Are those pickles kosher?
Filed under: A New Reality, Food, General, History and Culture, Israeliness
Chef Moshe Basson prepares a kosher delicacy in the Eucalyptus kitchen. (Photo: Marc Israel Sellem)
Not ready to live with the traditional kosher fare available, two immigrants from the US, Ari Greenspan of Efrat and Ari Zivotofsky of Beit Shemesh, have spent years studying the Biblical origins of kosher food.
Don’t forget, besides forbidding lobster stew and quiche Lorraine, there are plenty of exotic animals, fowl and birds that are considered kosher, but generally not found in your local kosher deli.
That’s why Zivotofsky and Greenspan decided to throw a lavish 18-course-meal this week featuring pheasant and guinea fowl pastry as an appetizer, water buffalo, swordfish and deer as main courses, and fried locusts for dessert.
The “mesorah dinner,” held at Eucalyptus Restaurant, across from Jerusalem’s Old City walls, was designed to pass along the “chain of tradition” of which animals, birds, fish and locusts are kosher and which are not.
Prepared by the restaurant’s chef Moshe Basson, who has made a career on perfecting the traditional ‘land of Israel’ cuisine, the meal started off with Ethiopian Injera bread and “Shiluach Haken soup.” According to a report on the meal in The Jerusalem Post, the soup commemorated the mitzva of sending away the mother bird, because it featured a fleishig egg (an egg extracted from a live chicken) inside a noodle nest in sparrow, dove and pigeon broth.
The soup was followed by quail in caramel sauce; figs stuffed with wild chicken and wild rice; duck, goose, muscovy and mullard in honey-ginger sauce; the pheasants/guinea fowl pastry, and turkey that the chef unveiled with great fanfare.
The heart of the meal featured cow udder in saffron; a combination swordfish, kingklip and blue marlin; and the shibuta, a fish from the Euphrates River that is famed for tasting like bacon. The shibuta was brought from southeastern Turkey, and the swordfish was caught by a tuna fisherman in the Mediterranean.
The next courses were sheep and goat in endives; water buffalo; and spotted deer and red deer.
Not your typical fare in any restaurant, let alone a kosher bistro in Jerusalem. According to the report, most of the participants were too full, or grossed out, to partake of the fried locust dessert. I guess they can wait and have that on Pessah.
Tisha B’av with helicopters
The book of Eicha is traditionally read on Tisha B'av
Every year on Tisha B’av, there are pundits who write in the local newspapers that we should stop fasting and start celebrating.
Tisha B’av – the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av (which always falls somewhere in super-heated July or August) – commemorates various tragedies which have befallen the Jewish people, first and foremost the destructions of the first and second temples in Jerusalem and their subsequent exiles.
In order to properly mourn, traditional Jews refrain from eating from sundown to sundown on Tisha B’av.
But why, if the Jewish people have returned from exile to re-establish a sovereign Jewish state and even have control over Jerusalem itself, should we continue to fast? Anshel Pfeffer, writing in Haaretz, is the latest in an annual stream of columnists calling for an end to all the pseudo-sackcloth and ashes.
“Tisha B’Av was never supposed to be an eternal day of mourning,” Pfeffer writes. “The prophet Zechariah, who according to tradition lived 2,500 years ago, at the time of the first return to Zion and the building of the Second Temple, quoted the Lord of Hosts promising that ‘the fasts of the fourth month, and of the fifth, seventh and tenth months will become festivals of joy and happiness for the House of Judah.’”
Not only is the exile over, but those Jews who remain living outside of Israel are not being prevented from emigrating but rather are doing so out of choice, Pfeffer says. “Praying to God that all these millions of Jews will up themselves and make aliyah is hypocritical,” he adds.
Now, there are those who say we must continue to mourn until a third temple is built. Pfeffer has an answer for that as well. When Israel captured the Old City in 1967, it was Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who assured Muslim Wakf officials they would have full control of the Temple Mount area. “The only reason that the third temple has not been built is that a majority of Israelis simply are not interested,” Pfeffer writes.
When I presented Pfeffer’s point to some friends, though, I was quickly reminded that the temples were destroyed by what the rabbis deemed “baseless hatred.” And we are far from overcoming such feelings today. Indeed, a Ynet-Gesher poll asked Israelis “What, in your opinion, is the worst source of tension in Israeli society?” 42 percent indicated religious vs. secular issues (there’s lots more in the poll – worth checking out).
So, said my friends, we continue to mourn – not for the destruction of the temples but for the continued brokenness of our fragile society.
That’s also what our rabbi said in a preface to reading the book of Eicha (Lamentations) in the garden of the Jerusalem Nature Museum earlier this evening. But as we sat outside, listening to the mournful tunes being chanted under the stars, the silence was repeatedly broken by the sound of a helicopter circling directly above us. I timed it – it came around regularly every 5-6 minutes. The copter must have made at least 10 very noisy flyovers during the reading.
None of us knew what the helicopter was doing. Was it police or army? Had their been a tip-off that a terror attack was immiment? Or was this area – close to the Knesset – always patrolled and we just normally never stop to listen?
In any of those cases, the symbolism seemed clear: exile must truly be over – we have our own security forces with our own helicopters that can protect the Jewish people from future disasters.
Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe the reason we need the helicopters is that we still have enemies who are bent on our destruction. Only once we have true peace in the region can we start eating again on Tisha B’av.
Food for thought…well at least for after the fast.
Nostalgia Sunday – Jerusalem the Center
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Religion, Travel
Jerusalem is central to Judaism. And no day is that fact made more evident than Tisha b’Av, the Ninth of Av, the day on which both the First and Second Temples were destroyed and the Jews exiled. It is a day of fasting and mourning, but also of study, prayer and hope that Jerusalem will one day be truly rebuilt and the Jews returned to their ancient homeland.
To mark the upcoming holy day, here are some pictures of Jerusalem, ancient and modern, courtesy of the excellent Jerusalem Shots website.
© trionfo
© RomKri
© trionfo
© Misha Burlatsky
© G. Eric and Edith Matson
© RomKri
© trionfo
© Олег Велобегов
T+L Love J-Town
Filed under: Business, General, Israeliness, Life, Travel
This is fairly hot off the press, as the magazine issue isn’t even on the stands yet. Travel and Leisure magazine has named Jerusalem as the best city in Africa and the Middle East, according to a reader questionnaire that ranked cities according to sights, culture and arts, restaurants and food, people, shopping and value. This was the first time that the holy city received a high ranking since 2000.
FYI, South Africa’s Cape Town was ranked in second place and Tel Aviv in third place, the first time Israel’s Big Orange placed in the survey.
New York was the overall number-one city, while New Orleans and Washington, D.C. (full disclosure, that’s where I am now), made a comeback, returning to the magazine’s top-ten list in the U.S. and Canada, while Bangkok, Thailand; Chiang Mai, Thailand; Florence, Italy; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; and Rome, Italy were voted the top five cities overall in Travel + Leisure’s 2010 World’s Best Awards readers’ survey.
According to NY Blueprint’s interview with Israel Tourism Commissioner Arie Sommer, tourism to Israel in 2008 and 2009 broke all records, and early statistics show that 2010 will be the best year ever for tourism to Israel.
Published by the American Express Company, Travel+Leisure publishes its annual World’s Best Awards in the magazine’s August issue, which will be available on newsstands on July 23.
Sleep over night in the army
Filed under: A New Reality, education, General, Israeliness, Life
I haven’t felt so much part of the army experience since I stopped doing reserve duty a few years ago. Arriving home from work last night sometime after midnight, expecting a relatively quiet house (it being summer, the kids go to sleep at all hours), I was surprised to see three young woman raiding the refrigerator, working on both the laptop and the PC with USBs and photos and downloads, and generally behaving as if it was 12 noon and not midnight.
My daughter, home for the weekend from her base, had to report on Sunday morning to Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem to meet up with her unit for a culture day in the City of David. So, she invited two comrades, who live for from the destination to stay over the night before to enable them to sleep a little longer the next morning.
But sleep was the last thing on their mind, as they boisterously ate, drank and played their way through the house. It reminded me that sleepovers don’t really change that much, whether you’re eight or 18.
Breaking out the extra mattresses and squeezing them into her room, the girlfriends finally crashed at around 2 am, and by 7 am they were getting dressed in their uniforms, packing their kitbags, and making sure their weapons were in order. I just tried to stay out of the way.
I did go out, however, to the local corner store and buy some fresh rolls and bags of chocolate milk, so they’d have something for breakfast. The army runs on its stomach, and just because they’re 18 and now tasked with the responsibility of defending out country, doesn’t mean that they don’t enjoy the same comfort foods they enjoyed when they were 8.
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