From Knödel to the Hillel Sandwich

By Alisha Deluty
KOC Assistant Editor
JTS / Columbia University

Waking up on the morning of the first seder, my house is filled with warm aromas coming from the kitchen. My mom has been awake since the early hours of the morning making countless knödel, the Viennese name for matzoh balls, to put in the chicken soup. Different types of kugels are cooking in the oven and the shankbone is being roasted. The potent fragrance of the bitter herbs can be smelled in the next room as well as the mélange of the shredded apples, walnuts and wine in the haroset. It was these aromas of Passover that welcomed me home from college last year and will undoubtedly do the same in a month. Needless to say, I love the scents of Passover, not only for their tastes but also for their significance.

So much of Jewish culture and practice revolves around different types of food. Each holiday has a set of special dietary customs, whether it is to eat hallah on Shabbat, apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah, or hamantashen on Purim, or not to eat anything at all on Yom Kippur and to eat only unleavened foods on Passover. These days are marked by their unique foods as well as by their historical significance, linking us to our past. On Passover, for instance, as we read in the haggadah about the Jews’ Exodus from Egypt, my family also recounts our own family exodus from Nazi Europe. As I eat the Hillel sandwich, I am reminded not only of the Jews’ suffering in Egypt but also of the misery that my grandparents endured under Hitler. It is these foods that we eat on Passover, and on the other holidays, that remind us of the history of the Jewish people and of who we are.

[Posted 3/6/08]