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Jewish Journal

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March 29, 2012

The story of Titanic survivors Leah and ‘Filly’ Aks

Leave a Comment / Culture, Is Featured?, News /

When Titanic departed on its first and last voyage from Southampton, England on Wednesday, April 10, 1912, 18-year-old Jewish immigrant Leah Aks and her 10-month-old son, Philip were on board.

Passover had concluded the day before. On sailing day, Leah was pleased to find that the third class was not completely booked; she and Philip had a cabin all to themselves.

Leah was born in Warsaw, Poland. In London, she had met Sam Aks, a tailor who was also from Warsaw. They were married there.

“In London he was barely making a living,” wrote Valery Bazarov, historian for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, in a piece about the family for HIAS. “A cousin who lived in America visited him in London and told him that if he came to America he’d make money very quickly. So he came over, got a job and soon saved enough money to bring Mrs. Aks and the baby over.”

Sam settled in Norfolk, Va. and entered the scrap metal business. In Titanic: Women and Children First, author Judith B. Geller indicates that all the money Sam earned was used for Leah and “Filly’s” trip to join him. Their arrival in Norfolk would mark the first time Sam would meet his son.

Though Leah and Filly were booked onto an earlier ship, Bazarov explained that Leah’s mother convinced her to wait a week and travel on Titanic, considered the world’s safest liner.

Four days into their journey, after the ship struck an iceberg, Leah and Filly followed other third-class passengers to the bottom of the third-class staircase at the rear of the ship.

At 12:30 p.m., the crew permitted women and children in this group to make their way to the boat deck. When crew members saw that Leah and Filly couldn’t get through the crowd up the stairs, they carried the two. Leah and Filly made it to the boat deck, part of the first-class area of the ship. Madeline Astor, the young wife of millionaire John Jacob Astor, covered Filly’s head with her silk scarf.

According to Bazarov, a distraught man—who had been rebuffed by the crew when he attempted to get into a lifeboat—ran up to Leah and said, “I’ll show you women and children first!”

The man grabbed Filly and threw him overboard.

Leah searched the deck until someone urged or pushed her into lifeboat 13. She sat in the middle of the Atlantic with 63 others in number 13, a broken woman. Hours after Titanic went down and the cries for help from those dying in the water faded away, the liner Carpathia arrived at daybreak.

Leah searched the deck of Carpathia in vain for her baby. Despondent, she took to a mattress for two days. Titanic survivor Selena Cook urged Leah to come up on deck for air. When she did, she heard Filly’s cry.

Unknown to Leah, Filly had fallen into lifeboat number 11, right into another woman’s arms. In Geller’s account, the woman is presumed to have been Italian immigrant Argene del Carlo. Her husband was not permitted to follow the pregnant Argene into the lifeboat.

“Argene shared her warmth with Filly through the long night,” Geller writes. “Toward morning she began to believe that God had sent this child to her as a replacement for Sebastino (her husband) and a brother for the child she carried in her womb.”

On the deck of Carpathia, the woman who had cared for Filly since Titanic sank refused to give Leah the child.

Leah appealed to the Carpathia’s captain, Arthur Roston, now put in the role of King Solomon.

In an e-mail interview with The Observer, Gilbert Binder, the husband of Leah’s late granddaughter, Rebecca, described what happened next.

Binder said that Filly was returned to Leah because “she identified him as a Jewish baby and he was circumcised. The (other) woman was Catholic and Italian and her male child would not have been circumcised.”

After their arrival in New York, Leah and Filly were taken to HIAS’ shelter and remained there until Frank could come for them.

“Leah Aks gave birth to a baby girl nine months after arriving in this country and intended to name her Sara Carpathia,” in honor of the rescue ship, Binder explained. “The nuns at the hospital in Norfolk, Va. got confused and named the baby Sara Titanic Aks. I have a copy of her birth certificate.” Sara was Binder’s mother-in-law.

Leah lived until 1967; her son, Filly, until 1991.

Marshall Weiss is the editor and publisher of The Dayton Jewish Observer.

The story of Titanic survivors Leah and ‘Filly’ Aks Read More »

Bnai Zion renews efforts in SoCal

Leave a Comment / California, Community /

Like old soldiers, Jewish organizations never die. For proof, look to Bnai Zion.

Established in 1908 in New York as the Order of the Sons of Zion B’nai Zion,  the organization has, over the years, changed its name and mission, and even lost its apostrophe. Now known as Bnai Zion, the organization is enjoying an infusion of energy and funding, including stretching its muscles in the Los Angeles area after a lengthy hibernation.

The organization’s founding purpose was to provide health and life insurance at affordable group rates to the masses of Jewish immigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe, who were streaming into the land.

After World War II, Bnai Zion extended these services to a new stream of Holocaust survivors, and then later to immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

But when the waves of Jewish immigration began dwindling in the early 1950s, the organization reinvented itself as the Bnai Zion Foundation and shifted focus to supporting five specific Israeli medical, educational, youth and artistic institutions: Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa; Ahava Village for Children & Youth in Kiryat Bialik, which works with at-risk kids; the Quittman Center in Jerusalem, a home for the mentally disabled; the David Yellin Academic College of Education in Jerusalem, which attracts secular and religious Jews as well as Muslim and Christian Arabs and new immigrants; and a library and music conservatory in Ma’aleh Adumim.

A Western regional office was established in 1975, and for a while flourished under the direction of such men as Fred Kahan and Rabbi Jack Simcha Cohen, but in recent years has been largely inactive.

Aptly, the renewal, both nationally and locally, of this organization founded to aid immigrants is being sparked by a man who, as a child, left his native Hungary after the 1956 revolution and grew up to become a wealthy entrepreneur.

That man’s name is George W. Schaeffer, which may not ring a bell to everyone but is legendary in what is known as “the professional beauty industry,” particularly the nail polish division.

Arriving in the United States, Schaeffer’s parents settled in Brooklyn (as George’s accent still attests), and after college he joined the family garment manufacturing business. Moving to Los Angeles in 1981, Schaeffer took over a dental supply business and soon made one of those seemingly small but life-changing discoveries.

He noticed that the acrylic “porcelains” used to make dentures were similar to, but actually better than, the material used for crafting acrylic nails.

Today, Schaeffer’s company, OPI Products Inc., makes and distributes 200 shades of nail polish and is branching out into body lotions, hairsprays and shampoos, with one of the latter bearing the Orthodox Union (OU) approval seal.

Annual sales come to about $300 million, Schaeffer said, and in 2010 he sold the company to Coty. Terms of the sale are confidential, but Bloomberg News reported at the time that Coty had paid about $1 billion in cash.

Schaeffer, as OPI’s president and CEO, remained on the job, as did his 500 employees. Schaeffer proudly observed that the very first employee he hired, in 1981, is still working at the company.

Perhaps because of his own background, Schaeffer was drawn early to Bnai Zion. He organized its first youth chapter while still living in New York and has just concluded six years as national president.

Last year, a first step in reviving the Los Angeles chapter was to hire Igal Zaidenstein as Western regional director. Born in Israel to parents who had made aliyah from Paraguay, Zaidenstein studied political science at Tel Aviv University, graduated from law school and said, “I have a life-long passion to strengthen Israel-Diaspora relationships.”

Zaidenstein, who previously served locally as political adviser for the American Friends of the Citizens’ Empowerment Center in Israel, has organized multiple introductory meetings for Bnai Zion in Los Angeles and is planning to reactivate groups of supporters in Orange County and San Diego, as well as strengthen ties with local synagogues.

In a recent meeting at his large headquarters building in North Hollywood, Schaeffer, wearing an open-neck shirt and suspenders, pointed to wall-size map in a conference room highlighting the 110 nations in which his products are available. The countries include Dubai, Kazakhstan, Russia (one of his largest customers) and China (where his products are widely counterfeited).

“I’m a three-day synagogue Jew,” Schaeffer said, “but I keep kosher at home, and every doorpost in the company’s 25 buildings has a mezuzah on it.”

He also paid for the recent renovation of the Young Israel of North Beverly Hills, said to be the oldest Orthodox synagogue in Los Angeles.

Schaeffer has been a major benefactor of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and he will be honored by the City of Hope on July 21 in Las Vegas.

It bothers Schaeffer that many Jewish charities and institutions spend up to 30 percent of donations on administrative expenses. At Bnai Zion, he played a key role in establishing a $30 million endowment, which will cover almost all of the organization’s operational expenses and allow all contributions to go to the projects in Israel.

Right after World War II, Bnai Zion had some 150 chapters in the United States, according to Jack Grunspan, Bnai Zion’s national executive vice president. Currently,  it has offices in New York, Philadelphia, South Florida, Dallas and Los Angeles.

Grunspan puts the number of contributing members at about 30,000 nationally, and 2,500 in the Los Angeles area. Total contributions come to between $1.5 million and $2 million annually, a figure Schaeffer would like to raise to $3 million to $5 million a year.

According to the Bnai Zion brochure, the organization played a major role in establishing the American Red Magen David Adom for Israel, and in aiding the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.

For more information about Bnai Zion, visit this article at jewishjournal.com.

Bnai Zion renews efforts in SoCal Read More »

Israeli/Palestinian issue heats up on UCSD campus

Leave a Comment / California, Community, News /

It’s nasty and getting nastier.

That’s what people on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian debate on college campuses are saying following an emotional seven-hour hearing on Feb. 29 at UC San Diego, called to discuss divestment from companies doing business with the Israeli military.

“My concern is over where this is heading across the entire UC,” said Samer Naji, a senior and the vice president of external affairs for UCSD’s Associated Students. “I only see it getting worse.”

After the student government group voted down the divestment resolution, students criticizing the Israeli government said their opponents had been both verbally and physically assaulted them.

Backers of Israel say the allegations are not only without merit but also border on libel. They also note that they come largely from divestment sponsor Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that referred to UCSD as “J-Street U UCSD” after the advisory vote.

Israel supporters are particularly incensed over accusations against music professor Shlomo Dubnov, the UCSD chapter president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, a grass-roots organization of scholars who promote civil discussion and defend Israel’s right to exist. Some divestment supporters have accused Dubnov of verbally assaulting and harassing pro-divestment students outside the forum.

Josue Castellon is the co-chair of the university’s Student Affirmative Action Committee, which has sided with the pro-Palestinian group. He was at the marathon meeting and insists he witnessed divestment supporters being “verbally attacked and assaulted.”

“The only thing I’m condemning is the actions of the faculty and staff members on our campus. If you see something wrong, you need to say something about it. Multiple students were getting attacked.”

Dubnov is the only faculty member who has been identified. No formal complaints have been lodged against him, and Dubnov says the allegations are fantasy.

“I never spoke to any of the pro-divestment students,” Dubnov wrote in an e-mail from Italy last weekend, where he was traveling. “After my address to the AS council where I read a letter from 40 Nobel Laureates against [divestment], I sat in the audience and then left the room with a colleague professor. We have a video and signed testimonial that I did not verbally attack any student. I vigorously deny all allegations and I have called for a University investigation to clear my name.” 

The incident was the latest in a string of polarizing events at UC campuses. In February 2010, 11 Muslim protesters were arrested after they repeatedly interrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in an organized effort while he was delivering a speech at UC Irvine. Ten of the 11 were convicted of misdemeanors.

Hecklers also disrupted speakers at an event last month titled StandWithUs’ “Israeli Soldiers Stories.” at UC Davis. One protester accused an invited speaker of being a rapist and murderer.

On March 6, vandals at UC Riverside scrawled “terrorist” on an Israeli flag belonging to a Jewish student group.

Two days later, University of California President Mark G. Yudof issued a statement decrying the lack of decorum and calling for “the moral and ethical imperative for all of our University of California students, faculty and staff members to foster a climate of tolerance, civility and open-mindedness.”

“What is not acceptable are acts meant to disrupt the speech of others. What is not acceptable are hate-driven physical and, yes, verbal attacks on any group or individual that are meant to silence or intimidate those who would express differing opinions.”

In response, the Muslim Student Association at UCSD released a statement criticizing Yudof, saying the president “has chosen to silence pro-Palestine activism at UC campuses.”

The pro-Israel camp at UCSD says it is taking the offensive after years of what it calls unfettered Palestinian propaganda. And that has frustrated critics of Israel, supporters of the Jewish state say.

“What has really changed, I think, is that the pro-Israel students have learned how to better counter their arguments and have gotten more support from others in the community,” said Dr. David Feifel, a professor in the university’s Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences program and director of its Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Medicine program. “It’s a much more even playing field.”

Feifel said his work at the UCSD Medical Center, several miles from the La Jolla campus, had largely insulated him from the dynamics of the debate at the university. That changed when a divestment resolution was first proposed in 2010, an unsuccessful effort that was followed by what he called a “virulent Justice in Palestine Week.”

“It really opened my eyes, and the eyes of a lot of faculty members, to what was going on. There were a lot of highly partisan, anti-Israel speakers who were not interested in education, who were not about trying to educate the student body about what is going on in the Middle East. It’s all designed to demonize Israel. …There was never any mention of any culpability of the Palestinians or the Arabs in this conflict. They are trying to show this as a clear-cut case of Israeli aggression.”

Feifel said critics of Israel are making a habit of saying their opponents are trying to stifle free speech. He pointed to an incident last year, when he and 27 of his colleagues signed a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in the campus newspaper, calling an upcoming Palestinian Justice Week event a “hate-fest” and suggesting that the student groups behind it support the destruction of Israel.

A group of faculty members with an opposing view responded with a letter to the paper accusing the pro-Israel professors of trying to quash robust debate.

In a letter to university administrators following the Feb. 29 vote, students who support divestment sought an investigation of what they saw as attacks against them.

“We write to ask you all to please listen and respond to the needs of the students who were verbally, physically, and emotionally attacked on Wednesday, February 29, 2012, at the AS meeting, where Students for Justice in Palestine presented the Divestment Resolution,” the letter states. “During this meeting, not only did fellow UC San Diego students attack students from the SAAC [Student Affirmative Action Committee] and UCSD community, UC San Diego staff and faculty did the same. We need to address the hostile campus climate being created for students of color and students from underserved and underrepresented communities.”

The board of the university’s Faculty Association is supporting the allegations. In a March 6 letter to Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and campus administrators, the board wrote:

“We are most disturbed by news of events that took place on Wednesday night [Feb. 29] during the Associated Students Meeting at which time students from SAAC and students from Justice in Palestine who presented a Divestment Resolution were verbally attacked by both UCSD faculty and staff present.”

Officials with the Faculty Association did not respond to requests for comment.

Associated Students vice president Naji said that although the meeting was tense and emotional, he did not witness any students or faculty attacking fellow students — though he did say members of the community may have engaged in name calling. The Associated Students’ blog of the meeting also did not refer to any such action.

Feifel said he believes the allegation against Dubnov is a fabrication. “It is incredible to me how blatantly they would lie.”

Dubnov said he is livid over the Faculty Association’s letter. “How does an elected board of a faculty association, which is meant to represent the interest of UCSD faculty members, justify openly endorsing, without checking any facts, serious allegations made by a small group of highly partisan students against me and also other faculty and students? Moreover, how does that board feel justified to write to the Chancellor of this University a letter urging her and the administration  to “take action” upon these unverified and contested allegations?” he said. 

The national board of Scholars for Peace also has taken up Dubnov’s cause. It called for an end to the angry rhetoric, and criticized the Faculty Association for making a baseless claim.

Scholars for Peace, which comprises more than 50,000 academics on 4,000 campuses around the world, issued a statement saying, “We have noted with concern the degradation of civil discourse on campus and the increasing harassment and intimidation of pro-Israel and Jewish students and faculty in Europe, Canada, the United States and elsewhere.”

Naji insists he is neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestine, but rather pro-peace. He said he voted in favor of divestment as a matter of conscience.

“The main problem right now is people are equating criticism of Israeli policies as being the equivalent of hatred of Jews or hatred of Israeli people as a whole. I don’t see it that way.”

Israeli/Palestinian issue heats up on UCSD campus Read More »

Position yourself for Passover’s traditions

Leave a Comment / Food, Holidays, Is Featured?, News /

After many years of reciting the Passover story around our dining room table, we made a major change. My family decided to re-create the seders held long ago. According to the haggadah, when people live in freedom, they can eat in a reclining or relaxed manner.

We asked our guests to bring pillows or cushions to lean against as we celebrated Passover with a seder on our living room floor, which began with the symbolic foods of the holiday displayed on the seder plate.

During the first part of the evening, we eat the required foods of Passover that families have eaten for generations. Charoset is one of the few dishes that may require a recipe. A mixture of fruits, wine, nuts and spices, it represents the mortar our ancestors made while laboring as slaves in Egypt. It is prepared differently in Jewish communities all over the world depending on the ingredients available. We prepare several kinds for our seder, and one that we serve is made from a Yemenite recipe, a combination of dates, dried figs, sesame seeds, ginger, wine and a little matzah meal. Included is fresh grated horseradish, a bitter herb that is eaten with charoset and matzah.

A roasted egg, which many families dip in coarse salt, is usually served, but our family’s custom is to prepare a cold, salted, chopped egg soup instead. We eat spring onions or parsley that are dipped in saltwater, as well as boiled small new potatoes that symbolize the coming of spring. Also on the seder plate is the roasted lamb shank, representing the Pascal lamb, but vegetarians may substitute a roasted beet. 

Reclining on cushions and pillows while reading from the haggadah was a wonderful experience, but serving food on the living room floor – especially matzah ball soup – would be difficult. After we finished recounting the Jewish people’s liberation from Egypt, we would move to the dining room table for a traditional Passover dinner.

We begin seder dinner with homemade gefilte fish, followed by chicken soup with matzah balls. The soup is prepared with whole chickens that are tied and put in the pot with a variety of vegetables. When the soup is done, the chickens are taken out and roasted in a tomato sauce to be served for the seder dinner. When cold, it can be made into a delicious chicken salad eaten for lunch or dinner during the remaining days of Passover.

The main course is served buffet style; everyone helps themselves to platters of roasted lamb shanks, sliced turkey with vegetable stuffing and candied sweet potatoes.

After dinner, Passover desserts include sponge cakes, cookies and chocolate-covered fruit. For a special treat this year, I am adding a Chocolate Marble Cake With Chocolate Glaze. The rich flavors of cocoa, strong coffee and chocolate make this cake extra-special. Grape Truffles are an easy addition — seedless grapes dipped in chocolate and then coated with cocoa powder are a surprise when they burst with flavor in your mouth.

Wine is an important part of the seder, and sweet concord grape wine has always been synonymous with Passover. But today, dry Passover wines are gaining in popularity, and the availability and varietals are remarkable. They are available from California, New York, France, Italy, Chile and Israel. At our seder, we provide both sweet and dry wine — as well as grape juice — to satisfy everyone’s taste. 

In recent years, our seders have moved back to the dining room. But as friends and family gather around our table for Passover, they recall with fondness how we reclined on the floor to read the haggadah. I’ve considered moving the seder back to the living room, but on one condition: We keep dinner in the dining room.

YEMENITE CHAROSET

1 cup pitted, chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped dried figs
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch coriander
1 small red chili pepper, seeded and minced, or pinch of cayenne 
2 tablespoons matzah meal
1/3 cup sweet Passover wine
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
 
Blend the dates, figs, ginger, coriander, chili pepper, matzah meal and wine in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the knife blade. Mix in sesame seeds and transfer to a glass bowl. Roll into 1-inch balls or serve in a bowl.

Dessert variation: Dip charoset balls into melted chocolate and place on wax paper-lined baking sheet.

Makes about 1 1/2 cups or 12 balls.

GRANDMA GENE’S GEFILTE FISH

Buy whole whitefish. Have it boned, and wrap the bones, heads and skin separately for the Fish Broth. If you’re lucky, you might find roe inside the fish, which you can poach with the fish balls.

Fish Broth (recipe follows)
3 1/2 pounds filleted whitefish
2 yellow onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 small carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 small celery stalks, sliced
2 eggs
1/4 to 1/3 cup matzah meal
1/4 to 1/3 cup cold water
Kosher salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Lettuce leaves, sliced cucumber, sliced beets and horseradish sauce

Prepare the Fish Broth and keep warm.

Grind the whitefish with the onions, carrots and celery in a food grinder. 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 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt and 1 teaspoon pepper as you chop. (Mixture should be soft and light to the touch.) Wet your hands with additional cold water and shape the fish mixture into oval balls. Bring the Fish Broth to a boil over high heat, and place the fish balls in the broth. Cover, reduce the heat to medium high, and cook for 1 hour, or until fish is tender; do not overcook. Cool, transfer to a shallow glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and foil, and refrigerate.

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

Makes 24 small fish balls.

FISH BROTH

1 1/2 yellow onions, coarsely diced (reserve peels)
1 large carrot, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup sliced celery tops
1 1/2 pounds fish bones, heads and skin from filleted white fish (wrap in cheese cloth)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 cups cold water

Place the onions, onion peels, carrot, celery tops, wrapped fish bones, heads and skin, and salt and pepper in a large pot. Add water to cover and bring to a boil. Simmer for 1 hour, adding water if needed. When the broth is very flavorful, strain out the fish bones and vegetables and discard. Keep the broth warm.

Makes about 4 cups.

Position yourself for Passover’s traditions Read More »

Q&A with pastry chef Chris Hanmer

Leave a Comment / Food, News /

Award-winning pastry chef Chris Hanmer doesn’t let a little matzah meal scare him. Hanmer, who, in 2011, came in first in the second season of “Top Chef: Just Desserts,” has been pastry chef at catered Passover programs at Ritz-Carlton hotels in Lake Las Vegas, Nev., and Naples, Fla.

And after five years of serving up his signature Passover brownies, carrot cake and molten chocolate cakes, Hanmer sounds like a seasoned Jewish homemaker.

“I really enjoy doing it. It’s like a big sporting event. It only comes once a year, but you prepare for it and prepare for it, and at the end of it you’re really exhausted and you swear you’ll never do this again. And then another year comes, and you say, ‘I’m ready for it!’ ” said Hanmer, who is not Jewish.

He now runs his own company, The School of Pastry Design in Las Vegas, and consults with Mark David Catering in New York, which runs the Passover program at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples. He talked to The Journal about his Passover preparations:

Jewish Journal: I always thought chefs at hotels that host Passover programs must think we’re crazy. We come in saying, “We need many lavish desserts for a whole week, and you can’t use any flour and most of them have to be nondairy.”
Chris Hanmer: I think that’s where the challenge part comes in, and that’s something that draws my personality. I’m used to dealing with flour and butter and sugar and cream, and so when I first tried the pareve Passover items — well, it’s difficult. I knew that it was hard to make, but I also knew there should be a way to do this better.

JJ: What were some of the things that you came up with that worked?
CH: My approach is, what would I do if I had to make Passover for myself? I try to put myself in that situation with a lot of my clients, whether it’s for cupcakes or high-end bonbons or Passover. So I took a couple of months for research and development to figure out how to take my recipes and modify them for Passover, replacing flour with potato starch or matzah, or other things that are common in the Passover environment.

So, that was full of highs and lows. I would start something and think, “Oh, this is going to be so good,” and then I’d taste and it’s like, “Awww.” But with some small modifications I was able to come up with some great recipes.

In fact, some of them, in my opinion, are so good that my wife and I prefer them over the non-Passover equivalents, like my Passover brownies or carrot cake.

When I developed a recipe for carrot cake, I gave it to the supervising rabbi to taste — and he knows kosher-for-Passover desserts are difficult. The look on his face was like seeing your son or daughter eat chocolate for the first time.

JJ: Do you have rabbis standing over your shoulder as you are baking?
CH: Oh yeah, absolutely. We have a rabbi mashgiach in there the whole time. Even though I’m not Jewish and don’t have any Jewish heritage, I really have a fascination and tremendous respect for the tradition and the people. The rabbis have a very serious job, and I take it very seriously when I’m working in that environment, because it needs to be respected.

I have found that coming from a non-Passover, non-kosher cooking background, all you have to do with the rabbis is just ask. They always have a great attitude and are so humble, and say, “You know, Chris, we can’t do this, or we can do this,” and they always give me a really interesting explanation based on the law.

JJ: What sort of interesting things have you learned?
CH: I think one of the hardest things for non-kosher people like myself to grasp is that the new day starts at sundown. As chefs, we’re thinking it’s sundown but we’re going to keep producing and working, but on some days of Passover we can’t — we have to stop at sundown. You have to be really organized and really aware of what you’re doing.

But once you understand it, you see that it’s not a burden; it’s a way of life and it’s been going on for thousands of years. I really like it.

JJ: What do you substitute to make the desserts pareve?
CH: What I usually do is use some nondairy whipped topping, and I make a version of pastry cream. I came up with a recipe that uses nondairy creamer, eggs, potato starch and sugar. It has a much different mouth feel and flavor than a nondairy topping by itself.

JJ: What are some common dessert mistakes that home bakers make for Passover?
CH: If you’re doing a cookie or cake recipe with matzah cake meal, adding some water to the recipe will actually help a lot. Matzah meal is so dry, because it’s already been baked, so all of the moisture is out of it. By adding about 10 percent additional water, it helps the recipe rehydrate.

I also like to use fruit in fun ways, like making cobblers or apple crisp, or using fresh berries and cooking them with a little sugar and lemon zest and making a nice fruit topping for a Passover cake or pareve ice cream. That is something they do a lot in professional baking that the home baker doesn’t do.

PASSOVER STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE

SHORTCAKE:

1/3 cup almond flour
1/4 cup potato starch
6 egg yolks
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg whites
2 tablespoons margarine

Preheat oven to 330 F. 

Sift together the almond flour and potato starch and set aside.

In a stand mixer, whip the egg yolks, 1/3 cup sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes.

In a clean bowl in the stand mixer, whip the egg whites with the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar until stiff and about double in volume.

Fold the whipped egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. Mix only until about half the whites are incorporated.

Slowly fold in the sifted almond flour and potato starch until the mixture is smooth and free of lumps. 

Place batter in two loaf pans that have been sprayed with nonstick spray.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

LEMON CREAM:

1/2 teaspoon potato starch
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice
4 tablespoons margarine

Place the potato starch and sugar in a bowl and mix with a whisk. Add the eggs and mix well.

Warm the lemon juice in a pot on the stove. Pour 1/4 cup of the lemon juice into the egg mixture and mix well.

Pour the warm egg lemon juice mixture back into the pot with the remaining 1/4 cup lemon juice.

Whisk over medium heat until it thickens and just comes to a boil.

Remove from the heat and let cool for 3 minutes.

Whisk in the margarine one piece at a time, mixing very well. Place in a bowl, cover with plastic film, and place in the refrigerator.

TO ASSEMBLE AND SERVE:

1 pint fresh strawberries
1 to 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Lemon zest

Clean and slice strawberries and sprinkle with sugar. Mix well and let them rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Slice each loaf into 1-inch slices. Place 1 slice on each of 8 dessert plates. Spoon some of the sliced strawberries on top of the cake. Spoon some of the lemon cream over the strawberries. Repeat with another slice of cake, some of the strawberries and some of the lemon cream. Top each with a little fresh lemon zest. 

Makes about 8 servings.

Q&A with pastry chef Chris Hanmer Read More »

Following the carp — the fish in gefilte — from lake to plate

Leave a Comment / Food, Holidays, News /

Big fish, cheap fish; sport fish, gefilte fish.

With apologies to Dr. Seuss, that’s a decent summary of the situation for carp today.

The fish has its share of devoted fans — some like it dead on a plate, others prefer it alive and tugging on a hook — nevertheless, by and large, carp still struggles with a bad reputation that’s as hard to shake as fish oil smell from clothes.

“I’m not a carp expert, but it’s a major ingredient for us in gefilte fish,” Paul Bensabat, one of the Manischewitz Co.’s two CEOs, told me.

“Carp, mullet, whitefish,” Bensabat said, rattling off some of the species that go into gefilte fish, a food with no particular symbolism that has long been a staple on the Sabbath and festival tables of Ashkenazi Jews, and is widely consumed every Passover. “Depending on the type of formulation you want, there’s more fish or less fish in the different styles,” he added.

The fish are shipped whole from the Great Lakes region where they’re caught to the Manischewitz factory in New Jersey, where they are processed into more than 50 different varieties of gefilte fish. The vast majority of Manischewitz-brand gefilte fish, Bensabat said, includes carp.

But even a gefilte fishmonger like Bensabat can’t deny that, broadly speaking, carp isn’t a highly regarded species.

“Carp doesn’t have a great name, for reasons that are beyond me,” he said.

That it’s cheap might have something to do with it.

“I was told that, by your family recipe of gefilte fish, you can tell how well-off people were,” Motti Polityko, the owner of Gordon’s Fish Emporium on Pico, said. “If the recipe consists primarily or solely of carp, it means you were dirt poor — and that was my family.”

Every year, around Rosh Hashanah and Passover, Polityko spends the week prior to the holiday filling orders for people making gefilte fish, and each order is slightly different from the next. Most customers buy his “classic fish mix,” made from three different types of fish (he wouldn’t say which kinds); a good number of customers want to make their gefilte fish exactly according to their grandmother’s or great-grandmother’s recipe.

“Some people will take a filet and grind it at home,” Polityko said. “Some people will not only allow me to grind it, but they will also allow me to season the fish and shape it so they can take it home and cook it. And some people want me to cook it here also, and they pick it up here already cooked. We meet them at every stage of the way.” The stock is fresh but not alive; it comes packed on ice from the Great Lakes, including German carp and Buffalo carp as well as Spiegel carp, but the last has to be special-ordered.

A tiny fraction of Gordon’s customers actually ask for the fish whole, without even a slit in its belly. Usually that’s for reasons of kashrut — Passover is a time when many Jews observe more stringent restrictions on what they will and won’t eat, after all — but there is also another time of year when Polityko sells whole carp.

“Chrismastime, I have lots of Poles, Czechs and Germans calling me for carp as well,” he said. “Guess what they call it — ‘Jewish carp.’ ”

It was a Christmas carp at a friend’s house that turned Reggie McLeod, the publisher and editor of Big River, a bimonthly lifestyle magazine that covers the upper Mississippi River, into a carp fan. He remembers how his own father always told him that carp was inedible, but now he counts the fish among his favorites.

“People are kind of crazy about these sorts of things,” McLeod said of various food prejudices. “A lot of people like shrimp and lobster — and they’re bugs.”

Some call carp ugly, but McLeod notes that koi, the very expensive and beautifully colored fish that can be found swimming in Japanese gardens around the world, are relatives of the common carp.

“It’s exactly the same fish,” McLeod said.

In 2008, McLeod started a carp-cooking contest in Big River magazine as a way of promoting carp as a fish worth eating. “We had two entries last year,” he said, “and not surprisingly, they both won — first and second prize.”

McLeod still remembers that first Christmas carp, though; it was in his friend’s basement — alive, swimming around in a tub of water.

“I said, ‘Joe, there’s a carp in your washtub,’ ” McLeod recalled. “And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s Christmas dinner.’ ”

“The Carp in the Bathtub” is the title of Barbara Cohen’s 1972 children’s book, in which two children try to save a fish from meeting its fate in advance of their Passover seder. Cooks traditionally put the carp in the tub for a few days to fatten it up before cooking.

These days, for Jews in Los Angeles wanting to follow exactingly the old traditions, there is at least one store where live carp can be purchased — the Seafood Paradise Fish Market in Rosemead, which gets its stock from a farm in Northern California. According to manager Vincent Truong, almost all of Seafood Paradise’s customers are Asian or Asian-American, and most of those who buy carp are Chinese and Vietnamese.

“We usually cook it with soup,” Truong said. “It’s very tasty.”

There’s also one more way to find a live carp in Los Angeles: Grab a pole.

“Carp are in virtually every body of fresh water in Southern California,” Andrew Hughan of the California Department of Fish and Game told me. “They’re what’s called a non-regulated species. There’s no limit and no season — so you can catch them to your heart’s content.”

Most anglers who fish for carp don’t eat what they catch, though.

“We practice catch and release angling purely out of respect for another animal’s life along with the environment it lives in,” Wayne Boon,  director of the American Carp Society, wrote in an e-mail. Boon mostly fishes the lakes around L.A., but he said that some sections of the Los Angeles River are known to be home to carp as well.

Whether the carp in any given body of water is safe to eat is another matter. “Carp are in the middle range among game fish,” said Sherri Norris, executive director of the California Indian Environmental Alliance, a group that works to educate members of tribal communities about the dangers posed by legacy mining toxins, like mercury, that can seep into certain species of fish that live in particular areas.

In some waterways, carp is off limits to all people; in others, adult men and women beyond childbearing age may eat the fish sparingly.

“In that case,” Norris said, “you really do need to know for a fish like carp whether the body is highly contaminated or not.”

For instance, the carp in Magic Johnson Park Lake, an urban lake in South Los Angeles that is stocked by the California Department of Fish and Game with trout and catfish, should not be eaten by anyone, according to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

Anglers, for their part, are mostly out in search of big carp to catch — and those might be the most dangerous carp to eat. Carp can live for decades, and the longer they stay in any body of water, the more pollutants they can pick up.

What’s more, the big carp are also believed to be less tasty.

“In the case of Carp, the smaller fish — up to 10 pounds — are the tastiest, so I’m told,” Boon told me.

Then again, if your carp’s ultimate destiny is to become gefilte fish, you can just douse it in horseradish.

Following the carp — the fish in gefilte — from lake to plate Read More »

Accidental Talmudist: Day 438 – Be da Mensch!

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My friend, David Lewis, shared a teaching with me years ago, in the name of the great near-Yid, Bruce Springsteen:

A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start being the man you want to be.

I have probably repeated those words to myself a thousand times. Rav Bruce is talking about positive transformation; the kind that takes daily, if not hourly, work. My version of that saying is “be da ” target=”_blank” title=”Talmud”>Talmud thanks to a little miracle (if you’re just joining us, click ” target=”_blank” title=”Daf Yomi”>Daf Yomi approaches completion (the ” target=”_blank” title=”Passover Haggadah”>Passover Haggadah. Several key passages are taken directly from the ” target=”_blank” title=”Gemara”>Gemara around 500 CE and together these Rabbinic discussions, legends, arguments, and expositions comprise the Talmud.

Now, the problem with the Haggadah is that the taste of Talmud it offers the average, non-Yeshiva-educated Jew, or friend of the Jews, is not always exciting. Here comes the Accidental Talmudist, however, to show you how exciting it can be.

The trick to understanding the ” target=”_blank” title=”Torah”>Torah scholars who are proficient in the laws of Passover must ask one another. (Pesachim 116a, Daf Yomi Day 438)

The famous ” target=”_blank” title=”Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz”>Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz). It models a good, Torah-based discussion, so we can start our own. Once we do, the waters of Torah will flow down from G-D, through our ancestors, to us. But we must open our mouths to drink from that fountain.

So, how do you get that conversation going at Seder, and how will that help you be da mensch you’ve always wanted to be? Creative solutions abound, but here are a few we’ve used at our Seder table:

1. Think of a negative behavior you’d like to shed. In the past you may have made a New Year’s resolution to outgrow a habit, and failed. Why? Because a mere intention, coupled with a night of drinking champagne is guaranteed to fail. Instead, start thinking about that habit a few weeks before the festival on which you want to draw a line in the sand. Like right now. Then, when you show up at Passover, you write down your habit – no need to share with the others if you’d rather be private about it – and burn the paper before the Seder starts. That habit is your Pharaoh; it has enslaved you for years, and you’re about to be redeemed. This night will be your personal Exodus.

2. As you read the Haggadah, every time you hear “Pharaoh,” think of the habit which enslaves you. Have you been able to free yourself by your own efforts? No. How will you get free in the future? With G-D’s help. G-D wants you to be a better human being – the Holy One wants you to be a mensch. That’s why you were invented. To repair yourself, and repair this broken world, and do what only the humans can do. Will it be easy? Absolutely not.

The Israelites left Egypt on the wings of eagles, with miracles, signs and wonders. A few weeks later, they were whining about water and meat, and worshipping a golden calf. Good grief! Can you blame G-D for going “Old Testament” on them? But the Holy One still loves those wayward children, and bestows upon them the greatest gift ever given to mankind – the Torah, both Written and Oral.

So, even though you will slip and slide on the path to overcoming your bad habit, you will eventually reach the promised land if you adopt a daily practice that reminds you of

 

G-D’s faith in you

 

. You can start with one minute – one minute a day of asking G-D how you can do better. Eventually, you might join a community of G-D oriented people and grow with them, but in the beginning you can even do it alone.

If his son is not intelligent enough to ask, his wife asks him, and if there is no wife, he asks himself. (Ibid.)

You’ve got to get used to asking questions, even of yourself. Schedule one minute a day to ask yourself how it’s going in your project to escape from your Pharaoh. By merely asking, you will receive answers on how to do better, and having become aware of the areas for improvement, you will in fact do better. After a while, you’ll even find it’s fun, and profound, and you may want to set aside a little more time every day for questions and answers.

And then, just maybe, you’ll want to give Daf Yomi a try.

May you have an exciting, meaningful Passover, that moves you one step closer to being da mensch you’ve always wanted to be. “>facebook.com/accidentaltalmudist. More pieces like this at Accidental Talmudist: Day 438 – Be da Mensch! Read More »

For the kids, beyond the questions

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“A Sweet Passover” by Lesléa Newman, illustrated by David Slonim (Abrams: $16.95).

It turns out that little Miriam is not so different from the rest of us. By the final day of Passover, she gets sick of eating matzah and refuses to eat it ever again. Newman, a well-respected and prolific author of children’s books, created this heartwarming story about family traditions and Jewish cooking that would make a wonderful read-aloud for the 4- to 8-year-old set. When Grandpa prepares his famous matzah brei, which he also calls “Passover French toast,” Miriam finds it just a bit too hard to resist. “Essen in gezunt, shayneh maideleh” (eat in good health, pretty girl), he says. And she does. The humorous illustrations are a bit reminiscent of Charles Shultz and will amuse adults and children alike. A great matzah brei recipe is included, along with a useful glossary of Passover terms.

“What Am I? Passover” by Anne Margaret Lewis, illustrated by Tom Mills (Albert Whitman: $9.99).

The good folks from the “My Look and See Holiday Book Series” (previous topics: Christmas, Easter and Halloween) have now made the leap to Jewish holidays with this Passover book for very young children. Following the same format as the others, the bright and appealing thick cardboard pages contain a series of very simple holiday-related riddles. The flap can be easily lifted by children, who will enjoy guessing the answers that appear there in conjunction with brief explanations of Jewish terms. For example, “I am a mixture of apples, nuts and a little wine. I am tasty and sweet. What am I? What could I be? I am charoset on the Seder plate, that’s me!” The big, bright illustrations make this a must for an interactive Jewish preschool story hour and a sure hit with preschoolers everywhere. Kudos to the illustrator for depicting all the boys and men wearing kippot — a sight rarely seen in secular Jewish picture books.

“Izzy the Whiz and Passover McClean,” by Yael Mermelstein, illustrated by Carrie Hartman (Kar-Ben: $7.95).

Forget the candle and the feather — here is a charming book for children that tackles the topic of chametz cleaning through a feat of magical engineering. It’s a funny, rhymed tale of a whiz kid, named Izzy, who wants to give his harried mother a break from Passover cleaning. He invents a robot-like Passover cleaning machine that he names “Passover McClean” and then tells her to go rest while the machine does its work. (She complains she has a bit of a “bread-ache.”) With somewhat of a nod to Sylvester McMonkey McBean, Dr. Seuss’ “Fix-It-Up-Chappie” who invents a “star-off” machine, the author imagines young Izzy as the same sort of mechanical genius. At first his machine performs admirably, but by the time he lets it loose on the living room, Izzy finds it necessary to locate the emergency hatch and press the red button to set things right for Passover McClean. It’s an entertaining story with clever rhythm and wordplay, and appealing cartoonish illustrations. A simple author’s note at the end explains the concept of searching for chametz before Passover.

“The Elijah Door: A Passover Tale” by Linda Leopold Strauss, illustrated by Alexi Natchev (Holiday House: $16.95).

Feuding families live in “side-by-side houses in a small village that was sometimes Poland and sometimes Russia” in this original folktale that may be destined to become a Passover classic. Shortly after the Galinskys swap two fat geese for six of the Lippas’ laying hens, the geese die, and thus a feud is born. Were they sick before the swap or was it an accident? Who knows? Now the families refuse to speak to one another, although they had shared the Passover seder for many years. Young friends Rachel Galinksy and David Lippa, whose future betrothal has been thwarted by this turn of events, defy their families — Romeo and Juliet style — and enlist the town’s clever rabbi in a sophisticated ruse to bring the families back together at Passover. An artist’s note explains that the elaborate hand-painted woodcuts were inspired by traditional Eastern European folk prints from the 18th and 19th centuries. A couple of full-page spreads at the end of the book are particularly impressive: One serves as a joyous glimpse into the bygone era of village life at Passover time, and the other radiates the simple pleasures of “all the town’s Jews gathered with the Galinskys and the Lippas in one great celebration of love and freedom and family.” This beautifully illustrated book presents a wisely told tale with a new spin on what opening the door for Elijah can really mean.

“Let My People Go!” adapted by Alison Greengard, illustrated by Carol Racklin-Siegel (EKS: $10.95).

The original biblical story of Moses, slavery, Pharoah and the exodus of the Jews from Egypt is suitably translated for children in this beautiful paperback adaptation. The English translation is placed below the large-type Hebrew text, and the colorful accompanying artwork is outstanding. All the titles in this series of Bible stories for children, including stories such as “In the Beginning,” “The Tower of Babel,” “Rebecca,” “Noah’s Ark,” “Lech Lecha,” “Jacob’s Travels,” “Joseph the Dreamer” and “The Brave Women Who Saved Moses,” feature full-color reproductions of beautiful silk paintings that enhance the text. The imaginative depiction of the Ten Plagues is especially noteworthy. At the back of the book, each title includes a literal translation of the biblical Hebrew and a useful glossary in both English and Hebrew.

Lisa Silverman is the director of the Sinai Temple Blumenthal Library and former children’s editor of Jewish Book World magazine.

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AMIA and Minority Insecurity: How Do We Attack Corruption?

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A few days ago, I took my students to visit AMIA, the Jewish community center of Buenos Aires, Argentina, that was bombed in 1994, leaving 85 killed and hundreds injured. It was heart-wrenching to hear the personal stories only a few days after the attack at the school in Toulouse.

It is crucial when minorities are attacked anywhere in the world that everything possible is done to help them feel safe and that the justice system makes clear that these attacks are never tolerated. Because there was no justice in Argentina and no one went to jail, the community still feels very vulnerable and insecure. When minorities are attacked, due to anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc., it is not only an attack upon individuals but upon the whole group, making all feel vulnerable. We cannot only speak up when it is our own people and sites attacked. Hate and violence must be condemned wherever it pokes its head.

According to 2010 FBI statistics on 8,208 hate crime victims, 48% were victimized due to race, 19% due to religion, and 19% due to sexual orientation. In racial bias, 70% of victims were black; in religious bias, 67% of victims were Jews, and nearly 13% were Muslims (a rising figure); in sexual-orientation crimes, nearly all victims were homosexuals and lesbians. 

Corruption is more difficult to quantify. Transparency International monitors perceived corruption on a worldwide basis (with 0 as most corrupt and 10 as least corrupt), and the results may surprise you. According to its Corruption Perceptions Index 2011, The United States only ranks 24th (7.1 score), behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Barbados, Qatar, and Chile. Israel fares worse, at 36th (5.8 score), behind Uruguay, the United Arab Emirates, and Botswana. However, both are significantly less corrupt than Argentina, which is in a twelve-way tie for 100th place with its dismal 3.0 score.

While we cannot state that there is a direct correlation between a government’s level of corruption and its ability or willingness to combat hate crimes, it is probable that a more corrupt society will not successfully prosecute these crimes. For example, no one has ever been convicted of the AMIA attack, and the Argentinean government has come under scrutiny for incompetence and corruption in mishandling the investigation. While this is discouraging, our disillusionment with politics cannot lead us to disengage. We must continue to attack corruption proactively. Governments that allow for corruption, intolerance, and injustice must be challenged. We can tolerate political difference, but we cannot tolerate scandals and corruptions.

In Argentina, I spoke with Rabbi Ernesto Yattah, a community leader working to address governmental corruption. Others here told me that almost everyone cheats on their taxes, pays bribes, and accepts the corruption, and just lives with it. Rabbi Yattah is calling upon Jews to reverse this cycle. He told me that first we must understand corruptology (how corruption permeates society) so we can address it systemically. The word “corrupt,” from the Latin corruptus (meaning “abused” or “destroyed”), connotes something that is “utterly broken.” It is a critical defect in any society.

According to what Rabbi Yattah called “the politics of inclusion,” corrupt politicians make society more corrupt so that they alone are not blamed. For example, they often ensure that the police force is corrupt, operating through bribes. When corruption is systemic, everyone just throws their arms in their air, enabling corrupt politicians to benefit from the inertia. When we attack the peripheral manifestations of corruption, we are attacking the base as well.

Combating is rarely easy or risk-free. According to “the politics of reflection,” one standing up to corruption has to be willing to face countercharges that he or she is also corrupt. When you fight corruption, the established force will come back at you with ten times the strength. Nevertheless, we know that corruption can be overcome. The Book of Genesis (6:12), for example, describes a world before the flood where “everyone on earth was corrupt.” In a post-flood world, order was achieved.

Today, no problem can be ignored or relegated to others who face corruption in remote areas as the world is now too interconnected to live with the veil of isolation. Just as an economic crisis in Asia or South America affects Europe, so too, hatred anywhere in the world is a threat to all. Corruption is a force that creates insecurity, fear, and a foundation for injustice. We cannot look away from it. Thus, the role of the Jew in the public square is to be a voice of conscience, challenging those who shatter social trust, and in support of all victims of injustice.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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Looking for chametz in car, coat and computer

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Who are the chametz seekers, those dutiful service technicians who in preparation for Passover, and for a fee, help us search and destroy the hidden, unexpected unleaven in our lives?

Yes, for some, it’s not nearly enough to change over the dishes, scrub the kitchen, vacuum the floors and rugs in preparation for eight days without bread, beer and bagels. This observant and vigilant group, in order to begin the holiday with a clean plate, so to speak, must seek out the jammed-between-the-car-seats O’s, the jacket-pocketed pita, even the keyboard crumbs.

Fortunately, for these often-unanticipated tasks, especially for those that are auto-oriented, help is just a fill-up away.

For a city that lives, sleeps and eats in our cars, chametz in the month of Passover becomes an unwanted passenger that may need an expert to help you remove.

“You can’t believe what kids shove between the car seats,” said Eytan Rosenberg, who along with his sister, Ronit Karben, co-owns Josh’s Valero service station in the Hancock Park area.

At his gas station, which has a car wash, Rosenberg offers a $65 “Passover Car Detail,” which, according to the signs displayed on every gas pump, includes “interior detail and carpet vac and shampoo,” plus a carwash.

“It’s chametz removal,” said Rosenberg, a traditional Jew, of the pre-Passover service the station has been offering for four years. “Some people wait for this time of year to clean their cars. We get a lot of families from the area,” he added.

During the pre-Passover season of about two weeks, he estimates the station gets about 10 customers a day. “We take on extra workers so we handle those who come in last-minute,” he said.

“The stuff we find can be like from a petri dish. We found shrunken apples, old diapers, Cheerios, also a lot of pacifiers,” he added.

According to Rosenberg, who inherited the service station business from his father, Josh, who was both an Orthodox rabbi and an auto mechanic, “The Passover service takes three hours per car.”

As Rosenberg demonstrated one of the tools of the Passover car-cleaning trade, a high-power, rotating air gun, he explained that it was good for the job of removing all the chametz, including gum, from the car’s mats and carpets.

But what about bigger carpets with chametz issues? To get those, as well as your clothing, ready for Passover,  one chametz seeker to call is Jacob Jahan, owner of Pico Cleaners.

“Thank God, I have been waiting for Passover;  we could use the business,” said Jahan, whose shop is located in the Pico-Robertson area. “For Passover we get very busy. Some people bring in clothes for the whole eight days,”  added the cleaner, who also provides a no-charge tallit cleaning service for synagogues.

“We use absolutely no starch, and we always search the pockets,” Jahan said, adding that, for customers who ask for it, “We shake the clothes.”

For rugs, Jahan has “a special person who vacuums, beats and shampoos. It takes 10 days to do the job,” he said.

For pre-Passover dry cleaning, Jahan noted, he even takes care with the solvent.

“We have filters to grab the shmutz,” he said.

It’s too bad you can’t take your computer to the cleaners as well. For as those who are truly committed to eradicating all chametz know, you may find it anywhere; not just in your car or parka, but in your Dell as well.

Ever look down between the keys of your keyboard?

On the Chabad Passover Web site, which has an alphabetical checklist of more than 80 potentially overlooked places, from attic to yard, “computer and keyboard” seemingly blink back at you from the list.

“I have heard of people putting their keyboard on the top rack of their dishwasher,” said Eli Jaffe, who runs a business called L.A. Computer Doc, but he said he doesn’t recommend it.

“You can turn your keyboard over and shake the chametz out,” Jaffe suggested. “Or for 15 to 20 bucks, you could go out and buy a new keyboard for Passover.

“Just make sure it says ‘pareve’ on the box,” he said with a smile.

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