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| OHCC LIVING | AUGUST 2026 | 35 Yiddish Club e Immigrant Communities at Shaped Israeli Food When invited into the homes of Felicity's and my Israeli family, you will likely find Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions sharing the same table – a small and delicious illustration shaped a national cuisine. When Israel was established in 1948, Jews from over 70 countries arrived in large numbers. Most came with limited resources. What they brought with them, almost universally, were their food traditions. Those traditions were shaped by necessity. Across communities and continents, Jewish families had learned to cook with whatever was available and affordable. Expensive cuts of meat were rarely an option. Legumes, grains, and vegetables filled the gap. Slow cooking turned cheap ingredients into something worth eating. The result, transplanted into a new country, became the foundation of Israeli cuisine. Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe contributed dishes built around cheap, filling ingredients – slow-cooked brisket, matzo ball soup, stuffed cabbage, and baked goods like babka and rugelach. These were foods designed to stretch limited budgets across large families. Yemenite Jews introduced Jachnun and malawach, slow-cooked breads made from f lour, water, and fat, typically prepared overnight for Saturday morning. Yemenite cooking is heavily spiced, built around Hawaii, a blend of turmeric, cumin, black pepper, and cardamom, and relies on simple techniques to produce complex f lavors. North African Jews, primarily from Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya, brought slow-cooked meat and vegetable stews, harissa chili paste, preserved lemons, and spiced fish dishes known as Chraime, served on Friday nights. Moroccan Jewish cooking is particularly well regarded and has had a significant inf luence on mainstream Israeli food. Jews from Iraq and Persia introduced kubbeh – dumplings made from semolina or bulgur, stuffed with spiced minced meat and eaten every Friday afternoon by our granddaughter Maya at her Kurdish paternal grandmother's – as well as fragrant rice dishes incorporating dried fruit, nuts, and spices. Ethiopian Jews brought injera f latbread and berbere-spiced stews, adding another distinct culinary thread to an already diverse national kitchen. Today these traditions coexist and overlap. A typical Israeli Friday night Shabbat dinner might draw from three or four of these communities without anyone considering it unusual. These foods are a structured way of transmitting history and values across generations. That, more than any single dish, is what defines Israeli food. Reminder: Second Annual Yiddish Bingo is on Mon., Aug. 24, at 7 pm in Abravanel Hall. Join us for fun and prizes! Submitted by Jonni Swerdlow Helping Hands has a new home! We have moved out of our former smaller white wooden shed into one of the larger steel containers across from it. We are working on a sign so you can easily locate us. We now have adequate space to get to items quickly when the need arises. We have canes, crutches, standard aluminum folding walkers, four- wheel walkers, bed handrails, knee scooters, transport and standard wheelchairs, shower chairs and more. Equipment is available to all OHCC residents to borrow for free. If you need an item(s) or would like to donate equipment, please reach out to us at HH.ohccsert@gmail.com. You can also contact a Helping Hands volunteer: Gary Goralnick (818) 634-3886, James Baker (256) 508-7217, Dolores Hofmann (707) 339-0508, Stan Katz (760) 505-8298, Steve Malone (760) 505-7297, Tom Mazur (760) 295-1006, or Tim Wilbur (951) 217-0034. Written by Stan S. Katz Helping Hands Group

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