Illustration by Denis Shifrin

The Jewish preoccupation with food is legendary. It is a favorite subject of Jewish mothers in particular. We all grew up with variations of the Yiddish, "Ess, ess, mein kind" (eat, eat, my child). It goes hand in hand with, "How can you leave this on your plate when there are starving children in India?"

It isn't just happenstance that diabetes is a Jewish disease. I know a doctor who tells his complaining, excuse-laden, overweight patients to "shut your mouth and move!" The Jew has been wandering for generations, but he has not kept his mouth shut.

Even in the desert, when told to take only one daily portion of Manna - the miracle food which lay on the ground each morning, sustaining the Israelites for forty years - there were those who, seeing a bargain, (and not believing that the miracle would recur) took more than the allotted portion,. After all, it was free.

Eve couldn't control her appetite and ate from the forbidden fruit.

Noah planted a vineyard as soon as his boat docked.

Esau couldn't control his hunger and sold his birthright for a mess of potage.

We're a people who worry about food. We tend to obsess about it.

If "fress" in Yiddish means to overeat, our holidays are "fresstivals".

A famous American-Jewish comedian once noted that at intermissions in the theater, non-Jews will say to one another, "Let's have a drink," while Jews will say, "Let's have something to eat." Jewish humor is replete with jokes about food.

There's a classic tale of a bright but hungry yeshiva boy in Europe who was invited by a family to partake of their Shabbat meal. Those were the days when yeshivot in Europe did not supply their students with meals and the families in the town had "tags" (days). meaning they allocated days among themselves to feed the students in their homes. These families were often poor as well. During the meal, the father passed the wine around the table so that each family member could sip from the precious liquid. The yeshiva boy took his piece of challah, (sweet Shabbat bread) and dunked it into the kiddush cup, soaking up all the wine. Aghast, the father remarked that the Jews didn't need a miracle to cross the Red Sea. "All they needed was a bunch of yeshiva boys with pieces of challah to soak up all the water in the sea." "But it was Passover," said the yeshiva boy; "How can you soak up anything with matzoth?"

The student had chutzpah, but he would have been the first one to answer the question: "What makes a Jewish holiday?"

"They tried to kill us;

We won;

Let's eat!"

 

 

 

 

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About the author

Judy Shapiro

Judy Shapiro was born in New York City and raised in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Very active in the Zionist youth group Mizrachi Hatzair, known today as the youth section of Amit Women, she came on Aliy...
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