I am in love with this picture I found on google images by typing in the word kishke, in general I’m fascinated with the first and second generation Jewish Americans, I wish I could be transported to the times when orthodox kids of shtetl parents went to public school and were beaten up by the Italians on the way home. I want to see Yiddish Theater, I want to see Yiddish Vaudeville, I want to see blistering accounts of Jewish events from the Forvetz.
I want to see socialists debating in late night cafes over coffee and kichel. I want to see Rabbis with those tall rabbis hats, I want to chazzanus at the Bialystoker shul and I want to hear the tumult on Orchard street. I want to see the pushcarts and the peddlers and the button hole sewers in their tenement piece work shops.
So now you may understand my love affair with this picture.
GREAT picture!
Me too! This is an awesome picture.
My grandfather used to go here (http://samgrubersjewishartmonuments.blogspot.com/2009/10/usa-harlems-baptist-temple-church.html) to hear Yossle Rosenblatt in the 1920’s.
I just love kishke. Is there anything yummier? I don’t think so.
Lamb with apricots
Chicken with saffron and almond milk
Casoulet
Massuman curry
Roast in a rock salt/mustard crust
Fresh mangoes
A cold beer on a hot day
Oh hush, Susie Fishbein, we know it’s you!
Who?
You win, sir.
😀
🙂
Yes, I guess if you’re snobby sephardi or European. My Hungarian Bubby didn’t know from those foods. She would probably claim they would give you a cold “down there”.
Kishke all the way, baby.
Nope. A heretic American whose parents abandoned Ashkenazi Orthodox cooking as soon as they could.
Vine ripe organic heirloom tomatoes.
This
I know you wanted good news about my mother, but unfortunately, Barukh Dayan HaEmet.
Need the “Like” button for this
i have my own fascination with those times, but god no! I wouldn’t want to live back then. You can go back, I’ll enjoy my iphone.
And being able to get into college without ducking “Jew quotas”
And buying a house without running into a covenant
And joining clubs without worrying about it being restricted
And living in a world where the Klan is an irrelevant relic
exactly. and more.
Not living in a hot smelly dumbbell tenement.
And not having half your kids die due to childhood illness. That’s up there in my book.
Plus, back then everyone wore a hat.
You know, Heshy, if you’re genuinely interested in experiencing all those things, there’s a way you can. Have you ever been to the Tenement Museum? It sounds like a boring museum, but it’s actually not like a normal museum at all. First, it’s only accessible as part of a guided tour. Second, visitors take tours of actual apartments that recreate immigrant life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. (Not a separate museum building–the ACTUAL apartments.)
Visitors also go beyond the tenement walls to explore the neighborhood and continue the immigrant story. In combination with tenement tours, walking tours explore how life was for immigrants on the Lower East Side and how the neighborhood changed.
http://www.tenement.org/ Next time you’re in NY, you should go, if you haven’t already.
Oh, and as for kishke, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten it, but I did hashgacha for a function where it was served last Shabbos. I read the ingredients. Do you know modern kishke has no actual meat flesh in it at all? It’s got beef fat, but that’s it. It’s like 90% potatoes with a few other veggies and seasonings, and that’s it. And because they don’t use the actual intestine for casings anymore, they cook it in an artificial casing with the label still on it, because if they don’t, it just falls apart. Yuck. I prefer food without label ink added, thanks. The label said it was glatt. But I’ll still say thanks, but no thanks.
Kishke is divine; I could eat an entire thing of one by myself I was hungry enough. Sometimes I ask Mom to put one in with the cholent for Shabbos.
Ooh… My major is Jewish history. I’d love to go back to those times. In Australia, during ww2, our immigration minister said of Jewish refugees ‘there is a racial problem, and Australia does not want to import a racial problem’. Despite the commander-in-chief, Sir John Monash, of the Australian army during ww1 being Jewish. Of course he would be red-faced now, as I’m pretty sure Jews make up the important parts of our economy and entertainment industry and keep the real estate in check in the eastern suburbs of Sydney (the infamous Bondi Beach actually has an eruv wire running along it’s promenade. Neat hey?).
I’d love to go back and meet the 16 Jewish convicts that arrived in Australia on the first fleet. I’d love to meet the illegal dentist who also removed corns ‘painlessly’, who also arrived as a convict, whom bequeathed property to the Sydney Jewish community and helped the first synagogue be built. I’d like to meet Sir Isaac Isaacs, former Aussie governer general and anti-Zionist, anti-Israel Jew. I’d like to meet Sir Zelman Cowen who was also a gov general.
Jewish local and international history is flipping amazing.
And so much of it is a history of who beat the snot out of us and kicked us out.
I think that’s part of the beauty. No other people have experienced what the Jewish people have, and it annoys me that people don’t understand this important background to the Shoah. If you have time, check out the history of the B’nai Israel. I did a short post on them awhile ago, but it’s quite intriguing that the caste system kind of insulated them from antisemitism. India was great for the Jews.
I love the old fashion black and white photos.
Yeah, then you could get away with a sign for hot dogs 10 inches long today.
In a similar vein, who likes Boardwalk Empire?
I think Kishke was a by product of a combination of being stuck with whatever food was on liquidation special in the shtetle supermarket, along with not wanting to waste any leftovers. Ditto for chulent.
Despite living in a vuzvuz (ashkenaz) hood for most of my life, I was never able to eat any of those foods, and some other famous delicacies like herring (fishing bait), gefilte fish (stink bait), borsht (interesting Koolaid gag), etc.
You’d think tastebuds would have evolved after a couple generations…
Need your old-time Jewish feel?
For old-time snacks: Moishe’s Bake Shop on Second Avenue 7 E. 7th Street and Yonah Schimmel’s knishes on Houston Street.
For socialism: Bluestockings book store on Allen Street.
The Lower East Side still has remnants of that old Jewish life.