You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Jewish food and culture.
Many found that out Sunday at the 30th annual Jewish Food Festival at Congregation Beth Israel on Carmel Valley Road.
The annual fundraising event drew hundreds of people. Festival attendees were bused to the event from parking lots at Carmel Middle School.
Walking down the hill to temple and grounds was like entering an old Jewish village. Rabbi Bruce Greenbaum described it as a cross between the shtetl (village) Anatevka from “Fiddler on the Roof” and an old New York Jewish neighborhood.
“We love this. It’s a great community event,” Greenbaum said. “We share some of the best of our culture.”
The day included live music, tours of the temple, an enactment of a traditional Jewish wedding and lots of food. The only thing missing was bagels.
More than 250 volunteers help make the Jewish Food Festival happen. This year’s volunteers included students from the Defense Language Institute.
A large group of volunteers worked in the booth cooking and serving latkes: deep-fried potato pancakes served with sour cream and applesauce. More than 1,000 pounds of grated potatoes were used.
The potatoes come in boxes already cooked and grated. When the festival began volunteers shredded the potatoes themselves, but that didn’t work out.
“We broke too many Cuisanarts,” said Abra Teitler, who was working in the booth.
“We’ve got this down,” said Larry Solow, who was in charge of the booth.
Don Goldman was mixing the potatoes in a large steel bowl. The ingredients are flower, baking powder, eggs, onions, salt and pepper. The finished latkes had people waiting in lines to buy.
If the latkes weren’t your cup of New York seltzer, you could sample a variety of other foods associated with Jewish culture. There were corned beef and pastrami sandwiches, chicken liver appetizer, chicken soup with matzo balls, hot brisket sandwiches and kosher hot dogs.
For dessert there were blintzes, kugel, New York cheesecake and a variety of baked goods.
Souvenirs for sale included hats, T-shirts and aprons. A man walked through the grounds with a blue apron that read, “Keep calm, eat latkes.”
Between musical acts master of ceremonies Chuck King kept attendees entertained with Jewish food trivia questions and bagel jokes.
“What did the bagel say to the rabbi?” he asked. “I’m holier than your are.”
“What do ghosts put on their bagels,” he inquired. “Scream cheese.”
“What is schmatlz?” “Chicken or goose fat.”
The bagel, King said, was first mentioned in 1610 in Krakow, Poland. It is said bagels were made with a hole so they could bring strung together for easier transport.
The Jewish “wedding” featured Joely Kaatz as the bride and Elan Hornik as the groom. Both Joely and Elan are 14.
The couple is wed under a canopy called the huppah. The tradition is linked to nomadic Jewish tribes.
When the bride enters the huppah she circles the groom seven times. This represents the seven wedding blessings and seven days of creation. It also demonstrates that the groom is the center of her world.
At the close of the wedding ceremony, the groom breaks a wineglass rolled in a cloth with his foot. It’s symbolic of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. It’s also a representation of the fragility of human relationships and a reminder that marriage changes the lives of individuals forever.