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4 Hanukkah recipes from across Asia that meld local cultures with Diaspora traditions
TAIPEI (JTA) — Asian-Jewish cuisine is a complex tapestry.
Jewish communities have existed across Asia for longer than many might assume, especially near major historical trade routes in places such as India, Singapore and Indonesia. Other communities developed during and after World War II. Some were part of or assimilated into local cultures, while others blended culinary traditions from other lands with the cuisines of their new homes.
So what do Jews in various parts of Asia eat on Hanukkah? Jews hailing from India, Singapore, Indonesia and Japan spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about some of their go-to holiday recipes.
Jeremy Freeman’s negi latkes use a type of onion native to China and grown across East Asia. (Jeremy Freeman)
Tokyo, Japan: Negi latkes
Before moving to Japan with his wife, Maiko, five years ago, Jeremy Freeman was selling vintage Jamaican records in New York City. In fact, Maiko was the one with the restaurant — Oni Sauce, a Japanese home-style food stand in Brooklyn’s Smorgasburg market.
But when the two made the move to Tokyo with their kids, they decided to switch it up. Freeman’s Jewish background takes the stage at their Tokyo restaurant, Freeman’s Shokudo — specifically, the smoky side: Freeman’s specializes in smoked fish and meats with a rotating seasonal menu. They often dabble in Japanese-Jewish fusion, with offerings like the bialy (made on request by a local Japanese bakery) with whitefish salad made from smoked saba (mackerel), smoked daikon pickles and tobiko, or flying fish roe.
On Hanukkah, Freeman whips up these potato latkes made with negi, a type of onion native to China and grown across East Asia, that falls somewhere between a scallion and a leek. Negi has a stronger flavor than white onions typically used in latkes, and they also produce a lot less water, creating a batter that’s cleaner and easier to work with. At Freeman’s Shokudo, they’re topped with creme fraiche, tobiko, and ikura or salmon roe.
Recipe
Ingredients
2 large potatoes
2 negis (Japanese leeks)
2 eggs
1/2 cup matzah meal
Tobiko
Ikura (salmon roe)
Dill
Sour cream
Directions
Grate potatoes with the large hole side of a box grater. Use your hands to squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
Chop negi into thin slices as you would with scallion. Mix with potatoes and add the two eggs (beaten) and matzah meal. Season with salt and black pepper.
Heat skillet or cast iron pan with safflower oil. Add a drop of the potato mixture to test oil temperature. When it sizzles, the oil is ready. In batches, so as to not crowd the pan, add potato mixture in a thin layer for pancakes about the size of a palm. When browned on one side, flip the pancake. Make sure the pan does not get too hot.
To serve, add a dollop of sourcream and top with ikura and tobiko and a sprig of dill.
Rosita Goldstein says Indonesian and Jewish cooking go hand in hand. (Rosita Goldstein)
Singapore/Indonesia: Deep-fried corn fritters
Rosita Goldstein’s Saturday morning Shabbat meals have become something of a local legend among Singapore’s Jewish community. Twice a month for a decade, she hosted anywhere from 30 to 100 community members at her home, where she prepared abundant spreads of Jewish and Indonesian classics now memorialized in a cookbook.
Goldstein, who is originally from Indonesia and converted to Judaism after meeting her husband, Harvey, in Singapore, says culinary traditions from Indonesia meld easily with kashrut, or Jewish culinary rules.
“A lot of recipes don’t use pork,” she said. “And then second of all, in the Jewish tradition, we don’t mix meat and dairy, and it’s very easy, because in most of Indonesian food, we use coconut milk.”
Life is a little slower now for the Goldsteins, who recently moved to Virginia and hope to split their time between the United States and Singapore. On Hanukkah, these deep-fried Indonesian corn fritters, served best with sour cream and sweet chili sauce, are a family favorite. In Indonesia, they’re a popular street food, but they are also a nod to the Hanukkah custom of frying in lots of oil.
Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup thinly sliced spring onion
1/4 cup chopped celery leaves
1 large egg
1 cup water
Oil, enough to deep fry the corn fritters.
White ground pepper, and salt to taste.
Directions
In a mixing bowl, mix the ingredients together until the flour, baking soda, garlic powder, white pepper, salt, egg and water are all well combined.
Add the corn kernels, spring onions, and celery. Mix it well.
Heat the oil in the pan. Using a spoon or small ladle, spoon portions of batter into the hot oil and fry. . Do not overcrowd the pan. Cook both sides of the corn fritters until golden brown.
Serve with sour cream and sweet chili sauce.
Esther David serves her vegetable patties with coriander chutney on Hanukkah. (Esther David)
Gujarat, India: Vegetable patties with coriander chutney
According to legend, the Bene Israel trace their beginnings in India to a shipwreck on the country’s west coast over 2,000 years ago. When British rule began in 1858, they came to Gujarat, a state on the coast and embraced local life there while maintaining their Jewish identity, leading to the formation of unique customs and culinary traditions.
Esther David is a Bene Israel Jew who grew up in Gujarat and writes about the Jewish Indian experience in her novels. Her most recent book, “Bene Appetit,” recounts the diverse traditions and cuisines of India’s five Jewish groups — traditions she says are quickly being forgotten due to modernization and immigration.
At Hanukkah, fried vegetable patties or fritters are traditional, usually served alongside carrot halva. David likes to serve the fritters with coriander chutney.
Recipes
Vegetable patty ingredients
6 potatoes
½ cup green peas
¼ teaspoon red chili powder
½ teaspoon cumin powder
1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
Salt to taste
Eggs, breadcrumbs, flour and oil for frying
Instructions
Peel potatoes and shell green peas. Cook both until soft.
Mash the potatoes and combine with peas. Add red chili powder, cumin powder, coriander leaves and salt to taste. Mix with oiled hands. Divide the mixture into equal portions and shape into round patties. (Optional: add 1 small grated carrot to the mixture of potatoes and peas.)
In another bowl, whisk eggs until frothy and dip each patty in the egg mixture. Then roll in a platter of flour and breadcrumbs and cover on both sides.
Heat oil in a pan and fry patties on both sides until golden brown. Drain and serve hot.
Coriander chutney ingredients
1 small bunch fresh coriander leaves
10 leaves fresh mint
1 medium green chili
½ cup grated coconut
¼ teaspoon sugar
Salt
Instructions
Clean and finely chop the coriander, mint leaves and green chili. Mix with the grated coconut, sugar and salt. Process in a mixer and serve with the patties.
Brod goreng means “fried bread” in Indonesian. (Screenshot from YouTube/Beqs Kitchen)
North Sulawesi, Indonesia: Brod Goreng
The Jewish community in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, might be one of the smallest in all of Asia. Made up mostly of descendants of Dutch Jews who came to Indonesia with the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century, the population has declined over time as Jews have attempted to assimilate amid an environment that is not always welcoming to them. In 2013, a historical Dutch synagogue in Surabaya, on the island of Java, was demolished by a real estate developer following protests by Islamic groups.
Yaakov Baruch, the rabbi for North Sulawesi’s community, is a descendant of both Dutch Jews and Holocaust survivors. He shared a recipe for brod goreng, a sweet fried bread for Hanukkah.
A Dutch-Indonesian culinary creation, brod goreng was only eaten in areas where Dutch Jews were living, Baruch said. “The Jews combined the culinary [traditions] between European and local Indonesian food, since this food is closer with sufgiyanot,” he said. “So the Jews in this country always prepare this ‘brod goreng’ next to our Menorah during Hanukkah.”
Recipe
Ingredients
250g flour
1 egg
5 tbsp sugar (you can add more if you like it sweet)
1 tsp yeast
2 tbsp butter
Water
Oil for frying
Directions
Beat sugar, eggs, butter until slightly white. Add flour & yeast, then add water little by little while stirring, until there are no lumps. Leave it for about 30 minutes, covered with a napkin.
Heat enough oil to submerge the portions. Before frying, stir the mixture for a while, then use a tablespoon to spoon pieces one by one into the cooking oil. They will be sticky when taking them off of the spoon. Fry until golden brown. (Optional: serve with powdered sugar.)
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Israeli ambassador meets with France’s Marine Le Pen, extending outreach to Europe’s far-right
(JTA) — Israeli Ambassador to France Joshua Zarka held a meeting on Wednesday with far-right French leader Marine Le Pen, marking the latest instance in a recent trend of Israeli outreach to Europe’s nationalist right.
The meeting, which was not publicly announced by either leader, was confirmed by the Israeli embassy to the French outlet Le Parisien. It was unclear what the pair discussed.
The meeting between Zarka and Le Pen, who is the former president of France’s far-right National Rally party, comes over a year since Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that the country would lift its longstanding boycott of far-right parties in Sweden, France and Spain.
Israel continues not to engage with far-right parties in Germany, and Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, who has invited leaders of parties with a history of antisemitism to conferences he has organized in Israel, has cited the Alternative for Germany party as an example of one that had not adequately shed its antisemitic roots.
National Rally was founded as the National Front in 1972 by Le Pen’s father, Jean Marie le Pen, who frequently espoused racist and antisemitic rhetoric and was convicted of Holocaust denial in 1987.
The party has since tried to distance itself from its antisemitic history, with its current leader, Jordan Bardella, visiting Jerusalem last March for the country’s International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, where he delivered the keynote speech.
Diplomatic relations between Israel and France have soured in recent years, with French President Emmanuel Macron voicing public criticism of Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza and formally recognizing Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Last May, Le Pen shot back at Macron after he said during a television appearance that “what Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is doing today is unacceptable” and “a disgrace.”
“I find this statement unworthy of the President of the French Republic,” Le Pen responded. “He keeps increasing his criticism of Israel, perhaps because he is incapable of providing a solution to facilitate the fight against Islamist fundamentalism.”
While Le Pen has long voiced her support for Israel, last week she threw her support behind Macron’s proposal to include Lebanon in a regional ceasefire, which Israel has previously opposed.
“It is our country’s duty to protect Lebanon, its people, and its sovereignty,” wrote Le Pen in a post on X. “This country is once again a collateral victim of the tensions in the region, suffering massive bombings on its capital. I support France’s proposal to include Lebanon in the framework of the regional ceasefire.”
Israeli leaders have pushed back on Macron’s requests and refused to allow the country to be involved in direct talks between Israel and Lebanon, which was formerly a French mandate.
“We’d like to keep the French as far away as possible from pretty much everything, but particularly when it comes to peace negotiations,” Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, told reporters earlier this week following ceasefire talks between Israel and Lebanon on Tuesday.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire.
Le Pen has also been critical of the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, telling Le Parisien last month that Trump “clearly did not fully appreciate the impact of his intervention.”
Le Pen is currently awaiting a July court ruling that will determine whether she can run in France’s presidential election next year, following her conviction last year for misusing European Parliament funds for political purposes.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israeli ambassador meets with France’s Marine Le Pen, extending outreach to Europe’s far-right appeared first on The Forward.
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Italian opposition leader Elly Schlein, whose father is Jewish, backs Giorgia Meloni in Trump split over Israel
(JTA) — Until this week, Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, was allies with Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu and adversaries with Elly Schlein, Italy’s opposition leader.
Now, Meloni is at odds with Trump and Netanyahu, her fellow conservatives in the United States and Israel, and getting a boost from Schlein, a liberal whose father is an American Jew.
The causes of the breach: the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, and the pope.
Schlein threw her support between Meloni after Trump attacked her for defending Pope Leo XIV, who said on Friday that “God does not bless any conflict” and that Christians should never be on the side of those who drop bombs. The criticism triggered a strong response from Trump, who said on Sunday that the Catholic leader was “terrible on foreign policy” and accused him of “catering to the radical left.”
That did not go over well in Italy, where about three-quarters of people are Catholic. In a statement Monday, Meloni came to Pope Leo’s defense, calling Trump’s remarks “unacceptable,” and adding, “The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and proper that he call for peace and condemn all forms of war.”
The break between Trump and Meloni marked a notable public rift between the two leaders, as Meloni has long been one of Trump’s closest political allies in Europe. The rift deepened the next day, when Meloni announced that Italy had ended its defense agreement with Israel, marking another significant shift in the right-wing government’s international relations.
“In light of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defense agreement with Israel,” Meloni told reporters in Verona, adding, “When there are things we don’t agree with, we act accordingly.”
Trump wasn’t happy that Meloni had rebuffed his pressure to join the Iran conflict and said as much on Wednesday on Fox News.
“She’s been negative,” Trump said. “Anybody that turned us down to helping with this Iran situation, we do not have the same relationship.”
Enter Schlein and a rare moment of cross-party unity in Italy.
Schlein has led Italy’s Democratic Party since 2023. She has said she is “very proudly the daughter of a Jewish father,” the American-Italian scholar Melvin Schlein, and that she has faced antisemitism even though she herself is not Jewish.
Her father grew up in New Jersey and lived on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, one of the communities ravaged on Oct. 7, 2023, during the 1960s. He has joined his daughter in criticizing Netanyahu but told an Italian paper that while she believes in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he does not. The relative of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, he also has said he is concerned about rising antisemitism in Europe — and that while he generally shares his daughter’s politics, he is concerned that some on the left have joined with the right in adopting antisemitic ideas.
On Wednesday, speaking in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Schlein, said she wished to express her “strongest condemnation” of Trump’s “attack on Meloni for having dutifully expressed solidarity with Pope Leo.”
She also emphasized her own opposition to the Iran war.
“I want to reiterate that Italy is a free and sovereign country, and our Constitution is clear: Italy repudiates war.” Schlein said during her speech to a standing ovation. “No foreign head of state can allow himself to attack, threaten, or disrespect our country and our government. We are adversaries in this chamber, but we are all Italian citizens and representatives of Italians, and we will not accept attacks or threats against the government and our country.”
Schlein had welcomed the suspension of the defense agreement and called on Italy to “stop obstructing” the suspension of the Association Agreement between Israel and the European Union, which governs trade and political relations between the entities.
This week, a petition by the European Citizens’ Initiative to end the agreement reached the required 1 million signatures needed to trigger a formal review by the European Commission.
“We, along with other progressive forces, have been calling for this for some time, because the dignity of this country is also measured by its respect for international law,” Schlein said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry dismissed the suspension. While Italy is the third-biggest arms exporter to Israel, following the United States and Germany, it only accounted for 1.3% of Israeli arms imports between 2021 and 2025, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“We have no security agreement with Italy. We have a memorandum of understanding from many years ago that has never contained any substantive content,” the ministry said in a statement. “This will not affect Israel’s security.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Our pioneering Reform synagogue has shrunk, but remains as vibrant as ever
To the editors:
As President of Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, I read Lauren Hakimi’s recent article “A pioneering Reform synagogue makes way for a booming Iranian Jewish community,” with both appreciation and concern. While the piece captures certain facts, it presents our congregation primarily through the lens of decline and demographic change. In doing so, it misses an important story.
Yes, we are preparing to sell the building that has been our home for decades, and our membership is smaller than it once was. But Temple Beth-El today is a vibrant, diverse, and deeply engaged congregation. Even a cursory look at our calendar would have shown the depth and breadth of the activities — worship, study, Israel engagement, social action and adult education — taking place at TBE.
Size is one measure of a synagogue’s success, but it is far from the only one. Even on that front, this story is incomplete. The sale of our building is not simply a response to changing numbers; it is a strategic step that will allow us to align our physical space with our mission and ensure long-term sustainability. This is a story not of retreat, but of reinvention. Further, after the sale, Temple Beth-El will be one of, if not the, most financially secure synagogues on Long Island.
We are proud of our role in the larger Great Neck community, and we cherish our values more than any building. Temple Beth-El has long been a strong voice for social justice, as Hakimi notes in mentioning our past hosting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Today, we carry that legacy forward in our current work with interfaith food pantries and supporting undocumented immigrants.
These aren’t just social activities; they are religious imperatives. Hakimi notes that she herself received her COVID vaccine at TBE. When we opened our doors as a vaccine hub, we were not just providing a service — we were advancing our values by practicing the preservation of life for the benefit of our entire Great Neck family.
Finally, we are concerned that the reporter’s conclusion — “This is the most compelling thing anyone has told me for this story: that even Orthodox Jews benefit from having a Reform synagogue for a neighbor” — is misleading. We are proud to be good neighbors in a diverse community. But our purpose is not to justify our existence to others — it is to serve our congregants and all who seek a Judaism that is liberal, inclusive and engaged with the world.
Great Neck is not a zero-sum game of demographics, but a rich mosaic. Our synagogue’s commitment to a liberal, inclusive, and socially active Judaism is as essential to our town today as it was at our founding in 1928.
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