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A new exhibit on Jewish delis explores the roots and rise of a uniquely American phenomenon
(New York Jewish Week) — It was a stupendously bad idea to arrive at the press preview for the New-York Historical Society’s new exhibit, “‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli,” on an empty stomach.
The exhibit — which originated at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles and opens in New York on Friday, Nov. 11 — traces the mouthwatering history of the Jewish deli, beginning with the first waves of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These new Americans created a “fusion food born of immigration,” according to the exhibit, adapting Eastern and Central European dishes like pastrami and knishes to meet Jewish dietary needs and serving them all under the same roof.
From there, the exhibit examines how delis evolved and, as Jews left cities for the suburbs in the mid-20th century, how they spread from coast to coast. Relying on a mix of archival materials, informative panels, interactive displays and more, “I’ll Have What She’s Having” seems uniquely designed to make visitors crave a pastrami sandwich.
(Sadly, while a tray of babka and rugelach were laid out for the opening, there is no actual pastrami available on site.)
It’s also, as Louise Mirrer, the president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society said in her opening remarks, “a trip down memory lane” for any native New Yorker.
Most of all, “I’ll Have What She’s Having” establishes the Jewish delicatessen as a uniquely American phenomenon. Writer Lara Rabinovitch, a curator of the exhibit who has a PhD in history and Jewish studies, said there were “important caveats” before she got involved in its creation. “If we’re going to do this exhibition, it cannot be grounded in nostalgia and kitsch,” she told me. “It has to be grounded in research, in archival research, and it has to take the Jewish deli as a part of the American landscape — not as a Jewish niche object of rarified Jewish pleasure.”
The now-shuttered Carnegie Delicatessen in New York in 2008. (Ei Katsumata/Alamy Stock Photo)
“Because, to me, and I fundamentally believe this, the Jewish deli is a part of American culture,” she added. “And it is something that all Americans take part in, in one way or another, whether it’s through pop culture, or through actually going to the Jewish deli, or working in Jewish deli.”
This Americanness is emphasized throughout the exhibit, which includes an area dedicated to Levy’s iconic “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye” ad campaign and explanations of how many delis added a wider array of cuisines to attract more diverse customers. There’s also a focus on the deli in pop culture, which includes costumes from the deli scenes seen on the Amazon Prime hit “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Fascinatingly, one thing the exhibit doesn’t do is define what a deli actually is. “We came up with it as a community, a place where people gather to eat Jewish food of one kind or another, but it’s always changing,” Rabinovich said. “I mean, we all know, in certain capacities, what a Jewish deli is. But it’s sort of like pornography — it doesn’t have a definition, but you know it when you see it.”
Case in point: This version of “I’ll Have What She’s Having” has an area dedicated to dairy restaurants — not something that most people would associate with the classic Jewish deli. (For those who keep kosher, delis and dairy restaurants must be kept as separate as the meat- and milk-based dishes that they serve.)
Other New York-centric details include an area dedicated to “Bagels Over Broadway,” examining the relationship between iconic eateries like the Carnegie Deli and Stage Delicatessen — both closed, alas — and the greater theater community. There’s also an area on delis in the outer boroughs, including Ben’s Best Kosher Delicatessen, which was a popular gathering place for Holocaust survivors in Rego Park, Queens.
Among the compelling artifacts on display are a bottle of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda from 1930s; a meat grinder from the early 20th century for making kishke, salami and the like; and matchbooks from delis of yore.
Particularly notable is historical proof that New Yorkers did, in fact, listen to Katz’s Delicatessen’s famous slogan, “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army”: On display is a 1944 letter from Italy from Private Benjamin Segan to his fiancée in Manhattan. “I had some tasty Jewish dishes just like home,” he writes, describing how his mother had sent him a, yes, salami.
According to the New-York Historical Society, by the 1930s, there were an estimated 3,000 delis in the city — today, only about a dozen remain. One classic survivor is Katz’s — the setting for the famous “When Harry Met Sally” scene that inspired the title of the exhibit. Third-generation owner Jake Dell told me that “food, tradition-slash-nostalgia, and atmosphere,” are the reasons for his deli’s enduring appeal today.
Among the items on view: a uniform from the 2nd Avenue Deli, left, and costumes from the set of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” (Lisa Keys)
Because, here in New York, especially, there are numerous options for deli delights, from the old-school classics to newer establishments like Frankel’s in Greenpoint. I remarked to Rabinovitch that there is something slightly incongruous about standing beneath the iconic 2nd Avenue Deli sign inside a museum. Here, its Hebraic letters are viewed as an artifact; meanwhile, while it’s no longer at its original Second Avenue location, we could still go there for lunch.
“You don’t have to go that far,” she pointed out. “You can go across the street to Nathan’s hot dog cart. And that is the Jewish deli, also. It’s literally a part of the American landscape. It’s part of the New York landscape. There is a trope, ‘Oh, the deli is dying, you can’t get a pastrami sandwich anywhere.’ We believe the deli is everywhere. It’s just how you think about it.”
As much as I loved this sentiment, I’m not really a street meat kind of person. It was a sunny, unseasonably warm morning, and I had a terrible urge to blow off the rest of the day, head to Katz’s for a pastrami sandwich and spend the afternoon wandering the Lower East Side.
But I had an article to write. So I hopped on a Citi Bike, headed to midtown, and picked up a bagel that I could hold one-handed as I wrote this story.
“‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli” is on view at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, beginning Friday, Nov. 11, 2022 through Sunday, April 2, 2023.
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The post A new exhibit on Jewish delis explores the roots and rise of a uniquely American phenomenon appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What it means for Jews when Trump administration officials misquote the Bible
(JTA) — The Bible is back in the news.
In a Pentagon prayer service on April 15, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth quoted what was seemingly meant to be a verse from the ancient Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, but was in fact from the Gospel of Tarantino, as Stephen Colbert quipped.
In response, Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesman, released a statement on X noting that the homage to the auteur’s 1994 film “Pulp Fiction” was intentional. Hegseth had “shared a custom prayer … which was obviously inspired by dialogue in ‘Pulp Fiction.’”
Two days later, the New York Times suggested that President Donald Trump was likely participating in “America Reads the Bible,” a marathon reading of scripture to take place in Washington, D.C.’s Museum of the Bible, as a means to repair his relationship with Catholics after he publicly sparred with the pope over the Iran war and deleted a tweet depicting himself as Jesus Christ.
“President Trump has a complicated relationship with the Bible,” the paper noted. “He has often called it his favorite book, has posed with it for photographers outside a church and has sold his own edition for $60. But he has also struggled to name a favorite passage or even pick a favorite Testament between the two.”
At the event on April 21, Trump read a passage from 2 Chronicles, in which God promises to heal the land if its people “humble themselves, pray, and seek My favor.”
As a scholar specializing in the influence of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish ideas on American history, I can attest that the habit of American leaders citing chapter and verse (accurate or not) is as old as the United States itself. In fact, it dates back to the Pilgrims. It has been a powerful and effective means of cultivating covenantal community. Americans who cited scripture have forged a country unique in world history in the religious freedom it has offered to all its citizens, not the least of which to us Jews, the original biblically bound people.
The America ethos of fighting for freedom and liberty, drawn from the story of the Children of Israel millennia ago, to this day shapes how the United States operates both internally and on the world stage.
Reflecting on the harsh and uncertain early days of Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, who signed the Mayflower Compact and would serve as the territory’s governor for roughly three decades, paraphrased the Exodus story and Moses’ final speech in Deuteronomy. Arriving in the New World, he said, his fellow Pilgrims could only see:
a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men — and what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to view from this wilderness a more goodly country to feed their hopes; for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects.
In the first half of this excerpt from his journal, Bradford was alluding to the Israelites’ escape from Egypt into the rough wilderness in which they would wander for 40 years. And then he referenced the mountaintop on the precipice of the Promised Land, Pisgah, on which Moses stood as his people were about to complete their arduous journey as described in the last of the Five Books of Moses. To Bradford, scripture was a source of strength and solace during communally challenging times.
Ten years later, the Puritan leader John Winthrop would describe in similarly Hebraic lens how if Massachusetts Bay Colony’s residents will do right in the eyes of the Lord, “We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when 10 of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies… For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
Winthrop was misquoting of Leviticus 26:8: “Five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred of you shall give chase to ten thousand.” However, the details were less important than the sense of divine mission that was powering the Pilgrims’ and the Puritan’s project.
Later, the American Founders also possessed a powerful attachment to the Bible, even if the details were sometimes hazy.
John Adams, in 1776, after hearing a sermon paralleling the Patriot cause to Israel’s fight against Pharaoh’s tyranny, ruminated: “Is it not a Saying of Moses, ‘who am I, that I should go in and out before this great People’?” It actually was not a saying of Moses. Adams was conflating Moses’ “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh…” speech in Exodus 3:11 with a a request by a much later Jewish ruler, King Solomon that God “give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people” (2 Chronicles 1:10).
A year earlier, the equally-enamored-with-
Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the country’s most biblically literate president ever, often weaved scripture into his seminal addresses, from “four score and seven years ago,” which was likely borrowed from a rabbinic sermon citing a verse in Psalms, to a purposeful paraphrase of Exodus 19:5 when, on Feb. 21, 1861, he referred to Americans writ large as the Lord’s “almost chosen people.”
It hasn’t only been political leaders, of course, who rephrase the Word in an effort to encourage Americans to live up to their highest ideals. Martin Luther King Jr. made reference to that same mountaintop as Bradford in the civil rights leader’s final speech on April 3, 1968 in Memphis. He rousingly reassured his audience that:
We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop… I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
Citing (and mis-citing) scripture, then, is a longstanding and worthy American tradition.
Some Jews might feel excluded by Jesus and New Testament texts being invoked in a nonsectarian context by public leaders, and verses can be abused as opposed to correctly interpreted. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of looking to the Bible to shape the soul of America has served a largely positive purpose. A religious civic space is full of happier, healthier people who give more charity, have more children and forge a strong sense of community.
Regardless of one’s party or views on those in power today, then, quoting the Bible in the American public sphere has long characterized the American experiment. On the whole, it has been largely good for the American collective character and good for the Jews. Occasionally, these quotes might be imperfect, but they reflect a worthy national will: the desire to see through the long march towards liberty and justice for all.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post What it means for Jews when Trump administration officials misquote the Bible appeared first on The Forward.
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Recalling Yeva Beider, devoted widow of the writer Chaim Beider
דעם 6טן אַפּריל 2026 האָט אין ברוקלין זיך געפֿעלט יעוואַ לאָזדערניק־ביידער ע״ה אין עלטער פון 103 יאָר. זי איז צום בעסטן באַקאַנט אין דער ייִדיש־וועלט צוליב איר אָפּגעגעבנקייט איר מאַן, דעם פֿאַרשטאָבענעם שרײַבער, פּאָעט און רעדאַקטאָר חיים ביידער ע״ה.
זינט חיים ביידערס טויט אין 2003 האָט יעוואַ זיך אָפּגעגעבן מיטן אָפּהיטן זײַן ליטעראַרישע ירושה ובפֿרט דורכן העלפֿן אַרויסגעבן זײַן לעקסיקאָן פֿון די ייִדישע שרײַבער אין ראַטן־פֿאַרבאַנד, רעדאַקטירט דורך באָריס סאַנדלער און גענאַדי עסטרײַך. דאָס איז אַ וויכטיקער צוגאָב צום לעקסיקאָן פֿון דער מאָדערנער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור, ווי אויך צו דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור־פֿאָרשונג בכלל.
דורך אַ שמועס מיט איר זון מאַטוויי, האָב איך זיך דערוווּסט אַז יעוואַ לאָזדערניק איז געבוירן געוואָרן דעם 27סטן נאָוועמבער 1922 אין שטעטל וואָלאָטשיסק, מערבֿ־אוקראַיִנע, בײַם טײַך זברוטש. די צווייטע וועלט־מלחמה האָט זי איבערגעלעבט אין סאָוועטן־רוסלאַנד און אין 1946 האָט זי חתונה געהאַט מיט באָריס שפּיזעלן, וואָס האָט אָנגעפֿירט מיטן פֿינאַנץ־אָפּטייל פון דער גובערניע. יעווא האָט אויך געאַרבעט פֿאַר דער גובערניע־רעגירונג.
מיט שפּיזעלן האָט זי געהאַט צוויי זין, מאַטוויי און איסאַק. ווען דער עלטערער זון, מאַטוויי, איז געבוירן געוואָרן, האָבן זיי אים געמאַכט א ברית און צוליב דעם האָבן ביידע אָנגעוווירן זייערע שטעלעס בײַ דער רעגירונג, ווי אויך זייער דירה. שפּיזעל האָט באַקומען אַרבעט אין אַ כעמיע־פֿאַבריק. אין 1967 איז ער אַוועק אין דער אייביקייט.
אין 1978 האָט יעוואַ חתונה געהאַט מיט חיים ביידערן און צוזאַמען האָבן זיי עולה געווען אין 1996. אין זעלביקן יאָר האָט דער פֿאָרווערטס, צוזאַמען מיט אַנדערע ייִדישע קולטור־אָרגאַניזאַציעס, זיי פֿאַרבעטן אין די פֿאַראייניקטע שטאַטן, וווּ זיי זענען פֿאַרבליבן. ביידער איז נפֿטר געוואָרן אין 2003.
ווען איך האָב באַקומען די טרויעריקע בשׂורה וועגן יעוואַס פּטירה זענען מיר געקומען אויפֿן געדאַנק אַ שלל מיט זכרונות. ווער ס׳האָט זיך פֿאַרנומען מיט ייִדיש אין שטאָט ניו־יאָרק במשך פֿון די שפּעט-90ער יאָרן פֿונעם פֿאָריקן יאָרהונדערט, און פֿרי אינעם ערשטן יאָרצענדלינג פֿון איצטיקן, וועט קיין מאָל ניט פֿאַרגעסן אָט דאָס פּאָרל ייִדישיסטן: ער, דער שטילער, מיט די דיקע ברילן און ווײַסע, צעשויבערטע האָר פֿון אַן אינטעלעקטואַל, און זי — לעבעדיק און באַרעדעוודיק.
זי איז געווען זײַן פֿאַרוואַלטערין, קען מען זאָגן. זי האָט געפֿירט זײַן צײַטפּלאַן, געזען אַז ער זאָל עסן באַצײַטנס, און תּמיד מיטגעבראַכט עסן מיט זיך, כּדי מיטצוטיילן מיט אַנדערע: אַ פּעקל זיסוואַרג, אַ האָניק־לעקעך אַ מתּנה אויף יום־טובֿ, צי וואָס ניט איז. זי האָט געקענט גוט דערציילן אַ וויץ און האָט שיין געפֿירט די שטוב.
איין מאָל בין איך געווען בײַ איר אָפּנעמען אַרכיוואַלע מאַטעריאַלן ביידערס און זי האָט מיר דערלאַנגט אַ פּסחדיקן מיטאָג: איר ספּעציעלן טאָג־טעגלעכן סאַלאַט ֹ— שאַלאַטן מיט פּאָמידאָר און אוגערקע, אַלץ צעשניטן און באַשאָטן מיט אַ ביסל זאַלץ און געלאָזן שטיין אַ נאַכט אין פֿרידזשידעיר. ס׳האָט געהאַט אַזאַ פֿרישן טעם… און דערצו איבערגעוואַרעמטע כרעמזלעך אַליין־געמאַכטע.
אַז איך האָב דאָס איין מאָל דערציילט דער ייִדיש־ליטעראַטור־פֿאָשערין שבֿע צוקער האָט זי מיר גלײַך איבערגעגעבן אייגענע זכרונות — וועגן יעוואַ ביידערס יויך. זי און דער היסטאָריקער דוד פֿישמאַן זענען ביידע געווען בײַ די ביידערס אין שטוב אין מאָסקווע, האָט יעוואַ זיי דערלאַנגט אַ יויך צום טיש וואָס, זאָגט שבֿע, „איז געווען איינס אויף דער וועלט.“ איין מאָל איז שבֿע געפֿאָרן אין אַן אויטאָ מיטן ייִדישן קולטור־טוער גרשון ווײַנער ז״ל און אַנדערע, ווען עמעצער האָט דערמאָנט דעם נאָמען „יעוואַ ביידער“. אַלע האָבן תּיכּף געלויבט איר יויך און מסכּים געווען אַז ס׳איז טעם גן־עדן.
יעוואַ האָט אויך געהאַט אויסערגעוויינטלעכע זכרונות צו דערציילן פֿון איר לעבן. זי איז למשל אַ מאָל געווען אויף אַ חתונה, וואָס מע האָט געפּראַוועט אויף ביידע זײַטן פֿון טײַך זברוטש: די מחותּנים און גוטע־פֿרײַנד האָבן געוואָרפֿן מיט „מזל־טובֿס“ און פּעקלעך עסנוואַרג איבערן טײַך. אין 2012 האָט דער ניו־יאָרקער רוסיש־שפּראַכיקער פֿאַרלאַג „ליבערטי פּאָבלישינג האַוס“ פֿאַרעפֿנטלעכט אירע זכרונות אונטערן טיטל „אימענאַ נעזאַבוועניע“ (אומפֿאַרגעסלעכע נעמען).
יעוואַ איז געווען אַ ליבער מענטש און ליב געהאַט די ייִדישע קולטור. זי וועט אונדז שטאַרק אויספֿעלן.
The post Recalling Yeva Beider, devoted widow of the writer Chaim Beider appeared first on The Forward.
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2 Jewish men stabbed in London, in attack British PM Keir Starmer calls ‘utterly appalling’
(JTA) — Two Jewish men were stabbed on the street in a heavily Orthodox neighborhood of London on Wednesday, escalating anxieties amid ongoing incidents targeting local Jews that police say reflect Iranian involvement.
A man was arrested at the scene in Golders Green after being apprehended first by members of the Shomrim, a Jewish security force that operates in parts of London. Hatzola, the Jewish-operated nonprofit emergency service whose ambulances were recently burned in an arson, treated the two victims.
“One male was seen running along Golders Green Road armed with a knife and attempting to stab Jewish members of the public. Shomrim responded immediately and detained the suspect. Police attended and deployed a taser,” Shomrim said in a post to social media.
Both men who were stabbed — one in his 70s and the other in his 30s — are hospitalized in stable condition, according to the Metropolitan Police.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the attack, calling it antisemitic and praising the nonprofit services that responded.
“The antisemitic attack in Golders Green is utterly appalling. Attacks on our Jewish community are attacks on Britain,” he said on X. “Thank you to Shomrim, Hatzola and the police for acting swiftly. Those responsible will be brought to justice.”
The incident comes amid a series of attacks on Jewish institutions, and arrests of people who allegedly staged them or otherwise are accused of posing threats to the London Jewish community. No one had previously been injured in the incidents, which have included multiple arson attacks on local synagogues and, on Tuesday, a fire at a memorial in Golders Green for those murdered by the Iranian regime. Police have arrested dozens of people in recent weeks and have said they see evidence that Iran may be paying locals to stoke violence against Jews.
The Metropolitan Police said they were working to identify the nationality and background of the attacker in Golders Green, who they said was 45 and had attempted to stab officers to responded to the scene. They also acknowledged that the current situation is alarming to Jews in London.
“We are aware of the significant distress and concern this incident is likely to cause in the face of a number of incidents in the local area,” Deputy Chief Superintendent Luke Williams, who leads policing in the area, said in a statement. “A suspect is in custody, and investigators are considering all possible motives.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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