When Kim Herzog dips apples and challah in honey this Rosh Hashana, she says she will be reaching extra deep to get some sweetness, because after six months in Israel, she and the country need it more than ever.
Visiting Anne Stern at her modest one-bedroom West Hollywood apartment, you quickly learn that she is very proud of her artwork. On the walls of her apartment hang her creative accomplishments – a prize-winning collage, an oil landscape, tiny acrylic still lifes of a covered challah and flower bouquets – all of which she is eager to talk about in her charming British lilt, a vestige of her Wembly upbringing.\n\nWhat Stern, in her mid-80\’s, might not tell you up front is that she has spent many years living alone on a fixed income, and is a recipient of Jewish Family Service\’s (JFS) Home Delivered Meals, a quarter-century-old program that delivers seven balanced entrees a week to homebound seniors. Last week, with the help of Israel Humanitarian Foundation (IHF), JFS greatly modernized its program by purchasing a supply of microwaves that will be given to more than 300 senior citizens in the program.
At first glance, the round challahs of the High Holidays mightseem to be no more than the ritualized version of a GeneralMills-like strategy. How could a bread that is braided 11 months ofthe year suddenly taste different the month it is made round? Eggsare eggs, flour is flour, yeast is yeast, etc., right? But, somehow,the challahs of the High Holidays — domed crowns of golden dough,studded with raisins, sitting atop a holiday table like a princess\’pillow — do taste different.
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