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‘Emotional and intense’: Douglas Emhoff’s trip to Poland and Germany brings him back to his Jewish ancestral roots
BERLIN (JTA) — For second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, the final hours of a five-day working trip to Poland and Germany brought everything into focus.
It was here in the underground information center in Germany’s central Holocaust memorial that Emhoff sat down with several survivors, including two who had recently fled war-torn Ukraine.
Sitting in a small circle, they shared their stories. One of them “was saved in the Holocaust as a young baby, settled in Ukraine and then just had to flee again. And she was taken in by Germany,” Emhoff said in remarks immediately following the meeting. “It was a real emotional and intense way to finish the trip.”
The journey, which he undertook with Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, included visits to Krakow, Poland; to the nearby memorial and museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau; and to the Polish village of Emhoff’s ancestors, Gorlice.
It was all intended to feed into the design of a “national action plan against antisemitism” that Emhoff is working on with Lipstadt and others. The second gentleman has made combating Jew hatred his main focus since entering the White House, touring college campuses to talk on the subject and leading events with Jewish organizations.
But this trip, which began on Friday, aligning with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, took Emhoff’s efforts onto the international stage — and brought him back to his ancestral Jewish roots.
Emhoff’s two days in Berlin were a whirlwind. On Monday, he met with U.S. Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann, Germany’s commissioner of Jewish life Felix Klein and other leaders. On Tuesday, he and Lipstadt took part in an interfaith roundtable hosted by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, before visiting a historic synagogue in former East Berlin and meeting with members of the community. He also visited three Holocaust memorials in the city center: one dedicated to Sinti and Roma victims of the Nazis, another to homosexual victims, and finally Germany’s massive Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
From left, shown at a meeting in Berlin, Jan. 30, 2023: U.S. antisemitism monitor Deborah Lipstadt, Emhoff, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann, Germany’s commissioner on Jewish life Felix Klein and Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life. (U.S. Embassy Berlin)
Speaking this morning to the small gathering of Muslims, Christians and Jews hosted at the Central Council headquarters, Emhoff said he could not help thinking of his grandparents, who had escaped persecution in Poland and settled in the United States.
“They found opportunity and freedom,” he said, “and now, 120 years later, their great-grandchild is the first Jewish spouse of a United States president or vice president, who is working to combat hate and antisemitism. That’s something isn’t it?” he said, as if pinching himself. “It’s a remarkable full circle.”
Abraham Lehrer, Central Council vice president, told the guests that interfaith relations between Jews and Christians are generally good, and that the groups have developed channels of communication “in case of heavy disputes.”
Relations with Muslims function well on the grassroots level, he said, “but it is quite difficult with heads of some organizations, because a lot of them still have connections to antisemitic or antidemocratic organizations.” Participants in the round table commented afterward on the “positive atmosphere.”
“I was very impressed by the young Muslim man [Burak Yilmaz], who is organizing trips for young Muslims to visit Auschwitz,” said Rabbi Szolt Balla, who serves a congregation in Leipzig and is rabbi for the German Armed Forces. “It was a very good and productive thing to meet in this circle,” he added
Emhoff told reporters the purpose of the trip was to share best practices and feed ideas into the “national action plan” that he is working on with Lipstadt, U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain and White House Liaison to the American Jewish community Shelley Greenspan.
“We are going to put our heads together and talk about what we learned and then put it into the pipeline so we can come out with the most effective national plan,” Emhoff told reporters after the day’s meetings. He added that he would be addressing the United Nations in early February.
Emhoff’s last official act here was his meeting with survivors. He changed his schedule “just in order to meet with them and listen to their stories,” said Rudiger Mahlo, Germany representative of the Conference for Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Sonja Tartakovska, who had survived a Nazi mass shooting operation in her village during World War II, told Emhoff how she had to flee Ukraine last year without a change of clothing. She is one of the Ukrainian Jews whom the Claims Conference brought to Germany last spring, said Mahlo, who took part in the meeting.
The fact that former Holocaust victims were now seeking refuge in Germany was not missed.
Emhoff speaks with 101-year-old Margot Friedländer during a meeting with Holocaust survivors in Berlin, Jan. 31, 2023. (U.S. Embassy Berlin)
“We have been talking about the Holocaust, talking about antisemitism, about violence and oppression and here in Europe all these years later these things are still happening through this unjust, unprovoked war,” Emhoff told reporters after the final meeting of the day.
From people like Tartakovska “you hear these stories of survival. A lot of it was a twist of fate, just some luck. A non-Jewish stranger deciding on a whim to do something, that then led to a life long-lived.”
“I was also struck: One woman” — German Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlaender — “was 101 years old. Imagine living with those memories for 80 years. Those are the kinds of things I take back with me,” Emhoff said.
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A Yiddish lecture in Munich by literature scholar Nathan Cohen
דעם 17טן יוני וועט נתן כּהן, אַן אָנגעזעענער פֿאָרשער פֿון דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור בײַם בר־אילן אוניווערסיטעט, האַלטן אַ רעפֿעראַט אויף ייִדיש בײַם אוניווערסיטעט אויפֿן נאָמען פֿון לודוויג מאַקסימיליאַן אין מינכן, דײַטשלאַנד.
כּהן וועט רעדן וועגן דער געשיכטע פֿון דער מאָדערנער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור און די וועגן און אָפּוועגן פֿון איר אַנטוויקלונג אויף די זײַטן פֿון דער ייִדישער פּרעסע, ווי אויך וועגן דעם פֿענאָמען פֿון דער שונד־ליטעראַטור.
די „שלום־עליכם לעקציע“, ווי מע רופֿט אָט די אונטערנעמונג, איז אַ יערלעכער רעפֿערעט אויף ייִדיש אין אָנדענק פֿון עוויטאַ וויעצקי, ז״ל, וואָס האָט די ערשטע געהאַט דעם שיינעם אײַנפֿאַל מיט 15 יאָר צוריק. „זי האָט אַרויסגעפֿירט ייִדיש פֿון די קליינע דײַטשישע אוניווערסיטעט־קלאַסן און פֿאַרבעטן אַ ברייטן עולם צו הערן אַ ייִדיש וואָרט – און דווקא אין אַקאַדעמישן פֿאָרמאַט,“ האָט דערקלערט דאַשע וואַכרושאָווע, אַ ייִדיש־פֿאָרשערין בײַם אוניווערסיטעט.
יעדעס יאָר האַלט אַ היסטאָריקער, שפּראַך־וויסנשאַפֿטלער, ליטעראַטור־פֿאָרשער אָדער שרײַבער אַ רעפֿעראַט פֿאַרן ברייטן מינכנער עולם אין גאַנצן אויף ייִדיש. „אין עולם זיצן אי ייִדיש־קענער אי אַזעלכע וואָס ווייסן גאָר ווייניק וועגן דער שפּראַך, אָבער האָבן דעם מוט זיך אײַנצוהערן און זיך לאָזן טראָגן פֿונעם ייִדישן וואָרט, וויסנדיק אַז זיי ריזיקירן ניט צו פֿאַרשטיין דעם מיין אָדער צו פֿאַרשטיין אים פֿאַלש,“ האָט וואַכרושאָווע געזאָגט.
פֿאַראינטערעסירטע קענען בײַזײַן די לעקציע אָדער אויפֿן אָרט אין מינכן, אָדער דורך דער אינטערנעץ. כּדי זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
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Hundreds of Jewish leaders call on Israeli ambassador to apologize for attack on J Street
(JTA) — More than 500 rabbis, cantors and Jewish communal leaders have signed onto a letter calling on Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, to rescind and apologize for remarks describing J Street as a “cancer within the Jewish community.”
The letter, which J Street shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Thursday, accused Leiter, a Netanyahu appointee and former settler leader, of using language that “dehumanizes fellow Jews” during his remarks in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
J Street is the leading liberal pro-Israel lobby, and has increasingly staked out positions that have departed from other mainstream pro-Israel groups. Last month, the group announced its opposition to continued U.S. military aid to Israel, which Leiter decried in his remarks.
The signatories wrote that while Judaism embraces vigorous debate, disagreements must be conducted with “humanity, humility and respect for the dignity of every Jew.”
“At this painful and polarized moment in Jewish life, leaders on both sides of the ocean bear a heightened responsibility to lower the flames rather than fan them further,” the letter read. “We therefore call on you to retract your remarks and issue a public apology to the many American Jews, rabbis, cantors and communal leaders who have been hurt by them.”
Among the signatories were New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, former U.S. ambassadors to Israel Daniel Kurtzer and Tom Nides, National Council of Jewish Women CEO Jody Rabhan, Union for Reform Judaism President Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Rabbi David Saperstein, the director emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami told JTA that his initial reaction to Leiter’s comments was “simply dismay on behalf of Israel and on behalf of the Jewish community.”
“It’s a shame, because Israel, right now, needs all the friends it can get, and it really needs diplomats who seek to open doors and not slam them in people’s faces,” Ben-Ami said.
The Israeli Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from JTA.
The comments from Leiter follow a long history of criticism of the lobby from pro-Israel officials. In 2017, former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman called the group “worse than kapos,” a reference to Jews who aided the Nazis during WWII.
While Ben-Ami said that the latest attack was “not new,” he felt spurred to craft a communal rebuke of Leiter’s rhetoric because he felt it was “breaking” not just the US-Israel relationship, but the relationship between the “American Jewish community and the Israeli Jewish community.”
“Within 24 hours we had hundreds and hundreds of people, and I think it just shows what a raw nerve Ambassador Leiter has touched here, and just what a big mistake it is for the Israeli government to write off the majority of Jewish Americans who are deeply critical of the government but supportive of the state and the people,” Ben-Ami said of the number of signatories.
While Ben-Ami said that J Street had long been invited to meet with former Israeli ambassadors, he claimed that since Leiter arrived, the group had been “blacklisted by the Embassy, and there’s been no engagement whatsoever.”
The letter comes as J Street has also faced scrutiny from across the political aisle, with the Zionist Organization of America calling for Hillels, Jewish Community Relations Councils and federations to cease relations with the group, while the student government of Sarah Lawrence College rejected an application to form a chapter of the group on its campus.
“There’s going to be people to our left who are intolerant and you know engage in similar tactics to folks on the right who are intolerant and try to shut out those they disagree with, and that is just as disturbing,” Ben-Ami said.
Looking ahead, Ben-Ami said that he hoped the letter would serve as a reminder that Jewish leaders need to make room for ideological differences rather than treat dissent as disloyalty.
“The message more broadly here is, we need to embrace the diversity of opinion,” Ben-Ami said. “We need to embrace our disagreements and recognize that that is indeed part of Jewish tradition.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Despite what (Ashkenazi) tradition says, not everyone eats dairy on Shavuot
This week, synagogues and community centers around the country will abound with opportunities for a festive scoop of ice cream. To heck with the lactose intolerant among us; it’s Shavuot, a festival that for many is as synonymous with all things dairy as Passover is with all things matzot. In my childhood Ashkenazi home, Shavuot meant my bubbe’s cheese blintzes freshly pan fried and golden brown on the kitchen table, ready for me to drench in syrup. Each year, the holiday, with its invitation to indulge in specially prepared creamy desserts, won me back to my Jewish culinary birthright after I spent Passover explaining my unleavened lunches to narrow-minded classmates. This year, however, I’ve been the one getting the education.
“Not all Jewish communities explicitly connect Shavuot with dairy foods,” Leah Koenig, whose cookbooks include the encyclopedic The Jewish Cookbook and the forthcoming The Dessert Table: 100 Joyful Jewish Sweets, told me. “It is a reminder that Jewish cuisine is anything but a monolith.”
Indeed, at Shavuot tables across the diaspora, you’ll find a parade of sweet, milky delicacies, and sometimes none at all, revealing a diversity ripe for this season when we recite the story of Ruth.
Born in Europe, Shavuot foods grew up around the world
Torah scholars and rabbis tend to agree that eating dairy on Shavuot first emerged as a tradition (minhag) during the High Middle Ages, at first among Ashkenazi Jews in France and Germany. Agreement ends there. A 2009 study offered nearly 150 reasons for the tradition. Lesser known theories posit that dairy pays homage to our nomadic ancestors. Teachings that endure today evoke the Torah and Israel’s symbolic associations with milk and honey.
Since its first appearance in Western Europe, dairy at Shavuot tables has gone global. “Sephardim, Ashkenazim, Mizrahim celebrate Shavuot eating dairy foods,” said Hélène Jawhara Piñer, author of Food, Jews, and Spain, which studies medieval Spanish Jews through their cuisine. During the Middle Ages, she noted, a culinary dialogue ran between Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities. “Rabbis, merchants, physicians, refugees and manuscripts circulated between Iberia, Provence, Italy, North Africa, France, and the German lands,” she said. In her latest cookbook, Matzah and Flour, she offers a Shavuot recipe for a sweet version of barkoukch, a Moroccan milk-and-semolina soup she calls one of the oldest Sephardi Shavuot foods still eaten today. It shares a heritage with other Sephardi and Mizrahi desserts like arroz con leche, a cinnamon-scented rice pudding, and its rose-flavored cousin, shir berenj.
For the modern-day Bene Israel, a small community of Indian Jews whose roots in the coastal region south of Mumbai date back to 175 BCE, it took 1,500 years and the arrival of Sephardic Jews before they associated eating dairy treats with Shavuot, according to Zilka Joseph, an Ann Arbor-based poet and editor who explores her Bene Israel heritage through her writing. Isolated from the diaspora, the Bene Israel sustained a handful of rituals (Shabbat, reciting the Shema). When Sephardic families arrived in present-day Kerala after their expulsion from Spain, these practices helped them identify the Bene Israel as Jewish. They went on to introduce the Bene Israel to a host of other traditions, which could have included dairy on Shavuot, Joseph told me.
Today, most of the Bene Israel live in Israel, but even the roughly 5,000 who remain in India celebrate Shavuot with dairy specialties, according to Nissim Pingle, program director at the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in India. These include custards and mousses — like basundi, a creamy slowly simmered milk dessert bursting with cardamom seasoning and chopped nuts, and shrikhand, a tangy strained yogurt often infused with fresh fruit like in-season mango — that are also common at birthdays and other special family occasions.
“When people ask about Bene Israel food, and they say, ‘So, is it really Maharashtrian food?’” said Joseph, referring to the Indian state where the Bene Israel’s ancestral home is located today. “It is,” she said, “but we adapted it to our kosher laws.”
The Bene Israel are not alone. Jews around the world ate the foods influenced by the places they settled and adapted them to dietary law.
“Food culture was shaped at least as much by geography, commerce and shared local taste as by rabbinic prescription,” said Jawhara Piñer.
“The cheesecake Ashkenazi Jews eat on Shavuot is a descendant of the curd cheese-based cakes that Jews and their neighbors ate in Germany,” Koenig told me.
Trading dairy for ancient harvest customs in the Horn of Africa
For communities from the Horn of Africa, near historical Judea, it’s no wonder that their Shavuot menu — which does not always contain dairy — hews closer to the foodways of our biblical ancestors, for whom the holiday was in part an agricultural festival.
To escape persecution in Ethiopia in the early 1980s, Beejhy Barhany, Ethiopian-born founder and executive chef of the Harlem cultural hub and event-space Tsion Café, immigrated to a kibbutz in Israel, where she immersed herself in the tradition of bikkurim, or festival of the first fruits.
“It was lovely to learn about other traditions and customs,” Barhany said, “but we always have to make sure that we know our traditions and teach others that there are different forms to celebrate the holidays.”
Since Ethiopian first fruits often meant wheat, barley or millet, Barhany told me that Ethiopian Jews like her (also known as Beta Israel) would make baked bread for Shavuot, such as a barley, honey-infused version of the celebratory dabo. But in Ethiopia barley wouldn’t stop there: brewing beer can help celebrate the harvest, as can roasting and consuming coffee, a ceremony called buna, an appropriate conclusion for Ethiopian spiritual occasions. (On Shavuot, coffee might be extra important, given its suspected role in popularizing the holiday’s tradition of all-night Torah study.)
Likewise, Yemenite Jews take pride in never having lost touch with their ancient traditions. They still recite prayers in Hebrew and Aramaic, as instructed by the Mishnah. Since the Mishnah doesn’t dictate eating milky foods for Shavuot, they stick to savory, classical regional holiday fare. This can include traditional Shabbat breads (thin jachnun, flaky malawach, and yeasty, pull-apart kubaneh), according to Dr. Ephraim Isaac, a Harvard scholar and former president of the Yemenite Jewish Federation of America. The Brooklyn-based Association of Jewish Yemenites told me that Shavuot celebrations would include zalabyeh, a fried pita.
Eating diversely while embracing the meaning of Ruth
No matter which foods they’re eating for Shavuot this year, everyone I spoke to said they would be reading the Book of Ruth, the story traditionally recited for the holiday. Ruth is from the Moab people, considered bitter enemies of the Israelites. Nevertheless, she stays loyal to her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi after her husband’s death. She follows Naomi to Bethlehem and gleans the fields at harvest to feed them. Rabbis note this as an instructive story to tell on Shavuot as a complement to our focus on receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Ruth, who wasn’t born a Jew, helps Naomi out of pure lovingkindness (hesed), not legal obligation, and Boaz marries and has a child with her that starts the lineage of Kings David and Solomon. Lovingkindness, not law alone, is what made us a people; and why we should keep widening our table. So, this Shavuot, go ahead and eat a blintz, barkoukch, loaf of dabo or cool, creamy basundi. Or grab a beer. It’s all in the family.
Nay Kedam Dabo / Meswait, or Pot-Baked Shabbat Bread*
*Holiday Festival Variant
From Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond by Beejhy Barhany
Makes 1 large loaf (serves 10 to 12)
INGREDIENTS
2 pounds (907 grams) spelt flour*
*For the holiday, Barhany encourages substituting some barley flour in place of spelt (around 450 grams barley flour, with 457 grams spelt)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar or brown sugar*
*For the holiday, Barhany encourages substituting honey
2¼ teaspoons (1 envelope) instant yeast
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
½ teaspoon ground fenugreek
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
2½ cups (600 grams) warm water, plus more if necessary
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more for drizzling
INSTRUCTIONS
In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, fenugreek, coriander, and cardamom. Add the warm water, ½ cup at a time, working the water into the flour until a dough forms. Knead the oil into the dough until it is wet and elastic. If it seems too dry, add more water, a tablespoon at a time.
Cover with a damp towel and place in a warm place until doubled in size and light and bubbly on top, 1 to 2 hours.
Line a medium cast-iron pot or Dutch oven with two layers of parchment paper and drizzle the paper with oil. Transfer the dough to the pot and use wet hands to spread it into an even layer and smooth out the surface. Cover with the lid and let rise for about 15 minutes. With the pot still covered, set it over low heat and cook for 25 minutes.
Use the top layer of parchment paper to lift the bread out of the pot. Place on a plate. Drizzle the uncooked top with oil, then return the bread oiled-side down to the pot on top of the second layer of parchment paper, and drizzle the other (cooked) side with oil.
Cook until the bread is golden brown and puffed and the center reaches about 190°F on an instant-read thermometer, about 25 minutes.
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