Jewish Cuisine – Page 17 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Gefilte Fish: Stuffed Fish, or Fish Ball? Secrets of the Litvak Kitchen Revealed

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by Dovilė Rūkaitė

The issue of survival is an urgent one in the history of cuisine just as much as it is in the history of humanity. Do the fittest and most delicious survive? So what are we to make of the apparent success of this boiled ball, a brownish gray mass with a slice of carrot atop, either sweet or salty, framed by a pink jelly, or just as often with a sauce of indeterminate color? Gefilte fish is an established dish in world cuisine; in the kosher food section you can find several different types and it is an essential food during the holidays at European Jewish homes.

Gefilte fish is an Ashkenazi Jewish dish of epic proportions which has survived the challenges of the centuries remaining almost unchanged to the present time. Litvaks make this stuffed fish in the following way: the carp or trout is gutted, the bones are removed from, the fish fillet is combined with spices and the mixture is placed back within the skin of the fish or strips of it and boiled in a pot with carrots. The stuffed fish cools in the fish broth which gels into a jelly, is decorated with lateral slices of carrot and served with horseradish. Jewish housewives in Vilnius used to put bits of beet in the pot so the jelly would take on a pink color and a more interesting taste.

2016-09-032016-09-20

European Day of Jewish Culture 2016
Vilnius speaks Yiddish again!

Sunday, September 4, 2016
Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street No. 4, Vilnius, September 4

Program:

10:00 Bagel breakfast Boker Tov-בוקר טוב – A guten morgn – Labas rytas!
Location: Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street No. 4, Vilnius

11:00-11:45 Hebrew lessons for kids and parents with Ruth Reches, author of the Illustrated Dictionary of Hebrew and Lithuanian for Beginners, registration required
Meet at the Bagel Shop Café, Pylimo street No. 4, Vilnius

12:00-12:45 Rakija Klezmer Orkestar performance
Location: White Hall, LJC

2016-09-022016-09-08

Jewish Languages in Lithuania

by Akvilė Grigoravičiūtė, Germanic studies doctoral candidate, Sorbonne

We invite those interested in Lithuanian Jewish culture and heritage to participate in walking tours, attend exhibitions, meetings and concerts and take part in other cultural activities scheduled for Sunday, September 4. The point is to regain a portion of our own historical memory, to disrobe it from a mantle of suppression and to add color beyond black and white to a rather amicable and good-willed former life together.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-09-022016-09-08

Tzvi Kritzer: I Was Horrified No One Would Remember the Mass Murder of Molėtai

Kritzer by Karolis Kaupinis, Lithuanian Radio and Television show Savaitė, from 15min.lt

There’s a street in Molėtai along which 2,000 unarmed people, the town’s Jews, were led to their deaths 75 years ago. The mass grave now lies on the edge of town, although it’s difficult to call the location a grave site. Relatives of the murdered flocked to Molėtai Monday from around the world to join a procession along the route to the mass murder site.

Writer and director Marius Ivaškevičius invited Lithuanians to join the march. “You don’t have to do anything, just walk several kilometers through the town of Molėtai together with our Jews. To be silent, together, to look one another in the eyes. I have almost no doubts someone will cry, because such scenes are moving. Someone among them, someone from our side. And that’s enough. Just that, to show them and ourselves we are no longer enemies,” Ivaškevičius wrote. The LRT TV program Savaitė interviewed Tzvi Kritzer, an organizer of the march who was born in Vilnius in 1973 and moved to his Israel with his parents at the age of 17, about the event in Molėtai on August 29.

Could you tell us briefly the story of your family who lived in Molėtai?

My father lived in Molėtai with his parents and two brothers. We had more relatives there, aunts, uncles. They owned a bakery where they made bagels. Even today when we were filming a film in Molėtai and talking with many of the old-time residents of Molėtai, many of them remembered there was this very famous bakery which made especially delicious bagels, but which is now gone.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

2016-08-31

Secrets of Kosher Food at the Frenkel Villa in Šiauliai

Frenkelio vila

A large stuffed dumpling floats in chicken broth. But what’s inside? Pork? No way. Jews don’t eat it. Chicken? It’s taste is impossible to identify. It will remain a mystery for a long time. At least, until the guide at the Chaim Frenkel villa in Šiauliai helps me solve the riddle. “The Secrets of Kosher Food” is one of those educational programs which attracts tourists to the villa like flies to butter. The price is 10 euros for adults and 9 for primary and high school students. The price includes not just a feast at the villa, but an explanation of what appears to our eyes as the strange foods Jews have eaten for millennia, and continue to eat. “I have worked here for a long time, but over the course of my job I have never seen Jews attend this sort of educational program. And that’s understandable. After all, it’s impossible to surprise Jews by foods they eat often. But this does surprise Lithuanians,” the guide said. Kosher food. What is it?

Full article here.

2016-08-31

Rabbi Ben Tzion Zilber Visits Latvia and Lithuania

Rugpjūčio 15-16 Latvijoje ir Lietuvoje lankėsi rabinas Bentsiyonas Zilberis

Rabbi Ben Tzion Zilber, son of legendary Rabbi Yitzchok Zilber, visited Latvia and Lithuania August 15 and 16.

Rabbi Kalev Krelin of the Vilnius Jewish Community escorted Rabbi Zilber to locations where the latter’s ancestors lived. His father Rabbi Yitzchok Zilber belonged to a long line of scholars and suffered under Stalin, both at labor camps and under the atheist policies of the Soviet Union. Despite extremely difficult circumstances, Rabbi Yitzchok Zilber not only managed to hold steadfastly to his faith in the Creator and to keep His laws, but also to deepen his Torah study and teach others. After making aliyah to Israel Rabbi Yitzchok Zilber had hundreds of followers in whom he inspired faith in the Creator and adherence to the Torah.

2016-08-232016-08-23

Keeping the Faith in Vilnius

VilnaFaina
photo © Delfi/K. Cachovskis

Ellen Cassedy, author of We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust (ellencassedy.com), has written about the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Bagel Shop initiative.

Amit Belaite adores the long ode to the city of Vilna that was penned by writer and poet Moyshe Kulbak 90 years ago. Lines from the poem about Vilna’s stones and streets were running through her head on a warm summer afternoon as she led a walking tour through the narrow, winding streets of the city now known as Vilnius, the capital of the small Baltic nation of Lithuania.

Belaite, 23, heads the Lithuanian Union of Jewish Students. When she posted the announcement for the group’s tour of Jewish Vilnius, she expected a couple of dozen people to be interested. To her amazement, 400 signed up, many of them non-Jews.

“People know the city is rich in Jewish history,” she said. “They feel a big need to learn about it.”

2016-08-192016-09-09

European Days of Jewish Culture: September 4

Come learn about the Jewish cultural and historical legacy. European Days of Jewish Culture, September 4. This time the theme is Jewish languages. Event begins at 2:00 P.M. on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.

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2016-08-182016-09-08

Yiddish Vegetarian Potluck

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As another successful summer program of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute at Vilnius University wound down, writer Ellen Cassedy and the students, faculty and staff held a vegetarian potluck August 10.

Cassedy gave a brief presentation in Yiddish about the remarkable prewar vegetarian cookbook by Fania Lewando and spoke about her life and her vegetarian restaurant which was located on what is now Vokiečių street in Vilnius. Using slides Cassedy showed period photographs and pictures of foods featured at the restaurant, occasionally clarifying her remarks in English.

A full classroom of perhaps 30 people listened intently as latecomers filtered in, some bearing plates and bowls of food. A long table in front of the podium enticed the eye with a variety of dishes made by the students and staff themselves.

2016-08-112016-08-23

Event in Dieveniškės to Commemorate Regional Jewish History

Dieveniškėse vyko renginiai, skirti regiono žydų istorijai

On August 4 Lithuanian Jewish Community representatives sold traditional Litvak bagels and sweets and spoke about Jewish tradition under the aegis of the LJC Bagel Shop Café at the Dieveniškės town square. The bagels quickly disappeared but local residents stuck around for the events to commemorate regional Jewish history.

The Dieveniškės Technological and Business School hosted the lectures “Jewish Funeral and Cemetery Traditions” and “Synagogues: How They’re Built, What Happens in Them and Why.” Participants manufactured models of synagogues from cardboard and other materials, and bricks made of clay to mark the locations of former Jewish buildings.

2016-08-09

A Jewish Culinary Legend Reborn: Fania Lewando’s Vilnius

Lewando Fania2
by Jūratė Važgauskaitė Šaltinis, manoteises.lt

If you happened to be walking on Vokiečių street in Vilnius eighty years ago, you would surely have noticed the sign for the Dieto-Yarska Yadlodaynia restaurant, and if you stepped inside you would probably have bumped into Marc Chagall, the famous artist, as well as discovering good food. The vegetarian restaurant beloved of connoisseurs belonged to Faina Lewando-Fiszelewicz aand her husband Lazar Lewando. These members of the Vilnius Jewish community established their Dieto-Yarska Yadlodaynia (“Dietary/Vegetarian Cafeteria”) in the building that was marked no. 14 on Vokiečių street then and created a food revolution in Vilnius at that time, then called Wilno.

A vegetarian restaurant in the 1930s was a big sensation. Although vegetarian dishes were nothing new in the Jewish culinary traditions of Eastern Europe, they were often eaten by solitary diners or if no other kosher food choice was available. A vegetarian restaurant was extraordinary.

Ashkenazi food traditions, named after the word for Jews living in Eastern and Northern Europe, dominated the city and entire region when Faina Lewando opened her vegetarian restaurant and a culinary school right next to it in Vilnius. These traditions made much use of meat products and fat and heart meat dishes for holidays and to warm up during winter, without which the Jewish dinner table was inconceivable. It was to be expected that a luxury vegetarian restaurant in interwar Vilnius would create so much wonder and interest among the public.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-08-082016-08-23

Bagel Shop Café Draws Attention of ARD-1 German Public TV Crew

Vokietijos Visuomeninės televizijos ARD-1 kūrybinės grupės ypatingas dėmesys LŽB „Beigelių krautuvėlei“

German public television channel ARD-1 filmed footage at the Lithuanian Jewish Community on July 13 with a focus on the Bagel Shop Café for a program to be called “Berlin-St. Petersburg,” according to director Christian Klemke.

He said although the itinerary for the film crew had been decided carefully prior to their trip through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia, they had encountered interesting sites along the way which they will include in the final production.

When they were considering what to film in Vilnius, they discovered Vilnius’s rich pre-war Jewish cultural and spiritual life. “I wanted to know what there is now, so many years after the Holocaust,” Klemke said. Local producer Karolis Pilipauskas told him about the Bagel Shop Café. The Lithuanian Jewish Community facilitated meetings with members of the older generation, including Holocaust survivors. “I was very interested to hear their stories. Young members of the Jewish community also came to the café,” Klemke said.

2016-07-182016-07-18

Call for Recipes

Dear members,

This year the Lithuanian Jewish Community will be actively involved in the European Jewish Culture Day program and is organizing different events to present the Jewish languages and Jewish cultural heritage to the public. European Jewish Culture Day will happen September 4, 2016.

The Bagel Shop Café will have on offer Jewish culinary heritage and is asking you to recall dishes made by your parents and grandparents, to find handwritten recipes (including in Yiddish) and to share them. We will prepare the best examples and offer them to the public during the event, and publish the recipes and descriptions.

2016-07-04

Israeli Ambassador Enchanted by Legendary Lithuanian Pastry

Not just family and military service, but also cooking and olive oil–these values have clearly insinuated themselves in the life of Israeli ambassador to Lithuania, Amir Maimon, 57. Despite the hectic daily schedule of colonel Maimon, who began his diplomatic service in Lithuania about one year ago, he still finds time for his favorite pastime, cooking. The Lifestyle section of the newspaper Lietuvos rytas reports ambassador Maimon’s family lives in Israel, but isn’t complaining about a lack of food. Instead, he spends his free time cooking all sorts of dishes.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-05-30

Litvak Won’t Give Grandchildren Pancake Recipe

As kosher cafés open around Vilnius and it’s possible to eat kosher food and bagels, Lithuanians are rediscovering Jewish culture with an emphasis on cuisine. That pleases the chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, attorney Faina Kukliansky, 61.

Jewish cuisine has always been popular in Lithuania. And it’s no wonder, since many Jews have lived in our country from ancient times, the Lifestyle Section of the Lietuvos rytas newspaper writes.

Some dishes which everyone thinks are traditional Lithuania are actually borrowings from Jews.

One such is potato pancakes, called latkes in Jewish cuisine. Kugel is also of Jewish origin.

Many are shocked to discover that even zeppelins, of which we are so proud, are also somewhat connected with Jews. They travelled to our country about 100 to 150 years ago from northern Germany together with Jews.

Read the entire article in Lithuanian here.
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2016-04-21

Israeli Business Community Tells Lithuanians to Enter Kosher Food Market

It’s said Jews are most interested in organic, ecological, vegetarian food products with a long shelf-life and unique items such as different flavors of honey. The public organization Versli Lietuva organized meetings between a delegation of Israeli food producers and about 150 Lithuanian businesses. The delegation representing 13 Israeli businesses met with Lithuanian businesses, taste-tested products and considered prospects for cooperation. The Lithuanian Government has named Israel as one of 14 priority Lithuanian export markets. At present about 40% of Lithuanian exports to Israel are food products and mainly milk products. Ze’ev Lavie, chairman of the Israeli Chamber of Commerce’s International Relations Division, told Verslo Žinios Lithuanian food products enterprises could better exploit the global popularity of kosher food.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-04-06

Challa at the Bagel Shop Café

The Bagel Shop Café has begun making challa bread for Sabbath the way it should be. Besides bagels, visitors can now purchase authentic challa bread, not too sweet but very delicious. A good Sabbath to all.

2016-04-01

Lox on Bagels: An Answer to Eggs Benedict?

A Bit about Bagels

The history of the bagel is surrounded by myth and legend but seems to begin in the 12th century. One version has it that a Church ban on commercial Jewish bakeries was responsible for its appearance. In 1264 Polish grand duke Bolesław the Pious issued his Statute of Kalisz or Charter for Jews of Grand Poland which allowed Jews to freely by, sell and touch bread in common with Christians. In response a group of Polish bishops forbade Christians from buying any food at all from Jews, as it were anathema. As Moses ben Israel Isserles put it in the 16th century” “it is preferable to live on dry bread and in peace in Poland” than to remain in better conditions in lands more dangerous for Jews. At some point Jews were allowed to work with bread which was boiled, and they created the bagel to comply with his ruling, according to this version. In 1610 the first mention appears of the word “bagel” in Yiddish in the written sources, in regulations issued by the Jewish council of Kraków, which stated that bagels were to be given as a gift to women in childbirth.

Whatever the case, the bagel was popular among Jews in Eastern Europe, and came with them to America in the 19th and 20th centuries.

2016-03-31

European Day of Jewish Culture 2016 Vilnius speaks Yiddish again!

European Day of Jewish Culture 2016
Vilnius speaks Yiddish again!