Apple cake. Photo courtesy of Katherine Romanow.

I don’t quite know how it happened, but the nights are getting cooler and there’s that feeling of fall in the air. Summer is winding down and with that comes the reds, yellow and orange colors of the changing leaves, thicker sweaters and of course the High Holidays. With the New Year almost upon us, attention is beginning to shift to the upcoming celebrations and of course what will be served at the festive meals that will be part of the holiday.

Rosh Hashanah is a time for reflection on the year that has passed, while also a time to look forward to the year to come in the hopes that it will be sweet and plentiful. This wish for the year to come is symbolically reflected in the foods served during this holiday in the hopes that they will help to bring about this desired outcome. Therefore, as explained by Claudia Roden, “The New Year is a time for sweet things. In some countries, even meat, chicken, and vegetable dishes are sweet. Potatoes are replaced by sweet potatoes, onions are caramelized, and meats are cooked with quince, prunes, dates, and raisins, and sometimes also with sugar or honey.” Challah takes on a circular shape and is studded with raisins to represent continuity and the hope that the New Year is round like a circle. Fish, which is a symbol of fertility, is often served with its head on in the hopes that one will remain at the head. Among the Sephardim, a sheep’s head is served in order to ensure “that they may always be at the head and not at the tail and hold their heads up high.” Ashkenazim also serve a dish of carrot tzimmes due to the fact that carrots have been associated with gold coins and in turn with prosperity and good fortune.

One of the other foods that play a central role in New Year meals include apples which make their appearance alongside honey in the iconic dish of apples dipped in honey, which is a mainstay on many tables. Apples are also a nice edition to the Rosh Hashanah table when baked into a delicious cake. The recipe for this cake comes from the cookbook, Second Helpings, Please! This cookbook was created by the women of the Mount Sinai Chapter of Jewish Women International of Canada in Montreal, and has become a classic in the kitchens of Canadian Jewish households. With fifteen printings since its first publication in 1968, it has become a popular gift for newly married couples and for young adults who are moving out for the first time. Filled with recipes that are quick and easy to prepare, this apple cake is a perfect example of why so many people love this cookbook. This cake is a cinch to make, with results that are extraordinary. You simply need to mix the together the ingredients for the batter, cut up the apples, sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar and then spoon half the batter into a greased pan, spread the apples on top of this and put the rest of the batter on top. Once it comes out of the oven, the top will have turned a lovely golden brown, the apples, which will be soft and coated in cinnamon and sugar, will rest between the wonderfully moist cake batter.

This cake will delight with the classic combination of cinnamon, sugar and apples and will provide a sweet introduction to the New Year. This cake will not disappoint and will definitely have people asking for second helpings!

Apple Cake
From Second Helpings, Please!

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup oil
3 tablespoons water or orange juice
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
6-8 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
½ cup white or brown sugar
2 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

1. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla until fluffy. Beat in oil.

2. Add liquid alternately with dry ingredients and beat until just smooth.

3. Spoon half of batter into a lightly greased 9-inch square baking pan. Spread evenly with a rubber spatula. Add apples, which have been sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Cover with remaining batter.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes, until nicely browned.

I just came home from a trip to my local suburban mall with two friends from elementary school. The mall is looking good – the walls are an upscale beige accented with stained wood, and new stores like Coach and BCBG emphasize that those who shop here must have ample money to spend. The mall is clearly marked as Jewish, too, with shoppers wearing long skirts, kippas, or less modest clothing adorned with Jewish symbols and summer camp logos. It’s a far cry from the aqua green and off-pink colour scheme that graced the mall in our childhood, although shoppers then were still primarily Jewish. As we wandered around the mall, we felt more than a little awkward, and our conversation turned to the next awkward event coming up in our lives: the High Holidays. 

Rosh Hashanah comes just after Labour Day this year, and Yom Kippur follows (as always) a scant 10 days later. The awkwardness isn’t because the holidays are so early in 2010, but rather because it’s time to get dressed up in scratchy clothes and spend long days in shul, occasionally making small talk with the folks we haven’t seen since this time last year.

All three of us were synagogue-goers in our childhood, but the High Holidays are a different ballgame from your usual Saturday morning affair. Everyone shows up dressed in their finest, and at some synagogues, people can even buy tickets that will provide them with a reserved seat near the front. While Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are ostensibly about beginning the process of spiritual judgement, where God serves as the ultimate examiner, it sometimes feels like more judgement is occurring between fellow service attendees, as parents compare which degrees their children will be receiving this spring and teens check out who has brand name clothes and shoes. Ironically, Yom Kippur is the one day in a year where we are supposed to strive to move away from the physical: many observant Jews avoid make-up and perfumes, as well as the luxury of leather shoes (although these days, you can sub vegan leather, and nobody can tell the difference).

What does Yom Kippur have to do with our awkwardness at the mall? In both situations, it wasn’t just the ostentatious materialism that had me feeling uncomfortable, but the fact that the materialism was so clearly marked as Jewish. My discomfort comes from the connection of affluence and materialism with harmful stereotypes about Jews that frequently connect to material wealth. I know any affluent suburb would have a similar mall, and that folks at church on Easter judge each other just as much as folks at shul on Rosh Hashana.  Yet my sense of unease remains, perhaps because I am worried that Jews and non-Jews alike will see the Jewish shoppers at the mall or the (non)- worshippers on the High Holidays as affirming specifically Jewish stereotypes. I suppose it’s food for thought this coming Yom Kippur (the only kind of food I’ll be having that day!), but in the meantime, I’ll probably just avoid the mall altogether. It’ll be kinder to both my psyche and my wallet.

Sophie Tucker. Image courtesy of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Recently, I saw Eleanor Reissa, a talented and well-known Yiddish actress and performer, sing "My Yiddishe Momme" to a standing ovation. Mind you, the crowd was entirely over seventy and the children of Polish Jewish immigrants to North and South America. To help pass the time, I thought about that nice tough character, Sophie Tucker, who made the song into a bi-lingual top five hit in 1928. This was no mean feat in a country where nativist sentiment had just succeeded in shutting tight the doors of immigration to the "Goldene Medina" (the "Golden Country"). (You can see Sophie in action -- and in historical context -- if you buy the DVD of Making Trouble, the film about funny Jewish women produced by the Jewish Women's Archive.)

Its lyrics, and my reaction to the nostalgia it invoked, made me think about another paean to Jewish womanhood: Eishes Chayil. We are reminded on Friday nights when traditionally it is sung at orthodox dinner tables, that the price of "a woman of valor" is proverbially above that of rubies. My "Yiddishe Momme" strikes a similar theme when it states that the Mama in question needs no jewelry since her children are her treasures. Which brings me to the somewhat uncharitable thought that songs written putatively by a spouse or even children may not always strike the right notes even as they extol their exemplary feminine paragons of virtue.

So what might strike a better note here? On the theme of continuity, Adrienne Cooper's forthcoming release might fit the bill quite nicely. Among other things, it features a multi-generational piece where she mixes her voice with that of her chazan (Cantor) grandfather, as well as with that of her mother. It also features a number of new compositions which is a healthy thing for those of us who want to start the new year by avoiding old chestnuts. And for those looking to explore the creative power of rupture and its attendant anguish and pain, there are Jewlia Eisenberg's series of releases on Tzadik's label. For instance, Trilectic includes a strong female voice giving Walter Benjamin a piece of her mind (even if the political sentiments are not exactly my own). And oh yes, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend "Emma Goldman's Wedding," a primarily instrumental recording written by Frank London in the 90s that combines humor and irony in perfect proportions while virtually toasting the Jewish anarchist whose strong views on marriage could make Bertrand Russell's Marriage and Morals look like a defense of the institution.

So what are your favorite songs to sweep away nostalgia? Replying to this posting is an amulet of sorts that guarantees starting the new year on a good note :)

Yenta Laureate of the Lower East Side has spent most of her life living in various Jewish communites which helps create a certain amount of cynicism about that which she knows and loves best. Her photos can be seen here.

Evil tongues, gossip and snark; who is not guilty of slithering into their seductive arms? I refused to see the movie “Mean Girls.” I was not, however, immune to its cultural reverberations and its ever-popular subject matter: catty girls destroying one another with vituperative snark, often in the cafeteria accompanied by sidelong glares and diet sodas. Jews and students of Judaism may be familiar with snark under its Talmudic pseudonym lashon hara – evil language/tongue.

Recently, I read David Denby’s “Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation” (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009). A 122-page essay in seven “Fits,” Denby traces the history of snark, “a strain of nasty, knowing abuse spreading like pinkeye through the national conversation,” from the ancients through Lewis Carroll, to the New York Times’ columnist Maureen Dowd. Denby is in favor of “true wit” but not snark. According to Denby’s definition, snark is “a teasing, rug-pulling form of insult that attempts to steal someone’s mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness, and it appeals to a knowing audience that shares the contempt of the snarker and therefore understands the references he makes.” Snark destroys its target, tearing her limb from limb with rapacious, poison –tipped teeth. A lash of the tongue is easier than ever before across “the vast kindergarten of the Web.”

The snarker is not always a “he” attacking a feminine subject, though Denby furnishes many examples of male-driven misogynistic snark. What Denby fails to point out is historical/cultural/folk link between gossip and snark, and moreover, the snarky/gossipy reputation of women. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the etymological origin of “gossip” is the Old English godsibb – meaning a godmother or a godfather. In early modern England, “gossip” may have referred to a companion in childbirth, most often female. Over time, gossip’s reputation sifted into that of a nasty woman who enjoys relaying the fortunes (good and bad, but mostly bad) of others.

Trash-talking without a productive goal is a sin in Judaism, known as lashon hara. To my knowledge, lashon hara is gender-blind in Jewish texts: anyone can be guilty of it. But cultural applications of religion to living contexts often produce associations –perhaps unanticipated or unintended, but real nonetheless.

Remember Yente? According to Gene Bluestein’s Anglish/Yinglish: Yiddish in American Life and Culture, (University of Georgia Press, 1989) the first definition for Yente is “the generic term for a gossipy old woman.” The definitions for Yente become increasingly negative as the entry continues. One Yente that will be familiar to many is that of the 1971 film adaption of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Molly Picon, the Yiddish musical theater star, played Yente. In one scene, Yente raps on Golde’s door, relates all the new shtetl gossip and proceeds to take biscuit after biscuit from Golde. Yente is about to leave when Golde starts up, unable to contain her frustration for Yente has forgotten to tell anxious Golde about the match she has planned for one of the family’s daughters. Yente obligingly returns, patting Golde reassuringly on the hand.

As Molly Picon plays Yente, Yente is an endearing, if annoying gossipy old lady. She is essentially harmless, and her gossip, in the end, serves a productive purpose: Yente makes a good match for poor Golde’s eldest daughter (never mind that the daughter convinces her father to break off the match for a marriage of love). It may be a stretch, but Yente, the consummate gossip, is helpful, the town newspaper and relater of community goings-on. She does not fit into the snarky definition of a gossip, and she doesn’t even really seem to be guilty of lashon hara, at least, as we see her in “Fiddler.” On the other side of the coin, as Leah pointed out in this post, Jewish women in the television show The Real Housewives of New York City build their careers from the dreck of snarky “Mean Girls”-style spats, even describing themselves as Yentes.

Perhaps we have a problem of semantics, of definitions. We must, then, differentiate between productive gossip and destructive gossip; in essence, the difference between the Snarker and the Yente.

Can you think of any Snarky Yentes? Examples to fulfill either definition?

Carol Wise (right) is a JWA Board member. Her granddaughter, Zoe Oreck, (left) is a senior at the University of Georgia.

To mark the 5th anniverary of Hurricane Katrina, we got in touch with JWA Board member Carol Wise and her granddaughter Zoe Oreck, two Jewish women who experienced the storm and its aftermath first-hand. Carol Wise has served as President of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, and Chair of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce. She now serves on the Executive Committee and Board of the Hillel International Foundation and as President of Tulane Hillel. Zoe Oreck is a senior at the University of Georgia majoring in PR and History. They share their thoughts on New Orleans and the Jewish community five years after Katrina below.

How do you feel about New Orleans now?

Zoe Oreck: I’ve always felt a very deep connection to New Orleans. Being away from New Orleans while I’m at college is a struggle. It’s like missing a person! If there is a difference between how I felt about New Orleans pre-Katrina and post-Katrina it’s that I love it even more. I no longer take it for granted. It’s home.

What do you miss most about pre-Katrina?

Carol Wise: Nothing really--the food, the music, the people, the ambiance, the flavor--it is all here but a bit stronger than before Katrina. I saw a sentence in the paper the other day and it triggered the best summary of the above: "Adversity tends to make you a little stronger. There are some blessings that come out of that."

Did you imagine things would be the way they are five years after the storm?

Zoe Oreck: To be honest, I don’t really know what I thought about the future of New Orleans after the storm. All I could hope for is that someday we would rebuild and bring everyone who wanted to be back home, home. My senior year of high school (one year after the storm), I would drive through some of the most devastated areas of the city to get to tennis practice. As the weeks and months of the spring of 2007 went by, I could see firsthand the progress that was made everyday! I remember being a tad late one day and driving along the street I always did and noticing a Walgreens that not only wasn’t open the week before, it wasn’t even finished the week before! That moment gave me pause to really stop and think about how beautiful that one drugstore, out of every drugstore in America, really was to me. Every building, every roof, every doorknob that moves us along the road to complete recovery is a blessing.

Are thing in NOLA better or worse than you would have imagined they would be in 5 years?

Carol Wise: My first response was mixed. I am sad that we lost about 25% of the Jewish population. At first, I was angry, but I do now understand. I now rejoice that we have actively pursued getting new people to come here and over 2,000 new New Orleans Jews are living here. They form a vibrant and significant part of our population--2,000 out of 6,500 is rather hefty growth. (Including my daughter and my 3 grandsons). The new Provost at Tulane, the new Dean of Tulane Law School, the new head of Hillel, new rabbis at 3 of our 5 synagogues -- they have each come and brought their families. I consider those numbers and positions filled amazing. Could any other medium sized Jewish community have done the same proportionately? I would like to think "NO"-- but Jews do have a resiliency.

How do you feel about NOLA's Jewish community now? Do you think it "has a future"?

Zoe Oreck: I absolutely think that the NOLA Jewish community has a future. Our community, like so many other things about New Orleans, is unique. There’s a very tangible sense of unity among the Jews and an equally close sense of connectedness to New Orleans. I mean, the hours of my Sunday School were changed to better accommodate Saints games. The Jews of New Orleans could not be the Jews of any other city. We also have very close ties to our temples and congregations. Many New Orleanian Jews have families that have been in the same congregations for 50 years plus. It’s a very special thing.

What are the most notable changes in the city? In the Jewish Community?

Carol Wise: In the city we have learned to cherish all our accomplishments--from the excitement of winning the Super Bowl to each musician, artist, tourist, piece of seafood to the fishermen who were impacted by the oil spill. There is a feeling that we need to be heard, that we have the capacity amongst ourselves to fight back. Each and every person here has that divine spark. It is infectious--you have been here so you know what it is like to "miss New Orleans." There is a very special atmosphere here unlike any other city I have every known, and it has grown enormously over the last 5 years. I think that same spark holds true in the Jewish community as well as the larger community. We have NEVER had one section of the city that is primarily Jewish--we are a Gumbo--each of the parts makes us better.