This cookbook, written by Lilí González de Trumper, was published in 2006 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The book is divided into two parts, where the first section includes appetizers and traditional Jewish entrees, and the second a combination of Jewish and Argentinian desserts. Moises Ville, the location where these recipes were first created/discovered, is a small town in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. The area was founded on 23 October, 1889 by Eastern European and Russian Jews escaping pogroms and persecution. This is important for the cookbook’s history and relevance since, even though the publication date does not fit the timeline for this class, the recipes that Lilí González de Trumper includes were prominent in Buenos Aires’ culture during the migration of Jewish individuals to South America in the 1800s.

In Yaron Ayalon’s article on Jews in the ottoman empire, it is explained that there is a common narrative in the world of Jewish history that during times of plague the Jewish minority tends to be blamed and suffer more from antisemitic acts at the hands of the majority culture.  In Ottoman Jews and Plagues,  Yaron Ayalon attempts to show that contrary to the narrative that Jews were always the target of blame during pandemics and plagues, the antisemitic pattern was not particularly prevalent in the Ottoman empire. Beginning by looking closely at the Jewish community in Aleppo, the author finds that the central government was limited in the types of support that they provided communities, primarily tax remissions, routing of grain shipments between different areas and basic infrastructure support – such as the rehabilitation of  public structures after natural disasters. Otherwise, communities relied on their own religious based organizations for support. In typical times, Jews were well integrated in society and there were a limited number of wealthy Jews who supported Jewish communal structures. During times of disaster, those wealthier individuals tended to limit their support once the need became overwhelming, and flee the area. Others in the community tended to remain. However, this tendency was not exclusive to wealthy Jews, but to the wealthy classes in general in the Ottoman empire. It appears that the tendency towards antisemitic responses to pandemics seen in Europe was not evident in the early Ottoman empire and therefore cannot be generalized outside of Europe. The narrative of Jewish persecution as a consistent theme of the Jewish people does not appear to be a universal narrative. 

A couple of aspects of Ayalon’s piece that I appreciate in terms of his content are some of his methods to disprove unfounded antisemetic accusations. One method within his argument that felt persuasive was including information regarding the influence of socioeconomic status at the time. I also appreciated when he included the comparison of how Jewish communities handled pandemics to non-Jewish communities, and how there was very little variance. In terms of how Ayalon structured his essay, I feel it was wise including a question at the end of the article to help clearly answer the “so what” aspect of this piece.  However, I also feel that Ayalon made a lot of generalizations in his article rather than make his arguments based on evidence more clearly to the reader. I feel that Ayalon sometimes shied away from going more in depth on some of his points, for instance discussing the interconnectivity between Jewish communities in the Ottoman empire. I also feel that it was a missed opportunity not to bring up comparisons of antisemetic attitudes regarding Jews and pandemics in Europe to those in the Ottoman Empire to get a better grasp on the topic.

James E. Landing’s chapter, “Black Judaism in Harlem, New York City, 1896-1930,” gives a brief history of the establishment of black Judaism in New York. In the late-1890s through the early-1900s, evidence of black jews and Jewish families began to appear, and black preachers, such as Prophet Crowdy, took to the streets of Harlem to spread the word of Judaism. Landing continues to describe the establishment of foundations such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the movement sparked by Warien Roberson, an evangelist, who began what became known as “Roberson’s movement.” Roberson’s followers were taught the doctrine, “we who are black worship Christ; Christ was a Jew; therefore we are Black Jews” (Landing 122). The chapter goes on to mention several other influential black rabbis such as Arnold Josiah Ford, Wentworth Arthur Matthew, and Mordecai Herman and their impact on the black Jewish community in New York City and elsewhere. 

One strength of the chapter is Landing’s use of a summary at the end of the section. He covers a lot of dense factual information throughout the chapter, and the addition of a summary effectively consolidated the chapter in an accessible page and a half long section. Another strength featured in Landing’s piece is describing the important interconnections between each rabbi mentioned in the article. This highlights the universal efforts it took to create congregations, gather followers, and come together to fight oppression in other countries. While Landing effectively examined many influential participants of the black Jewish movement that began in New York City in the early-1900s, the formatting of the chapter was arguably disjointed, and the amount of detail placed on each rabbi is unequal. Another weakness of Landing’s chapter is that it is challenging to parse what his exact argument is until the conclusion of the chapter. In the main sections, he describes the life and work of each black rabbi and mentions their connection with one another but does not detail a tangible thesis. After the chapter concludes, readers then understand the Landing’s purpose is to emphasize the various strategies for black rabbis in New York City to popularize and spread Judaism.

Landing, James E., Black Judaism in Harlem, New York City, 1896-1930, Black Judaism: story of an American movement, Carolina Academic Press, (2002): pp. 119-157.

The Jewish Council on Urban Affairs is a leading Jewish voice for social justice and reform across the country. It was founded in 1964 by Rabbi Robert Marx (who passed away very recently, over Pesach actually) and continues to combat injustice, racism, antisemitism, and poverty today. Learn more about the history of JCUA here.

JCUA also houses the Kol Or Jews of Color Caucus, which provides a space for Jews of Color to meet and build community in a social landscape that often disregards and erases them. Read this page about the caucus and then answer the following questions to see how much you learned!

This is the Out of Our Kitchen Closets cookbook, published in 1987. While not within our historical framework exactly, it was published in San Francisco by congregation Shaar Zahav, which I wrote a précis on last week detailing their response to the AIDS epidemic. Evidently, sermons were not all they do. In this article by Shira Feder (linked below), the authors of the cookbook describe how they brought food to their fellow congregants in the hospital and used food to bond together. The cookbook also caused many queer congregants who were estranged from their families to reach out, asking for recipes. When asked why a cookbook, creator Susan Unger said, “I still have a cookbook my mother got from her congregation…It’s universal, it’s about holidays and togetherness.” The history of the Jewish cookbook tied together the ongoing queer crisis and their Jewish history. The food in the book is a mix of modern and traditional, from pumpkin soup and avocado omelettes to blintzes and chopped liver. The quotes on the image above are from the article, about the ways the cookbook honored their Jewish and queer culture.

Also, weird fun fact: when discussing the history of queer culture and food, this is a paragraph from the article:

““I’m going to say this to his face: Thank you James Beard for making a fat, gay man a powerful thing!” Jewish chef Michael Twitty declared upon winning a James Beard award. James Beard himself, essentially the face of American cooking, was a gay man who had been given the boot from Reed College for kissing a male companion.“

It’s a small world after all. Nice going, Reed College! 😬

Article: https://forward.com/life/406937/during-the-aids-crisis-this-gay-jewish-cookbook-kept-a-community-together/

Rafael Monkarsh
Laura Leibman
ENG 303
1 April 2021

Gordon, Lewis R. “Rarely Kosher: Studying Jews of Color in North America.” American Jewish History 100, no. 1 (2016): 105–16. https://doi.org/10.1353/ajh.2016.0006.

            Gordon’s article begins by acknowledging the relatively recent racializing of Jews as one people, as white in most instances, despite all observable and concrete evidence to the contrary. In the eyes of the general public, Jews went from being an entirely non-white people to, somehow, a mostly-white people excepting  “Jews of color.” Jews who were not white “simply disappeared, or at least disappeared as Jews” (106). Reiterating W.E.B. DuBois, Gordon establishes that racism often treats minority groups as a collective problem rather than a group of human beings facing problems. He extends that to the Jews: as they become more racialized, they are seen more as problems than as people. Gordon asserts that people generally miss the “possibility of blacks who are Jews or Jews who are blacks” (108). After reviewing the history that led to each country/nation/empire’s conception of “the Jews” rather than just “Jews,” Gordon argues that the “Afro-Jewish question” is, when viewing Judaism through a religions perspective rather than a racial one, oxymoronic (110). Gordon points out the racist double standard between Russian Jews (or even Christians) facing little to no obstacles when claiming their right to return to Israel and Afro-Jews facing intense scrutiny even when they can trace their Jewishness back many generations. All of this, Gordon argues, is complicated by the various conceptions of who is Jewish being governed by who appears to be Jewish. Ultimately, Gordon urges Jewish scholars to advance research “that facilitate the appearance of communities,” including “learning about Jewish communities beyond their own” (115). Jews seem to be distributed across the globe, so one should not hesitate to learn about those who lay beyond one’s initial communal boundaries.

            Gordon’s article is well-written and includes ample data from the past as well as the present. His argument benefits greatly from his attention to history, even if those sections can seem dense and divergent from the article’s main focus. Although he confines his focus to North American and Caribbean Jews, a deficit he acknowledges, he dives deep into those areas and presents a comprehensive analysis of the issues that come with racializing those Jewish communities and failing to gather data from a sufficient number of global populations. He does state his article’s purpose at the outset, but he doesn’t present a concrete thesis until nearing the end of the article, making a second read imperative for anyone who would like to read it all with the thesis in mind. More attention to the thesis throughout would help ground some of the paragraphs that are somewhat free-floating, but I don’t view that as a necessary alteration. At its strongest, Gordon’s paper is profoundly educational and contains more than a few insightful observations and compelling arguments relating to the discussed content. One would be hard-pressed to read this article and not find oneself better-educated after, unless you were Gordon himself.

In this person’s opinion, a Jew of Color is any Jew that isn’t solely of ashkenazi descent and isn’t solely of central european descent.

• source  Enlace judío.

In Landing’s chapter on Black Judaism in Philadelphia, he describes the movement for Black Judaism in Philadelphia beginning at the end of the 19th century through 1970. Previous academic work has focused on Chicago and Harlem as sites of Black Jewish life and thought. However, Landing closely examines the Black Jewish community in Philadelphia to analyze the internal dynamics of the community, the external impact they had on Black Judaism nationally, and how the group changed throughout the 20th century. Landing’s careful description of Black Judaism in Philadelphia offers essential insight about how different Jewish communities form a sense of identity and community across both time and space. Additionally, he pays extra attention to the ways that cultural markers and rituals varied within different communities of Black Jewish people. Ultimately, Landing argues that Philadelphia served as an essential center of Black Judaism which disseminated ideas and established important community relationships from 1900 to 1920.

Landing enriches his work by using strong, detailed descriptions of how Black Judaism did or did not adopt specific Jewish practices, rituals, and customs. These details provides substantial material to compare the religious practices of Black Judaism with those of the white Jews living in Philadelphia. Landing uses comparison of Jewish religious practice as a starting point for examining the relationship between the Black and white Jewish communities in Philadelphia. Furthermore, Landing analyzes Black Jewish religious observance to consider the ideological overlap between Black Judaism and fundamentalist Christian ideas. Landing could have strengthened his work by more deeply engaging with the ways that the Black Jewish community related to other Black faith communities in Philadelphia. Additionally, Landing’s careful language allows him to address how different actors created and defined “Black Judaism” as a distinct identity. His specific wording speaks to the nuanced way that communities in Philadelphia associated themselves with Black Judaism. However, I wish that Landing had spoke more directly to the broader impact of Black Judaism on our understanding of Jewish identity creation. As we learn more about the myriad of ways Jewish people have gathered, practiced, and understood themselves, Landing’s text offers a unique perspective on Jewish identity and community.

Source: Landing, Black Judaism, “Black Judaism in Philadelphia”, (339-359)