Israeli citizens pack donations of food and other necessities for the Israeli soldiers and citizens in Tel Aviv, October 9, 2023. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90תל אביב נמל תל אביב.
Our son is home after three months of war. Our child, who has been serving our country, is no longer at the front. Two thoughts come to mind. Firstly, when I started this blog at Rosh Hashanah, I intended to write solely about food—whether it be history, meal planning or preparation. I never thought for a minute that this would become my primary outlet for sharing the tumultuous thoughts and pain I feel, not just as a mother or the Rebbetzen of a large community, but as a Jew.
Secondly, a more sobering realization is that when I say our son is no longer serving at the front, it is not entirely true. Everyone in Israel is at the front, and at present, every Jew in the world— even those who would rather not face the truth—is serving in a war.
Rabbi Aubrey Hersh shares as follows; Maimonides, in his responsum to the Jews of Yemen, tells them that as Jews, we will fight two different types of enemies. The first enemy, Yishmael, is the enemy of brute force. He is Amalek, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, and Hamas. They will come at us with brute force, and the fight will always be physical.
The second enemy is Esav, the enemy of the mind. It represents Hellenism, Rome, Europe, and America. They will come at us first with persuasion, then with mockery, and eventually with force. They will use their words and legal means to delegitimize us.
Often, these two enemies will join forces. It could be the forced conversion of Spain, the propaganda of the Nazis, or, in Maimonides’ case, the forced conversion of the Jews of Yemen to Islam—the ways of Esav. When that doesn’t work, and it never has, not just because we are a stubborn and stiff-necked people, but because the enemy would never be satisfied, their hatred will never be satiated, even when they achieve their aims. Then the force of Yishmael will rain down upon us, be it through auto-da-fé, murder, or gas chambers.
Today, our brothers, sisters, and in my case, parents and children in Israel, are fighting Yishmael as rockets and terrorists cross the border into Israel every day. This is what I mean when I say that when your country is as small as Israel, and you are surrounded by enemies, every single Israeli is living on the front lines. Israel is still at war; it needs to secure not only its border with Gaza but also its border with everyone else.
And what of Esav? Esav is present in all our phones. Esav looks like the uneducated masses on TikTok, the leadership of top-tier universities, and the South Africans that brought a case against Israel. We no longer need to defend the Talmud in the town squares of Europe; rather, we are defending Israel’s right to exist online, in the press, and on the streets of most Western capitals.
Now, I don’t want to spread fear, nor do I want us to cower. I want us to be aware, and I want us to be safe. But I do want us to understand this hate. It is not new; this is a hate as old as we are. As long as there has been a Jew— the first person ever called a Jew was Mordechai, who was famously hated by Haman —though this hate predates them as well. Rabbi Sacks speaks about the evolution of antisemitism. At the start, it was xenophobia; it then evolved into anti-religion, then anti-race, and today, it is anti-Israel. Yet, it is all the same hate. Rabbi Hersh explains in this brilliant podcast (from 13:25) that there are two different types of haters: those who follow the trend, the majority. These trend followers can be swayed, and that is why many people are going out and facing off against protesters or appearing in courts of law, signing petitions, and lobbying representatives, because we can teach them. The other segment, who are not the majority, are the blind haters. We cannot teach them; we simply need to stand firm and tall and know that we have lost every single fight and survived to tell the tale because all the winners are gone. So, we, too, are on the front lines. Pick up your phone or walk down the streets of London, New York, or Toronto, and the front line is there.
Hold onto faith because the fight is long, but you are not alone. Like Moses against the Amalekites, our arms are supported by each other.
And once more, back to food:
The way I got into writing about Jewish food was actually writing its history. My intention for this website was to share that history. I use two primary sources: Gil Marks‘ incredible Encyclopaedia of Jewish Food, which is unfortunately out of print but if you can get a hold of one, do so—it’s really incredible. The other is John Cooper’s excellent book Eat and be Satisfied.
With that, let me share with you the history of my favourite comfort food, schnitzel.
After high school, I spent a gap year in Israel and divided my time between studying in a seminary in the town of Elkana and working on Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi. On kibbutz, every participant was paired up with a family, who hosted us for Shabbat meals. In some cases, strong bonds formed between participants and their host families. Sadly, that was not my experience—the challenge, as seems to be the case with me always, was food.
These people were lovely and sweet, but they just didn’t serve enough food. I started hating going to them for meals as they served me the same exact portions they served their four young children, ages 7 to six months. I was eighteen and had never worked on a kibbutz in the sun all day. The work was physically demanding, and I was famished. I have always been a hungry person, but this new level of hunger was intense. I would walk around the kibbutz all Shabbat in a constant state of hangry, long before I was familiar with the term.
On the other hand, my roommate Naomi’s adopted family, the Robinsons, served more than enough food, and Naomi wasn’t a big eater. Marc Robinson was the man who looked after our program. After he got word of my hunger issues and not wanting to upset the lovely family of non-eaters (they will remain nameless), after the meal he would hand me an aluminum foil package. Inside was schnitzel after schnitzel, no longer crispy or warm, but to me, this was manna from heaven. I would look forward to the post-Shabbat meal of schnitzel, and since then, my love of schnitzel—warm or cold, large or tiny popcorn-sized bites—has not abated.
But how did a classic Viennese dish make its way to the kitchen of a kibbutz in northern Israel?
The history is actually one that many of our favorite foods follow. Thin cuts of meat or fish were known across the Byzantine Empire by the 9th century. As the Arabs conquered the Byzantine Empire and traveled west, they brought this tradition to North Africa. From North Africa, it traveled into Spain, where by the 13th century, the technique of dredging proteins in egg and then coating in breadcrumbs was well known. The Jews expelled from Spain starting in 1391 took the tradition of coating fish first in egg and then flour or breadcrumbs to their new homes. It was most probably the Jews who introduced this technique to Italy. In Milan, we see the emergence of the classic Veal Milanese—a veal chop pounded thin with the bone still in, coated in egg and then breadcrumbs before being fried. In 1706, when the French yielded their holdings in northern Italy to the Austrians, the capital of Lombardy, Milan went from French hands into Austrian ones. And the veal Milanese traveled to Vienna. In Vienna, the bone was removed from the veal, and before dredging the Schnitzel (German for little cut/cutlet) in egg, it was first covered in flour. By 1880, the Wiener (Vienna) schnitzel was on every menu across the city. Schnitzel was never served with sauce as the sauce would affect the crunchiness of the dish, but it was often served with a wedge of lemon to be squeezed on top, covering up the flavor of the meat having gone off, which was often the case prior to the advent of refrigeration.
Jews, though, preferred the Hausmeisterschnitzel (poor man’s schnitzel)—chicken replaced veal and the cutlet was fried in oil as opposed to lard or butter, to keep the dish cheap and kosher.
When Eastern European Jews started immigrating to Israel at the end of the 19th century, they brought schnitzel with them. It was the perfect dish for a kibbutz, as few of the kibbutzim in their inception had ovens, and a schnitzel is something that is cooked over a simple burner. It also had the added benefit of being the perfect dish to serve cold, tucked into the bread of Israel—a pita.
During Israel’s time of austerity from 1949-59, housewives were encouraged to make schnitzel using chicken or turkey. Today, Schnitzel, not falafel, is to Israel what burgers are to America. It is the most ubiquitous food of Israel. You can buy it in almost any restaurant, from a hole in the wall to the fanciest establishment you can imagine. Every home will serve a version for Shabbat, including vegan schnitzel. It is sent to school with children, and I am not alone in naming it my favorite comfort food.
In my opinion, schnitzel is the food of Israel. And my thanks go out to the Kibbutz family that served small portions, because of them, I started a love affair with schnitzel that has yet to abate (yes, I am a glass-half-full person, as long as I am not hangry).
You can find my schnitzel recipe here: Homemade Schnitzel though there is nothing revolutionary about it, sometimes it’s good to have a recipe to hand.
