Jewish in a Gentile World

Like many others, I've been thinking a lot about 9/11 as the tenth anniversary approaches. It was a strange time in my life. The Jewish High Holidays were approaching -- Rosh Hashanah fell on September 18th that year. The software company I worked for was developing a new product and had most of the staff (including me) working from home. I thought I'd share my experiences from that time, much of which has some Jewish context. September 8 It was the beginning of Selichot, an introspective period leading up to Rosh Hashanah. A local synagogue had a speaker and refreshments before the traditional first night Selichot service. He was a local rabbi who was born and raised in Israel, who spoke about the violence in Israel a year after the outbreak of the second Intifada. During the refreshment period, I was talking to my rabbi, and I made a comment to the effect that the number of people who die in violence in Israel is probably not greater than in the United States. I was thinking...

Last year, I offered a number of kosher-for-Passover vegetarian recipes .  Those posts went over very well, so I'll be providing a few new ones this year! This recipe is based on one I got from Cabot Cheese , which makes an excellent kosher-for-Passover run of sharp cheddar cheese . UPDATE : Cabot has discontinued its Passover run of cheese! Heartbreaking! There are other sources of Passover cheddar; I recommend Les Petites Fermieres if you can find it; I find it at Wegmans. Make sure it's certified for Passover; it isn't always.  Most of the ingredients were already vegetarian and kosher for Passover, with one key exception: Rice. "Risotto" is a rice dish, and rice isn't kosher for Passover (by Ashkenazic standards).  I initially thought of substituting matzah farfel, but I realized that quinoa would give it much more of a risotto look and feel. Of course, not everybody accepts quinoa as kosher for Passover (see my discussion from 2010 ), so you can try it ...

Now that Chanukkah is over, it occurs to me that Chanukkah isn't a very inclusive holiday.  All those strange Hebrew and Yiddish names for things: menorahs, dreidels, gelt, latkes... that sort of terminology excludes gentiles.  From now on, I will be more inclusive!  No more menorahs; from now on, they will be called Holiday Candlesticks.  Dreidels will be called Holiday Tops.  Gelt will be called Holiday Chocolate Coins.  Latkes will be Holiday Hash Browns. With this new terminology, these things won't be limited to Chanukkah.  They will represent all holidays: Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Years, whatever!  After all, most of these things aren't religious anyway; they're just secular things that got tacked onto Chanukkah.  There's no reason why you can't celebrate Christmas by frying potato pancakes, or Kwanzaa by spinning a top and gambling for chocolate coins.  OK, the menorah -- excuse me, holiday candlestick -- is a religious...

First they came for the Gypsies, and I said nothing, because I wasn't a Gypsy... Has Europe learned nothing? France Deports Gypsies: Courting the Xenophobes?

For those who have been living under a rock for the last 24 hours: Helen Thomas, long-time White House correspondent, has retired in the wake of controversy over her statements about Israel.  When a rabbi interviewed her at a White House event celebrating American Jewish Heritage Month, Thomas said to tell Israel "to get the hell out of Palestine" and they should "go home" to "Poland.  Germany.  And America.  And everywhere else."  You can see the whole thing on YouTube . I confess, I've always had a certain admiration for Helen Thomas as a ground-breaking female journalist.  I didn't follow her closely enough to be aware of some of the things that are starting to come out in the wake of this controversy, but I admired her as a strong, capable woman in a powerful position at a time when women were still expected to be barefoot and pregnant.  It saddens me deeply to see this. But there is an aspect of this story that hasn't gotten much press...

This Sunday (April 11, 2010) is Yom Ha-Shoah, a holiday created by the State of Israel to remember the losses the Jewish people suffered during the Holocaust (known in Hebrew as Shoah).  There is an international Holocaust Remembrance Day created by the United Nations that is observed on January 27, the day that the Allied forces liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp, a day of Allied triumph.  Yom Ha-Shoah is scheduled on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the largest single revolt by the Jews during the Holocaust, on Nissan 27 of the Hebrew calendar , about a week after Passover. I've seen a number of gentiles suggest that the purpose of Holocaust remembrance is to make them feel guilty about what they did or did not do during the Holocaust.  To anyone who feels that way... I suggest you get over yourself.  Seriously.  Sometimes it's not about you. The primary theme you hear in Jewish Holocaust remembrance is: Never Again.  We rea...

Yes, this is the secret final recipe I promised last Friday .  I was trying to think of recipes like matzah lasagna , where I could substitute sheets of matzah for a grain product that provides structure.  I thought of spanakopita, the traditional Greek dish made with layers of pastry-like phyllo dough holding together layers of spinach and feta cheese.  I love spanakopita, but I've never had much luck working with fragile phyllo dough.  Substituting matzah looses the light pastry texture of traditional spanakopita, but is much easier to work with and is still quite tasty.  Rachel declared it to be "crazy good."  A second taste-tester, Hutch, called it "delicious," and he doesn't even observe Passover! I ran into only one problem: too much filling!  I was working from several different recipes, all of which were designed to make a 13 x 9 pan of spanakopita, while I was working with 8 x 8 matzah.  I thought about reducing the quantities for this ...