda Meir threatened to quit the coalition. At this point, Goren personally intervened and induced Seidman to undergo an Orthodox conversion. By so doing, he averted a political crisis. According to Ellenson and Gordis: “Goren’s decision was surprising, given his general position that Reform conversion was not considered conversion at all” (p. 143). But this is precisely the point. Since the Reform conversion was not considered halakhically valid, Goren persuaded Seidman to undergo an Orthodox conversion; as a result she could be registered as a Jew. This ruling, however, was harshly criticized in most Orthodox circles. To any objective bystander, it was apparent that Seidman, who remained living in a secular kibbutz, was not about to become an observant Jew; thus her conversion was viewed by many as a politically motivated sham. Ellenson and Gordis correctly point out that Goren, in some of his other halakhic writings, expressed the opinion that conversions in the land of Israel, where the convert continued to live as a member of Israeli Jewish society, had a different status from those performed in the diaspora (where the convert would continue to be living—and possibly influenced by—his or her former non-Jewish family, their holidays, their festivals,

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and their rituals). Thus, the potential convert’s acceptance of fulfilling the precepts of Jewish law was not necessary for a valid conversion in Israel. The Langer case (also known as the “brother and sister case”) was even more problematic, and aroused an even greater political storm. The case involved a non-Jewish Pole, a man named Borokovsky, who married a very young Jewish woman in Poland. The woman’s family, Orthodox Jews, persuaded Borokovsky to convert to Judaism. Sometime later, his wife left him without receiving a Jewish divorce (get); subsequently, she married a Jewish man, Otto Langer, and had two children, a son and a daughter. Informed of the matter, the Tel Aviv rabbinical court had the children listed as mamzerim— the term used for children born out of an adulterous relationship. According to Jewish law, a mamzer is barred from marrying any Jew other than a convert or another mamzer. The case erupted when the children wished to marry in 1966 and the religious authorities denied their applications for a marriage ceremony, based on the rabbinical decision regarding their status. When this tragic story hit the newsstands, the case became a cause célèbre, with very prominent politicians, among them Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir, leading the flock of protesters. Into the fray stepped the fearless Goren, convening a special, enlarged rabbinical court (beit din), which ruled in 1972 that the Borokovsky conversion had been invalid. The main reason for invalidating the conversion was evidence indicating that Borokovsky had never become an observant Jew and indeed had never intended to make an honest conversion. As a result, his marriage to a Jewish woman was voided (since a marriage between a Jew and a Christian is not considered valid according to Jewish law). In consequence, Mrs. Langer’s children could be regarded as ordinary Jews with no stigma attached to them, and were free to marry any other Jews. In criticizing this decision, Ellenson and Gordis argue that Goren took a completely different stand than he had in previous cases, including that of Seidman. In the case of Seidman, Goren did not find non-acceptance of the mitzvot to be a bar to conversion; in the Langer case, he nullified the conversion of Borokovsky on the grounds that Borokovsky had not become a practicing Jew after his conversion ceremony. In their words: “He used these purely halakhic reasons to declare the conversion void, although he himself had disregarded such reasons in the Seidman and Cohen cases discussed above. The conclusion that the political dimension was central in influencing Goren’s ruling in the case of the Langers is inescapable” (pp. 147–148). What the authors seem to miss is that, when taking into account the purpose of a decision, the same facts can lead to different legal outcomes. This is so not only in Jewish law but in many other legal systems—O.J. Simpson, for instance, was acquitted of murder in a criminal prosecution but lost a civil case connected with the same matter. The facts were the same, but the rules governing legal proof are different for criminal and civil law. In the Langer case, the direct question had to do with the issue of mamzerut, namely, were the brother and sister considered mamzerim and therefore barred from marrying ordinary Jews? The question regarding the validity of Borokovsky’s conversion was subordinate to this issue in that it needed to be addressed within the larger framework of the Langer children’s status. Further, in issues regarding mamzerut, Jewish law has a clear public policy: it is incumbent upon the court to find a solution so that people

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will not be tainted with the status of mamzer. It is to Goren’s credit that he was able to find a solution, even if this involved invalidating Borokovsky’s conversion by means of precedents common in Jewish law that he did not usually invoke in his other rulings regarding conversion. His decision was both halakhically acceptable and in accordance with traditional Jewish public policy with regard to matters involving mamzerut. Moreover, whereas Goren might have been inconsistent in the specific halakhic laws he used or ignored in his various rulings, he was very consistent in his use of halakhah to solve individual plights. Over the ages, rabbinical courts have refrained from investigating claims that could lead to a conclusion that a child born to a woman married to one man was actually fathered by another in the course of an adulterous relationship. At the same time, the imputed father of the child may be obliged to pay for the child’s maintenance. In other words, for the purpose of declaring what the status of the child is, the court will conclude that he is not the son of the imputed father; however, when it comes to the question of maintenance, the imputed father is looked upon as the father and is obligated to provide support. Pledges of Jewish Allegiance is both well-written and filled with relevant information and pertinent analysis of responsa literature. It is not, however, entirely free of inaccuracies, some of which I would like to correct. On p. 101, R. Hayim Ozer Grodzinsky is described as “a vehement anti-Zionist.” This phrase seems to have been taken from the Encyclopaedia Judaica’s entry on Grodzinski. He was certainly not a Zionist, but accepted scholarship today does not see him as being vehemently anti-Zionist. On pp. 122–123, references are made to “Rabbi Abraham Israel Kook” instead of Abraham Isaac Kook, and his reputation for responsa, the authors write, “reached out to the broadest swath of the Jewish world” (p. 123). In fact, R. Kook’s responsa were not considered to be as groundbreaking as his other works and were far less prominent than the decisions of other major poskim of his time. On p. 142, Ellenson and Gordis write that Goren was appointed chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces by the two chief rabbis of Israel, Yitzhak Halevi Herzog and Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel. In fact, it is the defense minister who is responsible for this appointment (at the time, David Ben-Gurion was serving as defense minister). This misstatement, too, may be based on material appearing in the Encyclopaedia Judaica. On p. 153, the name of a justice on the Supreme Court is misspelled as Zilberg rather than Silberg; he was also not the “chief judge” of the court, and the Supreme Court is not known as the “High Court of Jerusalem.” Another erroneous reference concerns Avraham Sherman, who was not the head of Israel’s High Rabbinical Court, as claimed on p. 158. Finally, on p. 159, Israel’s former chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger, is described as “intellectually distinguished.” Anyone familiar with Israeli society and with Jewish law scholarship would raise an eyebrow at this description. Despite these and other minor errors, Pledges of Jewish Allegiance is highly recommended for anyone interested in the ongoing controversies revolving around conversion and the workings of the halakhic mind. Shmuel Shilo The Hebrew University

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Book Reviews

Sharman Kadish, The Synagogues of Britain and Ireland: An Architectural and Social History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. xiv + 398 pp.; 248 ills. This magnificent and richly illustrated volume is the culmination of Sharman Kadish’s two-decade endeavor in the realm of research, documentation, and preservation of Jewish religious buildings in the British Isles, conducted in the framework of the Survey of the Jewish Built Heritage in the UK and Ireland, which she initiated and continues to lead. Kadish’s work can truly be called an encyclopedia of British (and Irish) synagogues, since it presents an enormous quantity of information. It seems that every one of several hundred synagogues, temporary and permanent, that once existed in the British Isles has found its place in the book. Even the “Scroll Room” synagogue on board the ocean liner Queen Mary is discussed (p. 222). However, unlike an encyclopedia, the book is structured according to historical periods (Georgian, Victorian, the 20th century, and contemporary). It also emphasizes the most important and influential buildings, all the while elegantly interweaving factual data into the narrative. There was no Holocaust in Great Britain, and consequently the erection of synagogues continued throughout the 20th century, without breaks caused by the Second World War or its aftermath. For this reason, Kadish’s book, unlike most other works of this kind about European synagogues, does not stop at the Second World War but rather presents a narrative that begins in 1657, when the first synagogue in London was established by Sephardi Jews coming from Amsterdam (p. 4), and ends with the Beis HaMedrash Sha’arei Mordechai synagogue built in Manchester in 2009 (p. 288). Kadish’s book is also unusual in its comparative approach, which places the discussion of British and Irish synagogues in the context of international Jewish architectural development in places as disparate as Amsterdam, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Tasmania, the Caribbean, and the United States. Starting with these words: “The architectural history of Anglo-Jewry begins in Amsterdam” (p. 3), the book ends with a description of modern synagogues in “strictly Orthodox enclaves” in northwest and north London and in north Manchester, comparing them with newly built synagogues in the United States. Such a wide comparison makes it possible to state that “rarely in modern European history has a Jewish community been so free to settle, put down roots and to ‘concretise’ its identity in bricks and mortar, without outside interference, restriction and dislocation” (p. xiii). The book is subtitled “An Architectural and Social History,” and indeed it discusses architecture in its social dimension (the Great Synagogue of London, for example, “expressed in architectural terms the desire of the Ashkenazi elite for social acceptance in British society” [p. 20]). Kadish provides information on the processes of decision-­ making with regard to synagogue construction and rebuilding. She examines houses of prayer of different social strata, including established Anglo-Jewry, East European immigrants of the late 19th century, and immigrants from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. She considers denominational/organizational affiliation: Sephardi, United Synagogue, Feder­ ation of Synagogues, Liberals (Reform) and, more recently, “strictly Orthodox” (haredi). She also analyzes synagogues according to type, from the “cathedral synagogue”— a late 19th-century term for grand synagogues featuring cantorial music—to the hasidic

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shtibls situated in “converted spaces” (p. 134), which previously served as dwelling rooms or warehouses. A good deal of attention is also paid to the geography of synagogues, with reference not only to their spread in different regions of the country, but also to their “movement” from city centers to suburbs. Describing the fate of Belmont Synagogue in Canons Park, Harrow, in northwest London (built in 1981), Kadish shows that the “life-cycle of British synagogues” is short, and that the existence of this particular synagogue “has lasted a mere generation” (p. 294). Extensive space in the book is devoted to the architectural style of synagogues and especially to the search for a style deemed suitable for a Jewish house of worship: “Jews in Britain have expressed their sense of belonging—and their sense of difference—through the way they have built their synagogues” (p. 70). Enriching her analysis with numerous citations from newspapers and other written sources, Kadish discusses the styles employed by synagogues’ architects in various eras: Neo-classicism and Italian Renaissance (“Italianate”) in the 1830s–1860s; Romanesque Revival and “Byzantine Revival” in the 1920s; and International Style in the 1930s (usually in Liberal synagogues). Among the styles that were virtually absent in British synagogue architecture were Greek Revival, which “did not became as popular among Jews in Britain as it did with the Nonconformist Christians” (p. 70); Egyptian Revival (the only example being the Canterbury Old Synagogue of 1847–1848); Art Nouveau and Art Deco; and Gothic Revival, which was considered inappropriate for synagogues in England, though it was used in Ireland and Wales, as well as in Jewish cemetery buildings in England. In writing about 19th-century synagogues, Kadish pays particular attention to the Oriental style, noting that knowledge about the “Moorish” synagogues of medieval Spain had reached Britain by the 1840s (pp. 101–103). This style was then adapted to British synagogues, in part through the influence of the Moorishstyle Oranienburgerstrasse synagogue in Berlin. However, “the British synagogue rarely made an extravagant display of pure [Oriental] exoticism on the outside” (p. 95). Kadish also examines the stylistic preferences of other minority religious groups in Britain (for instance, Nonconformists, Unitarians, and Baptists), as well as funeral monuments put up in Jewish cemeteries. She notes, for instance, that “[Egyptian prototypes] had a limited impact on contemporary synagogue design but more in the architecture of Freemasonry. Nor does the pyramid appear as a motif in Jewish funerary art, in contrast to its popularity for important Gentile tombs” (p. 70). Even ritual baths (mikvaot) are considered, with Kadish concluding that these have rarely been incorporated into the design of a synagogue complex, but were more often “constructed in discreet buildings on sites away from nearby synagogues” (pp. 134, 250). The architectural analysis is not restricted to matters of style. Kadish also looks at innovations in the realm of materials and building techniques as well as assessing interior arrangements and external and internal signage. A separate chapter is devoted to stained glass decorations in various synagogues. Descriptions of individual buildings are interwoven with the biographies of the architects who erected them, while Appendix I includes a list of all architects who worked on synagogues in Britain and Ireland. Also dealt with is the relationship between synagogues and the city. Kadish contrasts the modest and discreet placement of synagogues in the Georgian era with their later visibility and even prominence in the Victorian period—a development that was connected, as in other countries, with the Emancipation. “Since the 1980s,”

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she concludes, “we have reverted to the back streets, equivalent to the courtyards and alleys of the eighteenth century” (p. 294). In general, the author’s persona is present in the text. Kadish is part of modern Anglo-Jewry, and she does not conceal her sense of belonging. Her feelings are apparent when she mourns recently demolished historical synagogues, critiques modern buildings, or complains about “steep staircases and poor sightlines from the women’s gallery” (p. 238). In her introduction, Kadish states that “the built heritage of British Jewry offers new insights into the identity of a minority community in relation to the wider society” (p. xiv). Indeed, her book excellently demonstrates—through the analysis of architecture—how the Jewish community in the British Isles changed during a period of more than three centuries, what its aspirations were with regard to its place in Britain, and which public images of itself it has produced. Vladimir Levin The Hebrew University

Zionism, Israel, and the Middle East

Yoel Cohen, God, Jews and the Media: Religion and Israel’s Media. London: Routledge, 2012. xiv + 258 pp. Several developments connected with mass communication media in Israel have received scholarly attention, and a few studies, such as those of Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor, have attempted to present an overview of major trends in Israeli mass media. What is still lacking are studies focusing on media representations within the various “tribes,” sub-groups, and sub-cultures that compose Israeli society.1 By focusing on contemporary Jewish religious sectors in Israel and their encounters with the media, God, Jews and the Media attempts to fill one of these lacunae. The author, Yoel Cohen, states that his aim is to “examine how the Jewish religion and the Jews of Israel have been influenced by the media age” (p. xii), though he also relates in various ways to the opposite phenomenon, the influence of religious groups in Israel on the local media. The book is divided into three main sections. The first introduces the intersection of Judaism, media, and communication in general, as well as several areas in which Orthodox Jewry confronts challenges posed by the media—for instance, issues pertaining to sexual modesty, the right to know, and the fact that the media operates on the Sabbath. The second section, devoted to “media culture wars,” examines a wide range of tensions and conflicts connected with religion and media, such as the relationship between journalists and their sources of information, ethical limitations, and censorship. Within this section, Cohen also discusses what he defines as the dilemma of “dual loyalties” among the modern Orthodox in Israel, manifested in, on the one hand, the creation of separate communal media such as weekly pamphlets that are distributed on weekends in synagogues throughout the country, and, on the other, the self-perception of the modern Orthodox as partners in modern Israeli society. The third section focuses on what Cohen terms “mediated Judaism,” addressing among other issues “kosher advertising”—that is, advertising that meets Orthodox legal-halakhic standards and social norms (such as refraining from sexual insinuations and making use of religious symbols). Another example is “the marketing of the rabbi” as manifested in the existence of virtual rabbis and communities. Also included are two chapters focusing, respectively, on religious identity in the Jewish diaspora and the foreign media, both of which seem to be somewhat disconnected from the main topic of the book. Following this is a shorter concluding section. Clearly covering a wide range of topics and subtopics, God, Jews and the Media also contains a massive quantity of data and numerous insights on topics as varied as the Israeli population’s interest in religion (based upon the results of a 1997 inquiry); 311

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Book Reviews

media stereotypes and bias with regard to religious groups; and virtual synagogues and rabbis (on the order of what has existed for decades among Christian evangelicals in North America). Despite such interesting and telling details, the book lacks a thesis or an argument, aside from the mere general fact that there are mutual influences between religion and media in Israel. This is most evident in its conclusion, which is devoted to “future trends in media and religion in Israel” rather than an overall analysis based upon the various findings presented throughout. In addition, various chapters include sub-chapters that do not always seem related to one another. For example, the seventh chapter addresses the exposure of haredim and modern Orthodox Israelis to the press and the radio; the patterns of exposure of rabbis to the media and its impact on their conduct; stereotypes; and secular-religious relations—all under the rather general title of “Identity, Unity and Discord.” The overall sense is that of numerous encounters with different kinds of trees, with no sense of the forest as a whole. Methodologically situated within the field of quantitative communication studies, God, Jews and the Media relies mainly on the results of polls. Cohen, however, does not seem to recognize the limitations of this kind of source; nowhere in the book— not even in its opening chapters focusing on methodology—is there any discussion regarding what one can and cannot learn from polls, and to what extent poll results can be accepted at face value. In fact, people often give responses in accordance with their perception of what is expected of them, given their socio-religious values and norms.2 In attempting to assess a population’s exposure to media, it is insufficient to rely solely on the results of polls. To be sure, Cohen also occasionally makes use of questionnaires that he distributed among rabbis and journalists. This data, however, is difficult to evaluate, as there is no information regarding the sampling (age groups, geographical location, position in the rabbinical hierarchy, and the like) and no details provided as to the exact questions asked. Finally, the world of informants and doorkeepers—the latter especially relevant to understanding the media scene within conservative religious groups—is surprisingly almost completely absent from this study. Cohen’s sweeping generalizations regarding coverage of religious issues in the media, based upon two months’ worth of content analysis in 2000, are unconvincing, certainly in comparison with the work done by Judith Buddenbaum, whose conclusions are based upon a quantitative analysis of religion coverage conducted at intervals over a period of several years.3 Moreover, quantitative social scientists have long since recognized that using one type of source limits their options, preventing them from situating their findings in wider contexts. Notwithstanding, in a few places Cohen compares his findings with those relating to the American scene (whether general or specifically Jewish), disregarding the significant differences between Israel and the United States concerning matters such as separation of state and religion or religious pluralism. A further problem relates to Cohen’s reliance on the socio-religious categories of  modern Orthodox/religious Zionism, which, together with the haredim (ultraOrthodox), represent the critical mass of religious groups in Israeli society. As Charles Liebman noted, it is inadvisable to use the terms “modern Orthodox” and “religious Zionism” interchangeably.4 It is also anachronistic to refer to religious Zionists as one group, given the various processes of dissolving and parting of ways that have taken place within the last two decades or so—evident among other things,

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in differing political alliances, educational institutions, norms and values, dress codes, and dietary restrictions. Reflective of the diversity among religious Zionists is the growing number of weekly pamphlets distributed in synagogues, a fact that Cohen does not account for in his analysis. In sum, it is far from certain that the religious Zionists should be considered one “camp.” This has implications for the analysis of statistical data: I doubt, for instance, that one can address the issue of “Modern Orthodox and the Internet Dilemma” without consideration of the significant differences within the various segments of this camp regarding the very use of internet. There are also a number of historical misrepresentations. For example, the first chapter almost completely overlooks the development of the Orthodox press in the second half of the 19th century, which is critical to understanding the foundations and characteristics of the haredi press in the following century. In addition, placing R. Israel Meir of Radin (also known as the Hafetz Hayim) at the center of the discussion, rather than Yaakov Lipshütz or the leaders of the Gur and Belz hasidic courts of the last third of the 19th century, is historically wrong. In dealing with the more contemporary era, a number of important studies, such as those of Yossef Fund (on the Agudat Israel press), Neri Horowitz (on haredi rabbis and the internet, which appears in the bibliography but not in the relevant discussions in the book), and Motti Inbari and Sarina Hen (on the Temple Mount) have been ignored.5 Cohen overlooks the significance of some of his statistical findings, probably because he is unfamiliar with relevant scholarship. For example, when relating to “the socio-religious impact of the Internet,” Cohen states that “an estimated 30,000–100,000 Haredim changed their phones to kosher internet-less and SMS-less mobile phones in 2008” (p. 153). This might seem impressive, but when we consider that there are approximately 700,000 haredim in Israel, at least some of whom own two mobile phones, one “kosher” and one not, the interpretation of these numbers will naturally be somewhat different. Likewise, when dealing with topics that people raise with “virtual rabbis,” he reports that “30–40 percent of questions comprise male-female related” issues (p. 183). If this is indeed the case, those turning to virtual rabbis might well be concentrated in a limited age bracket, and thus one could not use the data to draw conclusions about the religious Zionist population as a whole. Finally, the book includes numerous mistakes and typos. For example, the Eda Haredit (p. 19) is an umbrella organization of extreme anti-Zionist haredi groups and not the committee of Torah Sages (the latter is the spiritual leadership of the relatively moderate Agudat Israel party), and Yerahmiel Domb was not a “Vishnitz rabbi” (p. 43) but rather a London-based extreme anti-Zionist associated with Neturei Karta. Among the many misspelled names are “Zecharya” for Zvi Zerachya (p. 76), “Micolson” for Menachem Michelson (p. 95), “Segel” for Haggai Segal (p. 99), “Cineinnati” for Cincinnati (p. 143), and “Motta” for Motti Sklar (p. 158). Transliterations throughout the book are also inconsistent. In sum, while the topic of this volume is worthy and potentially fascinating, it suffers from a host of problems, and leaves much to be desired. I hope that Yoel Cohen will provide us with a more nuanced and sophisticated study in the future. Kimmy Caplan Bar-Ilan University

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Notes 1.  See Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor, Hametavkhim: emtze’ei hatikshoret beyisrael 1948– 1990 (Tel-Aviv: 1992); idem, The In/Outsiders: The Media in Israel (Cresskill, New Jersey: 1999). 2.  See, for example, Ivan Krumpal, “Determinants of Social Desirability Bias in Sensitive Surveys: A Literature Review,” Quality and Quantity 47, no. 4 (2013), 2025–2048; Derek L. Phillips and Kevin J. Clancy, “Some Effects of ‘Social Desirability’ in Survey Studies,” American Journal of Sociology 77, no. 5 (March 1972), 921–941. 3. Buddenbaum did content analysis for three constructed months, one each for 1976, 1981, and 1986. See “Network News Coverage of Religion,” in Channels of Belief: Religion and American Commercial Television, ed. John P. Ferre (Ames: 1990), 57–79. 4.  See Charles S. Liebman, “Modern Orthodoxy in Israel,” Judaism 47, no. 4 (1998), 405– 411. Chaim I. Waxman updated and took this discussion further in a conference lecture titled “Hayahadut haortodoksit modernit beartzot habrit vehayahadut hatziyonit datit beyisrael” (“New Religious Zionism,” Bar-Ilan University, 26 March 2014). 5.  Yossef Fund, Mitvei derakhim: ’itonut Agudat Yisrael (Bnei Brak: 2010); Neri Horowitz, “Haḥaredim vehainternet,” Kivunim ḥadashim 3 (2000), 7–30; Motti Inbari, Jewish Funda­ mentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple? (Albany: 2009); Sarina Chen, “Bein poetikah lepolitikah: kevutzot yehudiyot benot zemaneinu hapo’alot lehakamat beit hamikdash hashelishi” (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University, 2007).

Beverly Mizrachi, Paths to Middle-Class Mobility among Second-Generation Moroccan Immigrant Women in Israel. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013. x + 203 pp. Paths to Middle-Class Mobility among Second-Generation Moroccan Immigrant Women in Israel is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted by Beverly Mizrachi with six women of Moroccan origin, in their 40s and 50s, whose families came to Israel after the state was established in 1948. Moroccan Jews comprised the largest ethnic group (’edah) among the new immigrants of this era, and most began their lives in Israel in the lowest economic, social, and cultural echelons. The families depicted here, however, gradually made their way into the middle class; Mizrachi’s main thrust is to show how this was accomplished. The book has nine chapters. Following a general introduction and a chapter setting the historical context both in Morocco and in Israel, Mizrachi explores specific themes connected with these women’s journeys into the middle class, such as education, work, marriage (and in one instance, divorce), residential mobility, and changes in body image, ethnic identification, and gender self-awareness. A concluding chapter offers a global view of the various means of acquiring upward mobility into the middle class. The extensive list of references (running 13 pages) testifies to Mizrachi’s familiarity with Israeli sociology, gender in Israel, and labor market and class studies. Although this volume is based largely on qualitative research, Mizrachi began her career as a sociologist in the field of quantitative research, and her interest in this field remains apparent. Both in an appendix and in the main body of the book (pp. 23–26),

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Mizrachi discusses the problematic linkage between in-depth interviews deriving from qualitative methods and the Erikson-Goldthorpe typology presented in The Constant Flux (1993), which focuses on occupation as the most important parameter of class typology. The dilemma is clear: occupation is only one aspect of a person’s life, and even when class mobility is the main focus of research, other factors such as family, gender, and subjective experiences of the individual are bound to come into play. The individual points of view of the six women highlighted in this book could not have been accurately reflected had Mizrachi chosen to rigidly apply the Erikson-Goldthorpe scheme. Hence her methodological shift in the direction of qualitative data. Notwithstanding, there remains a gap between the subjects of this book and the researcher who presents their life stories and points of view: it is Mizrachi who determines the level of class mobility her subjects have attained. Even though we hear the women’s voices with regard to their perceptions of education, family, and gender, it is Mizrachi who ultimately determines the level of success (in class terms) each woman has attained. The theoretical implication of this gap is that the notion of “middle class” remains thin. For instance, when Mizrahi discusses mobility within and into the middle class, she refrains from in-depth analysis of issues such as consciousness awareness and agency on the part of her subjects. Moreover, despite its title, this book has little to say about Moroccans. Although the second chapter, titled “Moroccan Women in Morocco and Israel,” describes the migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel, it relies mainly on literature that deals with immigrants who came from Arab and Muslim countries in general. Moroccan culture and Moroccan Jews’ specific immigration experiences are barely discussed, and thus the differences between these women of Moroccan origin and women from Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, or Iraq remain obscure. Mizrachi also presents a number of stereotypes—for instance, that first-generation Mizrahi immigrants often took children out of school and sent them to work in order to support the family.1 The geographical scope of this book is limited to Jerusalem, which means that women of Moroccan origin who live in moshavim or in other areas of the country (whether in the periphery or in other urban centers) are absent, although the study strives to highlight its global implication. Mizrachi notes that her aim was to interview women who “had . . . reached their maximum occupational/class achievements” (p. 8), but it is not clear from the text how she examined the maximum ability of these women. A final problem (not identified as such by Mizrachi) concerns the statistics in the second chapter. These are based on the censuses carried out in 1985 and 1993, which in turn are based on an earlier census conducted in 1961. The 1961 census reflected demographic changes that had occurred during the 13-year interval dating back to the establishment of the state, which included two waves of immigration from Morocco (in 1949–1951 and 1954–1956). However, census data was provided in two categories only: Asia-Africa and Europe-America. Consequently, it is difficult to extrapolate a nuanced statistical portrait of Moroccan Jews from census data alone. Mizrachi deals with gender from the perspective of home and family, children, women’s education, and body and self-image. What is missing is the problematization of the feminist dimension. As noted, the six subjects of her book are given the opportunity to tell their individual stories. It remains an open question to what extent

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Book Reviews

their experiences shed light on the wider situation of Moroccan women in Israel seeking social and economic advancement. Henriette Dahan Kalev Ben-Gurion University

Note 1.  On stereotypes of Mizrahim that have been repeatedly reinforced by scholars (mainly of Ashkenazi origin) over the years, see Henriette Dahan Kalev, “Ḥ eker hamizraḥim besotziyo­ logiyah hayisreelit: hamarokaim ke‘mikreh’ shel hamikreh,” Peamim 108 (Summer 2006), 87–126.

Anita Shapira, Israel: A History. Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2012. xiii + 502 pp. Ari Shavit, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013. xiv + 445 pp. The recent publication of two instantly celebrated books on Israel’s history provides this reviewer with an opportunity to compare and contrast their potential value for the burgeoning teaching field of Israel studies. Although these books cover much the same ground, they are not at all of the same genre. Whereas Anita Shapira’s Israel is an academic historian’s narrative that synthesizes historiographic output to date, Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land is a journalist’s foray into a narrative that aspires, as he puts it, to “get the Israel story right” (p. xii). Divergent purposes inspire these two books. Shapira’s is to offer an authoritatively updated narrative for the primary purpose of academic teaching. Shavit, in contrast, is mainly concerned with submitting the historical record to acute ideological and moral soul-searching. Shapira’s book deals with the entirety of the Israeli experience, providing a capacious narrative not only of the political but also of the social, economic, military, and cultural development of Israel. Shavit, having selected a series of events and issues, simply zooms headlong into slices of the same history. His offering is a passionate account into which he has inserted himself as an engaged commentator. Nevertheless, these two authors do have much in common. Both exhibit an underlying appreciation of Israel as a marvelously vibrant and creative society, a historical “triumph,” albeit “tragic,” as Shavit’s subtitle declares; “a success story of global proportions,” in Shapira’s words. Moreover, it is patently clear that both are Zionists, though Zionists of liberal and humanist persuasion. That is, they subscribe to the basic Zionist affirmation of the state of Israel’s entitlement to be the expression of the Jewish people’s national self-determination while simultaneously being a democracy solicitous of the human and civic rights of all its inhabitants. Yet an interesting difference in vantage points illuminates their take on the Zionist story as a whole. Shapira’s primary vantage point is East European labor Zionism. The eloquence of her narrative is most apparent when she describes the fortunes and fate of the labor Zionist

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heritage, a field she has already enriched in earlier works. Shavit’s vantage point is Anglo-Jewish political Zionism. His narrative opens with the Herzlian Zionist mission to Ottoman Palestine undertaken by his great-grandfather, Herbert Bentwich, and at various points he revisits his Bentwich forebears and traces their activities. As for comprehending the Jewish-Arab conflict, a tragic clash of nationalisms is the primary paradigm adopted by both authors, subject to a self-critical probing of the historical record and a fair-minded understanding of the opposing colonialist paradigm that underpins the Arab case. Shapira reasons that from the outset Jews came out of nationalist motives, and that the self-labor and self-sufficiency ethos of the Zionist labor pioneers offset and averted a potentially colonial situation. Shapira’s work derives from substantial primary research—much of it her own— on the Yishuv period and Israel’s early years. Although dispensing with conventional academic footnoting, her book draws knowledgeably upon the works of many scholars on military, economic, and social issues. A judiciously selected list of these works is provided at the end of each chapter as a guide for further reading. Particularly noteworthy is Shapira’s illuminating deployment of cultural sources. She adeptly applies Hebrew memoirs, literature, poems, and popular songs to serve as a seismograph for the mood of the public and the spirit of the times. Her engaging literary references range widely from the plays of Hanoch Levin to the novels of Amos Oz and David Grossman. Shapira’s book attains its objectives in admirable fashion. Perhaps its greatest analytic virtue is its splendid elucidation of the transformative process undergone by Israeli society—from the formative Yishuv ethos of idealistic collectivism, personal self-sacrifice, and uniform Hebraic cultural reconfiguration to an ethos of individualism, cultivation of prosperity, and resignation to cultural diversity. In other words, how Israel became an ’am kekhol ha’amim (a nation like all other nations), in the apt title Shapira chose for the Hebrew version of the book. The narrative is consistently fluent and engaging, and her treatment of controversial issues is discerning and evenhanded. Most importantly, the story is updated on the basis of major revisions and additions produced by new generations of historical researchers. Many of the myths that pervade conventional historical memory are dispelled. The reader will learn, to give some examples, that the early ’aliyot comprised mainly traditionalist Jewish families, whose motives were personal and material no less than ideological; that it is not quite true to say that Herzl became a Zionist because of the notorious Dreyfus case; that the Yishuv’s urban development surpassed the vaunted “redemption of the soil.” Most significantly, her account of the 1948 “War of Independence” and the origins of the Palestinian Arab refugee problem endorses major revelations and revisions made by Benny Morris and others. At the same time, while appreciating the findings of the so-called “new historians,” she has little regard for what she describes as their one-sided representation of the historical reality and their tone of rage and moral sanctimoniousness. On several questions of causation, intention, and motivation that remain controversial, Shapira is careful to allude to alternative views and to refrain from giving definitive answers. One of the intriguing questions that, in her view, remain open for historians to consider relates to the fatefully convulsive Yom Kippur War of 1973—specifically, whether it might have been avoided had Golda Meir accepted Anwar Sadat’s proposals

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for interim arrangements. In the case of the first Lebanon war of the 1980s, Shapira takes a somewhat more assertive position. She characterizes it as a “war of choice” consciously undertaken by Menachem Begin and hence as a radical departure from the “defensive ethos” that she has attributed to Zionism in a profound study of her own. In a third instance, her updated account of the problems and failures of immigrant integration and of the intra-Jewish ethnic tensions and conflicts that have troubled Israeli society, Shapira avers that “the society that took in the immigrants did not intend to humiliate them by using them as human putty” (p. 239). On another major issue, it is clear that Shapira has no sympathy for the ideology of Gush Emunim and the entire settlement enterprise it pioneered and that a series of Israeli governments fostered. However, compared with the acerbity of current controversy in Israel, her criticism is moderate. She deems the Gush Emunim ideology to be misguided and irrational, seeking to “impose a concept of faith on reality,” and she comments that “this frame of mind ran counter to the fundamental Zionist concept that viewed the return to Zion as a project coming to fruition in the real world, while abiding by the real world’s constraints” (p. 343). At the same time, Shapira does not lose sight of the responsibility for the endless conflict borne by Yasser Arafat and the PLO. In this instance, she allows herself to indulge in speculative attribution of motivation: “Arafat did not see himself as being free to make difficult decisions, either because he did not think his supporters at home were ready for it, because he feared the reaction of the Arab states, or because he thought he would be killed the day after the signing” (p. 444). Overall, the most important contribution of this volume is its provision of sober and mature perspective and context for the understanding of the complex developmental problems of Israel, without making light of the extreme dangers, anxieties, and moral dilemmas that beset its existence. In comparison, Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land is painted with much bolder brush strokes. Shavit’s narrative gains much allure from his interweaving of captivating oral interviews with major personalities. Moreover, he injects himself into the story by engaging with their views. For the general reader, this certainly makes his narrative more imaginative and fascinating than Shapira’s. As in Shapira’s book, the transition from a collectivist to an individualist ethos, and the attendant changes in the mores of Israeli society, form a central theme. In Shavit’s typically pithy phraseology: “The old discourse of duty and commitment was replaced by a new discourse of protest and hedonism,” and Israel has become “a modern western nation in which ‘I’ replaces ‘we’” (p. 191). His treatment of some developments is no less perceptive than Shapira’s, while at the same time being more enthralling. One example is his account of the amazing growth of the Sephardi political movement Shas, another is his treatment of the fateful rise of Gush Emunim. Nothing is more illustrative of the difference in tenor between Shapira’s and Shavit’s books than their respective accounts of the expulsion of Arabs from Lydda during the war of 1948. Shapira treats this event with equanimity within the context of war, as “the only case of organized removal of entire cities on Jewish initiative” (p. 168). In contrast, Shavit provides an emotively anguished description of massacre and expulsion. It serves as the epitome of his central theme—Zionism’s tragically existential dilemma as an historic project, necessary and justified, yet culpable. He sums it

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up with dramatic flair: “Either reject Zionism because of Lydda, or accept Zionism along with Lydda” (p. 131). Shavit has a flare for hyperbole. He writes with pathos. “For as long as I can remember, I remember fear. Existential fear,” is the opening line of this book. The major thrust of his thesis is that the Zionist miracle was blighted by blindness to the presence of the Arabs. The allusion is to what psychologists call cognitive dissonance, although Shavit does not use this term. On the one hand, the miracle was based on denial, but on the other, denial was an existential imperative. Hence the “triumph,” but also the “tragedy” of Israel. Unlike Shapira, Shavit demonstrates nothing like familiarity with the full scope of existing research literature, or else chooses to overlook it. His blindness thesis is not without foundation, but he may lack familiarity with major historical studies such as Yosef Gorny’s Zionism and the Arabs 1882–1948 (1987). Otherwise he would know that his generalization is far from true for the major leaders and intellectuals of the Zionist movement and the Yishuv. He seems unaware that in the Mandate years, the Zionist leadership, ranging from Chaim Weizmann to Zeev Jabotinsky, was fully aware of the Arab presence. Indeed, they did not deny that the Arabs of Palestine also had a legitimate claim to the land. Their argument was not that the Jewish right was absolute and exclusive, but rather that the manifestly greater existential need of the Jewish people justified its having precedence in attaining national self-determination in the contested land. The paramount conundrum laid bare by Shavit is, of course, the occupation and Jewish settlement of the West Bank (alias Judea and Samaria). “The question is,” he writes, “whether Israel will end the occupation or whether occupation will end Israel” (p. 398). Interviewing two leading settler personalities, Pinchas Wallerstein and Yehuda Etzion, he comments: “The reality created by Wallerstein and Etzion and their friends has entangled Israel in a predicament that cannot be untangled. The settlements have placed Israel’s neck in a noose.” With anguish, he ponders “whether Ofra is a benign continuation of Zionism or a malignant mutation of Zionism” (pp. 220–221). After hearing Etzion’s views, he makes his most telling personal exclamation: “With horror I realize that the DNA of his Zionism and the DNA of my Zionism share a few genes” (p. 209). Shavit himself says that he has moved from the left-wing to the center of Israel’s political spectrum. He argues that the fundamental flaw of the Left was that it never distinguished between the issue of occupation and the issue of peace. It realized that occupation was a moral, demographic, and political disaster. But it was naïve regarding the prospect of peace. “If Israel does not retreat from the West Bank, it will be politically and morally doomed,” he opines, “but if it does retreat, it might face an Iranianbacked and Islamic Brotherhood-inspired West Bank regime whose missiles could endanger Israel’s security” (p. 401). Shapira, too, is obviously perturbed by the elusiveness of peace and the worsening reality of continued occupation, but she seems to face it in a spirit of resignation that leaves some room for hope. By contrast, Shavit responds with paralyzing pessimism and frustration. As Leon Wieseltier suggests in a New York Times review, Shavit’s is something of a “doubting discourse;” one that tends to consign Israel to “a historical provisionality.”1 Indeed, Shavit goes so far as to ask: “Will the Jewish state survive another century?” (p. 398).

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In the eyes of fair-minded people, Jews and others, Shavit’s book should serve as a saving grace for Israel’s deteriorating hyper-nationalist image. At the same time, its message of guilt and remorse is more than likely to be interpreted by inveterate antiZionists as validation of their case. For teaching purposes, My Promised Land might well serve as a complementary source, preferably alongside contrasting exemplifications of right-wing positions. It is Anita Shapira’s book, however, that merits becoming indispensable basic reading. Gideon Shimoni The Hebrew University

Note 1.  Leon Wieseltier, “The State of Israel: ‘My Promised Land,’ by Ari Shavit,” New York Times Book Review (24 November 2013).

Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXIX Edited by Gabriel Finder and Eli Lederhendler

Symposium: Punch Lines: Humor in Modern Jewish Life Steven Beller, “The Right Mélange”: Viennese Operetta as a Stage for Jewish Humor Michael Berkowitz, An Appreciation of Anglo-Jewish Television Comedy Asal Dardan, Can Nazis Be Funny? The Deployment of Humor in Mein Führer, Inglourious Basterds, and Iron Sky Gabriel Finder, Kishon in Germany Avinoam Patt, “Laughter through Tears”: Jewish Humor in the Aftermath of the Holocaust Diego Rotman, Satirizing Israeli Political Leadership in Dzigan and Shumacher’s Comic Theater Repertoire Limor Shifman, Humor and Ethnicity on Israeli Television: A Historical Perspective Anna Shternshis, Cheers for the Holocaust: What Do Russian Jews Find Funny, and Why Is No One Else Laughing? David Slucki, Making Out in Anne Frank’s Attic: Humor and the Holocaust in Australia Kerstin Steitz, And Hannah Laughed: The Place of Humor in Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem Jarrod Tanny, The Decoding Seinfeld’s Jewishness Stephen Whitfield, Jackie Mason: The Comedian as Ethnographer Carol Zemel, Funny-looking: Thoughts on Jewish Visual Humor plus review essays and book reviews

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Note on Editorial Policy

Studies in Contemporary Jewry is pleased to accept manuscripts on subjects generally within the contemporary Jewish sphere (from the turn of the 20th century to the present) for possible publication. Please address all inquiries to: [email protected]. Essays that are submitted undergo a review process.

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