Our Best Awesome Favorite Pesach Recipe for Passover Peach Kugel

Here once again is our favorite Passover Peach Kugel recipe! Happy and Kosher Pesach to all!

Is Elk Meat Kosher?

IKEA has been caught selling pork as elk meat in their lasagna (April, 2013). That is not kosher.

Anyways, yes, elk is a kosher species. JTA reported in July 2008 that yes, you can purchase kosher slaughtered and processed elk meat.

Here a recipe for elk steaks.

Kosher elk coming to stores

Elk meat is about to become available to kosher consumers.

Noah's Ark Processors in South Dakota, which sells kosher meat under the Solomon's Finest Glatt Kosher label, is expecting to slaughter its first elk for the commercial market on Monday. It will be shipped to supermarkets including Fairway and ShopRite the week of July 14, according to owner Ilan Parente.

Those stores have been carrying the company's kosher buffalo for the past 10 years, he said.

Parente said Noah's Ark has been raising elk for 11 years and exploring the idea of processing its meat for the kosher market for at least six.

"It took that long for the rabbis to say yes, it's kosher," he said.

Elk is a member of the cervidae family, which includes deer.

Rabbi Seth Mandel, who oversees Orthodox Union-certified kosher meat processing in North America and South America, says this is the first commercial production of kosher elk meat.

Although he says elk is "good meat, not as tough as deer," Mandel expects elk to be a specialty product like buffalo that will "take a while" to penetrate the kosher market.

Parente disagrees.

"We don't look at it as exotic," he said. "These animals have been here before the cow was introduced to North America. They're native to this country."

In addition, Parente points out that elk is "70 to 80 percent leaner than beef, it's tastier and a lot healthier."

Blintzes for Shavuot

On Shavuot (Pentecost) starting tonight, Tuesday night 6/7, the custom is to eat dairy meals. There are many reasons given for this custom: historical, midrashic, numerological, mystical, etymological, and of course, Talmudic. See them all discussed here.

Speaking of Jewish dairy meals, the best blintzes we ever ate were at the formerly kosher restaurant, Ratner's on Delancy Street. Mmm, we can taste them now. (In 2001, sadly the place went non-kosher.)

Barry Popik has collected all you ever want to know about these blini foods on his Big Apple Blog post:

The “blintze” (or “blintz,” usually plural as “blintzes,” a diminutive from the Russian “blin” for pancake or crêpe) was served on the Jewish Lower East Side of Manhattan by at least 1900. Ratner’s restaurant on Delancey Street (1905-2002) served blintzes (cheese, potato, cherry, prune, apple and other fillings) with sour cream and became almost an institution, also selling blintzes to the frozen foods sections of supermarkets.

“Blinis” are cited in English in the Russian cuisine from at least the early 1800s....more...

It's not easy to make good blintzes from scratch but here is a recipe if you want to try.

Most of us buy them frozen now. Alas.

Happy Shavuot.

Happy Purim! Yummy Hamantashen Recipe

Click to expand our standard Hamantashen recipe.
Happy Purim holiday to all.

Whose Holy Land Hummus?

The Times has a story about foods in America that focuses on a product line called Holy Land Hummus from Minneapolis, "Hummus Catches On in America (as Long as It’s Flavored)."

I don't know but "Vatican City Pasta" wouldn't sound right to us if someone came up with that sort of product.

Holy Land Hummus doesn't sound right to us either for these reasons: (1) because it exploits religion to sell common foods and (2) because the Holy Land that they refer to is not a Jewish or Christian Holy Land, it is the Muslim one, identified by a logo with the Islamic shrine, the Dome of the Rock, and a declaration that the product is Halal, adhering to Islamic dietary rules. (NB: We don't see any Kosher certification on the product images.)

The Times thinks that it is just so cool that this Arab owned company is making a success at flavored Hummus. We don't disagree. Just realize that the company injects religion and politics into our marketplace in blatant in-your-face ways invoking the Islamic Holy Land and the Dome of the Rock, the Mosque of Omar, to sell its vegetable dip.

That's definitely not cool.

[Hat tip to Yitz]

Get your Free "Don't be a Shlemiel Crook" Bookplate

Such a year we have had. Crooks galore, scandals, and calling them all "shlemiels" -- that would not be the name most people are using for the scoundrels who have come to light in the past few months.

It's time for some relief.

Here is a very sweet children's story book and now we also found a free bookplate based on the story that you can print, cut and paste into your most valuable books to ward off all those swipers.

Why You Should Not Confuse Jewish Studies with Jewish Education

Jewish Studies at colleges and universities should never be confused with communal Jewish Education. The two processes may look alike at first glance. But in their goals and methods they are quite distinct from one another.

Jewish Education is supposed to help make people better Jews. That process, whether at a Day School or a Talmud Torah or in adult programs, has a deliberate agenda. Yes, the precise list of purposes may vary depending on the sponsorship. Federations want Jews to have a stronger identity. That means they should know enough to feel an affiliation to the community, to contribute financially to Jewish needs and, in some cases, to participate in the governance and decision making of Jewish organizational life.

Synagogues want Jews to know enough to feel that they ought to belong to the institution. The major religious movements also need to convince their membership that they are the true Jews and the other forms of Judaism are not. As we know, some expressions of this form of polemical argument are more polite than others.

Jewish schools serve the needs of Federations and synagogues. They serve to foster social solidarity by imparting knowledge and by shaping attitudes. At their best, they also serve the spiritual needs of the individual student. They contribute to his or her personal growth as a Jew for no extrinsic purpose. Hence the finest Jewish education correctly nurtures the student's soul. And quite obviously, Jewish educators presume they will serve the needs of Jews exclusively.

Jewish Studies within higher education is directed at making college students better people. That process has its own agenda. The study of the Jews and Judaism helps the student understand the development of Western civilization. It opens up vistas into our own contemporary pluralistic society. At a basic level, Jewish Studies helps students become more sensitive and knowledgeable citizens.

The analysis of Jewish culture in the liberal arts curriculum makes use of the most current methods available for social scientific and humanistic investigation. Students in Jewish Studies learn how to dissect culture through the specific study of Judaic examples. When it is done best, this form of learning nurtures the student too. But it directly serves the intellect, not the soul. Sure, some may argue that a strong and cultivated mind feeds the growth of the spirit. That may be a great fringe-benefit of the finest examples in liberal arts education.

Needless to say, most teachers of Jewish Studies do not expect to serve the needs of Jews exclusively. Naturally, Jewish students are likely to be interested in Jewish Studies courses. Many may take advantage of what is available to try to further pursue the goals they sought in earlier Jewish education at a Day School, synagogue or Talmud Torah. However, it may come as a surprise to learn that the majority of the students in Jewish Studies courses nationwide are not Jewish.

True, at the major Midwestern research institution, the University of Minnesota for example, where we taught for eighteen years, a significant percentage of the Jewish students did take a course in Jewish Studies. A popular offering, Introduction to Judaism, which we taught each year, frequently ranked among the largest courses at the college with 200-300 students. One Jewish student remarked to me about attending the lectures of this course, "It's like you go to a friend's Bar Mitzvah three times a week. You get to see all your Jewish buddies in one place." Yet, year-in-and-year-out, we estimated though that more than two thirds of the students in the large courses in Jewish Studies at that University were not Jewish.

So, what were all these goyim doing in Jewish Studies courses? These offerings fulfilled the needs of the intellectual agenda of the liberal arts student. They also fulfilled college distribution requirements for World Studies, Historical Studies and Literary Studies. These courses were a significant part of the humanities in the liberal arts in the public discourse of the life of the University. They were integral to the purposes of the academic mission. And they were interesting and consistently well-taught.

We educators know that the goals of the liberal arts curriculum are deliberately broad. College should prepare all students to be good citizens at the very least. Professors should strive to instill in each student a commitment to leadership in whatever profession or occupation or civic activity they pursue. And at the optimum level, the teacher must attempt to do more than instruct the student on the objective tasks of how to think or the impersonal ways to analyze phenomena.

But most certainly, the Jewish Studies professor's ultimate goal is to nurture the intellect of each individual. We do this for our Jewish students. We do it for all our students. And correctly so, we leave it to the Jewish educators to nurture the souls of the next generation of Jews.
______
Tzvee Zahavy was ordained at Yeshiva University and received his Ph.D. from Brown University. He taught Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota for eighteen years. He currently resides in Teaneck, N. J. [Reposted from June 2006.]

Some Sikh Men Cut Their Hair and Most Islamic Women Hide Their Hair

We suppose that the third world revival of the Broadway musical "Hair"will feature musical numbers with Sikh men brazenly cutting their hair and losing their turbans and Islamic women stubbornly keeping their hair tightly covered under their head scarves or burkas.

The Bergen Record keeps us informed of these latest trends in religious coiffure...

Saudi pageant touts inner beauty

Younger Sikhs giving up long hair, turbans

[hat tip to mimi]

Kosher Food Fight in the New Jewish Food Movement

Not every progressive movement is truly grass roots. New Voices reports on the, "Culture Clash in the New Jewish Food Movement." The machlokes here seems to me to be entirely leshem shamayim - the disputants all appear to be on the same correct side of the issue... A special hat tip to Jack for bringing this to our attention.

When Ethan Genauer discovered that he couldn’t afford to attend the food activism conference hosted by the Jewish environmental group Hazon last December, he decided to make a fuss. Activist movements, Genauer reasoned, should be accessible. This one, with its expensive conference at a resort in Monterey, CA, was not. So, he published an open letter calling the New Jewish Food Movement elitist, arguing that it caters to a wealthy subset of the Jewish community while failing to confront broader social justice issues. “During a holiday season of massive economic implosion when millions of Americans are struggling just to put food on their tables,” he wrote, “what message does the comparative luxury of the Hazon Food Conference send?”

The New Jewish Food Movement has emerged as a Jewish wing of a broader movement emphasizing locally grown produce, sustainable agricultural practices, and a return to the pleasures of preparing one’s own food...more...

Times to New York Jews: OK to Have a Bagel Now

Two rabbis in Teaneck gave conflicting advice today from their pulpits about when to start eating chametz after Pesach. One said to wait a week and another said to wait an hour.

The "rabbis" at the Times though have no hesitation to encourage New York Jews to resume their bagel fressing ASAP.

Passover’s Over, and Bagels Are Back, Big
By JAMES BARRON

Giasuddin Ahmed ran through the timetable. “The guys arrive at 4:30 a.m. to make the bagels,” he said. “At 5:30 a.m., the coffee. Open, 6 a.m.”

He left out one step. Someone had to tear down the white paper that had been taped over the plate-glass windows of the store he runs — and the signs that said the store, 72nd Street Bagel, on the West Side, would be closed for Passover.

Mr. Ahmed and other bagel makers say that the first business day after the holiday ends — Friday — is typically one of their busiest days of the year as Jewish customers line up to observe the passing of at least eight days of yeast privation.

Bagel makers spent Thursday contemplating the end of Passover. Some, like Mr. Ahmed, gave their ovens and mixing bowls the once-over after time off during the holiday, which started at sundown on April 8. His store follows kosher dietary rules and treats Passover as an eight-day holiday, as many observant Jews do. (Reform Jews typically celebrate Passover for seven days, said Rabbi Andy Bachman, the senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn.)...more...

Who attended Barack's Amazing White House Seder?

Who attended Barack Obama's Amazing White House Seder? The Washington Post provides the answer with an official picture from the event. We heard that lots of people asked for invitations. Clearly this was a personal event for Barack and his family and some friends and close advisors, not a political opportunity.

The blogs have pored over the photo to discern that the attendees used the Maxwell House Haggadah, one that has been distributed free by the coffee company for over 50 years!

The WP article lists the attendees.

Washington Life: A Low-Key, High Profile Seder
By Garance Franke-Ruta
Last night, President Obama held what the White House believes is the first Seder to be hosted by a sitting American president at the White House. A small affair, the private event in the Old Family Dining Room was a kind of reunion for its participants, a number of whom had attended an informal Seder together a year ago in the basement of the Sheraton Hotel in Harrisburg, Penn.

Organized by Eric Lesser, a class of 2007 Harvard graduate who worked as a luggage wrangler and driver on then-candidate Barack Obama's campaign, the 2008 Seder was an impromptu marking of the annual Jewish holiday celebrating the escape from slavery in Egypt. Obama joined the dinner's young organizers in the basement, along with his close longtime friends Valerie Jarrett and Eric Whitaker, who were traveling with him at the time.

At the conclusion of the Seder, Obama and the assembled group jokingly added "Next year in the White House!" after the traditional Seder refrain "Next year in Jerusalem!"

And so it was. Lesser, a campaign legend for his dancing skills and heroic rescues of wayward press suitcases, is now a special assistant to Obama adviser David Axelrod with a West Wing office abutting the president's, and organized the traditional second night of Passover service.

The menu was traditional Eastern European: matzoh ball soup, brisket, roasted chicken, noodle kugel and macaroons for dessert. The White House chefs cooked the food but used recipes provided by the attendees' families.

Attending, beginning on the president's left and going clockwise, were: Samantha Tubman, assistant social secretary; Melissa Winter, the first lady's deputy chief of staff, Sasha Obama, Malia Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.

Continuing clockwise are: associate White House counsel Susan Sher, her son Evan Moore and Michael Cohen (both obscured); Valerie Jarrett, director of the office of public liason; and Eric Whitaker, a longtime friend of the Obamas (obscured).

On the opposite side of the table, starting on the president's right and continuing counterclockwise, are: Sher's husband Neil Cohen; Laura Moser (Arun Chaudhary's wife); Chaudhary, the White House videographer; Herbie Ziskend, another 2007 college graduate and former campaign baggage handler, now an aide to Vice President Biden; Eric Lesser and his father, Martin Lesser; Lisa Kohnke, deputy director of advance; Dana M. Lewis, the first lady's personal aide; and Obama personal assistant Reggie Love.

The guests using pillows are doing so not because the White House chairs are uncomfortable, but because of the contemporary custom of using pillows to symbolize the Passover service injunction to eat the meal reclining, itself a means of symbolizing being at peace and free.

Man-o-Manischewitz - What a Quintessential American Jewish Family

We surely recall the advertisements, "Man-o-Manischewitz, What a Wine!" Well we can make exclamations about the family too.

We have a Teaneck contingent here in town via Ofra Parmett, great granddaughter of the founder. Accordingly our local paper. the Bergen Record, picked up the story from the RNS and improved upon it.

From wine to matzo to snacks, the foods from Manischewitz are ubiquitous in the Jewish community and synonymous with quality. (By the way remember that Tam Tam crackers, mentioned in the article, are great snacks, but they are not kosher for Passover.)

Family's name spells generations of pride
BY NICOLE NEROULIAS, via NorthJersey.com from the RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

For many Jews, the thought of Passover conjures up images of families feasting on matzo, kosher wine and for a few brave souls, perhaps, gefilte fish.

Chances are, the name on the packaging is always the same: Manischewitz.

For the family that traces its lineage back to Behr Manischewitz and the Cincinnati bakery he opened in 1888, the labels remind them of their family's pioneering efforts to make kosher food widely available, though it's a responsibility they gave up when they sold the Manischewitz Co. nearly 20 years ago.

While their family name remains synonymous with bustling factory inspections and community fanfare, Manischewitz's descendents now celebrate Passover — which begins at sundown Wednesday — quietly at home, just like any other Jewish family.

"People ask us about it, when they hear our name, but in my generation, the interest, in general, had waned in making a career at the company," explained Jack Manischewitz, 66, the founder's great-grandson and a retired grant manager for the National Institutes of Health.

About six dozen Manischewitz descendants are scattered from California to North Jersey to Israel. Most have different surnames, and none have anything to do with the kosher factory that's now headquartered in Newark.

Ofra Parmett, 54, a great-granddaughter of Behr Manischewitz who lives in Teaneck, said growing up with the last name Manischewitz wasn't always easy.

Jokes about the sweet wine licensed by the company were a particular favorite of Parmett's classmates.

"People always asked me if my feet were purple from stomping on the grapes," she said.

But Parmett, an artist, said the company and the family name that remains attached to it also have been a source of tremendous pride over the years. Stories about the company's humble Midwestern roots long ago entered family lore, Parmett said, recalling that her grandparents opened their Cincinnati home to Jewish cross-country travelers.

"Jewish travelers who needed Jewish food would stop there," she said. "Their home was very open. They'd be feeding all these people."

Giving up the company — and for the married women, their last name — came as something of a relief for Parmett's cousins, Jack Manischewitz and his sister Laura Alpern. In their youth, they had grown tired of jokes about their name, particularly in connection to the sweet wine.

But as adults, and especially at this time of year, when their family name graces supermarket shelves and seder tables across the country, they embrace a sense of pride in their past. They can also pass the family history on to their own children now, chronicled in Alpern's 2008 book, "Manischewitz: The Matzo Family — The Making of an American Jewish Icon."

Alpern, 63, a librarian in Switzerland, traveled to Ohio, Latvia and Lithuania for her research, aided by older family members and archival materials saved by previous generations and Jewish collectors. Her inquiries confirmed that the Manischewitz name, assigned to the family in America, is unique. She has found only a handful of Manischewitzes who are not related to her family.

American Jewish historian Jonathan Sarna, who wrote the introduction to Alpern's book, credits the "iconic" Manischewitz clan as helping devout immigrants succeed without having to sacrifice their religious traditions, a marked difference from those who had assimilated before them.

"The image was, if you wanted to make it in America, you had to abandon these rituals. You couldn't be too Jewish. You had to Americanize," he said. "And suddenly, here was this company that became a major company and its legitimacy, certainly in the early years, was tied in with the fact that they were Orthodox."

The family's machine-made, square matzo was deemed acceptable by traditionalists, even though the crackers bore little resemblance to the handmade, round variety that had endured for thousands of years. Mass production made the product affordable and accessible to all Jews, bringing back to the fold some who had abandoned rituals that seemed impractical for America.

"There's a large group of people for whom their only connection to Judaism is that box of Manischewitz matzo or the bottle of wine on their table at Passover time," said Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, the company's director of kosher operations.

"It's the matzo they saw at their parents' table, at their grandparents' table."

Each generation modernized production and expanded the offerings — adding the popular Tam Tam crackers and wine during the 1940s — but by the time Behr Manischewitz's great-grandchildren had become adults, none had any interest in working in the family business, opting for careers in the arts or sciences instead.

Alpern thinks that perhaps if the women, who had assumed leading roles in Jewish organizations, had been encouraged to get involved in the business, the company would have remained under family control longer.

Then again, her brother noted, traditional women were homemakers, ritually restricted from handling matzo during certain times of the month. Only older women could be hired for the baking process.

This year, the Manischewitz descendants all plan to celebrate Passover at home: Parmett in Teaneck, Manischewitz in Maryland and Alpern in Switzerland. Parmett and Manischewitz stock up on their favorite Manischewitz staples for the occasion. Alpern has to settle for ingredients from Israel or France, but her family still prepares dishes from her treasured 1972 Manischewitz Passover cookbook.

"Manischewitz products have been sold in Europe for over 70 years, but Switzerland is too small a market for the company's products," she said. "When I am in New York, I always stock up on my favorite Tam Tams and macaroons."

Parmett said she is reminded of her family legacy almost every time she visits a supermarket.

"It's nice," she said. "You know, I guess in some ways I'm so used to it. You go to the store and you see your name on the box, and every once in a while you think, 'Oh, wow, that's my name!' " she said. "You've been used to it since you were a baby, but it's nice."

Staff Writer William Lamb contributed to this article.

Maos Chitim: The Times Teaches Us About Feeding the Jewish Hungry

The Times (New York's #1 Jewish Newspaper) has two incredible articles to inspire us to give charity to our fellow Jews during this difficult season in this difficult year. The mitzvah is called maos chitim - simply money for food, especially for the Passover Seder. Please give generously.

• Manna From Heaven? No, Try Brooklyn Instead.  With Passover starting in less than two weeks, a nonprofit group in New York is helping observant Jews get the food they require. 
• Even more inspiring: Mensch or Meshugana, He Nourishes Many Souls

NEJM: The Bris is Healthy -- Circumcision Prevents Diseases -- Nice to Know

We Jews circumcise our male children on the eighth day because we were commanded to do so as a religious sign of our covenant with God.

The fact that after all these years we discover that there are health benefits associated with male circumcision -- as the song in Fiddler on the Roof says, "It doesn't change a thing, but even so... it's nice to know."

The NEJM abstract is here. The WSJ story summarizes:

Circumcision Decreases Risk of Contracting STDs, Study Says
By PHILIP SHISHKIN

Circumcision significantly reduces the risk of contracting herpes and human papillomavirus, says a new study that adds to the growing scientific evidence that the procedure helps stem the spread of some sexually transmitted diseases.

Circumcised heterosexual men are 35% less likely to contract human papillomavirus (HPV) and 25% less likely to catch herpes than their uncircumcised counterparts, according to the study, published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

The study, led by scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Makerere University in Uganda, relied on data from the same randomized control trials in Africa that already showed that circumcision cuts in half the risk of contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which can cause AIDS.

The researchers hope the latest findings on HPV and herpes will help turn circumcision into a more widespread medical procedure. "The scientific evidence for the public-health benefits of male circumcision is overwhelming now," says Aaron Tobian, a pathologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and one of the study's authors.

In the study, researchers randomly assigned 1,684 men in Africa to undergo circumcision and tracked their health against a control group of 1,709 uncircumcised men over the course of two years ending in 2007.

HPV and herpes are among the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the U.S., far more common than AIDS. HPV can cause genital warts and cervical cancer. There are no cures for herpes and HPV.

Just over half of male newborns in the U.S. get circumcised, according to research published earlier this year in the American Journal of Public Health. The percentage has declined over the past decade, in part because the American Academy of Pediatrics said in 1999 that the evidence is "not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision."

Opponents of circumcision say the procedure isn't medically essential and causes unnecessary distress to the baby. They add that proper hygiene and safe sex can prevent disease.

The academy's guidance, issued before the landmark African trials, remains in effect. Partly as a result, Medicaid plans in 16 states don't pay for circumcision, according to the American Journal of Public Health. Circumcision rates in states with Medicaid coverage for the procedure are nearly 70%, while in the states without such coverage just 31% of male newborns get circumcised, the Journal said. Medicaid is the state-federal insurance program for the needy.

Lack of Medicaid coverage for circumcision -- combined with data showing higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases in uncircumcised men -- "may translate into future health disparities for children born to poor families," says the study in the American Journal of Public Health.

In light of the new data coming out of the African trials, the American Academy of Pediatrics says it is reviewing its circumcision guidelines, a process that should be finished by the end of the year. "There's no argument that the trials that have been done are really compelling," says Susan Blank, chairwoman of the academy's task force on neonatal circumcision. "That is just one piece in the discussion of circumcision." The academy's panel also includes experts on urinary-tract infections, ethics and health-care finance among others, she says.

Times Video: Kasha Varnishkes

It's required. Eventually every Jewish blog must run a post about
Kasha Varnishkes.

Video Library Player: Kasha Varnishkes

New York Times' Mark Bittman prepares his mother's classic Kasha Varnishkes.

IMHO nothing sounds more Jewish than kasha varnishkes!

It's the real hametz stupid!

We need to be reminded and to remind ourselves what the taboos of Pesach are.

The Torah forbids Leaven - Hametz - not grains!

How corn and peanuts got on the list of forbidden foods is a long story. It is certainly a late rabbinic invention. Someone who eats corn on Pesach would never ever be violating any Scriptural prohibition.

We were surprised and pleased to read this year of an Ashkenazi rabbi in Israel who believes and proclaims that the prohibition against eating legumes on Pesach is misguided.

A few years back, I recall coming home from the supermarket on Palmach Street in Jerusalem on Pesach eve with a whole bunch of yummy candies that were certified kosher for Pesach. My wife immediately examined them and declared that I was remiss. Yes they were KP but only for Sephardim who eat legumes on Pesach. I was crushed.

There are debates and discussions. But let's try to make life this Pesach more pleasant, okay?