***Newsletter on hiatus next week***
“I had Shabbos dinner with Cohn. He served kugel and it was with a guilty conscience that I ate this holy national dish, which has done more to preserve Judaism than all three issues of the Zeitschrift.”
-Heinrich Heine, letter to Moses Moser, December 19, 1825
The Jewish fascination with casseroles and puddings dates back 500 years to the French-German border community of Alsace-Lorraine. While infinite varieties including apple, broccoli and many others are consumed today, the heavyweight contenders remain noodle and potato.
A very deep Torah exists around kugel. Hasidic masters mean that quite literally. The 18th century Seer of Lublin taught that just as one’s respective mitzvot/commandments and transgressions are weighed in the balance of our final judgment in the heavenly courts, so too they weigh all the kugel that one ate in honor of Shabbat.
There’s only so much you can dress up potato kugel. As the old Yiddish song goes, referencing the diet available to Ashkenazi Jews: Sunday potatoes, Monday potatoes, Tuesday and Wednesday potatoes, Thursday and Friday potatoes, but Shabbos, for a change, a potato kugel.
However, noodle kugel is less clearcut. There are two distinct varieties which in their name tell you where they hail from. Lokshen Kugel, a double Yiddishism, uses broad noodles. Following the ‘Gefilte Fish Line’, Galitzianers from Poland like it sweet and Litvaks from Lithuania prefer savory.
Yerushalmi Kugel, using the Hebrew word for Jerusalemites, uses thin noodles. It was first baked by Litvaks who moved to the Land of Israel in the late 1700s following a proto-Zionist aliyah led by the teachings of their famed rabbi, the Vilna Gaon. The critical ingredient is copious amounts of black pepper that a journalist described as containing ‘sinus-clearing potency’.
This Shabbos/Shabbat, we are blessed with the opportunity to savor the sweetness of ‘Bubbie’ Babe Rosenberg’s Noodle Kugel recipe as brought down and immortalized in the JCC’s 50th Anniversary Cookbook. An unexpected delivery of Manischewitz thin egg noodles to Tokyo this week led the Bavli family to place their Yerushalmi Kugel on the kiddush smorgasbord as well leading to an impromptu first annual JCC Kugelfest.
Kugelfest is not a kugel eating competition. It is not even a kugel baking or tasting competition. It is a time to celebrate that nearly a thousand years ago, Silk Road Jewish traders from our neck of the woods brought the humble noodle from East Asia to Eastern Europe so that babushkas and their Yiddishe kinder would have a new dish to eat for Shabbos. As our tradition teaches in rhyming fashion…
“A Shabbes on Kigel iz vee a faigel on a fligel”
The Sabbath without kugel is like a bird with no wings.
-Yiddish proverb
Services
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, June 28th
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Shabbat Parshat Shlach
First Anniversary of Théo Daquin’s Bar Mitzvah
Kiddush sponsored by the Rosenberg Family in commemoration of the yahrzeits of Jerry’s mother “Bubbie” Babe Rosenberg and Marsha’s father Mickey Blum
Saturday, June 29th
Services: 10:00am
Kiddush: 12:00pm
Kabbalat Shabbat
Friday, July 12th
Services: 6:00pm
Dinner by reservation: 7:00pm
Shabbat Parshat Chukat
Kiddush Open for Sponsorship
Saturday, July 13th
Services: 10:00am
Kiddush: 12:00pm
Friday Night and Dinner Reservations can made on our website: https://jccjapan.jp/shabbat-meals-sign-up/
Events
Stay tuned! Swallows outing in the works for September
Event Registration Page: https://jccjapan.jp/event-registration/
If you have an idea for an event or a topic you would like to share with others, please visit our website: https://jccjapan.jp/event-committee-inquiry/
Announcements
Mazal Tov to the Epstein Family on Jeremy’s Bar Mitzvah last week. In a testament to the family and the Bar Mitzvah boy man himself, so many people showed up to celebrate chairs had to be brought from the social hall to the sanctuary and then back down for Kiddush.
Our Violins and Hope event about master luthier Amnon Weinstein was both moving and thought provoking for all who attended. Thank you to the Rosenberg Family for arranging and Professor Daniel Levin for his presentation. Professor Levin’s book ‘Violins and Hope’ will remain in the JCJ Library in perpetuity.
Coffee with the Rabbi, not to be confused with Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, drew a nice crowd for a Tuesday afternoon. The discussion, fueled by the always delicious Saza Coffee, touched on many points including the origins of anti-Semitism, a debate on more recent incarnations and finished with a question on the wisdom of Jews buying German cars, echoing a 2005 Sarah Silverman sketch.
Celebrate the longest Shabbat of the Year by reciting Gott Fun Avrohom, a Yiddish prayer inserted in many siddurim/prayer books. The prayer is thought to have been designed to extend Shabbat even further, emphasizing our hesitation in reciting havdala and ending the restful Shabbat atmosphere. The most common liturgy recited today was composed by the Berditchever Rebbe although versions from Alsace predate his emendations.
The JCJ Talent Show/Open Mic Night scheduled for early July has been postponed, we hope not indefinitely. We plan to try again in the fall.
Yiddish Club with Jack Halpern: Please contact Jack at jack@cjki.org if you are interested to join. All levels are welcome, from beginner to advanced. Much more than just language, the club’s monthly meetings explore Yiddish culture as well.
Shabbat Shlach
Candle Lighting: 6:43pm
Havdala: 7:46pm