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Food writer Alison Roman makes a comeback — and a brisket for Passover
(New York Jewish Week) — What first caught my eye about Jewish food writer Alison Roman was not any one recipe. Rather, it was a photo of her that was published in the New York Times in 2019: Roman was in her tiny Brooklyn kitchen, kneeling in front of her overstuffed and undersized refrigerator. She was wearing jeans and t-shirt — and her feet were bare and dirty. I simply loved the messiness, joy and imperfection of it all.
The photo accompanied a selection of Thanksgiving recipes written by the young and rising star, who was first introduced to the Times’ readership just over a year prior as an heir to Pierre Franey and his quick-to-prepare foods. Roman’s Thanksgiving menu included a dry-brined turkey, hand-torn sourdough bread stuffing with celery and leeks, leafy herb salad spiked with lemon zest, lemon juice and flaky sea salt. The recipes were a reflection of the author: approachable and decidedly not fussy.
That anti-perfect attitude is a hallmark of Roman’s style, and it’s certainly a theme of her latest cookbook, “Sweet Enough,” which comes out at the end of this month. It is her third (“Dining In” and “Nothing Fancy” preceded it) and, according to Variety, pre-publication it has already “shot to the top of bestseller lists.”
This new cookbook is devoted to desserts, although there are a handful of savory recipes, too. Many of the recipes, like her Summer Pudding with Summer Fruit, her bowl of Salted Chocolate Pudding, and her raspberries and sour cream, do not have to be baked, nor do they require fancy know-how or special equipment. She even encourages readers to eat these treats straight from the bowl or the pot in which they were cooked.
Roman became an important part of the food conversation in this country in an impressively short amount of time. By the time she was hired full-time at the Times, at 32, she had had a meteoric rise at Bon Appetit magazine, where she moved from freelance recipe tester to senior food editor in four years. By then, she had already published her first cookbook and had a cookie recipe that went viral on Instagram.
Her fall from grace in May 2020 was even faster. In an interview for the online publication The New Consumer, she criticized two prominent women of color, Japanese organizing guru Marie Kondo and Asian-American model, cookbook author and prominent Twitter user Chrissy Teigen, for licensing their names and essentially “selling out.” In the ensuing weeks, the backlash online was swift and fierce, accusing her of everything from inappropriateness to racism. Amid the moment’s perfect storm — the pandemic and the rapid rise of the Movement for Black Lives — her column at the Times was suspended.
Six weeks later, on June 21, she founded a Substack newsletter, simply titled, “A Newsletter.” She now cranks that out weekly to 229,000 subscribers, and her YouTube channel, “Home Videos,” has some 213,000 subscribers. Looking back, Roman describes that post-interview time period as “challenging,” but, as she told the New York Jewish Week, “it led me to writing more and writing more for myself. And I think that’s a good thing.”
These days, Roman, 37, who describes herself as “half Jewish,” is about to embark on her book tour. Ahead of the release of “Sweet Enough,” she spoke to the New York Jewish Week about her favorite Jewish dishes, her food philosophy, and what she loves about Passover, which begins this year at sundown on Weds., April 5.
This interview has been lightly condensed and edited.
New York Jewish Week: How did the idea for this book come to you?
Roman: I felt there was a need for a dessert book from the perspective of someone who was not a die-hard lover of baked goods or dessert — somewhere between indifferent and enthusiastic. I felt like there were probably others like me.
I embrace the fact that the desserts were not designed to be perfect and they don’t have to be. People accept the flaws of, say, a roast chicken, but if their cake is crooked it ruins their day.
I’m trying to normalize the fact that not everything will be perfect, and it’s OK.
You are from California. How has being in New York changed the way you cook?
Living in New York, I have an emphasis on accessibility. I don’t always have access to the best produce; when things are out of season it becomes more difficult. It makes my work stronger because you have to be resourceful. And since we don’t necessarily have cars in New York, I have to consider: How far do I have to schlep the groceries? Can I do this [dish] with fewer items?
You’ve said on the Jewish Food Society’s podcast that you made many Jewish friends in New York. You attended your first bar mitzvah here. Are you leaning more into Jewish recipes or foods since you are living in New York?
Not necessarily. I just did a new Passover menu, which will come out on March 30 in Passover Home Movies and in an accompanying newsletter. I think that the older I get the more I lean into hosting and doing Shabbat because it feels important to me.
Any Jewish foods that are favorites of yours?
Matzah ball soup is my favorite food of all time. Otherwise, most popular Jewish deli foods are something I gravitate towards, even before I realized they were “Jewish.” Latkes, and things like that. I like Jewish deli culture. And I liked that these foods, that my father and I love and enjoy, are connected to my father’s heritage, which is my heritage. It made me feel closer to it.
What is your favorite Passover dish?
I love my brisket. I don’t love brisket always but I think the one I make is fantastic. I like a really simple Passover menu. Braised meat. Crispy salad with lots of herbs and apples. Crispy potato — this year I made cheeseless gratin with olive oil, potatoes, salt and pepper. You are not grating potatoes or frying anything. It is not eggy like a kugel.
Part of why I like Passover is because, much like Thanksgiving, it’s a time of year when you know what you’re supposed to eat. You don’t have to give it a ton of thought.
Have the past three years, following your comments about Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen, changed you as a writer and a food person?
Yes and no. We are all different than we were three years ago. Whether it was time passing or the pandemic or whatever, I think everyone is a bit different. That time was challenging but it led me to writing more and writing more for myself. And I think that’s a good thing.
How would you frame your food philosophy?
“Unfussy” pretty much sums it up. I don’t believe in overthinking too much. The way I cook is very instinctual and very natural. I don’t try to manipulate anything into something it is not. I feel very intuitive. It feels not performative. It feels very genuine to me.
Where did your aesthetic for rustic, carefree, approachable food come from?
I consider myself independent, and most things I do are born from myself and my own intuition. I think, like any person, you will be impacted and influenced by the world around you but ultimately you need to be authentically yourself.
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The post Food writer Alison Roman makes a comeback — and a brisket for Passover appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Sex, drugs and Torah scrolls: At the Psychedelicatessen, visitors receive a powerful dose of art
Hypothetically, if someone you had every reason to like and trust told you that if you went up one flight of stairs, you would “probably see things you never expected to see, ever,” how would you react? A sane individual might feel curiosity or skepticism, tempered with a dose of fear.
However, if you are anything like the crowd that gathered at YIVO for the opening of kosher-pop-art-visionary Steve Marcus’ new exhibit, “Psychedelicatessen: A Powerful Dose of Art,” the answer is simple: you’d get your tuchus upstairs, and fast.
In the gallery, the dose of art was as powerful as the exhibit title (and exhibit director Eddy Portnoy) had warned. The walls had gone groovy with technicolor mashups of Judaica and LSD, Flower Power and Maimonides. Strange shiducchim were being made in that room: There was a yad, a ritual Torah pointer, flashing a peace-sign instead of a pointer finger; a drawing of the “Power to the People” fist wrapped in tefillin; a wall of famous-rabbi-themed blotter art; a poster for “The Grateful Reb” in which a skeptical-looking Hasid in a tye-dye shirt (presumably the Grateful Reb himself) stood in front of a colorful mandala. It was like walking through a Hasidic hippie’s hallucinations.
As it turns out, Steve Marcus is neither entirely a hippie nor entirely a Hasid, though he has had brushes with both worlds. Marcus was born in the Summer of Love, 1969, just a year after the original Psychedelicatessen, an East Village headshop, got busted by narcs. Marcus spent his childhood — maybe even his life — surfing the afterwaves of the 1960s. He read MAD Magazine and Cracked. He gorged himself on Looney Tunes. As a teenager, he dug into Comix, the underground world of illustration concerned with hippie preoccupations like sex and drugs. As for Judaism?
“About a year after my bar mitzvah, I took a long sabbatical,” Marcus told me. It was the day after the opening, and we were sitting on a bench in the empty gallery. Marcus was jittering his knees up and down like he’d had too many Astro Pops.
He grew up Masorti, attending shul with his parents on Saturday morning and then booking it to the Yankee game that same afternoon to eat non-kosher hot dogs with his dad. But when Marcus was in his late thirties, his father died of a heart attack on Rosh Hashanah at the age of 66. “He was blown out like a candle,” Marcus said. “It kind of rang my bell.” He decided to say kaddish for his father three times a day for almost 11 months. It was during this period that he started grooving with the ultra-Orthodox.
“The only people showing up to shul three times a day are hardcore,” he said. He had noticed some of his Haredi compatriates studying Torah. When he asked how much it would cost to study there for a semester, “they were like, ‘You want to learn? You just come!’” For the past 17 years, at least three hours a day, Marcus has done exactly that.
Since turning to Talmud, Marcus has kept his art kosher. He obeys halachic stipulations such as not drawing the moon or the sun (or naked ladies, for that matter). He says halacha does not limit his work, but makes its reach more expansive, allowing Jews of every religious stripe to enjoy his art. But other halachic rules rankled him at first, most of all the Hasidic man uniform. Marcus looks like a countercultural Tevye. He is grizzled and bearded, and wears a baseball cap as religiously as other Jewish men wear yarmulkes. On the night of the gallery opening, he was wearing a camo jacket.
Earlier in his religious journey, he consulted a famous rabbi about his fashion troubles: “I said, ‘This white shirt, black suit, black hat thing? I don’t think it’s gonna happen … Is this a problem?’” The Rabbi in question replied with an interesting analogy. “‘You need to think of the halacha like a box,’” he said. Just because some people were crowding in one corner of the box didn’t mean that that was the only place in the box to stand.
“Sometimes, unfortunately the world, especially the Jewish world, wants to put everybody in a box,” Marcus said. “I think it’s hard to put people in a box.”
Marcus plants his eye-popping, mindbending art in familiar cultural boxes — pop art, Judaica, Flower Power counterculture — and then, before you get too comfortable, he explodes them with something unexpected. He showed me a piece called “Daf Yomi Agin!”, a yeshiva-bokher take on Robert Crumb’s famous ’70s poster “Stoned Agin!”, a six-panel depiction of a guy melting into blitzed-out goop. Except in Marcus’ version, the man is a Hasid turning aqueous at the thought of restarting the Daf Yomi, a seven-and-a-half-year cycle in which you read one of the 2,771 pages of the Talmud each day.
“They have an expression in yeshiva called ‘breaking your teeth,’ right? Which is when you’re trying so hard to understand something that they break their teeth over it,” Marcus said. “To me, it’s more like melting my brain than breaking my teeth, so that’s why it’s like this slow progression to a complete meltdown.” He has done the Daf twice already. One time, he said, he even went to the yeshiva in Lublin where the Daf Yomi began. He said his presence shattered the minds of the Hasidim. “I showed up, and it’s like I look like the hair in the matzo ball soup or something. They were like, ‘How do you know about such a place?!’”
A lot of Marcus’ stories start like this: Two dudes of different walks of life collide. First they are baffled; then they are bros. The phrase “Hey, man” makes frequent appearances. Marcus told me stories about his Zuni friends out in New Mexico who invited him to a secretive winter solstice holiday called Shalako in which the Zuni build a new house and feast on a dish that’s “almost like a cholent made of mutton.” He talked about meeting author Ken Kesey (whose grandson, Caleb Kesey, printed the rabbinic blotter art), and painting his Jeep with a phoenix rising against a psychedelic background. He told a story about a World War II vet named “Buzzy Katz” he used to hang out with who taught him how to cut onions. Marcus seems down to hang with the whole world.
“I’m one of those people that feels at home wherever I am,” he said. “I put on a backpack. I get into a truck or whatever and I fly over to another place.”
The post Sex, drugs and Torah scrolls: At the Psychedelicatessen, visitors receive a powerful dose of art appeared first on The Forward.
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What sort of Yiddish do today’s Yiddishists speak?
פֿון לייזער בורקאָ
ווען מע וואָלט הײַנט געשטעלט די שאלה, „וואָס פֿאַר אַ ייִדיש רעדן די ייִדישיסטן?“ וואָלט אַ לץ מסתּמא געענטפֿערט: הײַנט רעדן זיי ענגליש. אָבער לאָמיר נישט מאַכן קיין חכמות און טראַכטן נאָר וועגן יענע ייִדישיסטן, וואָס רעדן ייִדיש טאַקע — אַזעלכע וואָס שרײַבן און לייענען אַרטיקלען אין „פֿאָרווערטס“, למשל. ווי אַזוי רעדן מיר?
די לינגוויסטקע עמאַ ברעסלאָו האָט לעצטנס פֿאַרטיידיקט איר דיסערטאַציע דווקא אויף דער טעמע. זי האָט אינטערוויויִרט דרײַסיק ייִדיש־רעדער, אַ טייל פֿון זיי — אויף דער ייִדיש־וואָך פֿון יוגנטרוף — ספּעציעל פֿון ניו־יאָרק, באָסטאָן און מאָנטרעאָל. דערבײַ האָט זי אַנטדעקט עטלעכע וויכטיקע און אינטערעסאַנטע פֿאַקטן.
איין פֿראַגע פֿון דער דיסערטאַציע איז, ווי אַזוי מע זאָל אונדז רופֿן. ווען ברעסלאָו האָט געפֿרעגט די מענטשן, אויב זיי רופֿן זיך „ייִדישיסטן“, האָבן מערסטע געזאָגט — ניין. דאָס איז אַליין אינטערעסאַנט, פֿאַר וואָס די ווערטער „ייִדישיזם“ און „ייִדישיסט“ קלינגען הײַנט עפּעס אַלטפֿרענקיש און מע וויל נישט הייסן אַזוי. ברעסלאָו האָט נישט געפֿונען קיין בעסערן נאָמען, רופֿט זי אונדז „די מיעוט־קאָנטעקסט־ייִדיש־קהילה“ (minority-context Yiddish community). אין דער דאָזיקער קאַטעגאָריע נעמט ברעסלאָו אויך אַרײַן געוועזענע חסידים, וואָס קומען אַ מאָל אויך אויף די ייִדישיסטישע אונטערנעמונגען.
איך אַליין פֿאַרשטיי נישט, פֿאַר וואָס מע שעמט זיך מיטן נאָמען „ייִדישיסט“. ערשטנס, וועלן די חסידים און פֿרומע ייִדן אונדז ווײַטער רופֿן „ייִדישיסטן“, ווי אַזוי מיר זאָלן זיך נישט רופֿן. אַזוי הייסן מיר אין זייער ייִדיש און אַזוי וועט עס בלײַבן. עס איז פֿאָרט בעסער ווי די אַלטערנאַטיווע נעמען (כּופֿר, אַפּיקורס אאַז״וו).
אַ צווייטער סורפּריז פֿון דער דיסערטאַציע איז די פֿאַרשידנקייט פֿון דעם ייִדיש, וואָס ייִדישיסטן רעדן. אַ דרויסנדיקער, אַ סטודענט, וואָלט אפֿשר געמיינט, אַז אַלע ייִדישיסטן רעדן דאָס זעלביקע כּלל־ייִדיש. דאָס איז אָבער אַ טעות: אַ סך ייִדישיסטן רעדן אויך פּויליש ייִדיש אָדער אוקראַיִניש ייִדיש אָדער געמישטע דיאַלעקטן. אַ סך ניצן אויך אַ מאָל פֿאַרשידענע וואָקאַלן אין די זעלביקע ווערטער; למשל, מע זאָגט אַ מאָל gut און אַ מאָל git, אָדער אַ מאָל zogn און אַ מאָל zugn.
ווען ברעסלאָו האָט געפֿרעגט מענטשן זייער מיינונג וועגן כּלל־ייִדיש, וואָס מע לערנט אין די קורסן, האָט זי באַקומען אַ סך נעגאַטיווע ענטפֿערס. באמת האָט קיינער נישט געענטפֿערט פּאָזיטיוו, כאָטש אַ טייל האָבן געזאָגט, אַז כּלל־ייִדיש קען זײַן ניצלעך בײַם אויסלערנען זיך די שפּראַך. אַ טייל אינטערוויויִרטע האָבן געזאָגט מאָדנע זאַכן וועגן כּלל־ייִדיש; למשל, אַז „קיינער רעדט דאָס נישט“ — כאָטש זיי האָבן דאָרט פֿאַרבראַכט מיט אַנדערע ייִדישיסטן, וואָס רעדן יאָ כּלל־ייִדיש, און מיט קינדער, וואָס רעדן עס ווי אַן אײַנגעבוירענע שפּראַך! בקיצור, עס איז פֿאַראַן עפּעס אַ געפֿיל, אַז כּלל־ייִדיש איז נישט „עכט“, ווײַל אַזוי ווייניק מענטשן רעדן עס פֿון דער היים.
די „מיעוט־קאָנטעקסט־ייִדיש־קהילה“ באַשטייט פֿון עטלעכע גרופּעס: מענטשן, וואָס רעדן גוט ייִדיש פֿון דער היים (native speakers); מענטשן, וואָס האָבן געהערט די שפּראַך קינדווײַז, אָבער רעדן נישט אַזוי גוט (heritage speakers); סטודענטן און אַזעלכע וואָס האָבן זיך אויסגעלערנט די שפּראַך; און אויך געוועזענע חסידים, וואָס לעבן הײַנט אין דער „פֿרײַער“ וועלט. יעדע גרופּע רעדט אַוודאי אַנדערש, אָבער צווישן זיי זענען פֿאַראַן אינטערעסאַנטע פּונקטן צו פֿאַרגלײַכן.
די געוועזענע חסידים רעדן חסידיש ייִדיש, וואָס די לינגוויסטן האָבן שוין גוט אויסגעפֿאָרשט. די סטודענטן רעדן געוויינטלעך אַ סאָרט כּלל־ייִדיש, וואָס זיי האָבן זיך אויסגעלערנט פֿון זייערע לערערס. אַ סך ייִדישיסטן רעדן מיט אַ געוויסער השפּעה פֿון ענגליש — וואָס איז נישט קיין חידוש, אַזוי ווי די חסידים רעדן אויך אַזוי. מע זעט אין די טראַנסקריבירטע ציטאַטן אינטערעסאַנטע בײַשפּילן פֿון „בײַטן פֿון קאָד“ (code-switching) — ווען מע גייט אַריבער פֿון איין שפּראַך אויף אַ צווייטער, אַהין און צוריק, אין מיטן שמועס. אַ צאָל ייִנגערע ייִדישיסטן ניצן דאָס וואָרט like אין זייער ייִדיש, פּונקט ווי אויף ענגליש.
אַן אַנדער ענין, וואָס ברעסלאָו פֿאָרשט, איז די אויסשפּראַך פֿונעם קלאַנג ריש /r/. אין די אַלטע דיאַלעקטן זענען געווען צוויי הויפּט־סאָרטן ריש: דער גאָרגלדיקער אָדער אוּוווּלאַרער ריש (uvular R), ווי אויף פֿראַנצויזיש אָדער עבֿרית; און דער צינגלדיקער אָדער אַפּיקאַלער ריש (apical R), ווי אויף רוסיש אָדער שפּאַניש. ייִדישיסטן ניצן ווײַטער די צוויי סאָרטן ריש, ווי אויך דעם ענגלישן סאָרט ריש (retroflex R) — נישט געקוקט אויפֿן שווערן חרם, וואָס אוריאל ווײַנרײַך האָט אַרויפֿגעלייגט אויפֿן ענגליש ריש אין זײַן לערנבוך, „קאַלעדזש־ייִדיש“.
די גראַמאַטיק בײַ ייִדישיסטן איז אויך כּדאַי צו פֿאָרשן, ווי מע זעט אין די ציטאַטן. כאָטש אַ סך ייִדישיסטן האָבן אין די קורסן זיך מערסטנס געלערנט די כּלל־ייִדישע גראַמאַטיק, זעט מען אָפֿט, אַז מע רעדט נישט אַזוי. דאָס דאַרף אפֿשר נישט זײַן קיין חידוש, ווײַל אין די אַלטע דיאַלעקטן האָט מען אויך אָפֿט גערעדט אַנדערש ווי אין די ביכער. דערפֿאַר דאַרף מען נישט קומען מיט טענות צו די חסידים, וואָס זיי האָבן „קאַליע געמאַכט“ די גראַמאַטיק — ווײַל די גראַמאַטיק איז שוין געווען „קאַליע“ פֿון פֿריִער, און בײַ די ייִדישיסטן איז זי אויך גענוג „קאַליע“, אַחוץ געציילטע מומחים.
ברעסלאָו האָט אַנטדעקט וויכטיקע זאַכן, וואָס יעדע איז ווערט, מע זאָל זי ווײַטער אויספֿאָרשן: די אידענטיטעט פֿון די ייִדישיסטן, וואָס ווילן אַזוי נישט הייסן; די פֿאַרשידנקייט פֿונעם ייִדישיסטישן ייִדיש, וואָס איז לאַוו־דווקא כּלל־ייִדיש; זייער אויסשפּראַך און גראַמאַטיק, וואָס זענען נישט אַזוי ווי מע וואָלט זיך געריכט. די קליינע וועלט פֿון ייִדישיסטן באַשטייט באמת פֿון פֿאַרשידענע גרופּעס, וואָס יעדע האָט אַ ביסל אַן אַנדער כאַראַקטער און יעדע רעדט אַנדערש. ווי גייט דאָס ווערטל: צוויי ייִדן — דרײַ מיינונגען.
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Being a soccer superstar couldn’t save him from the Nazis
For the past 20 years, the German Soccer Federation has awarded the Julius Hirsch Prize for organizations combating racism. This year, the recipients included an 11th-grade class that created an educational tool for anti-discrimination events, a children’s soccer league based in a disadvantaged area and a club originally founded in a refugee center.
Now, graphic novelist Julian Voloj has decided that it’s time for people to learn Hirsch’s story.
In 1911, Hirsch became the first Jewish player to serve on the German national team. He was the first player to score four goals in a single game, and he played for several soccer clubs that won the German football championship. Hirsch also was a decorated war veteran in WWI. Nevertheless, Hirsch was not spared from being a victim of the Holocaust.
“He was first seen as a hero and then seen as evil that needed to be destroyed,” Voloj said.
Voloj’s previous graphic novels have included an anthology of diverse Jewish voices and a story about the first Jewish congregation in America. He learned about Hirsch when he was working with Bayern Munich on a novel, completed in 2020, that explored the life of Oskar Rohr, another Jewish soccer player, who helped lead Bayern Munich to a 1932 championship.
With the help of a grant from the German soccer federation, Voloj is planning to complete Hirsch’s novel, “Juller,” in three years. He is working with an Israeli artist, Avi Blyer, to illustrate his work.
Voloj told me that, prior to the second World War, Hirsch was one of many Jewish German soccer players. “Soccer was an academic sport,” he said. Popular within universities, soccer emphasized values like teamwork and brotherhood, which stood in stark contrast to “the Nazi ideal” of manliness, which praised individual displays of strength and talent. In Austria-Hungary, many Jews became pioneers of the sport, including Hirsch’s teammate Gottfried Fuchs, who set a world record of 10 goals in a single soccer match. Unlike Hirsch, Fuchs survived the Holocaust by immigrating to Canada; he never returned to Germany.
For Voloj, the biggest struggle in writing about Hirsch comes with illuminating his personal life, rather than solely celebrating his accomplishments. “I know a lot about the statistics, but I don’t know so much about Julius Hirsch, the human being,” he told me.
He plans to start by depicting the religion and culture Hirsch was a part of — which he says might be the first time for non-Jewish readers to learn about these traditions. Voloj told me how he plans to recreate Hirsch’s Jewish wedding: showcasing the Chuppah and the smashing of the glass. In the scene, a rabbi will discuss its symbolism — a reminder of the fragility of life and the destruction of the Temple.
Tragically, though, this moment will be followed by one later in life, in which Hirsch divorced his non-Jewish wife as the German climate became increasingly dangerous for Jews. Hirsch hoped this would spare his children from persecution, but it was no use: Both of Hirsch’s children were sent to concentration camps. They ultimately survived, though, and Hirsch’s son later worked with a historian, Werner Skretny, to publish a biography of Hirsch.
A grandchild of Holocaust survivors, Voloj says he doesn’t want to focus overwhelmingly on Hirsch’s death, but instead to honor the life he led. However, it was still important for him to represent the antisemitic reality that Hirsch lived in; in the last part of the book, Voloj said, he will discuss how “the people who celebrated him basically abandoned him.”
Voloj says he believes that exploring Hirsch’s story is especially important today, when soccer is more diverse than ever and the German soccer team has become inclusive of many ethnic minorities. However, prejudice has also increased in many ways.
Voloj told me he sees “a lot of parallels in the experience” between the hatred that Jewish players faced under Nazi rule and what many Muslim players are experiencing today. However, he also said that many lessons could be taken from Hirsch’s early experiences when few fans cared that he was Jewish.
“There is something we can learn about the acceptance of the German Jewish players back then on the national team,” Voloj said. From his work, he hopes that readers can learn both from Germany’s dark past and also “overcome misconceptions about Jewish identity.”
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