CBH Talks: Jewish Brooklyn: From Gefilte Fish to Kibbeh

Join us for the first of three programs exploring the history and lived experience of Jews in Brooklyn. To start, let’s eat! Food is at the heart of Jewish culture, nourishing the body, the spirit, and the soul. Jewish Brooklyn’s Syrian and Russian communities have long and vibrant histories and food traditions, imbued with rich customs and complex tastes. Join Sephardic food expert Jennifer Abadi, Russian food expert Boris Fishman, and culinary historian Jane Ziegelman, for an animated hour of conversation and demonstration moderated by The Gefilteria’s Jeffrey Yoskowitz. A selection of highlights from the Center for Brooklyn History’s Brooklyn Jewish History Collection presented by Outreach Archivist Ariane Loeb whets the appetite! 

This three-part series continues in April, as we explore growing up and Brooklyn Jewish identity.

Participants:

Jennifer Abadi is a New York City-based researcher, developer, and preserver of Sephardic and Judeo-Arabic recipes and food customs. A culinary expert in the Jewish communities of the Middle East, Mediterranean, Central Asia, and North Africa, Jennifer teaches cooking at the Institute of Culinary Education, the Jewish Community Center Manhattan, and Context Travel, and leads Jewish food and culture tours on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Her cookbook-memoir, A Fistful of Lentils: Syrian-Jewish Recipes From Grandma Fritzie's Kitchen, is a collection of recipes and stories from her family. Her second cookbook, Too Good To Passover: Sephardic & Judeo-Arabic Seder Menus and Memories from Africa, Asia and Europe, provides anthropological as well as historical context to the ways the Jewish communities of North Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean, and Middle East observe and enjoy this beloved ancient festival.

Jeffrey Yoskowitz is co-owner of The Gefilteria and co-author of The Gefilte Manifesto cookbook. An entrepreneur and writer, Jeffrey speaks and cooks across the globe. His writings on food and culture have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Forward, among other publications. He chairs the food writing and cookbook judging panel for the National Jewish Book Awards and he developed the Jewish culinary anthropology course at the City College of New York. In 2020, he created and served as Co-Executive producer of The Great Big Jewish Food Fest. He currently serves as chef-and-scholar-in-residence for Taube Jewish Heritage Tours for which he designed a culinary heritage tour in eastern Europe.

Boris Fishman was born in Minsk, Belarus, and immigrated to the United States in 1988 at the age of nine. His book, Savage Feast, is a family memoir told through recipes. He is also the author of the novels A Replacement Life (which won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the American Library Association's Sophie Brody Medal) and Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo, both New York Times Notable Books of the Year. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Saveur, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, and many other publications. He lives with his wife and daughter in Missoula, Montana, where he teaches in the Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Montana. 

Jane Ziegelman is the author of the James Beard Award-winning A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression, which she co-wrote with her husband, Andrew Coe. She is also author of the bestselling 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in one New York Tenement. She lives in Brooklyn.