Tradition
A while ago we bought Claudia Roden’s ‘The Book of Jewish Food’ and I have to say that I immediately sat down and read it cover to cover. Entertainingly, the Ashkenazi section is about a quarter of the size of the Sephardi section.
Mum went through the book and put the initials of the relatives and friends who made each dish next to them, the most common initial was SD, my great grandmother. She started the tradition of leaving the country at 18, arriving at Ellis Island two days after her 19th birthday.
I do make quite a lot of things in the cookbook, but I have to say that I always follow Sarah’s versions of recipes if they deviate from Ms Rodan’s… after all it’s family tradition!
I love your blog! It’s so delightful. I will be pop by again soon. x
You are fascinatingly interesting, you are! May i ask what the difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi is? I have a vague idea that it is different levels of othodoxy (and frum=what?), but i could be wrong and i dont know which is stricter etc even if i am correct.
So (speaking as a very biased Ashkenazi), we are Northern Eastern European and Sephardi are Middle Eastern and Southern European.
We get a thousand and one things to do with a potato or sour cream and the sorts of rules that can only be created by people who spend long winters cooped up arguing with each other, and they get all the recipes with fresh fruit and exciting vegetables and a more laid back attitude.
For instance, over Passover, you don’t eat wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt, but if you’re Ashkenazi, you don’t eat rice or corn either, just in case.
Each group has the usual range of orthodox to less observant (extra points for using vocabulary!) and the usual crazy ideas of how they are different from the others. For instance one of my friends comes from a very un-observant Sephardi family and I said to him ‘Oh, I was always told that Sephardi Jews rock side to side when they pray instead of front to back.’, ‘No’ he said, ‘that’s Ashkenazi, we go front to back too!’
Ah well, cultural exchange is always good!
This is all so interesting! And finally someone i can ask questions of without real fear of insulting them through accidental ignorance.
So the difference is more a geographical one? Well originally a geographical one? Are there other geographical cultural groups as well? Am i correct in calling the groups “cultural” groups, or would, hmm, thought process need more time on that one i think.
I apparently explained in great detail to my year 3 class what passover was and how it was observed, i have no memory of this, but my year 3 teacher does (she ran into mum recently).
I am still somewhat unclear on the meaning of “Frum”, i thought it was less observant, but have been encountering it where the people describing themselves that way i would call more “conservative” in thier beliefs? Totally covered hair, women in long skirts, no pants etc.
The Boy went to a Jewish preschool, apparently his hebrew was pretty good when he was 3
Where i went to school out only scripture options were variations on the christian faith (and i was sent to baptist sunday school, we fluctuated weekly between whether dancing was satan’s work, and dancing in celebration was correct worship)
Frum is more observant, although there are (as usual) no hard and fast rules to what it means!
There are thousands of different cultural variations and groups. The friend I was talking about earlier was the product of a ‘mixed’ marriage, his father’s family came to Tunisia from Italy in the 16th century and therefore were considered newcomers by his mother’s family.. I can’t keep track to be honest!
I had to giggle last night when Batman was on the phone instructing his mother on what sort of non-Christmas cards to send to my family. ‘Season’s Greetings is fine, no.. I don’t think Ho Ho Ho will work, Santa is a pretty Christian thing.’
I just messaged you elsewhere as well, but i thought this might be a good place for the question, since it is related.
I have friendly local godbotherers who have taken to wishing people “lets put the christ back into christmas” and “jesus is the reason for the season” and at 8am when i am running late for the bus and they are knocking on my front door, seriously not in the mood.
I also live in the part of Australia with the highest concentration of people who identify as Jewish, so i am looking for a “lets put the ….. back in Hanukah” type response (because they aren’t going to get it when i fire back that Mithras is actually the reason for the season (amongst others of the pagan persuasion
), and Hanukah and Giftmas overlap this year don’t they?
No one in our suburb have put up their Hanukah decorations this year, i really enjoyed them year.