What Does Food Mean to Me in Judaism?
A Jewish Foodie
“No, you’re not.” “Yeah, I am.” “But you don’t look like it. Are you related to any of them?” “There is not just one look, Jewish people have landed in all different parts of the world. And no, I am not related to any of the Jewish people in our grade.” “But why are you at school today?” “Because I would rather not miss a day of school than go to a service. I can celebrate after school.” “Ok… but are you sure you are Jewish?” That was one of my first experiences in high school when I told someone I was Jewish. I understood that in Nashville, Tennessee it was probable that many people had never talked to a Jewish person and only had one idea of what a “Jewish person” looked like. But, I hoped that the high school I went to, that had a reputation for being the place where all the Jewish kids went, would have more people who understood that being Jewish is more than looks and going to synagogue on holidays. The boy who questioned me, thankfully, was an outlier in that prospect, but he was not the only one who was skeptical. It was true that the Sunday school class I was in was made up of fifteen people and twelve of them were related and the synagogue was made up of a tight knit community, but I hoped that being at a place where being Jewish was “normal” would cut out some of the ignorance. With this skepticism staring me in the face, I began to question “how Jewish was I?” What did that even mean? Was I doing something wrong? Did I not know enough about my culture?
Let’s start with the idea that “Jewishness and Judaism are not necessarily the same thing.” (Richardson, 1) This leads to the idea that each individual is on a spectrum in terms of how much of the practices of Judaism they choose to follow. But, whether you are a Conservative, Orthodox, or Secular Jew, “there is no way people can practice Judaism religiously or culturally without food.” as Alice Level points out in her essay Is Judaism Obsessed with Food? (The short answer to her essay is a solid yes.) She goes on to emphasize that “Judaism seeks to raise the ordinary activities of everyday life to a higher level. And what could be more ordinary than food?”(Level, 2) At Passover, every “type of Jewish person” eats or recognizes the seder plate. At Rosh Hashanah honey cake or apples and honey is eaten. Purim, commonly celebrated with a festival or a carnival like event, has requirements such as, “ command the faithful to mark the occasion by sending food to one another.” and “to attend a festive meal.” (Purim 2020, 5) Hanukkah would not be complete without gelt, latkes, kugel, or at least a doughnut. And every week Shabbat requires challah, wine, and not to mention those multi course meals with friends and family. You can not get around Jewish holidays without food. I had always loved cooking and I decided it would be about time to discover Judaism through the kitchen. I wondered why was food so important in Judaism? Can food be a way to form an identity within a culture?
Behind the foods is always a story; either, from the Torah, a family member, geographical reason, or cultural practice. Food in Judaism helps every type of Jew to create an identity, by looking at origin stories, for themselves through food practices, defined by Jordan D.Rosenblum, writer of Meals in Early Judaism: Social Formation at the Table, as, “Practices are bundled sets of social activities that allow one to signal overtly his or her perceived relationship to a given identity.” ( Rosenblum, 59) In the chapter “Jewish in Dishes: Kashrut in the New World,” from the book The Americanization of the Jews, Jenna Weissman Joselit talks about how Jewish customs such as attending synagogue are becoming more “optional” in the realm of Judaism. She points out, “ One Conservative rabbi in the mid-1940 s went so far as to propose a brand-new denominational model of American Jewry in which he substituted such new categories of affiliation as "A" Jews, or "Jews by Accident ' "B " Jews, or "Bar Mitzvah Jews, " and "G " Jews, or "Gastronomic Jews, "... Not surprisingly, the "gastronomic Jewish " community boasted the greatest number of adherents.”(Joselit, 248) This example clearly shows how food is thought of as an intercultural identity. I had never realized that so many Jewish people felt the same way I did. I went to synagogue for a long time but stopped around the age of thirteen. I celebrate the holidays at home, with all the appropriate foods of course, but I lost the concrete experiences of synagogue. Cooking the important foods became that concrete experience.
With Jewish Family roots in New York, I think of Zabar’s as a tangible vision of a monument to the idea of identity in food both inter and intraculturally. In 1995, The New York Observer had a headline that stated,” Many Jews in the City Forgo Temple, Rabbi Says Zabar's Does the Job.” (Jenna Weissman Joselit 247) As a secular Jew who lives in Nashville and does not regularly attend synagogue, I agree with that statement. Zabar’s acts as my reminder that I choose my level of Judaism and that I can always research and ask others about parts of the culture I don’t know. It also reminds me of the varying levels of Judaism because of its location in New York. If you walk into one of the very few synagogues in Nashville, the crowds are about the same in terms of where they are on the “Jewish spectrum.” or you can guess where they are because everyone knows each other due to the lack of numbers of Jewish people in Nashville. In New York, you walk into Zabar’s and you have no idea what people’s beliefs, culture, customs, or backgrounds are. How can I find more places like that in my hometown, I make them through food. I read recipes from Jewish immigrants, research origin stories, share the food and history with my friends, listen to my mother's stories of growing up in New York with Eastern European Jewish food, and continue to be curious. I learned that waiting for your culture and people to find you, was not going to work. So, I make a conscious effort to find it.
When in NYC, it is necessary that my mother and I go to Zabar’s and I must inspect each item and person. It is a snapshot of New Yorkers. The smell of creamy, velvety coffee, the tang of the hard cheeses, the sweet jam that peeks through the cracks of the rugelach, the crunch that rings out from the bread as it splits, and all the bodies that move quickly through the store are flashes of taste and smell. People melt in and out, folding scarves into hands in winter and cling to icy plastic packaging in summer. Lines are a game of chess in which each customer is respectful but eager to get ahead. Dried apricots glint in the sun like cracked amber. The scent of chocolate babka whirls like a streak in a kaleidoscope. People make small talk over the counter as a child stands on her tippy toes to watch the large knife skim off sheets of glassy lox. The old man behind the counter picks up the fish and makes it dance for the child. The child laughs and hugs her mother's hips. Smiles and stern expressions create a cool breeze, disappearing into moving fabrics. Everything radiates newness, yet the air is a cozy and familiar hug.
A woman buys three loaves of challah, one with raisins. She reminds me of a picture of my grandfather in which his young, poofy, plentiful Jewish curls bounce under a sepia tint. Some ladies waddle, others whip by, but they all show a sense of determination for striving, for creating opportunity, and for being in New York. I can tell they are proud of their cultures, experiences, shapes, stories, and strength. I hear their hearts and feet, walking next to each other, holding each other.
The glowing glass protects freshly made loaves, bagels are eaten faster than they are made, and skilled hands speak of the importance of quality; the quality of life, opportunity, growth, family, sacrifice, and good food.
With a rich history and tasty products as the backdrop, the people passing through Zabar’s make it a continuous monument. It has served New Yorkers since 1934. (Zabar’s Story, 1)A striving family from the Soviet Union and Ukraine brought the first drip coffee machine to the US which started the business. The values they carried are what customers experience now, “Respect the customer. Never, ever stint on quality. Offer fair value. And last but not least, keep searching for the new and wonderful.” (Zabar’s Story, 1) Zabar’s has grown to be “New York’s Finest” by the Zagat New York City Marketplace Survey (Schwartz, 2) When you sip that morning coffee or split that black and white cookie, you become part of the Zabar’s story. Zabar’s is a monument that wraps New York up like a little gift basket.
The people at Zabar’s have a dual purpose; to make the food and to be personified visions of the notion of New York being a place in which many cultures run through everyone. In the essay, “Remembering What is Not Gone: Towards a Feminist Counter Monument”, Stephanie Bailey and Mark Woyituk talk of The Monument of Fascism. It is a pillar that people wrote epitaphs and was lowered into the ground as it got covered. It was described as, “Its aim is not to console but to provoke; not to remain fixed but to change; not to be everlasting but to disappear; not to be ignored by passersby but to demand interaction.” (Bailey and Woytiuk, 7) Zabar’s does console by providing good food and a community for people to connect to, but also “provokes” stories of discrimination against Jews and stories of sacrifice and hardship. The people who walk in Zabar’s have different backgrounds, cultures, and ideas, but are all connected by the fact that they are in a store saturated in history and culture. Zabar’s customers will not be there forever, but will not disappear, because their purchase and presence contributed to keeping Zabar’s alive. Bailey and Woytiuk’s definition of a counter monument, “ stages a difficult return” to the original event. Unlike monuments that rely on reductive symbology, the pedagogical intent of the feminist counter monument is to provoke “uncertainty, anxiety and self interrogation” in the face of past atrocities.” is in response to the Marker of Change Monument, created to remember fourteen female engineering students intentionally murdered in 1989 at the École Polytechnique. (Bailey and Woytiuk, 2) The monument is several marble benches and reflection pools that are yonic symbols. The execution of the monument was described as, “While rhetorically effective, emblematization fails to capture the loss and grief of the murders, thereby recapitulating the systematic refusal to address the “horrors of oppression that pass as normal.”(Bailey and Woytiuk, 3) Sociologist Sharon Rosenberg defines a counter monument as, “the conventional historical monument fails to keep memory alive because it externalizes the responsibility of remembering onto a physical site and thereby neutralizes the affective charge of the loss.”(Bailey and Woytiuk, 4) to think of how to properly return, honor, and think of the women.
This monument and event are far from what Zabar’s is or is about, but the argument Bailey and Woytiuk present for what a counter monument could be a way to approach Zabar’s. Living in Nashville, there are not many stores that have “kosher” sections. Hamentashen, eaten at Purim, are put out at Hanukkah, and Challah only makes its way to the stores on holidays. I guess it makes sense because there are not that many Jewish people, there are only a handful of synagogues, and there are churches everywhere, but I don’t have a “monument” that my friends can understand Jewish Culture through. Why is that important to me? Because I am surrounded by giant crosses and churches. I hear other people loudly voice their religion and force it on others, sometimes prayers are said at certain schools, and I do not see those organizations being open to other cultures. The act of making noodle kugel, latkes, rugelach, and honey cake is my way of creating a “temporary monument.” Each dish is a new way of explaining a segment of history. Walking with Our Sisters is “a touring memorial art installation” created for, “the honor and remembrance of the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women across Canada.” (Bailey and Woytiuk, 8) This memorial is interactive because the 2000 moccasins were made by family and friends. The act of making is what brought this memorial to life. Paired with the notion of, “The counter monument seeks to forge a relationship with the viewer through their participation,”(Bailey and Woytiuk, 8) explains Zabar’s purpose besides producing high quality food. The Moccasins require “collective engagement,” (Bailey and Woytiuk, 8) for them to be brought to life, and Zabar’s runs on collective engagement for business and the community. The best and most enjoyable way I can embrace my culture is through collective engagement. Zabar’s is a place that can build a spot for Jewish people who do not have a cultural or food hub in their city. Zabar’s is a visual record, a multimedia documentation of heritage, history, memory, and a monument to New York. Zabar’s delivers nationally and can bring a bit of its legacy into any customer’s home and makes a point of being a continuous monument that is always changing. It provides a way to look at history and culture, through a lens that is always looking to focus on something that was missed.
How do you find your desired level of involvement within your culture? How do you embrace your culture when there is limited or no given space for doing so? How do you share your culture without intimidating? Now that I have gotten a good start on understanding my culture through those questions, I have to ask… how can I give space to the many cultures that I don’t see?
Works Cited
Bailey, Stephanie, and Mark Woytiuk. “Remembering What Is Not Gone: Towards a Feminist Counter Monument.” The Site Magazine, 13 June 2018, www.thesitemagazine.com/read/remembering-what-is-not-gone.
Joselit, Jenna Weissman. “Jewish in Dishes: Kashrut in the New World.” The Americanization of the
Jews, edited by Robert M. Seltzer and Norman J. Cohen, NYU Press, NEW YORK; LONDON, 1995, pp. 247–264. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfzxz.19.
Level, Alice. “Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley.” Is Judaism Obsessed with Food? | Jewish
Federation of the Lehigh Valley, Sept. 2014, https://jewishlehighvalley.org/crc/jewish-news-views/is-judaism-obsessed-with-food
“Purim 2020: What Is the Jewish Holiday and How Is It Celebrated?” The Week UK, 9 Mar. 2020,
www.theweek.co.uk/91775/purim-2018-what-is-purim-and-how-is-it-celebrated.
Richardson, Brenda. “Jewish Food Practices and Celebrating Hanukkah.” The Association of Nutrition &
Foodservice Professionals, Sept. 2018, www.anfponline.org/docs/default-source/legacy-docs/docs/ce-articles/nc092018.pdf.
Rosenblum, Jordan D. “Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism.” Meals in Early Judaism: Social
Formation at the Table, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, p. 59.
Schwartz, Sadie. “Zabar Brothers, Stanley '49 and Saul '46, Continue Legacy of Upper West Side Gourmet Emporium.” The Record, 20 Oct. 2017, https://record.horacemann.org/1071/features/zabars/.
“The Zabar's Story: 80 Years at 80th and B'way.” Zabar's, 2014,