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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

March 21, 2002

The Four Menches

Leave a Comment / Singles /

The haggadah speaks of the Four Sons: the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who doesn’t know how to ask. And on a good night in Hollywood, you can pick up all four. The first Saturday in March is a girls’ night out (with the understanding we intend to pull men). Elizabeth, Sasha, Sarah and I throw on low-cut tops, low-rise pants and do the L.A. barhop thing.

The night kicks off with dinner at Jones. The Wise Son, Scott, sits at the booth next to ours. The waitress-in-training serves this bright young man my seared ahi salad and brings me his loaded pizza. A serendipitous mistake. After straightening out our leggo-my-Eggo sitch, Scott offers to buy me a beer. And we’re rolling.

A consultant, Scott spent four years in investment banking, grabbed an MBA and is now a three-piecer. He’s sharp, sexy and proves to not only be business savvy but flirt savvy. By the time we finish dinner, I know I’d have fun searching for his afikomen. The feeling is mutual, and Scott asks for my number.

He must have taken notes in his B-school communications class, because he phones me that Monday. The Wise Son understands that the rules of dating apply to him and that a timely phone call is key. We head out on a date that Thursday.

I meet the Wicked Son, Marc, at North. This player, armed with a Nokia cell and a helmet of gel, spends more time getting ready than I do. He says this signless Sunset bar is as yesterday as an apple martini, and he’s only here because he knows the hostess.

Despite his slick exterior, there’s something seductive about him. We continue to chat and swap things in common. We like the same films, read the same books and run the same Santa Monica stairs.

The conversation goes well, and next thing I know, I’ve been hit by a smooth criminal. I laugh when he calls the bartender “chief” and smile when he hands me a lemon drop. He invites my gang to an after-hours party, and I coyly accept directions and his cell phone code.

Everything about Marc shouts “buyer beware.” He’s a staple at the Hollywood Hills party circuit, someone who’s always looking for TNBT (the next big thing) and TNNG (the next new girl). And when he finds her, he’ll toss me like yesterday’s Variety. My girls vote no against Proposition After-Party, but I hold onto Marc’s number. This Wicked Son believes dating rules apply to other men, not him. But what can one date hurt?

We girls head west down the strip to Red Rock, where we meet the Simple Son, Josh. This cutie with the tousled hair teaches fifth grade, surfs before class and spends weekends at the beach. His surfer-boy charm and no-worries ‘tude make me want to ride his wave home.

But Josh is a little slow on the draw. I’m flirting my heart out, but nothing seems to penetrate that sea-salt head. Finally, I buy a round of tequila shots. He asks “What is this?” And Sasha explains that women have been freed from the chains of chivalry. An interested girl can now buy a guy a drink. And just when we think all flirting fell flat, Josh scribbles his number on a coaster. Seems Simple Simon just needs things spelled out.

The Fourth, Ryan, is a yummy actor with a cute shankbone. We meet him in the 2 a.m. line at Pink’s. As the girls and I chow cheese fries, the 22-year-old toddler tells us about his plans to make it big. Fresh off the plane, this L.A. newbie brims with wonder, dreams and an incredible smile.

Compared to the bitter herbs Sarah usually meets, Ryan is really refreshing. It’s clear he’s into his Mrs. Robinson, but is too nervous to ask for her number. So the girls and I unleash the wily ways of L.A. dating on this innocent Midwestern boy. We pass along our knowledge of the rules, the game and Sarah’s number to the wide-eyed boy.

Sometimes it seems you need a candle, a feather and a wooden spoon to search out an eligible L.A. man. But more often than not, bedikat-mensch only requires a fun ‘tude, an open mind and a little red tank. In this sprawling city, there’s a new guy around every bar stool, and each is as different as the place you found him.

Now, I’ll admit that not all nights are as successful as that Saturday. But they have the potential to be. And that’s the fun of being single in this city. You never know what an adventure holds. Why will this night be different than all other nights? On all other nights, you turn up as empty as Elijah’s cup, but on this night, you might meet a man. Or in our case — four.

The Four Menches Read More »

Sharon Explained

Leave a Comment / Israel, Opinion /

Recent critics of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have impatiently charged that he has “no plan” to resolve Israel’s current crisis. The charge is mistaken and is simply a case of shooting a messenger with a message few — whether they be from the right or the left — want to hear.

Sharon’s message to the left is this: Oslo has catastrophically failed, and it will take time to fix the damage. How much time? A lot.

First, enough time to destroy the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian Authority, and then even more time to find a new Palestinian leadership. And, at the end of the road, Israel will not withdraw to the indefensible 1967 borders, will not abandon Israelis living beyond the Green Line and will not divide Jerusalem.

Sharon’s message to the right is this: Oslo has opened a Pandora’s Box, and a Palestinian entity or state is going to be the outcome of the process.

Sharon, the general, never would have created areas of Palestinian control on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. However, Sharon recognizes most Israelis do not want daily control over another people. Sharon believes that a Palestinian entity in significant portions of Judea, Samaria and Gaza can be a benefit to Israel if it allows Israel to preserve its democratic and Jewish character.

To both sides, Sharon makes no promise that the long Arab war against Israel is about to come to a miraculous end. As a realist, he sees that the Arab world will not accept Israel as an independent Jewish state until they are convinced that Israel is so strong it will never be destroyed.

In the meantime, Israel must use the interim period to regain its position as a nation growing stronger with time, not weaker. Only when the Arab world is convinced they cannot destroy Israel, will there be negotiations leading to peace. Israel had this edge in 1993; Sharon wants this advantage back.

Over the short term, Sharon wants to defeat the Palestinian Authority’s war of attrition the way Israel has in the past. He sees this latest round of fighting as similar to Israel’s three-year War of Independence, his 1970-71 campaign against guerrillas in Gaza and the intifada of the late 1980s — all prolonged conflicts where the Arabs lost their will and/or ability to fight and Israel gained the upper hand. If Israel maintains her strength and composure, the terrorist infrastructure will be beaten.

For an extended war of attrition, Israel must have unity. Sharon is intent on keeping a broad coalition government for the duration of the conflict and, if needed, beyond.

In the longer term, to resolve the security challenge presented by a future Palestinian entity, Sharon has a consistent approach: build defensible borders.

Just as the Golan Heights protects Israel from Syria, the Sinai Desert protects Israel from Egypt and the Jordan Valley secures the eastern frontier at Jordan’s border with Iraq, Sharon now seeks to set up defensible borders with a future Palestinian entity.

Specifically, Jerusalem will be protected by a ring of communities, roads and checkpoints. The coastal plain communities, which today have grown right up to and over the Green Line, will be protected by buffer zones in the Shomron along the defensible towns and villages that Sharon himself built along the high ground. The Jordan Valley, and related blocks of land that prevent a Palestinian entity from touching Jordan, will remain part of Israel.

Sharon is not withdrawing behind a new border. Instead, Israel will have the option to operate on both sides of these barriers. The degree of Palestinian control — and Sharon is willing to give them viable sovereignty — will depend on later negotiations, not terrorist extortion.

Sharon thinks that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer of a return to the 1967 borders would have been a reckless error, especially in Jerusalem, where Barak offered to divide the city — street by street. The details make all the difference. Sharon, who always surrounds himself with maps, believes the greatest sin of Oslo was that it created unworkable situations on the ground. For Sharon, defensible borders keep the peace, not agreements.

In the future, Sharon will consider making an agreement with a new Palestinian leadership, but he views Yasser Arafat as “irrelevant” and unable to make a final agreement with Israel. Furthermore, Sharon recognizes that some of the Palestinians, themselves, have had enough with terrorism and the corrupt gang from Tunis. While Sharon cannot select a new Palestinian leadership, he can show the Palestinians that those leaders who choose terror bring worse outcomes for their people.

In the meantime, Israel will continue to pressure, discredit and humiliate those who, like Arafat, have chosen violence as their only option. Sharon will not make a substantive deal under fire — except for tactical cease-fires — that either better Israel’s security or help America’s international war on terror. However, whenever he enters negotiations, Sharon knowingly runs the great risk that discussions concerning a cease-fire will be used to force strategic concessions from Israel.

More than anything else, Sharon has consistently asked for one thing from Israel and her friends abroad: patience. Just as it took an accumulation of poor choices from 1993 to 2001 for Israel to reach this crisis, it will take several consistent years of better choices for Israel to return the country to its former strength. Slowly but surely, Sharon wants the people of Israel to again control of their own fate in their own land.

Sharon Explained Read More »

World Briefs

Leave a Comment / United States, Worldwide /

Seven Killed in Bus Bombing

A Palestinian suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded more than 30 in northern Israel on Wednesday morning. A number of Israeli Arabs were among the dead, Israel Radio reported. The bombing took place on an Egged bus near the Israeli Arab town of Umm el-Fahm, close to Afula. The bus was ripped in two by the large quantity of explosives carried by the bomber. The Palestinian Authority denounced the “operation,” saying it opposed attacks on civilians within Israel proper. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the blast. In other violence, an Israeli was wounded in a shooting attack near the West Bank city of Nablus. A senior U.S. official said Yasser Arafat must intensify his efforts to end violence.

Israel, Jews Blast Annan Leak

Israel and American Jewish groups criticized Kofi Annan for his letter blasting the Jewish state’s recent military offensive against the Palestinians. “The tactic of using the media for selective criticism [is], at the least, counterproductive,” the Israeli mission to the United Nations said. “It is regrettable that the secretary general’s letter fails to reflect the basic fact that it is Palestinian terrorists that are deliberately targeting civilians.” In his letter, which he released to the press Monday, Annan accused Israel of launching illegitimate attacks on Palestinian civilians and said Israel’s incursion into Palestinian cities and refugee camps earlier this month resembled “all-out conventional warfare.” The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations said the letter, and Annan’s reference days earlier to Israel’s “illegal” occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, “undermine his credibility and confidence in the U.N. Secretariat and further compromise the international body.”

Report: Boy Killed by Palestinians

A Palestinian boy whose death became a symbol of the intifada actually was killed by Palestinian gunfire, according to German ARD Television. The footage of the death of Mohammed Al-Durrah was censored by the Palestinians to make it look as if he had been killed by Israeli gunfire, ARD officials said.

ADL: Russian Anti-Semitism Up

The number of serious anti-Semitic attacks increased in Russia last year, from 18 in 2000 to 24 in 2001, according to a new Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report. ADL officials, as well as other United States-based experts, attribute the growth to a general rise in hate crimes and to better monitoring. The report also stresses the unprecedented growth of ultra-nationalist and xenophobic organizations in Russia in 2001, some of it on the Internet.

Berlin Cemetery Damaged in Attack

Right-wing extremists likely were behind an explosion at a Jewish cemetery in Berlin. Police are investigating whether Saturday’s homemade grenade attack that damaged a courtyard was the work of Arab terrorists or right-wing fanatics.

Reform Help Sept. 11 Victims

The Union of American Hebrew Congregations Disaster Relief Fund has donated $1.5 million to help victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. With more than 5,500 donations from individuals, corporations and Reform congregations, the movement selected nine organizations to receive $500,000 in grants to help primarily with legal services, medical services and job training and placement.

Arabic ‘Mein Kampf’ Is Best Seller

Arabic-language copies of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” are selling briskly in London and the Palestinian territories. The Arabic edition, published by a Lebanon-based company, has a picture of Hitler and a swastika on the cover, according to the British Daily Telegraph newspaper. The translator wrote in the foreword that “National Socialism did not die with the death of its herald, rather, its seeds multiply under each star.”

World Briefs Read More »

Passover Briefs

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Holidays /

Pesach at the Grocery Store

Passover preparation can be crummy (pardon the pun), and Passover shopping confusing.

Sure, the supermarket designates a “Passover Section,” but the marked aisle is usually stocked with Manischewitz matzah, jarred gefilte fish and other glaringly obvious kosher-for-Passover items. But what about the gray areas?

Can you use an unopened role of aluminum foil for the holiday leftovers, or is it only good for making tinfoil balls? Do you have to spend a fortune on specially designated household cleaners, or can you use a new bottle of an everyday soap? The Orthodox Union (OU) answered these and other burning questions on its annual Kosher for Passover Supermarket Tours.

A joint endeavor of OU and Ralphs, the annual tours calmed Passover fears across the Southland. Rabbi Alan Kalinsky, OU’s West Coast director of synagogue services, and Rabbi Reuven Nathanson, OU’s West Coast director of kashrut, led Los Angeles Jews through eight Ralphs stores, aisle by aisle, separating the OKs from the uh-ohs. The tours explored Ralphs from Pico to Westwood to Torrance and also hit the Encino and Canoga Park stores, both which brag of kosher butcher shops.

“Kashrut support and awareness is a key objective of our organization. So these tours fulfill our mission to educate the community,” Kalinsky said. The tours, in their 15th year, attract repeat and new consumers from all movements and age groups. There are up to 50 people per tour — men and women; Orthodox, Conservative and Reform; young and old alike. They arm themselves with shopping carts and shopping lists and take the stores by storm.

Ralphs, supportive of its Jewish customers and their quest for Passover answers, joins in the fun, offering kosher-for-Passover taste tests, raffles and clearly marked shelf signs. “It teaches our customers what to buy for Passover and teaches our employees what’s OK to sell,” said Ralphs spokesman Terry O’Neil. “We want to keep our Jewish customers happy, while learning how to better serve them,” he added.

Kalinsky and his store tourists appreciate the service. “It’s a Passover kickoff event. Stores start displaying Passover food before we even get past Purim; it can be so overwhelming. The tours are a way for people to gain focus,” he said.

While this year’s tours have already wrapped up, frenzied shoppers need not fret. You can call the Orthodox Union at (310) 229-9000 with specific questions or to obtain a Passover pamphlet. — Carin Davis, Contributing Writer

Cedars-Sinai Celebrates Passover

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles starts preparing for Passover four weeks before the holiday.

The kosher kitchen is cleaned and readied. All nonkosher-for-Passover foods are isolated, removed from the premises and sold. All Passover meals are then prepared from scratch in the kosher kitchen and frozen for distribution throughout the medical center. Patients can request Passover meals from four kosher menus: regular, therapeutic (for diabetics and others on special diets), pureed and liquid. Last year, more than 2,200 Passover meals were served during the holiday.

“The Passover seder is probably the oldest continually observed ritual in the world, and is an important observance for Jews,” said Rabbi Levi Meier, Jewish chaplain at Cedars-Sinai. “This can be particularly uplifting to someone whose health is compromised.”

The center also provides seder plates and haggadot to patients so that they can celebrate Passover in their rooms, together with their families.

On Thursday, April 4, the last day of Passover, Meier will conduct a Yizkor (memorial) service in Cedars-Sinai’s chapel for patients and their families. — Staff Report

Passover Briefs Read More »

The Last Seder

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Worldwide /

There is a group of six close friends here in their early 30s who have been sharing life-cycle events for more than half of their lives. Some met in high school, others while kicking soccer balls in the streets of the quiet Villa Devoto neighborhood. For the past six years, they have shared the second Passover seder together, along with their wives and children.

But this year’s seder — with 12 grown-ups and 12 children — will be the last for the group. After last December’s riots in Argentina and the social, political and economic changes that followed, four of the six couples are planning to emigrate soon. Fernanda and Jose — a marketing employee and a lawyer, respectively — will move to Mexico in December.

Claudia, an English teacher, and her husband, Luis, a lawyer, are moving to California sometime later this year. Laura and Samuel, both lawyers, have decided to emigrate but don’t yet know where. Cynthia and Alberto Epelman and their two daughters will try to start over next September in Miami.

Cynthia might be able to continue working for her company from Miami. Her husband, an electrician, will have to find a new job.

The economic uncertainty has resulted in financial struggles for many Argentines, including many of the country’s 200,000 Jews. But both of the Epelmans are still working, and Cynthia Epelman admits their decision is not really driven by economic factors.

"For a couple of years, I have been thinking that the future for my daughters was not here. But on Dec. 20 [when the riots began that led to the downfall of President Fernando de la Rua], my husband looked at me and said, ‘It’s over,’" Cynthia Epelman said. "I’m afraid about the economic perspective. But it’s also a relief for me to go because of the social conditions." Her fear began when her family was robbed at a restaurant last year. "Nothing happened to us, but Julieta, the oldest daughter, was with us, and we were very scared," she said.

"I know it is complicated to start again. But I am good at adapting," said Epelman, a blond woman with big, green eyes.

Tears flow and all her strength seems to ebb when she recalls the Passovers she has spent in Argentina, first at her grandmother’s house and now with her circle of longtime friends.

"We grew up together, and it always felt very important to me to share the seder with this group," she said. "I am sure I will meet new friends in Miami, but there is something irreplaceable here."

Like every year, Luis will give out yarmulkes and read from the haggadah. The table will be adorned with seder plates and candles.

Someone — it alternates each year — will tell the children about the Exodus from Egypt. Later they’ll all search for the afikomen.

The group has promised to reunite somewhere in the United States in September for Yom Kippur. Yet that plan assumes a variety of factors: that the peso devaluation doesn’t make air tickets too expensive to afford, that all the friends meet the new U.S. visa requirements for Argentine citizens and that the friends have jobs that pay them enough to travel.

"We want to believe we’re going to meet up for sure," Epelman said. "But deep inside, we know it is mainly a wish."

The Last Seder Read More »

Remembrances of Passover Food Past

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Food /

Ruth Reichl, Gourmet magazine’s editor in chief, reminisced about the versatility of matzah brie in her memoir, "Tender at the Bone."

Likewise, Elizabeth Ehrlich wrote of her longing for the salty gefilte fish of her childhood, comparing it to her mother-in-law’s sweeter variety in "Miriam’s Kitchen," her memoir on kosher cooking.

Although neither of these dishes achieved the renown of Marcel Proust’s madeleines, the memories of these authors resonated for millions of readers.

Many people feel passionately about foods associated with Passover, the Jewish holiday claiming the largest number of courses per meal, but not everyone has the talent to weave tasty morsels into literature. Although gefilte fish and matzah ball soup are most often linked to the holiday, there are other foods connected to peoples’ cherished memories.

Family and friends who gather for Passover at attorney Lorraine Abraham’s apartment in Fort Lee, N.J., anticipate a tangy treat when she ladles soup from a tureen on her table.

Abraham also initiated another Passover tradition — pickled salmon. Her recipe is practically foolproof. It involves freezing salmon for 48 hours to knock out dangerous organisms, before submerging fillets in pickling brine for several days.

Juggling a demanding career with Passover preparations, Abraham makes the salmon the weekend before the holiday; it holds for at least a week. It is faster and easier to finesse than its competition — gefilte fish. "I gravitated to pickled salmon 20 years ago, because it’s delicious and I’m forever pressed for time." She describes a zesty marinade of spices and thinly sliced onions, claiming she whips up twice as much fish as she needs. Not one spec goes to waste, because her sons, 30-something bachelors, consume leftovers with gusto. "They even love the onions, which they pull from the marinade and place on plain matzah."

While some people dedicate certain foods exclusively to Passover, other families partake in dishes they enjoy all year.

"If you like the crunch of freshly fried latkes, you’ll love my potato kugel," says Nelly David, a retired shopkeeper living in Boca Raton, Fla. "When I was a girl in Germany, my mother taught me how to make this recipe." By now it has been passed down through four generations of women in her family.

When David’s daughters were growing up, she lit Shabbat candles every Friday night and served roasted chicken, chicken soup and, because her family loved it so much, potato kugel. This delectable dish always graced her seder table.

"My children would die if they didn’t have potato kugel at Passover," says Manhattan resident Lynda Sobel, one of David’s daughters. She prefers it when her mother visits at Passover because she prepares the holiday kugels.

"If my mother is not here, I make her kugel recipe, but it never tastes the same," says Sobel, explaining that her mother sprinkles in love as she grates potatoes by hand. Sobel cheats and uses a food processor, which turns potatoes watery.

During the flourless chocolate cake craze of the 1980s, I began baking a chocolate almond torte, which achieves its loft from whipped egg whites instead of starch of any kind. Although I always cover my sideboard with a variety of homemade desserts, my torte is so popular that I must bake two of them to get through one seder.

My daughter claims that she could survive without the four kinds of charoset I serve, the special way I brown hard-boiled eggs and soften matzah so it tastes like pasta in vegetable lasagna. But, my daughter said, "It wouldn’t be Passover without the bittersweet chocolate of your almond torte."

Yet, before I introduced this dessert, she had adored my marzipan macaroons, meringue cookies and lemon chiffon sponge cake, too. Over the years, I kept collecting recipes and adding more marvelous foods to our family’s Passover traditions.

Between ridding the household of leavened foods and the amount of cooking Passover generates, the holiday is labor intensive. This accounts for the popularity of bottled gefilte fish, canned macaroons and packaged foods on supermarket shelves, although manufacturers can never duplicate the magic that people infuse into delicacies they prepare at home.

The events of the past fall have catapulted home-cooked foods to the front burner, as people have become increasingly nostalgic for a less stressful past. Passover, the most cherished of Jewish holidays, is the perfect time to please loved ones by renewing castoff culinary traditions or by adding new recipes to your repertoire. Tantalizing aromas and warm feelings will fill your dining room, and if you’re lucky, a budding writer at the table will immortalize your Passover fare.

Pickled Pink Salmon

Marinade

2 1/2 cups white vinegar

1 1/2 cups water

6 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons salt

3 cloves garlic, whole

1 stalk celery, halved

1/8 teaspoon white pepper

Place ingredients in a saucepan and stir. Boil for five minutes. Cool to room temperature. Remove garlic and celery.

Reserve.

Salmon

2 pounds salmon, skin and bones removed

2 tablespoons pickling spice

5 bay leaves

2 medium-sized Vidalia onions, sliced thin

Garnish: one seedless cucumber and 3 tablespoons minced dill

1. Freeze salmon for 48 hours.

2. During defrosting, while fillets are still partially frozen but slightly flexible, cut into 1-inch-by-3-inch pieces.

3. Spread a layer of fillets on the bottom of a large glass bowl. Sprinkle with half the pickling spice, bay leaves and onions. Repeat for a second layer. Pour marinade over the top. Cover.

Refrigerate for four days.

4. Drain salmon and remove bay leaves and pickling spice. Serve cold on a platter surrounded by sliced cucumbers. Sprinkle dill over fillets and cucumbers.

Yield: 20 pieces.

Remembrances of Passover Food Past Read More »

Gramma Gene’s Gefilte Fish

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas, Food /

Passover is a special holiday for me and brings back many wonderful food memories. One of my favorites occurred many years ago, when I was invited to a Passover seder at the home of my husband-to-be. I still remember that evening, and especially the taste of the gefilte fish my future mother-in-law had made.

The next year, a few days before Passover, I found myself walking with her on Fairfax Avenue. We were on our way to the fish market to purchase the ingredients necessary to make her famous gefilte fish. We waited in line for about 45 minutes — it was crowded and seemed like everyone in the neighborhood was there to buy fish.

The women were gossiping and discussing their family recipes and the way they make gefilte fish. When it was finally our turn, Gramma Gene picked out four or five different kinds of whole fish: one she used for its fatty quality, one gave it more flavor, one was for color and another for texture. Everything was fresh except the turbo, which at that time was only available frozen. She instructed the fish store owner to remove the skin, head, and bones of all the fish and wrap them separately.

We returned to Gramma Gene’s house to begin the process of making gefilte fish.

First a large white pot was filled with water, vegetables, the fishskin, heads and bones and brought to a boil. It then was simmered for about one hour. Then we strained the liquid and added onion skins, which give the fish a golden color. In the meantime, using a hand grinder, we ground the eight to 10 pounds of fish fillets along with onions, carrots and celery, and then added eggs and matzah meal.

The ground mixture was then transferred to a wooden bowl and the chopping began, adding water, salt and pepper in small amounts as we worked. I loved watching her chopping technique, which continued until the mixture reached a magical consistency. "Is it ready to shape into balls?" I asked. "Not yet," she answered, "First we must taste it for the proper seasoning." Finally she approved. We moistened our hands with cold water so the ground fish would not stick to them, shaped the mixture into balls and placed the fish into the simmering broth. The pot was covered with aluminum foil, and in less than one hour, we had made the most delicious gefilte fish I had ever tasted.

Over the years, as we cooked together, I learned to take notes. I recorded the different kinds of fish we bought — it changed from year to year — the measurements for the matzah meal, the amount of water and eggs used and how long to simmer the fish broth. I was almost prepared several years later, when she and I made the gefilte fish in my home for the first time.

I especially remember that Passover, because Gramma Gene had broken her arm and was unable to cook. She sat on a high-stool overseeing everything and gave me instructions, while my husband, Marvin, helped. I thought it was a success, but unfortunately we oversalted the fish and had to add potatoes to the pot to help take away some of the salty taste. At the seder that night, no one knew of my near-disaster. They all complimented me on how delicious the fish was — and my mother-in-law never revealed our secret.

She is no longer alive, but when I make gefilte fish, she is always in my thoughts. It is almost as though she is sitting there beside me encouraging me to continue the tradition she taught me. With all the modern kitchen conveniences available now, she would be surprised at how much easier it is to make. I now use the grinder attachment to my electric mixer, but I still chop the fish mixture in her wooden bowl, using the same method she did when adding the water, salt and pepper.

I love teaching Passover cooking classes and find it very rewarding, especially as I relate my food experiences to the students and show them how to make Gramma Gene’s gefilte fish. At the end of the class, they always comment that they are anxious to go home so they can make it themselves and begin their own Passover family tradition.

Gramma Gene’s Gefilte Fish

Fish Broth

3 yellow onions, coarsely diced (reserve skins)

2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

1 cup sliced celery tops

2 pounds fish bones, heads and skin from filleted white fish

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cold water

In a large pot, place the onions, carrots, celery tops, fish bones, heads and skin, and salt and pepper. Add water to cover and bring to a boil. Simmer for one hour, adding additional water if needed. When the broth is very flavorful, strain out the fish bones and vegetables and discard. Keep the broth warm. Prepare the fish broth and keep warm.

Gefilte Fish

7 pounds white fish and pike, filleted (bones, heads and skin reserved)*

2 yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced

4 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

4 celery stalks, sliced

3 eggs

1/2 cup matzah meal

1 cup cold water

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Fish roe (optional)

Garnish with lettuce, sliced cucumber, sliced beets and horseradish sauce

*If possible, buy whole white fish. Have it boned and wrap the bones, heads and skin separately. If you’re lucky, you may find roe inside the fish, so you can poach it with the fish balls.

In a food grinder, grind the fish with the onions, carrots and celery stalks. Put through the grinder again. Place the ground mixture in a large mixing bowl and blend with the eggs and matzah meal.

Transfer the mixture to a large wooden chopping bowl and, using a hand chopper, chop the fish mixture, adding the water gradually with 1 tablespoon kosher salt and 2 teaspoons pepper as you chop. (Mixture should be soft and light to the touch.) Wet your hands with cold water and shape the fish mixture into oval balls.

Bring the broth to a boil over high heat, add reserved onion skins and place the fish balls in the broth. Cover, reduce the heat to medium high, and cook for one hour, or until fish is tender; do not overcook.

Cool, transfer to a shallow glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and foil, and refrigerate until ready to serve. Fish can stored for up to three days and can be frozen.

To serve, arrange a lettuce leaf on each plate; top with fish and garnish with cucumber and beets. Serve with horseradish sauce. Makes about 50 fish balls.

Gramma Gene’s Gefilte Fish Read More »

Time to Clean House

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas /

"Don’t use my real name," insisted Devorah &’9;&’9;of Pico-Robertson. "I don’t want anyone to think that I am not Pesach cleaning enough."

In fact, for all the women interviewed in this article, having others judge their Pesach cleaning standards would be just another anxiety to add to their very full plate of pre-Pesach concerns — so they all asked to be quoted anonymously about their experiences cleaning for Pesach.

For many, Pesach cleaning is a holy — but stressful — chore, one that has a deeply religious significance with a side benefit of added domicile hygiene. The goal of Pesach cleaning is to rid the house of chametz — any leavened product, because in Exodus 12:19, the Torah commands: "For seven days, leaven may not be found in your home." The law is so strict that the punishment for eating chametz on Pesach is karet — being cut off from the Jewish people. Bearing this in mind, Pesach cleaning becomes more than just your average wipe down.

Many people think about Pesach cleaning at least a month in advance. "Purim is the turning point" said Rochel, 33, who lives in Santa Monica. "On Purim, you get all this chametz with shalach manot [Purim packages], and you immediately have to start getting rid of it." Rochel estimates that she puts in five to six hours a week from Purim to Pesach cleaning her one-bedroom apartment. "If I had kids, I would probably need to put in more time," she said. "But there are certain things I stopped doing to make it easier to clean. I don’t eat in my bedroom, and during the year I stopped throwing pasta against the wall to see if it was ready. That way I don’t have to wash my walls come Pesach time."

Devorah says that it takes her about 24 hours in total to get her house ready for Pesach, and she employs a cleaning woman for about eight hours to help her with the task. "She does the books." Devorah says. "She takes every book off the shelf and opens it and shakes it, to make sure that none of my grandchildren have hidden any chametz in them."

Tasks like shaking out all of one’s books in an effort to find half-eaten sandwiches or examining the underside of every LEGO to find long lost Cheerios might seem like unnecessary and arduous time-wasters. Some feel that you can never be too careful.

"When you have small kids, you have to go over the whole house, because you don’t know what you’ll find," said Rabbi Shimon Raichik, 49, the rabbi of Congregation Levi Yitzchok, Chabad of Hancock Park. "One time, the night of Bedikat Chametz [the ceremony of checking for chametz the night before Pesach], I was going through my kid’s toys, and I found a toy truck. I opened up the truck and found a half a bagel. And the truck was something that we had already cleaned!"

However, others complain that Pesach cleaning can be excessive. "I have this linen closet where I store old sheets on the top shelf," said Sarah. "The only time anybody in the house ever touches those shelves is at Pesach time — and the only person who ever touches them is me — when year after year I Pesach clean them. I know there is no chametz there. But I Pesach clean them nevertheless. And please don’t use my real name."

A prominent Orthodox rabbi from the Fairfax area said, "If your freezer never has any open chametz, and everything is always in a bag, then technically you don’t have to clean it. But nobody would ever do such a thing, and when I suggest this to ladies, they look at me like I am crazy, like I am talking about another religion."

Rabbis insist that Pesach cleaning is not spring-cleaning. "Dirt is not chametz," declared Raichik. "This is not a dust cleaning, not a spring-cleaning, but a search for chametz. Therefore, it is not necessary to wash all your windows or clean up to the ceiling, unless you have kids who throw food up there."

Raichik advises his congregants to make a list of everything that has to be cleaned and then to go down the list systematically, checking every drawer, closet and surface in the house. Yet, just looking inside the house is probably not enough. "People don’t realize that the car also needs a detailed cleaning," Raichik said. "Do you know how much food you can find in a car? Everything in a car needs to be searched — under the seats, the glove compartment, all over. To go and check a closet that nobody has been in during the year but to forget about cleaning the car is missing the point."

The point is that when the holiday finally arrives, that house is chametz free. That it is also sparkling clean from all the attention lavished on it during the Pesach cleaning season, makes it all seem worth it. "The truth is, I do it happily," Devorah said. "I don’t dread it. It is a happy time of year, and it is a nice thing to prepare for."

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Pre-Pesach Culinary Blues

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The pre-Pesach season is both exciting and disturbing to my family. Exciting, because due to our exuberant cleaning for the holiday, emptying drawers, overturning mattresses and, in general, preparing the house for a visit by Martha Stewart, we find all kinds of things that have been missing in action for months.

Today, one son found a Game Boy game under a bookshelf and two week’s worth of allowance in the sock drawer. He even found something relevant to the task at-hand, which was the vestiges of a Chips Ahoy! package, still full of crumbs. My daughter found a long-lost favorite hairbrush in the closet and some packets of candy under her bed. She has no idea how the candy, a brand expressly forbidden by me, got to her room, but is sure that she had nothing to do with it.

The countervailing bad news in this otherwise sunny scenario is that we eat some strange and even terrible dinners before the festival of freedom. See, I hate to waste any food, and I have no pride whatsoever when it comes to reaching back into the recesses of the freezer or pantry and patching together something resembling a meal, even from scraps of pita bread with a terminal case of freezer burn.

A few days ago, for example, I cleaned out another freezer shelf and used it to offer up the following "meal" (perhaps this is a stretch) for the six of us: 13 fish sticks, a lone piece of petrified pizza, a cup- and-a-half of roasted pistachios, a bowl of corn and two cheese blintzes. My kids looked with horror at this sorry excuse for a family dinner and begged for cereal and — appealing to my sense of Pesach preparation — noted that we still had five boxes left. After standing guard to make sure they ate at least two fish sticks each, I gave in and watched them practically run over one another to make a real dinner out of Honeycomb, Crispix and milk.

During the rest of the year, as soon as the kids see me after school, they ask impatiently, "HiMaWhatsFaDinna?" But, once they come home and see we are wiping down linen closets and dusting off toys to make them chametz-free, they are too frightened to ask. And if they dare, it is with a quivering voice.

My husband, who has learned a thing or two in nearly 15 years of marriage, just eats what’s offered. He knows that brisket is just around the corner on seder night. The kids begin pleading for pizza. They are so earnest in their appeals, they even offer to do extremely uncharacteristic things, such as clean their own rooms and bathe without waiting for any parental threats or intimidation.

And they know they will soon get their pizza, because at a certain point, I will run out of food. And because no one is eager to eat Pesach food before absolutely mandated by law, we, along with about 4,000 of our neighbors, start hitting the kosher pizza joints. Let me tell you, if there was ever a proving ground for our perseverance as a people, you can see it in the lines at the pizza shops in the waning days before Pesach. No one has chametz in the house anymore. No one wants to cook. Everyone is turning their kitchens around to be kosher for Pesach, and we will wait as long as it takes, sometimes for days, for a hot pizza and calzone.

Well, my pantry and freezer are pretty bare right now, so this will probably be the last night I can get away with serving another in the series of pathetic pre-Pesach portions. Tonight we are having three thawed-out chicken drumsticks (age indeterminate), six bagels (with only moderate freezer burn), pretzels (only semi-stale), peanut butter and canned peaches.

With the yom tov only days away, we’re so close to repast redemption, I can almost smell the brisket now.

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The Waves of Judaism

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Twice a year, the high tides of Judaism crash on the shores of the disenfranchised. The chill of fall and the early blooms in spring are two occasions when I seek refuge from the waves of not belonging. Courageously, I come forward, because I believe if there is one, then there are more — others like me, who have managed to escape organized religion because we’ve felt like we just didn’t belong.

I don’t belong because my parents never wanted me to be part of a religion they didn’t understand. When they were kids, they never learned the meaning behind many of the Jewish rituals and customs that are still performed today. They were required to be observant, and that also meant obedient.

In response to their upbringing, they rebelled.

And so, I never learned Hebrew. I was never bat mitzvahed. And yet, when I step into temples that have always felt creepy like mausoleums, I hear the echo of prayers that have been uttered by Jews for thousands of years, and it moves me to weep. I don’t understand their meaning, but feel the potent vibration of Jews throughout history. I feel a part of something, and today I do know more, because of my son, Noah.

The day before last Passover began, I had a conversation with a family friend, a pious man who told me at length of his plans for the holiday.

He then asked, "What are your plans?"

"No plans," I responded.

"Oh that’s too bad. What about at your synagogue?"

"I don’t have a synagogue, Ben." I replied, and heard the waves crash.

"Oh well, it’s too bad, because Noah would really get into Passover. He’d have a great time."

Noah is 8 years old. Ben is 80. How could he possibly know what Noah’s experience would be? Does he remember the seder from his childhood 72 years ago?

The most boring memory from my entire childhood was sitting at the table for the Passover seder. We were primed in the car on the way to my Aunt Pearl and Uncle Dave’s home to remember the four questions. The answers to those questions from year to year remained a blur. Uncle Dave’s father, Calmon, an ancient man, muttered unintelligibly in Hebrew from the head of the table while leaning on a pillow.

Every so often, he re-entered our world, commanding us to ritually stand up, and sit down and finally signaling it was time to eat.

My parents tried their best to be late so that we wouldn’t have to painfully sit through this ritual service, while the aroma of homemade matzah ball soup wafted into the dining room. Finally Aunt Pearl would serve us.

It was all about the food. My father loved to eat. He would gorge himself especially on the potato kugel, brisket and chicken. My dad would eat so much that he could stand only long enough to walk to the living room couch, where he proceeded to pass out. The rest of the evening, I would play with my cousins, and we’d use the long, straight staircase as a sliding board. That’s how it was, year after year.

The overall experience of being part of a big family, of belonging and feeling loved, was ultimately what I remember most about Passover. Even though Jewish law dictates my son is of the Jewish "faith," I am not sure I ever had faith. I struggle with giving Noah a sense of belonging, without the extended family I had as a child. I want him to feel like he’s part of a rich heritage. I want him to know the synagogue as more than a mausoleum.

But joining a congregation is not a priority. We don’t have the money. When I told this to the administrator of a Conservative temple four years ago, I was asked to submit tax forms and proof of income to be evaluated for a discounted membership. The last time I sat in that same synagogue was at Purim a month later, next to an elderly woman. I told her my situation and she shook her head in disgust.

She was ashamed of the way things were handled. I told her Judaism was going to lose me and Noah, and she said, "They deserve to lose you."

And so this Passover, I will once again pull out the haggadah coloring books given to me by my Aunt Pearl. I will make matzah ball soup, potato kugel and prepare the ritual plate, this time from memory. We will read the story of Passover in 10 minutes, dip parsley into salt water, eat matzah, eat maror dipped in charoset and drink sweet wine.

Noah will learn differently than I did. Though he won’t have to endure a traditional seder, he will miss the part I still cherish — that feeling of being part of a bigger family, a tribe.

But now, we both have surfboards that we can ride during the next high tide.

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