fo fo good morning. welcome to mosaic. across our country faith communities have a lot of conversation about ways in which identity is maintained and we want to invite you to a conversation about food and identity and all the ways in which a fake community uses food to form a.i. identity and sustain an identity through life itself. we want to introduce you to professor rachel in the department of jewish studies at

san francisco state university and alex wall, the founder of a loom nosh shy and the newspaper j, the weekly jewish newspaper of california. >> let's jump in and ask what is this thing about food and identity? >> yes. when i teach classes on jewish food and identity, i begin by telling my students that food might be the most important subject in the world. it is the thing that we are probably all thinking about all the time and of course once i mention it, everybody is thinking about it but it shapes our world. it shapes us physically and it shapes who we are as individuals and communities, as families and as nations. >> it is so interesting. alex, you think about food and you talk about food and you write about food and you have

created this new organization. what is a loom nosh shy and what is this thing about food and identity? >> well for me it has been interesting since i started this group almost three years ago. it is the not so secret society of bay area jewish food professionals. i created it after writing about jews in the food world for j and there are so many of us. how do we identify jewishly was an interesting question for me, because as you know as a rabbi living in the bay area, there are so many jews here not affiliated at all, never step foot into jewish institutions. when i created this group, they started coming out of the woodwork and i realized there are so many people here who do identify as jewish but there is always this qualifier like i'm a secular ju or i haven't stepped foot in a synagogue for 20 years or since my bar

mitzvah as if it should bar entry to the group. i say i'm not a rabbi. if you identify as jewish in some way, you can join the group. it serves as a jewish connection where some don't have one. it is not exactly what i had in mind when i set out to create. . >> you learned there is a different identity need around food as you brought people together? >> i see it as a real connection point. it is so not controversial. it is something we can agree on. everybody needs to eat and even we're not eating jewish food together which we're not, just coming together over food is a natural connection point for people. >> it seems when you think about it a little more deeply and broadly that food is at the core of so many ways in which we understand the world, the core of orkology, if you want to understand how people live, anthropology, if you want to understand how people migrated

across the world and how they were able to do so and grow strong with the core of evolution and sociology and at the core of medicine and theology how we use these things in our lifetime so every faith, tradition has this way to do every ethnic group. you just turn on a local cooking station and half are about a particular kind of food and a particular way of cooking and eating at a table. i'm just wondering in that context, what can we kind of know at the might seem obvious about the way food actually makes somebody feel jewish or more jewish or is used to serve people through a life experience. >> i am working on a book space manuscript that i'm calling feeling jewish and one of the chapters i'm looking at and

writing is on american jews and food and precisely how osh canazzy food, that has its culinary traditions in central and eastern europe and developed in the united states, how american jews will sit down to that food whether it is a pastrami sandwich or a pickle but it feels like home and feels like their community. and it will bring up feelings and particularly of na snol ja which is the subject i'm most interested in. >> nostology in what way? >> not just for personal experiences which is how we think of nostalgia but for community origins for jewish community origins of osh canazzy heritage in central and eastern europe and the way american jewish, those american jewish tradition developed in the united states in immigrant

ethnic neighborhoods in new york and throughout the country. >> alex, rachel, we'll take a break and then we'll come back and talk about this on mosaic. mosaic.

fo fo good morning. welcome back to mosaic.

i'm rabbi eric wise and we're in the middle of a wonderful conversation with dr. rachel gross with the department of jewish studies at san francisco jewish studies and alex wall. and is a contributing editor at our local jewish newspaper called j, the jewish naus of northern california. >> welcome back. >> thank you. >> we were talking before about the notion of nostalgia and food. i am wondering alex how you see that topic. >> whether you call it na georgia or not, to me i think recipes can be so powerful in what we make for the holidays and jewish food in general, because it reminds us of ancestors that maybe are no longer living. i know when i cook a certain brisket recipe or apple cake recipe, it reminds me of my mother who is no longer living and that is powerful for me to

have these recipes that she made. oh that apple cake is pass say, i make so many better things than that now, but just the taste can evoke memories of her and that is so powerful so i still make it sometimes. >> and why do you think a newspaper has a food column anyway? why do you think we like reading about food and food columns and reading recipes? >> i think there has been this as sent of the popular culture where so many people are interested in it than used to be. also chefs have become rock stars and that used to not be the case. jewish parents, oh you're becoming a chef? no, you have to be a doctor or lawyer, it was seen as a blue collar profession. that has changed and food in the culture has grown in status but also i think like someone who has been in journalism for a long time, there is so many depressing things in the world

going on and i think food is just, you know, i call it fluff and i sometimes could be kind of down on myself i write fluff for the newspaper but i think it is equally important to have stories about not what is going on in israel, palestine or wherever. there are so many terrible things in the world and it is nice to read about food because it is a distraction and a good distraction to have. >> to think about what you're going to make for the next dinner, for sha bother dinner. >> in some historic way, maybe this is nostalgia but if you're a faith community and you want to make it in a society, to get a food column in a newspaper is like a sign of status, like you have made it. other people are reading about your food. even if it is just yourself but it is out in the world and and maybe something out there about a mark of achievement in a

sense? i don't know if that is part of what you mean by nostalgia. >> interesting. yes. i think of nostalgia in a way that is a little bit different. alex distanced herself from nostalgia which a lot of people do. i want to think about the ways in which it is productive. it is a story that is simplistic but provides a lot of meaning for us and helps us understand where we are in time and in the world. >> how so? >> so we can think of our communities if we think about the american jewish story, the ashkenazi jewish story we have been talking about. we tell a story of economic success generally and we tell a story of ashkenazi jews coming from central and eastern europe. generally we imagine them as poor, whether or not they were. we imagine them coming to the lower east side or other urban neighborhoods and struggling

economically and then american jews generally this is true, though it is assemblyfide story, that they generally get more money overall and their communities are a little more stable we might say. so to lock back at the food we imagine our ancestors eating tells a story about our ancestors and communal answers storrs were. >> and if they were to go to a passover seder or ashkenazi wedding or baby naming, that sort ofening? >> yes. the way we find meaning in our lives in our religious lives, in our community live is is always built around food. i'm most interested in the food outside of those big religious celebrations, though i don't know where alex would point us. i'm interested in the every day

food of our lives and how that makes up our lives and tees us who we are in the world. >> fascinating. we're going to take another break and continue this conversation in amount here on mosaic. here on mosaic.

boss: it's a big responsibility. employee: oh, it's huge. i know, it's huge. boss: and the salary... employee: oh my god, yes. i was literally about to move in with my parents and right before... yeah, so this saved me. boss: i really believe in you. you know? employee: thank you. it's nice to hear that from someone. boss: these are cool. did you...um? where did...

% % good morning. welcome back to mosaic. i'm rabbi eric weiss and honored to be your host. we're in the middle of the wonderful conversation with professor rachel gross and alex. >> what were you thinking alex about this notion of every day food and what we eat? >> living in the bay area, i'm so used to, i have so many friends with dietary

restrictions and i would say so many of my friends are gluten free or dairy free, the list goes on, and i had my cousins visiting this past weekend who grew up on the east coast, at least my cousin did and his wife and his son. i wanted to have a bagel brunch and it is something i never think of doing when it is just my husband and i. we don't get bagels even though there is a great bagel shop down the street. i thought i want lox and cream cheese, i want the whole thing and that is what you do with family. growing up on the east coast, their family always had bagel brunch when we came over and so many do on the weekends. i find that michael that my california friends it is not their tradition. it has been a source of, i have found some jewish foods i

consider so traditional, some people here don't know what they are. i remember kasha, at one point i quizzed my jewish friends who grew up in california and i asked what they are and they didn't know. >> what are they? >> they are a buckwheat grain, kasha is a buckwheat grain that has a very intense nutty flavor and you cook it with these bow tie noodles and it is a very it is like jewish comfort food. there is nothing particularly spectacular about it, but it is heart ty and filling and delicious. i don't make it that often but it is one of those traditional foods that they have no familiarity with. >> if you don't have a traditional jewish food of what you consider for your family, that means there is some way in which a jewish person might not feel they are observing the holiday or having a celebration or some way if you don't have

matzoh ball soup at a seder, a coug el for sha bother, a noodle piing, a the l of ashkenazi canadian jews have a particular way to do soup, grass soup that's a lot of people have or cabbage soup. is there some way in which the everyday food has that impact on how you feel like you're doing something? >> yes. i think that the food can act like other objects or other rituals where it makes things real for us, right? we know it is a holiday because we have those foods or we bring out those dishes. we know that it is really real because we have those things that are meaningful to us. >> and so you're talking earlier about nostalgia. how do you think about this notion of food and meaning inna stal ja in the way in which

some women will feel like they are jewish or awe then cly jewish or legitimately jewish, whatever way we think about those things for ourselves. >> a lot of times we think about who we are in the world beginning with ourselves, what are the choices we make, how do we think about our family and family's history and then broadening to the community's story, often maybe a religious story or ethnic story, so when ashkenazi jews descended from people of central and eastern europe, think about themselves, they tell that particular story of who they are in the world so eating a pastrami sandwich or a bagel might connect them to a broader story of who they are in the word. >> to flip it's a little bit, what is happening when a jewish entrepreneur opens a jewish deli on the corner and open to the public and served our daily

food on this menu so you can get chopped liver and a rye bread and challah and matzo ball soup any day of the week anytime you want and you're opening your shop up of your ethnic identity everyday food to the world? what is that work there that we're sharing it in that way? >> i think it is interesting that you named particular foods and jewish food has become recognizeable by certain i cop nick jewish foods. we know what ashkenazi jewish food and what belongs in a jewish deli because particular foods have been recognizable as jewish. at ss t where i teach about food history, we explode that notion and go through american jewish history beginning with colonial per chants who were selling chocolate to each other

and ask is that jewish food? right? we look at bacon, the quintessential non-kosher food and is crisco a food that has been marketed to jews, marketed specifically to jews throughout the 20th century, is that a jewish food? there is an idea we as individuals might have and ideas we can explode the notion of what is jewish. >> wonderful. we'll come back in just a moment here on mosaic. thank you so much for being with us. for being with us.

good morning the welcome back to mosaic. i'm rabbi eric weiss and honored to be your host in a wonderful conversation about food and jewish identity. welcome back rachel and alex. we were talking a little about how jewish food has come into the mainstream and i am wondering with a loom no shy and the way you think about jewish food alex, how that is

from your perfect stiff. >> well, i feel a real sense of pride and the fact that's our food which, i'll admittedly, ashkenazi jewish food can be kind of bland and it is comfort food for us and nostalgic and that is why we love it stow much, but it is not always the best food. last week for those people who watched top chef, were almost at the final and a woman chef from kentucky was jewish and had to cook something from their own heritage and mix it with chinese flavors and she went shopping in a store where she couldn't read the packages. all the chefs had to do that. she bought crackers and made matzo ball soup and she won. hearing them discussing it, i felt a sense of pride. this is a gourmet challenge and

she might win the title with a bowl of matzoh ball soup. it goes to rachel's point about what is jewish cuisine and what are the elements that define it. >> exactly. and so much of how it has been defined it united states has been shaped by companies like the manischewitz company which promoted matzoh ball soup as an everyday food. plaza is a food for passover and matzo ball soup only used to be dumb blings for the holiday of passover but the company had an amazing idea to sell their matzoh meal to make matzo balls year round and so we have matzoh ball soup year round as a recognize bly jewish food year round. >> so something that comes as every day, what is the future of jewish food? >> i think that there is this trend towards elevating it by

some chefs as alex was speaking to and there is still a home tradition and the ways in which it is evolving in all of our through all of our food broader food trends. >> would you ago? >> yes. and to watch what has happened with israeli food in the last couple of years. first of all as someone who has spent my lifetime visiting israel, the food there usen't to not be that good and now, it is one of the word's best cuisines and we have these chefs, the first ann is rally british chef and american israeli chef and elevated it to such a high level that people are waiting for their next cookbook. the two of them are responsible largely for this celebrity chef culture and the israeli food over the years has gotten

better and better. >> we're at the end of our show so we want to say thank you so much for being here and encourage all of you to get a recipe and go to a jewish deli and enjoy jewish food. thank you for being with us here on mosaic. with us here on mosaic. wait, xfinity lets me choose from crazy fast internet speeds, and pick the types of channels i want? yep, now you can get a package that's just right for you. this is the best day of my life.

oh boy. i mean, this is the fourth best day of my life. get more of what you want and less of what you don't. nailed it. you think so? yep. now that's simple. easy. awesome. get started with xfinity internet and tv for $34.99 a month for 12 months. click, call or visit a store today.

>> this is kpix5 news. >> now on kpix5 news tragedy on the slopes. a family heart broken after their son was found dead at a north star ski resort. >> plus an outpouring of support for the victims of the new zealand shootings. >> they will be able to rest easy. it is 6:00 a.m. on this sunday, march 17th, 2019. good morning. i'm devon reese. >> let's start off with a check of the weather. >> we don't spend a lot of time in the weather looking back, but today i have to show you what we did