. good morning. and welcome to mosaic. i am rabbi eric weiss and honored tosh your host this morning. across the country, faith communities have a lot of conversation about the ways in with which identity is formed and maintained. we want to invite you into a wonderful conversation about food and identity. and all the different ways in which a faith community uses food to form its identity and sustain its identity through lie. and we want to introduce you to professor rachel gross who is in the department of jaouish suddenies at san francisco state university and alex with

the founder and contributor to the local jaouish news paper called j the weakly jaouish news paper of northern california. welcome rachel and alex. >> thank you. >> rachel, let's jump in and ask, what is this thing about food and identity? >> yeah. when i teach classes on jewish food and identity i begin by telling students that food might be the most important subject in the world. and it is the thing that we are probably all thinking about all of 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 nations. >> it's so interesting, and alex, you think about food and you talk about food and you write about food. and, you have created this new

organization. so what is a the organization and what is this thing about food and identity. >> for me it's interesting sns i started this group almost 3 years ago. it is the not so secret society of bay area jaou jewish food professional and i created itafter writing about jews and realizing that there's so many of us. and how do we identify was an interesting question. as rabbi living in the bay area, there are so many jews not affiliated who never step foot into jewish institutions. and when i created group, they started to come out of the woodwork and realized there's so many people here to a do identify as jewish but there's a qualifier like i am a secular j-e-w or i haven't steped foot in a synagogue in 20 years but tee they feel the need to tell me that as if that should bar-

try into the group and i say i don't care how jewish but if you identify as jewish you are welcomed i feel like i created a group for people with a connection who often don't have one. that's not what i set in mind when i started >> there's a different kind of identity need around food as you brought people together? >> i see it as a connection point. it's so not controversial, yo ow. it's something we all can agree on like rachel says. everybody needs to eat. and even if we are not eating jewish fooding to, coming together over food something that it's a natural connection point for people. >> it seems when you think about it more deeply and broadly that food is at the core of so many ways in which we understand the world, the core of archaeology if you want to understand how people lived. it's at the core of and anthropology if you want to understand how people migrate

and were able to do so and grow strongness at and it's at the core of evolution and social outy and fields and certainly the core of medicine and theology about how we use the things in our lifetime. and so every faith and tradition has this way of doing it. every ethnic group turn on a local cooking station and half are about a particular kind offood and way of could be a and eating at a table. so i am wondering in the context, like, what can we kind of know that might seem obvious about the way food actually makes somebody feel jment ewish or more jewish or is used to serve people through a life experience. >> i am -- i am working on a book manuscript i call feeling jewish. and i am looking at one of the chapters, i am looking and writing is on american jews and

food and how the food that has its culinary traditions in central and eastern europe, and was developed in the united states, how american je ws will sit down to that whether it's a pickle but food for them feels like home, and feels like their community. and it will bring up -- it will bring up feelings particularly of nostalgia which is the subject i am most interested in. >> in what way? >> nostalgia. i am looking at it not just for personal experience which is how we normally think of nostalgia. but nostalgia for community origins and jaouish community origins of the heritage in central and eastern europe and the way that american jewish traditions developed in the united states in imtbrant ethnic neighborhoods like the lower east side in new york and throughout the country.

. >> alex, rache, we will take break and come back to talk about the conversation in a moment on mosaic.

. good morning and welcome back to mosaic. i am rabbi eric wois and we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation about food and identity with professor at the department of jewish studies at san francisco state. and alex wall a founder of a wonderful organization and is a contributing editor at our local jewish news paper. welcome back alex and rachel. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we were talking before about the notion of nostalgia and food and i am wonder, alex, how

you see that topic. >> well, whether you call it nostalgia or not, for me recipes can be powerful in what we make for the holidays and yjewish foods because it reminds us of ancestors. when i cook a apple cake recipe it reminds me of my mother who is no longer living. and that's very powerful for me to have the recipes that she made, even if now i feel like cooking transitive that apple cake is papase and i make so many better things than that, now, but, just the taste of it, can evoke memories of her and that's powerful. so i still make it sometimes. >> and so why do you think -- why do you think a news paper has a food column and why do you think we like reading about food and food columns and reading recipes? >> i think there has been an ascent of food in the popular culture where so many more

people are interested in it than used to be. and i think also, chefs have become rock stars. that didn't used to be the case. i know lot of, especially jewish parents didn't want their children oh you are becoming a chef? no you have to be a doctor or lawyer it was seen as blue color profession but that changed. food has grown in status. but also, i think like someone who has been in journalism for a long time, there's so many depressing things in the world going on. and think food is just, you know, i call it fluff, and i sometimes could be kind of down on myself or oh i write fluff for the news paper but it's equally important to have stories that are not about what's going on in, you know, israel, palestine or wherever you know i think it's so many terrible things happening in the world that i think it's nice to turn to the back of the paper and read the art section and real reid about food. because it's a distraction. and it's good distraction to have to think about what you are making for the next dinner.

>> i wonder if in some historic way, that maybe this is a kind of a nostalgia rachel but if you are a faith community, and you want to make it in a society, to get a food column in a news paper is almost like a sign of status. like you made it. other people are reading about your food. even if it's just yourself. but it's out this in the world and there's something about it, maybe, that has to do with a mark of achievement in some way i doesn't know if that's what you mean by nostalgia. >> interesting. yeah. i think of nostalgia in way that's a little bit different. alex distanced herself from nostalgia which think a lot of people do. i want to think about the ways in which it is productive. it's a story that is sim lift he can but provide a lot of meaning and helps us understand where we are in time. and in the world. >> how can think of

ourcommunities if we think about the american jewish story that we have been talking about, we tale story of economic success generally. and we tell a story of the je ws coming from eastern and central europe and we imagine them poor and coming to the lower east side or other urban neighborhoods, and struggling economically and american jaous generally this is true though it's a simplified story they generally get more money overall. and the communities are a little more stable. we might say. so to look back at the food that we imagine our ancestors eating, it tells a story of who we are and who we think our ancestors and communal ancestors were. >> is that the way food at a holiday celebration works?

a passover, a dinner table and even the wedding or baby naming that sort of a thing. >> absolutely. way that we find meaning in our lives, in our gilives, in our community lives is always built around food. i am most interested in the food outside of those big religious celebrations. i don't know where alex would point us, but i am interested in the ever yes day food of our lives and how that tells us who we are in the world. >> fascinating. we will take another break and come back to a continue this conversation in just a moment here on mosaic.

. good morning. and welcome back to mosaic. themile nversation t food and identity in the jewish community with rachel and alex. welcome back alex anchel. let's continue our conversation. what were you thinking, alex, about the notion offer day food and what we eat? >> well, you know, living in the bay area, i am so used to, i have so many friends are dietary restrictions and i would say, so many of my friends are gluten free or dare free or, you know, 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 son. and my natural inclination was oh, i want to have a bagel brunch and that's something that i just never think of doing on a normal weekend. when it's just my sband and i. we don't get bagels even though we have a great bagel shop and i wanted lox and cream

cheese and it felt like family that's what you do you have bagel brun: when we within out east coast when i was growing for us. it was a thing. and so many each coast families have bagel brunch on the weekends. i find my california jewish friends, it's not part of their tradition. and that's been a source of, like, you know, i have found jewish foods i consider so traditional, some people here don't know what they are. like, i remember at one point i quizzed my jewish friend who grow up in california do you know what it is and a lot of people didn't. >> what are they? >> they are a buckwheat grain kasha is a buckwheat grain you cook with bow tie noodles and it's a very like jaou jewish

comfort food and it's nothing spectacular but it's hearty and filling and delis.it that often it's one of the traditional foods that a lot of people on the west coast, think, have no familiarity with. >> you think, then, if you don't have a traditional jewish root, that means there's some way with a jewish person may not feel they are actually observing the holiday or having a celebration or some way if you don't have mothsa ball soup or if you don't have a noodle pudding and if you don't have, i know a lot of canadian je ws have a particular way of doing lentil soup or grass soup lot of people have or cadge soup. is there some way in which the every day food has that kind of impact on how you feel like you're doing something? >> yeah. i think that the food can act

like other objects or other ritual where it makes things real for us, right. we know it's a bee vee foods. or we bring out the dishes. we know that it's really real because we have those things that are meaningful to us. >> and so, you are talking earlier about nostalgia. how do you think about this negotiation of food and meaning and nostalgia and the way in which someone will foal like they are jaouish or authenticly jaouish or whatever way we might think about those things for ourselves. >> yeah. a lot of times we think about who we are in the world beginning with ourselves whether the choices we make. what how do we think about our family and our family's history and broadening to the communities story often maybe a religious story or an ethnic story. so, when the descended

from people of central and eastern europe think about themselves they tell that particular story of who they are in the world. ceding a pastrami sandwich oring by ael may connect them to a blotter story. >> so then, to flip it a little bit, what is happening when a jewish entrepreneur opens up a jesh deld it open to the public and our daily food is on this menu so you get chopped liver and rye bed and bagel and matzoh ball soup and other jaouish foods any day of the week any time you want, and you're opening your shop up of your egg ink identity every day food to the world. so what's that work that we are sharing it in that way? >> i think it's interesting that you named particular foods, andjewish food is recognizable by iconic jew

withish foods. we know what the food is and we know what belongs in a jewish deli because particular foods have been recognizable as jew withish. and at sf state where a teach a class on american jewish food hist which we go through it beginning with colonial merchants selling chocolate to each other. and ask is that jewish food. we look at bacon, the quint essential noncoacher food and is of if jews have a particular reaction is that jewish food. is crisco a food that has been marketed to jews throughout the 20th century. is that a jewish food. this -- there's the idea we as individuals might have. and the i day we can explode this notion of what is jewish. >> wonderful. we will come back in a moment here on mosaic.

thanks for being with us.

. good morning. and welcome back to mosaic.

i am rabbi eric woisen. we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with alex and rachel. welcome back. we were talking a little about how jew withish food has come into the mainstream and i am wonder with the way you think about food and jewish food, alex, how that is from your perspective? >> well i feel a sense of pride and the fact that our food, which, you know, admittedly it is not always the most flavorful. some people so it as bland and it's comfort food for us. and nostalgic and that's why we love it. but it's not food, but, last week for those who watched top shell chef, we are at the final and a woman chef from kentucky who jewish had to cook something from their own heritage and mix it with choy knees flavors because they a the cow.

a-she went shopping in a store where she couldn't read packages. the chefs had to do that and she brought crackers and made a matzoh ball soup with a chinese soup and to heart judges discuss the merits of the soup i felt pride watching this and being like this is a gourmet challenge, and she might win the title with a bowl of matzoh ball soup. that's an incredible moment for jewish quiz an i think. >> fan nateing. it goes to her point what are the elements that define jewish quiz seen. >> so much of how it has been defined by the united states isshaped by companies which promote and matzoh ball soup as an every food. matzoh is a food for passover and it used to only be dop planing for the holiday of passover. but the company had this amazing idea that they would to

matzoh balls year-round. and therefore, be we get matzoh ball soup year-round and a recognizably jaou jewish food. >> something particular and that beeps everyone day what is the big question what is the future of jewish food? >> i think that there's this trend towards elevating it by some chefs as alex was speaking to. and it still -- there's 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 agree? >> yeah. i think it's been interesting to watch what's happened with the israeli food in the last couple years. i think it is -- first of all, as someone who spent my lifetime visiting israel, the food didn't used to be that good. and now it's amazing. and it's considered one of the world's best cuisines and we

have celebrity chefs the first israeli british chef and another a israeli american chef who elevated the cuisine to such a level people are wait for the next cookbook. and the two of them, he think, are responsible largely for this celebrity chef culture which the combination of that and the fact israeli food has increasingly gotten better and better. >> wonderful. alex and rachel, we are at the end of the show so we want to say thank you so much for being here. and encourage all of you to get a recipe, go to a jewish deli and he joy enjoy the food. thanks for being with us here on mosaic.

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life. to the fullest. . live from the cbs bay area studios, this is kpix5 news. >> multiple overnight crashes. would be one cargoes. >> the backyard of a home. >> one person is dead in a train crash in contracast are a county in the same spot a athlete was killed five years ago. >> fireworks almost burn down an antioch neighborhood. it's 6 a.m. on this sunday good morning i am devin fehely. >> maim lisa caen. >> right back where we were yesterday guys. >> foggy? >> foggy and sprinkley. there's mist the closer you get to the bay. another thick marine layer to

start the day. june gloom is in full effect which mean