Challah-bread tradition lives on with Peoria group

Warm, homemade bread straight from the oven is a common tradition for many families during the holiday season, but bread symbolizes much more for those of the Jewish faith.

More specifically, challah bread, an often braided egg bread.

About 20 women gathered Tuesday at a Vistancia home in north Peoria to spread the love and make challah bread a day ahead of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana.

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Northwest Valley Jewish Women’s Circle makes challah bread
Cooking 101: How to make braided challah

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The women, young and old, are part of the Northwest Valley Jewish Women’s Circle. They gathered around the kitchen table and counter, measuring flour, kneading dough in bowls, laughing and coming together around this Jewish tradition.

Rosh Hashana, which marks the “head of the year” for the Jewish religion, began at sundown Wednesday.

“It’s not only a time of celebration, but also sets a tone for the rest of the year,” said Sholom Lew, the rabbi at Chabad of the Northwest Valley in Glendale, where the women attend services.

During the holiday, Jews typically attend services, accept the sovereignty of God and focus on the changes they need to make to live a more perfect life, he said.

Most Jews partake in the bread every Sabbath, but it’s a little different during the holiday season, said Norbert Samuelson, a professor of religious studies at Arizona State University. For Rosh Hashana, the braided bread is made into a circular shape, he said.

The circle, with no beginning or end, symbolizes perfection, which is what Jewish people strive for during the holiday, he said.

The circular shape also looks like a crown, Chana Lew said. The shape not only represents perfection, but the crowning of God, she said.

Chana Lew, the rabbi’s wife, organized the Tuesday bread-making to teach the women about the bread and how to prepare it.

Bread is a nutritional staple, she said. As bread represents life, by consuming the challah bread, Jews believe it gives spiritual nutrition, she said.

Chana Lew said it’s important for today’s Jewish women to know how to prepare the special bread, as it is one of the three main responsibilities for a Jewish woman. The women also light candles on the Sabbath and holidays and are supposed to bring holiness to the family.

While challah bread is eaten during every Sabbath, the loaves are more plentiful during Rosh Hashana. This is to remind people that God takes care of his people, she said.

“It sets a statement that everything we have actually comes from God,” Chana Lew said.

Each women Tuesday made two loaves of bread. Chana Lew said they’re calling them “loaves of love,” because each woman took one loaf home to her family and gave the other to someone in need.

“The goal is to uplift our families,” she said.

Bread Making with Bill & Sheila

Challah Bread – Food plays a major role in celebration of High Holidays

WATERLOO REGION — For the next couple of days, the smell of traditional challah bread will waft through the Kitchener home of Rabbi Nevo Zuckerman.

His wife Tamara, and some of their six children will be busy in the kitchen making the holiday sweet bread in preparation for the upcoming Jewish High Holidays.

It’s customary to eat challah bread on the Sabbath each week, but during the High Holidays — which start with Rosh Hashanah on Wednesday night and end with Yom Kippur next month — the challah bread is extra special, packed with a just a little more sugar to ensure the holidays are ushered in with sweetness.

“I love making challah. Remember the time I made one and it was 20 inches long,’’ said 11-year-old Naftali Zuckerman, the eldest of the Zuckerman children.

The children are enthusiastic helpers in the annual bread-making for the many guests who will visit the Zuckerman home, near Beth Jacob Synagogue during the High Holiday period.

In Jewish tradition, food oozes symbolism, often referring to significant periods in Jewish history. Some times the food is bitter and sour, while other times it’s sweet.

Some foods such as fish symbolize fertility and prosperity while other foods such as bagels and eggs represent the circle of life.

The High Holidays are marked with sweet food. Some challah bakers choose to add raisins, chocolate chips or caramel chunks and roll dough in a combination of cinnamon and sugar.

Another distinguishing factor of the challah as compared to the one eaten on the Sabbath is its shape. For the holidays, the challah is round rather than in long braids referring to the cycle of life and symbolizing continuity.

“I will get up at 4 a.m. and I will smell challah in my house,’’ said the rabbi.

The holiday also includes traditional honey cake served for dessert. Before the meal on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, it is common practice, whether in an orthodox Jewish home or a less observant family, to eat apple slices dipped in honey. Blessings are also said over the food and wine.

For Tamara Zuckerman, dipping apples in honey at Rosh Hashanah takes her back to her family home in Detroit where she was born and raised.

The upcoming holidays are the first in Kitchener for the American-born family who came to the region in July. The rabbi’s father, who is also a rabbi, won’t be visiting for the holidays but Tamara’s parents and grandparents are expected for the festival of Sukkot which follows the High Holidays.

“We started our own family,’’ said Tamara, 31.

Many of the recipes Tamara will make over the holidays come from Jewish cookbooks used by her mother and grandmother. The meal for the eve of Rosh Hashanah is special and can take up to three hours to consume.

No Rosh Hashanah meal would be complete without the ubiquitous chicken soup served with matzo balls. It’s also a common dish during the weekly Sabbath meal for many Jews.

Soup will be followed by a whole baked salmon covered in sliced cucumbers served with a dill cream sauce, then honey chicken with quinoa, beef seared in pomegranate juice and vegetables and topped off with a freshly-baked apple cake.

During Rosh Hashanah, baked fish will be served with the head still attached. This refers to Jews being at the head rather than at the tail, being productive.

A cold fish appetizer commonly served during Sabbath meals and again at holiday time is gefilte fish. Meaning stuffed, gefilte fish is usually made of chopped fish formed into balls which are poached in fish stock.

The days before Rosh Hashanah will be busy in many Jewish homes with all food prepared by Wednesday afternoon. For the Zuckermans, an observant family, no cooking is allowed on the holiday so the two refrigerators, one in the kitchen and another in the basement, are packed with food ready to go.

Rosh Hashanah is also the Jewish New year in the Hebrew calendar. Historically, Rosh Hashanah represents the creation of the world and the creation of man.

The day is characterized by the blowing of the shofar, a trumpet made of a ram’s horn to symbolically alert listeners to the period of judgment. The shrill sound of the shofar recalls Abraham’s offering of his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God.

Services will be held at Beth Jacob, Temple Shalom in Waterloo and The Rohr Chabad Centre for Jewish Life on Albert Street in Waterloo.

During the High Holidays, Jews seek repentance. The period culminates in Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement and considered the holiest day of the year. For Yom Kippur, Jews fast until sundown.

Debbie Eisenberg of Kitchener will be holding a luncheon on Rosh Hashanah after services at the temple.

About 40 people are expected with family members from Toronto and local close friends attending the gathering.

It’s been a tradition at her home to have a large buffet meal at lunch so that people can leisurely enjoy each other’s company rather than hurrying off to eat dinner elsewhere.

The dairy-based menu includes hard-boiled eggs, egg and cheese soufflé, spinach pie, tuna and egg salad sandwiches, and lox, bagels and cream cheese.

And of course, challah bread and honey cake are integral parts of the meal. Eisenberg will be baking the bread and cake early next week.

“The food reflects the sentiment of the holiday,’’ said Eisenberg, who was born and raised in a Jewish community in Brooklyn.

Her mother-in-law, Charlotte Levine customarily prepares the meal on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. This year about 16 people will attend the meal.

Food she’s making includes chicken soup with matzo balls which will include kreplachs which are similar to dumplings stuffed with meat. Following the soup, roast turkey stuffed with challah bread and cranberry sauce will be served along with sweet potatoes, carrots and prunes.

For Yom Kippur, a day of fasting, Eisenberg cooks a simple meal the night before. It usually consists of chicken or fish which is not highly seasoned, she said.

Plus, there’s a lot of water to prepare for the fast the next day. The fast is broken usually with a brunch-like meal of eggs and bagels and more challah bread and honey cake.

Rivky Goldman is used to preparing large amounts of food for Sabbath dinner. She and her husband, Rabbi Moshe Goldman, run the Chabad House in Waterloo where many university students come for weekly meals.

For Rosh Hashanah, some students might not be going home and Goldman expects she could have 100 people for dinner.

But she’s not fazed by the crowd. She, too, will be baking challah bread and honey cake in advance.

“It’s part of me,’’ said Goldman, who was born and raised in a Hasidic Jewish home in Brooklyn, and is true to her orthodox Jewish roots. “It’s all bond together in one.’’

Following the High Holidays, is the festival of Sukkot, four days after Yom Kippur. Tamara will be baking pumpkin pie and making butternut squash soup. The harvest festival is associated with the journey of the Jews from Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land.

The eve of Sukkot begins Oct. 12 and ends on the 19th. During Sukkot, families eat their meals for one week in a homemade hut that often sits in the backyard.

The hut known as the sukkah has walls but the roof is made of branches and leaves so that stars can be seen through the top of the booth. The roofless hut symbolizes the temporary huts that the Jews lived in during the Exodus from Egypt and how God protected them.

For the Zuckermans, Sukkot means family meals will be served in the sukkah unless it rains. For the children, there will be decorating of the sukkah with strings of popcorn and stalks of wheat and corn.

“This reminds us that our homes can be anywhere and made of anything,’’ said Tamara. “We want to show God that we are appreciative and thank him for providing food.’’

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Bread Making – Challah with Bill & Sheila