So who's eating Chinese tonight?
Steve Goldfarb
Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
entirely heretical...
:-)
--s
--
Don Levey
We're checking to see if the local Chinese place is open for dim sum
tomorrow morning.
--
Don Levey, Framingam MA If knowledge is power,
(email address in header works) and power corrupts, then...
NOTE: Don't send mail to to sal...@the-leveys.us
GnuPG public key: http://www.the-leveys.us:6080/keys/don-dsakey.asc
General Schvantzkoph
> Steve Goldfarb wrote:
>> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from
>> a Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's
>> not entirely heretical...
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> --s
>
> We're checking to see if the local Chinese place is open for dim sum
> tomorrow morning.
I see you are in Framingham. The best dim sum in Boston is Hei La Moon,
it's just outside of Chinatown.
Don Levey
I think at this point that part of Lincoln Street is considered part of
Chinatown. Either way, though, it's a bit of a schlep with the kids.
We've a local place (Oriental Pearl) a short distance from our house
which has a good reputation for dim sum.
Fiona Abrahami
"Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from a
> Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
> entirely heretical...
What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it just
a joke?
Fiona
cindys
It's not a joke. It's true. One of the local synagogues is even
sponsoring a kosher Chinese dinner tonight (with the food being
trucked in from a kosher restaurant in New Jersey). The dinner is
followed by a choice of three movies.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
Don Levey
As I understand it, the "tradition" started out of despair - the rest of
American society is doing their Christmas thing, so the only things that
are open are Chinese restaurants and movie houses.
Avrum Lapin
"Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
For years Chinese restaurants were the only restaurants open on
Christmas day and those who did not eat Christmas dinners went to a
Chinese restaurant.
mm
It's not a joke. At least at one time, probably still, if one didn't
keep kosher, I think most of the non-Chinese restaurants were closed
and I'll bet the few that were open made a big deal about Christmas,
decorations, music, and maybe a big expensive fixed-price meal.
Chinese restaurateurs didn't give a darn, I think.
I guess I"m guessing, because I don't remember ever going out to eat
on or near xmas. But when I was in Managua, Nicaragua on Easter in
1971 the only restaurants open were a Chinese one, and I later learned
about one owned by a Jew. I also heard later from a totally
reliable source who was there, that in the cathedral during Easter
services, there were vendors going up and down the aisles selling
food. I wish I had seen that.
--
Meir
"The baby's name is Shlomo. He's named after his grandfather, Scott."
Fiona Abrahami
"Don Levey" <Don_...@the-leveys.us> wrote
> cindys wrote:
>> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>>>
>>>> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from
>>>> a
>>>> Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
>>>> entirely heretical...
>>> What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it
>>> just
>>> a joke?
>> ------
>> It's not a joke. It's true. One of the local synagogues is even
>> sponsoring a kosher Chinese dinner tonight (with the food being
>> trucked in from a kosher restaurant in New Jersey). The dinner is
>> followed by a choice of three movies.
>>
>
> As I understand it, the "tradition" started out of despair - the rest of
> American society is doing their Christmas thing, so the only things that
> are open are Chinese restaurants and movie houses.
And the Jews just *had* to go out to eat and see a movie!? They could stay
home and read a book for one night a year?
Fiona
Fiona Abrahami
"Avrum Lapin" <avru...@verizon.net> wrote
What, American Jews done have kitchens in their houses so they have to eat
out?
Fiona
Fiona Abrahami
Don Levey
Perhaps it's the way of reminding people that we're out here too, and
that not everyone celebrates this one holy day.
cindys
> cindys wrote:
> > On Dec 24, 7:02 pm, "Fiona Abrahami"
> > <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>
> >>> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from a
> >>> Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
> >>> entirely heretical...
> >> What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it just
> >> a joke?
> > ------
> > It's not a joke. It's true. One of the local synagogues is even
> > sponsoring a kosher Chinese dinner tonight (with the food being
> > trucked in from a kosher restaurant in New Jersey). The dinner is
> > followed by a choice of three movies.
>
> As I understand it, the "tradition" started out of despair - the rest of
> American society is doing their Christmas thing, so the only things that
> are open are Chinese restaurants and movie houses.
And bowling alleys. But that's usually reserved for Christmas day.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
Fiona Abrahami
"Don Levey" <Don_...@the-leveys.us> wrote
And to remind people that they're out there too, the Chinese go to Jewish
restaurants :-)
So how come there were no Jewish restaurants open on Christmas for these
Jews to go to?
Fiona
Susan S
Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk>:
Not a joke; that's where we'll be tomorrow before or after going to a
movie. Many Chinese are not Christians, so the restaurants are open on
Christmas.
Susan Silberstein
Don Levey
In the US, Chinese restaurants seem to outnumber Jewish restaurants bu a
significant multiple.
cindys
<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> "Don Levey" <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote
>
>
>
> > Fiona Abrahami wrote:
> >> "Don Levey" <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote
My family had pizza and french fries at Chabad tonight. I suspect the
Jewish restaurants are open in cities which have them. My city doesn't
happen to have any Jewish restaurants.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
mm
Missa, please verify at the end from Baltimore on.
I thought the movie was for xmas day, followed by dinner out.
>>
>> Perhaps it's the way of reminding people that we're out here too, and
>> that not everyone celebrates this one holy day.
>
>And to remind people that they're out there too, the Chinese go to Jewish
>restaurants :-)
>
>So how come there were no Jewish restaurants open on Christmas for these
>Jews to go to?
Other than kosher restaurants, I don't remember any Jewish
restaurants. In the post further down, I mentioned a restaurant owned
by a Jew in Managua. I was surprised when I was there to see a JNF
pushke behind the counter, far enough away that I wasn't sure what it
was (since it was the first business I had walked into in the whole
city) until I met the owner of the hotel I stayed at, upstairs from
the restaurant, which I think he owned too. A Jew from Russia and
St. Louis, Missouri. Who hadn't eaten meat since he left St. Louis
years earlier, but I don't think his restaurant was kosher.
(He did however have a non-Jewish girlfriend and a son by her, and he
was in his 60's at least and worried about providing for his child,
and worried about leaving money to the girlfriend, for fear she
woudn't spend it on the child. We talked about trusts. My father had
left half of what he had for me in a trust because he was afraid my
mother couldn't handle money. All the income to my mother, principal
with permission of the bank for college tuitiion or something big, and
if my mother died, I still couldn't take the money out of the trust
until I was 45 years old. My father was 53 when he first married, and
lived with his mother. I guess he paid all the expenses there, but he
he had saved quite a bit of money.)
New Castle, Pa. only had one dinner restaurtant afaik. In the
Castleton Hotel, owned by the hotel which was not owned by a Jew or I
would have heard about it. There was also a Dairy Queen, but this
was when they only sold frozen custard, something very close to ice
cream. No dinner unless you want ice cream for dinner. There were a
few lunch counters, but not owned by Jews.
In Indianapolis, there were more restaurants, but I don't know of any
owned by a Jew except Katz's, a clearly Jewish restaurant, but not
kosher iiuc. Way on the south side, where no Jews lived anymore. Jews
who worked downtown went there for lunch, and other Jews went there
after a funeral, since all the Jewish cemeteries are next to each
other on the south side. He might have been open on xmas, but no one
would be working downtown that day so where would he get customers,
and another problem is getting employees to work on Xmas. When I
still lived in New Castle in the 50's even the supermarket was iirc
only open 9-5 and later until 6 Monday-Friday. Not until about 1954
was it open on Saturday iirc.
In Chicago, I didn't know much past my n'hood, and there was the
Unique Delicatessen, which I thought was owned by a Jew, because it
was a delicatessen, but it charged 25 cents extra to put chees on the
hamburger. So who knows.
NYC has 50,000 current food licenses, from restarants to hot dog
carts.
Baltimore
In Baltimmore too, I know or know about a lot of people and I don't
know any Jewish-owned restaurant except the several kosher ones. And
Martin's two catering halls. I think they will provide food if one
wants it, but they're only open when someone books them for a party.
Oh yeah, Surburban House, which has a long menu including a lot of
Jewish style stuff, and what might be called Jewish-American style
stuff. They are probably pretty busy on xmas.
In the last 10 years or so, I think the supermarkets are open until
10PM xmas eve and on Xmas day, and workers at these places are used to
trading shifts so that they can have half of the day with their
families.
My prediction is that within 10 or 20 years, regular stores like
department stores and big box stores will be open on Xmas day.
>Fiona
mm
<NOPSAM...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
>I guess I"m guessing, because I don't remember ever going out to eat
>on or near xmas. But when I was in Managua, Nicaragua on Easter in
>1971 the only restaurants open were a Chinese one, and I later learned
>about one owned by a Jew.
To add to this, I'm sure the fancy hotels had restaurants open on
Easter (and xmas). But with my recently broken leg, I iddn't even try
to get to the top of the hill where they were. The hotel I stayed in
was either 50 cents or a dollar a night, when the Hiltons in Chicago
or Guatamala City was charging about 30 dollars a night.
On a 3 dollar a day budget, it cost me less to travel than it did to
live in Chicago.
DoD
> >> Fiona Abrahami wrote:
> >>> "Don Levey" <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote
I have said this before, we have way more Jews than Arabs here, but we
have way more Arab
restaurants than Jewish ones.
David
DoD
Pizza and french fries????? lol....
David
DoD
So, the Chinese restaurant is inspected by Rabbis? Is that done all
the time?
Anyways, I would rather have Indian, Thai or Vietnamese than Chinese,
any day of
the week.
David
Lee Ratner
> cindys wrote:
> > On Dec 24, 7:02 pm, "Fiona Abrahami"
> > <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>
> >>> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from a
> >>> Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
> >>> entirely heretical...
> >> What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it just
> >> a joke?
> > ------
> > It's not a joke. It's true. One of the local synagogues is even
> > sponsoring a kosher Chinese dinner tonight (with the food being
> > trucked in from a kosher restaurant in New Jersey). The dinner is
> > followed by a choice of three movies.
>
> As I understand it, the "tradition" started out of despair - the rest of
> American society is doing their Christmas thing, so the only things that
> are open are Chinese restaurants and movie houses.
It also probably started because the Lower East Side and Chinatown
were in working distance from each other.* In Eastern Europe, the
ancestors of American Jews would be observing Nittel Nacht. This was
not really necessary in America because pogroms were not an issue and
doing the full Nittel Nacht thing would probably be grating to many
American Christians. This led to many Jews being very bored on
Christmas eve and day. So they walked over to Chinatown for a meal and
then went out to the movies.
*There is a theory that brunch had similar origins. Jews on the
Lower East Side were bored on Sundays and the Blue Laws required them
to close their businesses. So they slept in and combined breakfast and
lunch into one meal.
Fattush
> In article <s8TYm.123655$Vq3.25...@newsfe04.ams2>,
Nowadays, at least in NYC, although many places close, there are other
places that are open: certain drug stores, the YMHA, Jewish places of
business, etc.
General Schvantzkoph
In Portnoy's Complaint Phillip Roth explained it as follows, to everyone
else first generation Jews were foreigners but the Chinese didn't know
them from WASPs. And because the Chinese waiter thought they were WASPs
they could eat like WASPs so it was OK to eat pork in a Chinese
restaurant.
I have two stories along those lines. In the early 90s I went to a
Chinese restaurant in Nashua with my business partner to break the Yom
Kippur fast. My partner is Jewish but he's completely non-practicing. The
owner of the restaurant came over to wish us a happy new year and gave us
special lobster dish for the occasion. My colleague asks "is it Chinese
New Year?" to which I responded, no Herb it's our New year.
Along those same lines I had the mirror experience a few years later. I
was consulting to a company in Silicon Valley. The engineer I was working
with as a Chinese Muslim. Chinese Muslims are as frum as my partner. It
was Ramadan so I wished her a happy Ramadan, her response was "Ramadan,
is that a Jewish holiday?", to which I responded, no it's your holiday.
I then took her out for dim-sum which she had never had before.
Fiona Abrahami
"Susan S" <otoerem...@ix.netcom.com> wrote
> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk>:
>>"Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>
>>> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from
>>> a
>>> Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
>>> entirely heretical...
>>
>>What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it
>>just
>>a joke?
>
> Not a joke; that's where we'll be tomorrow before or after going to a
> movie. Many Chinese are not Christians, so the restaurants are open on
> Christmas.
Why?
Don Levey
Are they "middle-eastern" food or are they supervised halal? We have
many "Jewish-style" restaurants but far fewer kosher ones.
Don Levey
business from those others who don't celebrate.
cindys
The first time I heard about "pizza and fries," I thought it was the
most ridiculous combination I ever heard of. Starch and grease as a
side dish for starch and grease? Whose brilliant idea was this? When
I was growing up, the only side dish some people ate with pizza (as if
a side dish were necessary at all) was a salad. But leave it to Chabad
to come up with such a ridiculous combination...
Then, someone told me that "pizza and fries" is classic Israeli
cuisine. Since then, I have discovered that "pizza and fries" has now
been internalized as a natural combination, and Jewish people (at
least the ones in my city) routinely eat these items together.
One time, I went to a shul dinner where an Israeli woman had selected
the menu and done the cooking. She served lasagna with rice as the
side dish. Not exactly haute cuisine. But, then again, I think
Israelis more than compensate for their lack of culinary expertise
with their development of cutting edge technology.
Best regards,
----Cindy S.
cindys
> On Dec 24, 6:24 pm, cindys <cste...@rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 24, 7:02 pm, "Fiona Abrahami"<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>
> > > > we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from a
> > > > Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
> > > > entirely heretical...
>
> > > What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it just
> > > a joke?
>
> > ------
> > It's not a joke. It's true. One of the local synagogues is even
> > sponsoring a kosher Chinese dinner tonight (with the food being
> > trucked in from a kosher restaurant in New Jersey). The dinner is
> > followed by a choice of three movies.
>
> So, the Chinese restaurant is inspected by Rabbis? Is that done all
> the time?
Yes. This particular restaurant (probably "Chopstix" in Bergin County,
New Jersey) is owned and operated by Orthodox Jews. But there are
kosher Chinese restaurants in other cities too. A number of years ago,
I ate in one called the "Mi Tsu Yung" in Chicago.
When we walked in, the mashgiach (who was wearing the black hat
uniform) was seated right by the door. There was a sheva brachos (one
of the dinners for the seven days of feasting which follows a Jewish
wedding) going on in the next room. Almost everyone in the restaurant
was wearing the black hat uniform. The menu was more or less the same
(and every bit as good) as the treif restaurants where I used to eat
before I kept kosher. They basically substitute veal for pork in the
traditional pork dishes, and since Chinese cuisine doesn't include
dairy products to begin with, no one has to come up with any dairy
substitutes. When I peaked in the kitchen, I saw that most of the
workers were Chinese. So, they had probably worked in other Chinese
restaurants before and made the dishes the same way with the
ingredients that they were given. This is not an unusual scenario at
all.
In Chicago, there is a kosher 50s-style diner, kosher fast food,
kosher trendy food places with stuffed potatoes, barbecued ribs,
wraps, etc. There is a place called "Slice of Life" which has a
separate dairy side and a separate meat side. We ate dinner on the
dairy side. The portobello mushroom burger with fried onions and
mozzarella was amazing. The onion rings were amazing. (I would never
eat this stuff now - I would have to diet for a year to lose all the
weight I would gain from one meal at this place).
In the last few years, when we have visited Chicago, we have taken our
kids to a diner called "The Tel Aviv," which is owned by Israelis.
Each time, I print a hard copy of the menu from the Internet before we
go, and my sons are planning for weeks in advance what they're going
to eat there. It's a dairy restaurant which serves all kinds of food,
including Italian and Mexican food. I have had taco salads and
burritos there that rivaled anything I ever ate at ChiChi's in the
olden days. (What the place lacks in atmosphere, they compensate for
with price too - very reasonably priced). And that's in Chicago, where
the options are limited.
In New York City, the options are limitless, and there are bonafide
kosher gourmet restaurants of every ethnic variety and steakhouses
that would rival any of the treif places (from what I understand).
There's a lot more to kosher cuisine than pastrami.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
cindys
wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:02:42 +0000, Fiona Abrahami wrote:
> > "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
> >> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from
> >> a Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's
> >> not entirely heretical...
>
> > What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it
> > just a joke?
>
> > Fiona
>
> In Portnoy's Complaint Phillip Roth explained it as follows, to everyone
> else first generation Jews were foreigners but the Chinese didn't know
> them from WASPs. And because the Chinese waiter thought they were WASPs
> they could eat like WASPs so it was OK to eat pork in a Chinese
> restaurant.
>
> I have two stories along those lines. In the early 90s I went to a
> Chinese restaurant in Nashua with my business partner to break the Yom
> Kippur fast. My partner is Jewish but he's completely non-practicing. The
> owner of the restaurant came over to wish us a happy new year and gave us
> special lobster dish for the occasion. My colleague asks "is it Chinese
> New Year?" to which I responded, no Herb it's our New year.
LOL.
>
> Along those same lines I had the mirror experience a few years later. I
> was consulting to a company in Silicon Valley. The engineer I was working
> with as a Chinese Muslim. Chinese Muslims are as frum as my partner. It
> was Ramadan so I wished her a happy Ramadan, her response was "Ramadan,
> is that a Jewish holiday?", to which I responded, no it's your holiday.
> I then took her out for dim-sum which she had never had before.
LOL.
Thanks for two great stories.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
cindys
<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> "Susan S" <otoeremovet...@ix.netcom.com> wrote
The Chinese aren't Christians. Why should they feel compelled to close
their restaurants for somebody else's religious holiday, particularly
if there are people who want to patronize them? They are in business
to make money, aren't they?
On the basis of what you've written in this thread, you seem to find
it really annoying that American Jews like to eat Chinese food in
restaurants (or other venues) on Christmas. Why?
Best regards,
--Cindy S.
General Schvantzkoph
Running an ethnic restaurant is an immigrant profession, it's long hours
with low margins but it doesn't require a college degree or decent
English language skills. You don't see native born Chinese running
restaurants, you see the first generation, the children get degrees from
MIT or Harvard and go into better paying professions. For that matter you
won't see any Japanese running Japanese restaurants, those are run by
first generation Chinese also. Jews are mostly 4th generation or greater
so they haven't had to work in restaurants for a very long time. There is
another reason that you don't see any Kosher restaurants outside of a few
Orthodox Jewish enclaves, it's almost impossible to make money on a
restaurant that's closed on Friday night and Saturday. Even in very
Jewish areas it's extremely difficult. I can only think of a couple of
Kosher restaurants in Skokie (there must be one or two more that I don't
know about), and there are only two or three in Brookline MA, one of
which is Chinese.
Fiona Abrahami
"Don Levey" <Don_...@the-leveys.us> wrote
> Fiona Abrahami wrote:
>> "Susan S" <otoerem...@ix.netcom.com> wrote
>>> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk>:
>>>> "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>>>>> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's
>>>>> from a
>>>>> Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
>>>>> entirely heretical...
>>>> What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it
>>>> just a joke?
>>> Not a joke; that's where we'll be tomorrow before or after going to a
>>> movie. Many Chinese are not Christians, so the restaurants are open on
>>> Christmas.
>>
>> Why?
>>
> Why should they close? It's not their holiday, and they can get the
> business from those others who don't celebrate.
No... not the Chinese bit... why are Susan and <name(s)> doing this?
Fiona
Fiona Abrahami
"cindys" <cst...@rochester.rr.com> wrote
-------------------
Actually some Chinese are Christians, but I wasn't asking about the Chinese
part, I was asking why Susan feels compelled to do this weird thing.
Annoyed? No, I'm not annoyed, I find it weird, and bordering on being a
minhag shtut, while it may have started on the "lower east side" as a
practical to eat out (why eat out anyway, it's only one day?) when all the
shops are shut, but clearly the meme has spread to communities that have no
relationship with the original area.
Fiona
cindys
<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> "cindys" <cste...@rochester.rr.com> wrote
I don't think "compelled" is the right word. I think it's something a
lot of Jewish people really enjoy doing and look forward to doing. I
used to look forward to it before I kept kosher, and quite frankly, I
really miss it. I know I could pre-order and freeze the Chinese food
from Chopstix and then we could eat it at home, or we could have gone
to the synagogue activity which also featured Chinese food from
Chopstix, but it just wouldn't have been the same (as actually going
out to a Chinese restaurant).
When I was growing up, we would go to the Golden Dynasty restaurant,
and on Christmas Eve, it was like a giant Jewish party in there. The
kosher-keeping Jewish community of my city is really small, but the
treif-eating Jewish community of my city isn't exactly huge either,
and in those days, a lot of people knew each other from the old
neighborhood, and so, we (my parents and sister and I) would know just
about everybody else who was eating there that night. Everybody would
be going from table to table, shmoozing with everyone else, and the
place would be packed. It was a really fun time.
With respect to going bowling or to the movies, I don't think the
tradition there is quite so strong. When I was growing up (before the
age of the Internet and cable TV), Jewish parents were just looking
for something for their kids to do, and everything was closed except
the bowling alleys and movies theaters. When my kids were little,
Chabad would sponsor a bowling party for children at the local bowling
alley on Christmas Day. Maybe they still do.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
Don Levey
For my own part, it's a small bit of resistance: I'm out in public NOT
celebrating the holiday, engaging in commerce, and so on.
cindys
>
> > No... not the Chinese bit... why are Susan and <name(s)> doing this?
>
> For my own part, it's a small bit of resistance: I'm out in public NOT
> celebrating the holiday, engaging in commerce, and so on.
Yes, I agree that resistance plays a role.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
Patty
> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from a
> Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
> entirely heretical...
>
>
> --s
> --
OK me being weird again. The kosher Chinese restaurant is 30 miles
from me -- with a forecast of falling ice, not an attractive trip. I
didn't bother to check the sushi place near me knowing they're always
closed on Sunday and the ladies wear crosses around their necks. I
had scrambled eggs and pancakes for breakfast and I'll make curried
eggplant and greens later. Baking bread now.
Art Werschulz
cindys <cst...@rochester.rr.com> writes:
> In New York City, the options are limitless, and there are bonafide
> kosher gourmet restaurants of every ethnic variety and steakhouses
> that would rival any of the treif places (from what I understand).
We're going to Abigael's tomorrow night for a belated anniversary
dinner. And yes, we *did* get kosher Chinese food last night; after
that, we saw a movie.
--
Art Werschulz (agw STRUDEL comcast.net)
.... insert clever quote here ...
Amitai
> Hi.
>
> cindys <cste...@rochester.rr.com> writes:
> > In New York City, the options are limitless, and there are bonafide
> > kosher gourmet restaurants of every ethnic variety and steakhouses
> > that would rival any of the treif places (from what I understand).
>
> We're going to Abigael's tomorrow night for a belated anniversary
> dinner. And yes, we *did* get kosher Chinese food last night; after
> that, we saw a movie.
>
> --
Not having heard of the Jewish tradition of celebrating Christmas in
Chinese restaurants, I was inspired by the discussion on this thread
to see whether there is any justification for it in our
sources. Accordingly I searched the Talmuds (Bavli and Yerushalmi) for
the combination of `food' and
`China', i.e., "okhel ve-sin" = alef-vav-khaf-lamed-vav-sin-yod-nun.
Lo and behold! The word "ukhlusin", literally `population' popped up
several times:
In Yerushalmi Brakhot Ch.9, Halakhah 1 (Gemara): "haro'eh ukhlesin
omer barukh `hakham harazim."
(He who sees "ukhlesin" says, "Blessed be the Wise One of secrets.")
Evidently there is a secret here (Actually two, see below.*) I found
it in the Bavli, dealing with the Cities of Refuge (for those who
committed unpremeditated homicide).
Makot 10a: "ein moshivin otan ela bim'qom ukhlesin". (They are not to
be settled in a place where there are no "ukhlesin".)
Obviously, the secret meaning is that nobody seeking refuge should be
denied access to Chinese food. If these were biblical rather than
talmudic citations, I would say "al tiqra ukhlesin ela okhel sini".
(don't read `popuation', read `Chinese food'). Clearly, if it is a
requirement to provide Chinese food to murderers, "qal va`homer" (all
there more) is it obligatory to make it available to the innocent. And
when do innocent, God fearing Jews look for refuge? Clearly, on
Christmas, when no restaurant that is not Chinese is open.
Q.E.D.
____________________
*The second secret is hidden entirely in the first citation:
"harazim" also can mean `the thin ones'. Therefore, "`hakham harazim",
is the wise person who stays blessedly thin by eating Chinese food,
which - as we all know - is not fattening.
Amitai
Art Werschulz
It's Purim already? Yasher koah and Shabbat shalom.
--
Lee Ratner
wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:02:42 +0000, Fiona Abrahami wrote:
> > "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
> >> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from
> >> a Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's
> >> not entirely heretical...
>
> > What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it
> > just a joke?
>
> > Fiona
>
> In Portnoy's Complaint Phillip Roth explained it as follows, to everyone
> else first generation Jews were foreigners but the Chinese didn't know
> them from WASPs. And because the Chinese waiter thought they were WASPs
> they could eat like WASPs so it was OK to eat pork in a Chinese
> restaurant.
Phillip Roth explained a little more strongly in Portnoy's
Complaint. I remember it as to White Americans, Jews were not white or
only barely white, slightly above African-Americans and other people
of color on the social scale of acceptability. The Chinese viewed the
Jews as whites and treated them as whites were supposed to be treated
by people of color in those days.
BTW, you are misusing the term WASP. WASP means White Anglo-Saxon
Protestant. The phrase was coined in a book from the early 1960s about
the old upper-class in the United States, families like the
Vanderbilts, the Morgans, and others. Its just as much a term of
class, as it is of ethnicity and religion. People mistakenly refer to
Bill Clinton as a WASP but he is not one, he comes from the wrong
class. Bush 1 and Bush 2 are both WASPs though.
W. Baker
: On Dec 25, 7:51?pm, Art Werschulz <a...@comcast.net> wrote:
: > Hi.
: >
: > cindys <cste...@rochester.rr.com> writes:
: > > In New York City, the options are limitless, and there are bonafide
: > > kosher gourmet restaurants of every ethnic variety and steakhouses
: > > that would rival any of the treif places (from what I understand).
: >
: > We're going to Abigael's tomorrow night for a belated anniversary
: Amitai
Lovely!:-)
This reminds me a of a discussion some of us once had for how it would be
if Jews had christmas trees. Can you imagine the arguments over the
height and width of the trees, when it should be brought into the house
and when removed. It woul dbe a great series of machlots(what is the
plural). It would, surely, end up dividing the people, so God did not
require this mitzvah:-)
Chinese food is much easier.
Wendy
Amitai
Incidentally, there a number of typos in my post, which shouldn't
confuse anyone. I will correct them before submitting it for
publication in a scholarly journal. :-)
> This reminds me a of a discussion some of us once had for how it would be
> if Jews had christmas trees. Can you imagine the arguments over the
> height and width of the trees, when it should be brought into the house
> and when removed. It woul dbe a great series of machlots(what is the
> plural). It would, surely, end up dividing the people, so God did not
> require this mitzvah:-)
>
Not "machlot"= illnesses, god forbid!
You mean "ma`hloqet" = dispute ( pl. "ma`hloqot").
Amitai
maxine in ri
Who else? There are a number of kosher Asian restaurants in NYC, with
hashgacha and a mashgiach in the kitchen.
maxine in ri
maxine in ri
> DoD wrote:
> > On Dec 24, 8:14 pm, Don Levey <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote:
>
> >> In the US, Chinese restaurants seem to outnumber Jewish restaurants bu a
> >> significant multiple.
>
> > I have said this before, we have way more Jews than Arabs here, but we
> > have way more Arab
> > restaurants than Jewish ones.
>
> Are they "middle-eastern" food or are they supervised halal? We have
> many "Jewish-style" restaurants but far fewer kosher ones.
In the neighborhood where my daughter goes to school, there are a
number of halal restaurants. The kosher ones are a train-ride away.
maxine in ri
Yussel
<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> "Don Levey" <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote
>
>
>
>
>
> > Fiona Abrahami wrote:
> >>>>> "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>
> >>>>>> we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's
> >>>>>> from a
> >>>>>> Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's
> >>>>>> not
> >>>>>> entirely heretical...
> >>>>> What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is
> >>>>> it
> >>>>> just a joke?
> >>>> ------
> >>>> It's not a joke. It's true. One of the local synagogues is even
> >>>> sponsoring a kosher Chinese dinner tonight (with the food being
> >>>> trucked in from a kosher restaurant in New Jersey). The dinner is
> >>>> followed by a choice of three movies.
>
> >>> American society is doing their Christmas thing, so the only things that
> >>> are open are Chinese restaurants and movie houses.
>
> >> And the Jews just *had* to go out to eat and see a movie!? They could
> >> stay
> >> home and read a book for one night a year?
>
> > Perhaps it's the way of reminding people that we're out here too, and
> > that not everyone celebrates this one holy day.
>
> And to remind people that they're out there too, the Chinese go to Jewish
> restaurants :-)
>
> So how come there were no Jewish restaurants open on Christmas for these
> Jews to go to?
>
Except for a few areas of New York City there are, in fact, very few
Jewish (I guess you mean kosher) restaurants. Baltimore has two kosher
Chinese restaurants (one good one mediocre) and this is their biggest
day. The only other restaurants open are the non-kosher Chinese, and
this is a big day for them as well.
j
Yussel
> Missa, please verify at the end from Baltimore on.
>
> On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 01:46:05 +0000 (UTC), "Fiona Abrahami"
>
>
>
> >> Perhaps it's the way of reminding people that we're out here too, and
> >> that not everyone celebrates this one holy day.
>
> >And to remind people that they're out there too, the Chinese go to Jewish
> >restaurants :-)
>
> >So how come there were no Jewish restaurants open on Christmas for these
> >Jews to go to?
>
> restaurants. In the post further down, I mentioned a restaurant owned
> by a Jew in Managua. I was surprised when I was there to see a JNF
> pushke behind the counter, far enough away that I wasn't sure what it
> was (since it was the first business I had walked into in the whole
> city) until I met the owner of the hotel I stayed at, upstairs from
> the restaurant, which I think he owned too. A Jew from Russia and
> St. Louis, Missouri. Who hadn't eaten meat since he left St. Louis
> years earlier, but I don't think his restaurant was kosher.
>
> (He did however have a non-Jewish girlfriend and a son by her, and he
> was in his 60's at least and worried about providing for his child,
> and worried about leaving money to the girlfriend, for fear she
> woudn't spend it on the child. We talked about trusts. My father had
> left half of what he had for me in a trust because he was afraid my
> mother couldn't handle money. All the income to my mother, principal
> with permission of the bank for college tuitiion or something big, and
> if my mother died, I still couldn't take the money out of the trust
> until I was 45 years old. My father was 53 when he first married, and
> lived with his mother. I guess he paid all the expenses there, but he
> he had saved quite a bit of money.)
>
> New Castle, Pa. only had one dinner restaurtant afaik. In the
> Castleton Hotel, owned by the hotel which was not owned by a Jew or I
> would have heard about it. There was also a Dairy Queen, but this
> was when they only sold frozen custard, something very close to ice
> cream. No dinner unless you want ice cream for dinner. There were a
> few lunch counters, but not owned by Jews.
>
> In Indianapolis, there were more restaurants, but I don't know of any
> owned by a Jew except Katz's, a clearly Jewish restaurant, but not
> kosher iiuc. Way on the south side, where no Jews lived anymore. Jews
> who worked downtown went there for lunch, and other Jews went there
> after a funeral, since all the Jewish cemeteries are next to each
> other on the south side. He might have been open on xmas, but no one
> would be working downtown that day so where would he get customers,
> and another problem is getting employees to work on Xmas. When I
> still lived in New Castle in the 50's even the supermarket was iirc
> only open 9-5 and later until 6 Monday-Friday. Not until about 1954
> was it open on Saturday iirc.
>
> In Chicago, I didn't know much past my n'hood, and there was the
> Unique Delicatessen, which I thought was owned by a Jew, because it
> was a delicatessen, but it charged 25 cents extra to put chees on the
> hamburger. So who knows.
>
> NYC has 50,000 current food licenses, from restarants to hot dog
> carts.
>
> Baltimore
> In Baltimmore too, I know or know about a lot of people and I don't
> know any Jewish-owned restaurant except the several kosher ones. And
> Martin's two catering halls. I think they will provide food if one
> wants it, but they're only open when someone books them for a party.
>
> Oh yeah, Surburban House, which has a long menu including a lot of
> Jewish style stuff, and what might be called Jewish-American style
> stuff. They are probably pretty busy on xmas.
>
> In the last 10 years or so, I think the supermarkets are open until
> 10PM xmas eve and on Xmas day, and workers at these places are used to
> trading shifts so that they can have half of the day with their
> families.
>
> My prediction is that within 10 or 20 years, regular stores like
> department stores and big box stores will be open on Xmas day.
>
> >Fiona
>
> --
>
> Meir
>
> "The baby's name is Shlomo. He's named after his grandfather, Scott."
Suburban House had a major fire several months ago and I think is
still closed.
j
Fiona Abrahami
"Yussel" <jshu...@gmail.com> wrote
"Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> So how come there were no Jewish restaurants open on Christmas for these
>> Jews to go to?
>
> Jewish (I guess you mean kosher) restaurants. Baltimore has two kosher
> Chinese restaurants (one good one mediocre) and this is their biggest
> day. The only other restaurants open are the non-kosher Chinese, and
> this is a big day for them as well.
And you have to eat out on Christmas because... what?
Fiona
Fiona Abrahami
"cindys" <cst...@rochester.rr.com> wrote
> Don Levey <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote:
>> Fiona Abrahami wrote:
>snip
>>
>> > No... not the Chinese bit... why are Susan and <name(s)> doing this?
>>
>> For my own part, it's a small bit of resistance: I'm out in public NOT
>> celebrating the holiday, engaging in commerce, and so on.
> -----
> Yes, I agree that resistance plays a role.
Resistance? Resistance to what, keeping kosher?
Fiona
W. Baker
: "Yussel" <jshu...@gmail.com> wrote
: Fiona
You don't have to, but it is something to do and has been adopted by many
American Jews of all kinds. Otherwise it can be a boring day with little
on the radio or TV that is not Christmas oriented and for many, kids home
form school and bored hanging around the house. It is, certainly , better
than those Jewish kids from less than observant homes having all those
"nice" presents to unwrap and play with under their "Holiday tree."
Wendy Baker
Amitai
> Hi.
>
> It's Purim already? Yasher koah and Shabbat shalom.
>
Thanks for the "yasher koah".
Purim with a difference.
Most articles written as "Purim shpass" are cut out of whole cloth.
The citations in my learned disquisition are authentic, though some
nitpicking reader might question my conclusions. :-)
Shavu`a tov,
Amitai
Susan S
Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk>:
We have the day off, our friends (four of them) have the day off and we
have the luxury of not having to do our usual necessary weekend stuff.
Usually going out on the weekend means a relatively short time on
Saturday night, but today we had the entire day. So we went out for a
Chinese lunch, then saw "Sherlock Holmes". The reason for Chinese food
is as I explained upthread: almost every other type of restaurant was
closed, except for Asian places.
Why not go out with friends on a day off? We took our time and enjoyed
ourselves very much.
Susan Silberstein
Adelle
"cindys" <cst...@rochester.rr.com> wrote in message
news:e092163a-7d42-4f00...@n35g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
Adelle - agreeing/reinforcing what Cindy has said.
I think its also a reaction to the absolute pervasiveness of advertising for
and celebration of Christmas here. If you don't live/socialize in a near
absolute Jewish enclave, one feels very marginalized. And for secular Jews,
feeling marginalized is a major issue for the month of December.
So its ironic, and fun, and novel that on the Christians major holiday, you
can go to a Chinese restaurant and be in the majority for a change, and also
run into tons of friends. You go to a movie theatre and are able to find
great seats at even the most popular movies. If you go bowling, you have
many friends who join you and its almost like a party of a private event.
As a corollary, The Museum of Science in Boston is incredibly packed the day
after Thanksgiving - Its a major 'draw' day for those not buying into the
advertising for 'Black Friday' sales (The day in the US where retailers
offer special bargains. Presumably, its the day when retailers shift from
being in red ink to being in black ink). Most of the people at the museum
are Asian and Indian, some whites -many with frumly dressed females and with
kippots on the males heads and a smattering of tourists of all colors.
Another joyous rebellion against the predominant culture (though we enjoyed
it more before more people got in on the 'tradition.').
Adelle
mm
<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Annoyed? No, I'm not annoyed, I find it weird, and bordering on being a
Like I say, I don't do it. Maybe if I'd been invited by someone or a
group when I was at an impressionable age, I'd have gotten in the
habit, but that didnt' happen.
But I think it has something to do with there being an extra day off
from work for most Jews. Even self-employed Jews have much less
reason to go into work. If they deal with other gentile businesses,
those business are closed. Etc.
Sunday is like that too, but Sunday comes ever week and Sundays are
already probably allocated, scheduled with activities, but on xmas,
there are no scheduled activities.
BTW, I did my own survey Friday afternoon. I live near a street with
loads of businesses, so on my way home from a friend's house where I
was trying to fix his computer, I drove by a lot of restaurants.
In less than a mile, Two chicken places were closed, two hamburger
places (Checkers and McDonalds), one Taco Bell, one sea-food place,
two take-out pizza places, a Subway, a Carribean place, and a
sub/sandwich shop**, the last 4 of which are in one small strip mall,
were closed. That's eleven altogher that were closed.
OTOH, all 5 Chinese places were open, one of them in that same small
strip mall. They included 3 take-out places, 1 sit-down, and one
buffet.
My path didn't take me past any of the kosher restaurants or the
Jewish-style non-kosher one I probably mentioned.
The 7-11 convenience store was open of course. Also the supermarkets
and one gas station out of three that I noticed were cloeed. Probably
the other drugstores were closed but the Walgreens drugstore was open.
That didnt' surprise me, because about 4 years ago, my uncles's
funeral was in Indiana the day before xmas, and on xmas day I intended
to go see the house or apartment that my grandparents first lived in
when they got to the US, in 1907, and where my mother first lived in
1908. I had learned the address fairly recently from
http://EllisIslandRecords.org . But I had left for the funeral
without my camera, and I needed a place that day to buy a disposeable
camera. Walgreens was open then too. And drugstores in the US sell
far more than drugs.
(It's open on New Years Day also. New Years Day everything used to
close also, but I think supermarkets are open now. All this is why I
predict in 10 or 20 years many more kinds of stores will be open on
xmas.)
When I got to Alexandria, it's very small, and the address was 4
blocks from the heart of town, but the building had been torn down, I
don't know when.
**whose phone number is one digit different from mine, and whose
customers often call me. His is ABB-CDEE and mine is ABB-CDDE.
>minhag shtut, while it may have started on the "lower east side" as a
>practical to eat out (why eat out anyway, it's only one day?)
If the words in parens mean this is what made people who kept kosher
stop doing so, I don't think so.
>when all the
>shops are shut, but clearly the meme has spread to communities that have no
>relationship with the original area.
Maybe, but I'm not convinced it has anything to do with the lower east
side being next to or very near Chinatown. Is that just a guess or
is there some evidence?
When I lived in Brooklyn NY, the Jewish Week had a letter to a colunm,
Why do Jews like Chinese food so much? The reply said, Maybe because
it wasn't available for so long and now it is, it's a treat, still a
novelty. Meaning that kosher Chinese food was still pretty new.
When I got to Baltimore 26 years ago, I saw that very column clipped
from the newspaper in the window of a treif Chinese restaurant. I
think they noticed mostly that it was about Chinese food and Jews, but
didn't understand the answer well enough to realize it was about
kosher Chinese.
mm
This is because the Arabs got here recently. In a couple generations,
most of them won't give a darn. About Halal, and hopefully about
national grudges in Africa and Asia.
> The kosher ones are a train-ride away.
>
>maxine in ri
--
mm
<cst...@rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>On Dec 25, 1:38 am, DoD <danskisan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Dec 24, 6:24 pm, cindys <cste...@rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On Dec 24, 7:02 pm, "Fiona Abrahami"<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> > > "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>>
>> > > > we broke with tradition and ordered sushi this year - altough it's from a
>> > > > Chinese restaurant. And we did get some hot and sour soup, so it's not
>> > > > entirely heretical...
>>
>> > > What is it with American Jews and eating Chinese at Christmas, or is it just
>> > > a joke?
>>
>> > ------
>> > It's not a joke. It's true. One of the local synagogues is even
>> > sponsoring a kosher Chinese dinner tonight (with the food being
>> > trucked in from a kosher restaurant in New Jersey). The dinner is
>> > followed by a choice of three movies.
>>
>> So, the Chinese restaurant is inspected by Rabbis? Is that done all
>> the time?
>------
>Yes. This particular restaurant (probably "Chopstix" in Bergin County,
>New Jersey) is owned and operated by Orthodox Jews. But there are
>kosher Chinese restaurants in other cities too. A number of years ago,
>I ate in one called the "Mi Tsu Yung" in Chicago.
>
>When we walked in, the mashgiach (who was wearing the black hat
>uniform) was seated right by the door. There was a sheva brachos (one
>of the dinners for the seven days of feasting which follows a Jewish
>wedding) going on in the next room. Almost everyone in the restaurant
>was wearing the black hat uniform. The menu was more or less the same
>(and every bit as good) as the treif restaurants where I used to eat
>before I kept kosher. They basically substitute veal for pork in the
>traditional pork dishes, and since Chinese cuisine doesn't include
>dairy products to begin with, no one has to come up with any dairy
>substitutes. When I peaked in the kitchen, I saw that most of the
>workers were Chinese. So, they had probably worked in other Chinese
>restaurants before and made the dishes the same way with the
>ingredients that they were given. This is not an unusual scenario at
>all.
In Baltimore at the kosher restaurant, the spicey dishes aren't as
spicey as they would be in a restaurant meant to appeal to the general
public. OTOH, maybe if I asked, they'd make it spicier. I keep
forgetting that.
The Royal, which makes American food and Jewish American food also
makes a lot of Chinese food. Owned by Jews. If any Chinese work there
it might be a coincidence.
And Kosher Bite, which is basically a hamburger place, has expanded to
fried chicken, shwarma, and Chinese food.
Nothing to do with Chinese, but the kosher Subway just added shwarma
too, a friend's email last week tells me.
And there was a kosher Chinese restaurant owned by Chinese that went
out of business a few years ago for some reason. Maybe bad location,
a little too far away and the parking lot they shared with others was
always filled. Actually they may have "merged" with a new Chinese
restaurant owned by Chinese which is a lot closer to the frum
neighorhood and whose food is very good, though the place I called not
spicey enough. This new restaurant is owned by the Chinese family
that had a treif Chinese rest. on Liberty Road close to me, that
burned down. And another treif sit-down Chinese rest a block from
that one closed with no warning a couple years ago. These were in
addition to the places I mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
As to famous names, I never got to eat at Shang Chai (get it?) in
Brooklyn, and Tain Li Chow (get it?) in Tel Aviv was famous in Indiana
in the 60's but when I saw it in the 90's in Tel Aviv near the sea,
from the outside it was sort of run-down and seemed to close early.
>In Chicago, there is a kosher 50s-style diner, kosher fast food,
>kosher trendy food places with stuffed potatoes, barbecued ribs,
>wraps, etc. There is a place called "Slice of Life" which has a
>separate dairy side and a separate meat side.
At the big mall just west of Jerusalem, the kosher hamburger joint in
the food court has a little window on the side for dairy stuff iirc.
Another food guy there, not a direct competitor, told me that places
that sold both milk and meat, even separately, had gotten protests,
because.... it confused the little kids??? or something.
> We ate dinner on the
>dairy side. The portobello mushroom burger with fried onions and
>mozzarella was amazing. The onion rings were amazing. (I would never
>eat this stuff now - I would have to diet for a year to lose all the
>weight I would gain from one meal at this place).
>
>In the last few years, when we have visited Chicago, we have taken our
>kids to a diner called "The Tel Aviv," which is owned by Israelis.
>Each time, I print a hard copy of the menu from the Internet before we
>go, and my sons are planning for weeks in advance what they're going
>to eat there. It's a dairy restaurant which serves all kinds of food,
>including Italian and Mexican food. I have had taco salads and
>burritos there that rivaled anything I ever ate at ChiChi's in the
>olden days. (What the place lacks in atmosphere, they compensate for
>with price too - very reasonably priced). And that's in Chicago, where
>the options are limited.
>
>In New York City, the options are limitless, and there are bonafide
>kosher gourmet restaurants of every ethnic variety and steakhouses
>that would rival any of the treif places (from what I understand).
The kosher gourmet restaurant in DC, right on Pennsylvania Avenue I
think between the White House and the Capitol, got rave reviews but I
think didn't do well financially. Probably closed now.
>There's a lot more to kosher cuisine than pastrami.
Ummm. Pastrami. Yummy.
>Best regards,
>---Cindy S.
mm
Yasher koach.
[Praise for a well-spoken word of Torah]
>Q.E.D.
>____________________
>*The second secret is hidden entirely in the first citation:
>"harazim" also can mean `the thin ones'. Therefore, "`hakham harazim",
>is the wise person who stays blessedly thin by eating Chinese food,
>which - as we all know - is not fattening.
>
>Amitai
>
>> Art Werschulz (agw STRUDEL comcast.net)
>> .... insert clever quote here ...
--
mm
Resistance to xmas. By not taking the day off as xians do.
That's what was meant. I myself just treat it like any day off from
work. It used to be that every tv show had a xmas special which was
not only xmas themed but all the sitcoms made them variety shows,
where all the cast sang and danced, even if they didn't the rest of
the year. I don't like variety shows, or when cast members go out of
character.
But now tv is so bad that I mostly watch Retro TV, not on everywhere,
shows from the 50's-70's I didn't see any xmas, but even if there
were, that the show is 50 years old would probably be enough to make
up for that.
>
>
>Fiona
mm
<lbra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> In Portnoy's Complaint Phillip Roth explained it as follows, to everyone
>> else first generation Jews were foreigners but the Chinese didn't know
>> them from WASPs. And because the Chinese waiter thought they were WASPs
>> they could eat like WASPs so it was OK to eat pork in a Chinese
>> restaurant.
>
> Phillip Roth explained a little more strongly in Portnoy's
>Complaint. I remember it as to White Americans, Jews were not white or
>only barely white, slightly above African-Americans and other people
>of color on the social scale of acceptability. The Chinese viewed the
>Jews as whites and treated them as whites were supposed to be treated
>by people of color in those days.
Is anyone else as cynical as Phillip Roth? I've never met a Jew who
looked at things the way he describes.
>
> BTW, you are misusing the term WASP. WASP means White Anglo-Saxon
>Protestant. The phrase was coined in a book from the early 1960s about
>the old upper-class in the United States, families like the
>Vanderbilts, the Morgans, and others. Its just as much a term of
>class, as it is of ethnicity and religion. People mistakenly refer to
>Bill Clinton as a WASP but he is not one, he comes from the wrong
>class. Bush 1 and Bush 2 are both WASPs though.
There are literalists and there are sociologists. If we work at this,
maybe we can get them to debate who is and who isn't like we debate
what Jewish and Jew are.
>> I have two stories along those lines. In the early 90s I went to a
>> Chinese restaurant in Nashua with my business partner to break the Yom
>> Kippur fast. My partner is Jewish but he's completely non-practicing. The
>> owner of the restaurant came over to wish us a happy new year and gave us
>> special lobster dish for the occasion. My colleague asks "is it Chinese
>> New Year?" to which I responded, no Herb it's our New year.
>>
>> Along those same lines I had the mirror experience a few years later. I
>> was consulting to a company in Silicon Valley. The engineer I was working
>> with as a Chinese Muslim. Chinese Muslims are as frum as my partner. It
>> was Ramadan so I wished her a happy Ramadan, her response was "Ramadan,
>> is that a Jewish holiday?", to which I responded, no it's your holiday.
>> I then took her out for dim-sum which she had never had before.
--
cindys
<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> "cindys" <cste...@rochester.rr.com> wrote
Resistance to the pervasive Christmas thing. It's like saying "We
march to the tune of a different drummer, and we don't have to have
Christmas!" Again, I still don't see why you seem to find this so
annoying. Aren't American Jews allowed to have a nice day? Why should
we feel compelled to stay cooped up in the house being miserable and/
or watching _Its a Wonderful Life_ for the millionth time when we can
go out and see a movie or eat Chinese food (where kosher Chinese is
available for those who keep kosher) or go bowling?
My husband was pleased to see that CVS (an American drugstore chain)
was open. He went there to pick something up, and he said the place
was totally packed with people, probably not all Jewish people either.
The whole point of shops being closed on Christmas is so Christian
employees can have a holiday and be with their families, which is nice
for them, but does that mean that Jews are obligated to hide in our
homes? Thank God we don't live in 19th century Eastern Europe where we
have to huddle in our homes, scared of the annual Christmas pogroms.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
Fiona Abrahami
"mm" <NOPSAM...@bigfoot.com> wrote
> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>"cindys" <cst...@rochester.rr.com> wrote
>>> Don Levey <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote:
>>>> Fiona Abrahami wrote:
>>>snip
>>>>
>>>> > No... not the Chinese bit... why are Susan and <name(s)> doing this?
>>>>
>>>> For my own part, it's a small bit of resistance: I'm out in public NOT
>>>> celebrating the holiday, engaging in commerce, and so on.
>>> -----
>>> Yes, I agree that resistance plays a role.
>>
>>Resistance? Resistance to what, keeping kosher?
>
> Resistance to xmas. By not taking the day off as xians do.
>
> That's what was meant. I myself just treat it like any day off from
> work.
Exactly! That's why marking it with a special custom, like "going to the
movies and eating Chinese" is a problem. It is not ignoring the day (or its
Christian meaning) and treating it like any other day (which it is to us),
it is marking the day as special - even if doing so in a way not recognised
by Christians themselves.
Fiona
Steve Goldfarb
>And you have to eat out on Christmas because... what?
It's the one night of the year when all of the Christians stay in, and eat
at home (their own or a relative's, usually) therefore, all the Jews go
out.
As others have said - it's making a differentiation between what you do,
and what the goyim do. Among other reasons, including the fact that you've
got the next day off from work, so you can stay out a bit later than
usual.
What's the problem with that?
--s
--
Steve Goldfarb
>Exactly! That's why marking it with a special custom, like "going to the
>movies and eating Chinese" is a problem. It is not ignoring the day (or its
>Christian meaning) and treating it like any other day (which it is to us),
>it is marking the day as special - even if doing so in a way not recognised
>by Christians themselves.
Fiona - it already has a special custom, i.e., not learning Torah. So it's
not ignored and treated like any other day. Objection overruled. Got
another one?
--s
--
Fiona Abrahami
"Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>>Exactly! That's why marking it with a special custom, like "going to the
>>movies and eating Chinese" is a problem. It is not ignoring the day (or
>>its
>>Christian meaning) and treating it like any other day (which it is to us),
>>it is marking the day as special - even if doing so in a way not
>>recognised
>>by Christians themselves.
>
> Fiona - it already has a special custom, i.e., not learning Torah. So it's
> not ignored and treated like any other day.
A negative does not equal a positive, there is a big difference between not
studying Torah and going out for a cinema show and a meal.
Fiona
Fiona Abrahami
"W. Baker" <wba...@panix.com> wrote
> Fiona Abrahami <fiona@no_spam.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> : "Yussel" <jshu...@gmail.com> wrote
> : "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> : >>
> : >> So how come there were no Jewish restaurants open on Christmas for
> these
> : >> Jews to go to?
> : >
> : > Except for a few areas of New York City there are, in fact, very few
> : > Jewish (I guess you mean kosher) restaurants. Baltimore has two kosher
> : > Chinese restaurants (one good one mediocre) and this is their biggest
> : > day. The only other restaurants open are the non-kosher Chinese, and
> : > this is a big day for them as well.
>
> : And you have to eat out on Christmas because... what?
>
> American Jews of all kinds.
That's my point, it "has been adopted by many"... how long before it becomes
accepted into Minhag America'i as something that *should* be done?
Fiona
Art Werschulz
"W. Baker" <wba...@panix.com> writes:
> This reminds me a of a discussion some of us once had for how it would be
> if Jews had christmas trees. Can you imagine the arguments over the
> height and width of the trees, when it should be brought into the house
> and when removed. It woul dbe a great series of machlots(what is the
> plural). It would, surely, end up dividing the people, so God did not
> require this mitzvah:-)
See (e.g.) http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1298/kringler1.asp for
Hilchot Xmas.
--
Art Werschulz
mm <NOPSAM...@bigfoot.com> writes:
> In Baltimore at the kosher restaurant, the spicey dishes aren't as
> spicey as they would be in a restaurant meant to appeal to the general
> public. OTOH, maybe if I asked, they'd make it spicier. I keep
> forgetting that.
I don't think I'd have the nerve to send back a Szechuan dish, telling
the cook that it wasn't spicy enough, lest they take it as a challenge ...
mm
<fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>>Exactly! That's why marking it with a special custom, like "going to the
>>>movies and eating Chinese" is a problem. It is not ignoring the day (or
>>>its Christian meaning) and treating it like any other day (which it is to us),
>>>it is marking the day as special - even if doing so in a way not
>>>recognised by Christians themselves.
So if someone invites me out to a movie or suggests we go out to
dinner, I should say no?
>>
>> Fiona - it already has a special custom, i.e., not learning Torah. So it's
>> not ignored and treated like any other day.
>
>A negative does not equal a positive, there is a big difference between not
>studying Torah and going out for a cinema show and a meal.
Would not learning Torah on a day of the week and at a time one
normally be as big or even a bigger deviation from the norm than going
to a movie and/or dinner would be. Precisely because most people
don't have a schedule for going to the movies, or even to a
restuarant, whenever one such person goes it's not on a schedule. But
people have years-long schedules to learn Torah, and for at least some
slots, they schedule other things around their Torah schedule. So
skipping Torah for a night might be a bigger departure from one's
norm than adding one more movie/dinner to the year.
OTOH does everyone who learns regularly skip xmas? In a group that
has dropped that custom, should they be picking up a new one? In
Baltimore, half of my friends are not from Baltimore. It's some of
the ones who went to highschool together here who have the
movie/dinner custom, and I don't think I know anyone like that. But
if I meet one, and he or she invited me along, should I say no?
Should I urge my new friend not to go too?
mm
<a...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Hi.
>
>mm <NOPSAM...@bigfoot.com> writes:
>
>> In Baltimore at the kosher restaurant, the spicey dishes aren't as
>> spicey as they would be in a restaurant meant to appeal to the general
>> public. OTOH, maybe if I asked, they'd make it spicier. I keep
>> forgetting that.
>
>I don't think I'd have the nerve to send back a Szechuan dish, telling
>the cook that it wasn't spicy enough, lest they take it as a challenge ...
You've got a point there.
I mean to ask in advance, but maybe that has dangers too.
Asher N
news:Z7IZm.154$2r2...@newsfe27.ams2:
But 5 out of 7 times, we can't tret it like any other day. When Xmas
falls MOnday through Friday, we're off from work. Even when it falls on a
wekkend, we have a 3-4 day weekend. By it's very nature it becomes a
special day. Even if we were to hunker down in our houses, it would not
be like any other day.
>
cindys
> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote innews:Z7IZm.154$2r2...@newsfe27.ams2:
>
>
>
>
>
> > "mm" <NOPSAMmm2...@bigfoot.com> wrote
> >> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >>>"cindys" <cste...@rochester.rr.com> wrote
> >>>> Don Levey <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote:
> >>>>> Fiona Abrahami wrote:
> >>>>snip
>
> >>>>> > No... not the Chinese bit... why are Susan and <name(s)> doing
> >>>>> > this?
>
> >>>>> For my own part, it's a small bit of resistance: I'm out in public
> >>>>> NOT celebrating the holiday, engaging in commerce, and so on.
> >>>> -----
> >>>> Yes, I agree that resistance plays a role.
>
> >>>Resistance? Resistance to what, keeping kosher?
>
> >> Resistance to xmas. By not taking the day off as xians do.
>
> >> That's what was meant. I myself just treat it like any day off from
> >> work.
>
> > Exactly! That's why marking it with a special custom, like "going to
> > the movies and eating Chinese" is a problem. It is not ignoring the
> > day (or its Christian meaning) and treating it like any other day
> > (which it is to us), it is marking the day as special - even if doing
> > so in a way not recognised by Christians themselves.
>
> > Fiona
>
> But 5 out of 7 times, we can't tret it like any other day. When Xmas
> falls MOnday through Friday, we're off from work. Even when it falls on a
> wekkend, we have a 3-4 day weekend. By it's very nature it becomes a
> special day. Even if we were to hunker down in our houses, it would not
> be like any other day.
Speaking for myself, I work every day (from home, at my paying job).
On Friday, I work in the morning. On Saturday night, after dark, I
work too. The only times I don't work (in the entire year) are on
shabbos and yom tov, but then I can't get in the car, can't go
shopping, can't go out for coffee, can't turn on the TV, can't turn on
the computer, can't turn on a light switch, can't tear a piece of
paper.
There is always work to be done. But on Christmas and Thanksgiving and
New Year's, there is no work, and it's (generally) not shabbos/yom
tov, and I can go shopping, go to the movies, go out for coffee and
not feel like I should be home earning money at my paying job. For
this reason, I can't wait for Christmas and Thanksgiving and New
Year's every year. So, I have to give that up too? Maybe I can just go
see a movie on Saturday afternoon, and then I won't feel compelled to
do so on Christmas.
Best regards,
---Cindy S.
Steve Goldfarb
(not snipped for reference)
You're correct in that a negative does not equal a positive, but you've
moved the goalposts. Your original claim - left intact above - is that the
appropriate Jewish approach is to "ignore the day ... and treating it like
any other day..." Which is NOT correct, that's NOT what O Jews do. They do
indeed treat this day differently from other days - they refrain from
doing that which they consider the most important thing one can possibly
do. So it's a pretty signficant change, in fact.
So I have disproven your claim. Perhaps there is some other reason why one
ought not do some positive action, but it's not because the day should be
ignored, as you stated.
--s
--
fla...@verizon.net
On 24-Dec-2009, Don Levey <Don_...@the-leveys.us> wrote:
> > And the Jews just *had* to go out to eat and see a movie!? They could
> > stay
> > home and read a book for one night a year?
> >
>
> Perhaps it's the way of reminding people that we're out here too, and
> that not everyone celebrates this one holy day.
Maybe it's also "Hey, this is the BEST
time to go: NO CROWDS!"
Susan
Henry Goodman
news:hh8sdj$gkk$1...@reader1.panix.com...
I think you should be reminded that only a minority of O Jews (mostly
Chabad) refrain from learning on nittelnacht (Xmas eve). Round here Daf Yomi
and other shiurim went on as usual.
--
Henry Goodman
henry dot goodman at virgin dot net
Giorgies E Kepipesiom
>
> I think you should be reminded that only a minority of O Jews (mostly
> Chabad) refrain from learning on nittelnacht (Xmas eve). Round here Daf Yomi
> and other shiurim went on as usual.
>
there are nine different minyanim, of nine different types. All have
verious shiurim scheduled. None are officially Chabad. Last Thursday
night, every one of them made sure to finish their shiurim before
their maariv service. I dropped in at half past eight to retrieve my
scarf, and only two of the rooms were occupied, and none of the
occupants was learning. All were either playing chess or observing the
playing. The "mequblim minyan" gathered at midnight (instead of their
usual 9 pm) for their shiur in Shaar Ma"N uMa"D. Though not a member
of that minyan, I often join that shiur. But on that night I read
Tolkien literature (as I have done on every natal evening for the past
30 years) until midnight, and then went to bed.
GEK
Tim Meushaw
<snip>
> The Royal, which makes American food and Jewish American food also
> makes a lot of Chinese food. Owned by Jews. If any Chinese work there
> it might be a coincidence.
I've never seen any; on the other hand, their other restaurant, Royal
Dragon in Rockville, does have at least one Chinese waiter.
> And Kosher Bite, which is basically a hamburger place, has expanded to
> fried chicken, shwarma, and Chinese food.
They've had shwarma for a long time; it's the kabobs that are new.
And see below.
> Nothing to do with Chinese, but the kosher Subway just added shwarma
> too, a friend's email last week tells me.
That's why I'd go to Subway; for shwarma, and not a sub. <rolls eyes>
> And there was a kosher Chinese restaurant owned by Chinese that went
> out of business a few years ago for some reason. Maybe bad location,
> a little too far away and the parking lot they shared with others was
> always filled. Actually they may have "merged" with a new Chinese
> restaurant owned by Chinese which is a lot closer to the frum
> neighorhood and whose food is very good, though the place I called not
> spicey enough. This new restaurant is owned by the Chinese family
> that had a treif Chinese rest. on Liberty Road close to me, that
> burned down. And another treif sit-down Chinese rest a block from
> that one closed with no warning a couple years ago. These were in
> addition to the places I mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
I'm fairly certain that the Chinese restaurant in the bad location
merged with Kosher Bite; that's why KB now sells Chinese food. I
think their name was Szcheuan Delight or Dynasty or something, hence
"KB/Szcheuan" for the new name. They used to be a treif Chinese
restaurant, someone convinced them to go kosher, and they didn't make
it on their own. Sad, as I always liked them better than David
Chiu's, and they were always much less crowded.
If you're talking about the new Chinese place (Umami?), I thought that
was a brand new place with no previous kosher ties. But, I could be
mistaken.
> The kosher gourmet restaurant in DC, right on Pennsylvania Avenue I
> think between the White House and the Capitol, got rave reviews but I
> think didn't do well financially. Probably closed now.
Do you know any more about it? This is the first I've ever heard of
it in the 7 years we've lived down here. There have been two kosher
restaurants total inside the DC line that I know of (not counting at
the JCC), and both were delis. The one that failed was closer to stam
downtown, but wasn't where you described. The deli that's still
around is near Dupont Circle.
Now, if someone would open a kosher Indian restaurant a little closer
to home than NYC (which I presume has one, but I'm not certain), I'd
be happy. Actually, I should rephrase; Philadelphia wouldn't do me
much good, either. I can't make it at home as the curry smell
overwhelms my wife, so I'm fairly out of luck unless she goes on a
business trip for a few days so I can air the place out.
Tim
--
Timothy A. Meushaw
meu...@pobox.com
Henry Goodman
news:7f498d12-f5b1-4593...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
GEK
_______________________________________________________________
Interesting. So abstaining from learning on nittel nacht has become a firm
American minhag. It hardly happens in England.
I would be interested to know whether this ridiculous minhag is observed in
Israel.
sheldonlg
>
> They've had shwarma for a long time; it's the kabobs that are new.
> And see below.
I had never heard of shwarma so I just looked it up. It is also called
gyro (Greek name). Yes, they are very good.
Fiona Abrahami
> "Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>
>> (not snipped for reference)
>>
>>>"Steve Goldfarb" <s...@panix.com> wrote
>>>> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>>>
>>>>>Exactly! That's why marking it with a special custom, like "going to
>>>>>the movies and eating Chinese" is a problem. It is not ignoring the day
>>>>>(or its Christian meaning) and treating it like any other day (which it
>>>>>is to us), it is marking the day as special - even if doing so in a way
>>>>>not recognised by Christians themselves.
>>>>
>>>> Fiona - it already has a special custom, i.e., not learning Torah. So
>>>> it's not ignored and treated like any other day.
>>
>>>A negative does not equal a positive, there is a big difference between
>>>not studying Torah and going out for a cinema show and a meal.
>>
>> You're correct in that a negative does not equal a positive, but you've
>> moved the goalposts. Your original claim - left intact above - is that
>> the appropriate Jewish approach is to "ignore the day ... and treating it
>> like any other day..." Which is NOT correct, that's NOT what O Jews do.
>> They do indeed treat this day differently from other days - they refrain
>> from doing that which they consider the most important thing one can
>> possibly do. So it's a pretty signficant change, in fact.
>>
>> So I have disproven your claim. Perhaps there is some other reason why
>> one ought not do some positive action, but it's not because the day
>> should be ignored, as you stated.
>
> Chabad) refrain from learning on nittelnacht (Xmas eve). Round here Daf
> Yomi and other shiurim went on as usual.
Exactly, and in the Sephardi world no one had ever heard of the concept
until Habad et al. got on the case. So once again Steve trumpets his success
but actually proves nothing.
Fiona
Giorgies E Kepipesiom
> "Giorgies E Kepipesiom" <kepipes...@hotmail.com> wrote in messagenews:7f498d12-f5b1-4593-
>
> That may be the case round there. Round here, in our shule complex
> there are nine different minyanim, of nine different types. All have
> verious shiurim scheduled. None are officially Chabad. Last Thursday
> night, every one of them made sure to finish their shiurim before
> their maariv service. I dropped in at half past eight to retrieve my
> scarf, and only two of the rooms were occupied, and none of the
> occupants was learning. All were either playing chess or observing the
> playing. The "mequblim minyan" gathered at midnight (instead of their
> usual 9 pm) for their shiur in Shaar Ma"N uMa"D. Though not a member
> of that minyan, I often join that shiur. But on that night I read
> Tolkien literature (as I have done on every natal evening for the past
> 30 years) until midnight, and then went to bed.
>
> American minhag. It hardly happens in England.
> I would be interested to know whether this ridiculous minhag is observed in
> Israel.
I would not call it an American minhag, nor would I say that it "has
become" a minhag. It has been a minhag for centuries, is mentioned by
numerous acharonim (not of the Chabad bent, and some of them likely
never having heard of Chabad), and was a minhag before there were Jews
in America. Were I you, I would be wary of calling a minhag
"ridiculous", whether you personally subscribe to it or no.
Forthermore, I rather suspect that if you do some homework you will
discover that observance of this minhag is not so rare in England as
you suppose. And if it is indeed not observed, as you claim, then I
would put it that "abstaining from learning on natal nacht has become
a firm English non-minhag" rather than the other way round as you put
it. It would be a matter of the English abandoning the minhag, not the
Americans establishing it. As to whether it is observed in "Israel",
my own interest in that subject equals my interest in the same subject
with regard to England. Sapahradim for the most part do not observe
it. But the two Sapharadic minyanim in our complex do. As does our
"Litwasha Yeshivasha" minyan. The latter usually foregather at
midnight to resume their study group. For some reason, this year they
did not. If hard-boiled Litwaks such as they can refrain, I imagine
that frigid Yekkes (of which type I myself am a proud scion) can too.
Some communities observe this minhag on the eve of January 7, not the
eve of December 25. And I am told that there are also communities
where it is observed on the eve of Jam 6.
Those who are such masmidim that they never refrain from learning for
six consecutive hours, and cannot bear to do so on this evening, may
have a case for seeking dispensation. Those who regularly let six
hours and more go by without opening a sefer have no such excuse. You
don't have to let the six hours go to waste. You can sharpen your mind
by playing chess, as has become the American minhag for this evening.
I read Tolkien. Or, you can go to sleep early, and rise at midnight
(as did King David) to study Torah. Or you can do as those who
originated this discussion do: go out to eat Chineese. I imagine that
there must be a kosher Chineese restaurant somewhere in London. And if
there isn't, then you have a golden opportunity for some enterprising
enterpreneur to open one. They can spend natal evening formulating the
plans.
GEK
Asher_N
news:7185e9b4-7835-49f8...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
But the majority of us work in a place of business. A lot of us work in
an office environment, That means M-F 9-5. When Xmas falls on one of
those days, we can't treat it like any other day, because our routine is
changed. It is diferent by the very nature of the place of business being
closed.
Don Levey
> Hi.
>
> mm <NOPSAM...@bigfoot.com> writes:
>
>> In Baltimore at the kosher restaurant, the spicey dishes aren't as
>> spicey as they would be in a restaurant meant to appeal to the general
>> public. OTOH, maybe if I asked, they'd make it spicier. I keep
>> forgetting that.
>
> I don't think I'd have the nerve to send back a Szechuan dish, telling
> the cook that it wasn't spicy enough, lest they take it as a challenge ...
>
--
Don Levey, Framingam MA If knowledge is power,
(email address in header works) and power corrupts, then...
NOTE: Don't send mail to to sal...@the-leveys.us
GnuPG public key: http://www.the-leveys.us:6080/keys/don-dsakey.asc
Don Levey
> "cindys" <cst...@rochester.rr.com> wrote
>> Don Levey <Don_S...@the-leveys.us> wrote:
>>> Fiona Abrahami wrote:
>> snip
>>>> No... not the Chinese bit... why are Susan and <name(s)> doing this?
>>> For my own part, it's a small bit of resistance: I'm out in public NOT
>>> celebrating the holiday, engaging in commerce, and so on.
>> -----
>> Yes, I agree that resistance plays a role.
>
> Resistance? Resistance to what, keeping kosher?
>
>
No, Fiona, resistance to assimilation.
You'd prefer that we hunker down in the basement and wait for the
Cossacks to pass?
meir b.
wrote:
I'm amazed. I spent several years in five different yeshivos in
the US and Israel. In not one of them was nittel observed; it was
learning as usual.
Meir B.
Herman Rubin
meir b. <mei...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Dec 28, 1:34=A0pm, Giorgies E Kepipesiom <kepipes...@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>> On Dec 28, 5:46=A0am, "Henry Goodman" <henry.good...@virgin.net> wrote:
>> > I think you should be reminded that only a minority of O Jews (mostly
>> > Chabad) refrain from learning on nittelnacht (Xmas eve). Round here Daf=
> Yomi
>> > and other shiurim went on as usual.
<> That may be the case round there. Round here, in our shule complex
<> there are nine different minyanim, of nine different types. All have
<> verious shiurim scheduled. None are officially Chabad. Last Thursday
<> night, every one of them made sure to finish their shiurim before
<> their maariv service. I dropped in at half past eight to retrieve my
<> scarf, and only two of the rooms were occupied, and none of the
<> occupants was learning. All were either playing chess or observing the
<> playing. The "mequblim minyan" gathered at midnight (instead of their
<> usual 9 pm) for their shiur in Shaar Ma"N uMa"D. Though not a member
<> of that minyan, I often join that shiur. But on that night I read
<> Tolkien literature (as I have done on every natal evening for the past
<> 30 years) until midnight, and then went to bed.
> I'm amazed. I spent several years in five different yeshivos in
>the US and Israel. In not one of them was nittel observed; it was
>learning as usual.
> Meir B.
Should we let the false beliefs of the Christians
determine what we do on their holiday?
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
mm
I'm pretty sure but I haven't gotten it comfirmed by anyone I'm sure
knows, that hero sandwiches get their names from gyro, which is
pronounced in Greek closer to hero than to anything else.
And I'm sure now that gyro refers specifically to the rotating spit,
and the rotating meat, as in gyroscope.
This means that for decades I didn't understand what they meant when
they said that Elvis, and other things, gyrated. I thought it just
meant to shake, (partly probably because of "Shake, Rattle, and Roll)
and I'm not convinced yet that some who used the word didn't also
think it meant to shake) when it really means "to move in a circle or
spiral, or around a fixed point; whirl." although in Elvis's case, it
referred to his swiveling hips.
AHD4 says shwarma has the same original meaning: "[Arabic ša-wurma,
ša-wirma, from Turkish çevirme, a turn (as on a spit), meat roasted on
a spit, from verbal n. of çevirmek, to turn.]"
Yussel
I have tried for years to get Chinese restaurants in Baltimore, kosher
or otherwise, to make their food as spicy as the Chinese actually do,
and failed. After 20 years in the San Francisco area where they
actually know what it is supposed to taste like, and a few weeks in
China, I have fairly high standards. I don't send the gringo food
back, I just stopped going to Chinese restaurants, even on Christmas.
I do know the fear of the challenge however. After spending a few
months in India and acquiring taste buds that could down jet fuel-A, I
went into a Chinese restaurant in Bombay (now Mumbai--and the same
hotel attacked earlier this year) and ordered something from the menu.
The waiter shook his head and said "too hot." I kept insisting i could
handle it. So out it came. The waiter and the chef came to watch. You
could see the fumes from the peppers. I downed the damned thing with
tears rolling down my face and a quart of beer to put out the fire,
smiled as I walked out. And then put aloe on my tongue. It was bad
idea.
j
mm
<kepip...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> If hard-boiled Litwaks such as they can refrain, I imagine
>that frigid Yekkes (of which type I myself am a proud scion) can too.
If you're a Yekke, where did you get your last name? I figured you
came from some place exotic.
>Some communities observe this minhag on the eve of January 7, not the
>eve of December 25. And I am told that there are also communities
>where it is observed on the eve of Jam 6.
>
>Those who are such masmidim that they never refrain from learning for
>six consecutive hours, and cannot bear to do so on this evening, may
>have a case for seeking dispensation. Those who regularly let six
>hours and more go by without opening a sefer have no such excuse. You
>don't have to let the six hours go to waste. You can sharpen your mind
>by playing chess, as has become the American minhag for this evening.
Nu, so if you don't like chess? Hey, let's get Chinese food! (Offer
void where prohibited.)
>I read Tolkien. Or, you can go to sleep early, and rise at midnight
>(as did King David) to study Torah. Or you can do as those who
>originated this discussion do: go out to eat Chineese. I imagine that
You beat me to it!
>there must be a kosher Chineese restaurant somewhere in London. And if
>there isn't, then you have a golden opportunity for some enterprising
>enterpreneur to open one. They can spend natal evening formulating the
>plans.
>
>GEK
--
Steve Goldfarb
>Interesting. So abstaining from learning on nittel nacht has become a firm
>American minhag. It hardly happens in England.
>I would be interested to know whether this ridiculous minhag is observed in
>Israel.
You know what's really a ridiculous minhag? Kitniyot. Hah! Let's all have
a laugh at all those folk who buy into that one, shall we?
--s
--
Steve Goldfarb
>Exactly, and in the Sephardi world no one had ever heard of the concept
>until Habad et al. got on the case. So once again Steve trumpets his success
>but actually proves nothing.
So in your opinion non-Sephardim aren't really Jews? Interesting....
--s
--
W. Baker
: "W. Baker" <wba...@panix.com> wrote
: > Fiona Abrahami <fiona@no_spam.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
: > : "Yussel" <jshu...@gmail.com> wrote
: > : "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
: > : >>
: > : >> So how come there were no Jewish restaurants open on Christmas for
: > these
: > : >> Jews to go to?
: > : >
: > : > Except for a few areas of New York City there are, in fact, very few
: > : > Jewish (I guess you mean kosher) restaurants. Baltimore has two kosher
: > : > Chinese restaurants (one good one mediocre) and this is their biggest
: > : > day. The only other restaurants open are the non-kosher Chinese, and
: > : > this is a big day for them as well.
: >
: > : And you have to eat out on Christmas because... what?
: >
: > You don't have to, but it is something to do and has been adopted by many
: > American Jews of all kinds.
: That's my point, it "has been adopted by many"... how long before it becomes
: accepted into Minhag America'i as something that *should* be done?
: Fiona
I doub that will happen, but it is a kind of joke when mentioned rather
than a "something yu should do."
Wendy Baker
W. Baker
: In <Z7IZm.154$2r2...@newsfe27.ams2> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@NO_SPAM.intxtdoc.demon.co.uk> writes:
: >Exactly! That's why marking it with a special custom, like "going to the
: >movies and eating Chinese" is a problem. It is not ignoring the day (or its
: >Christian meaning) and treating it like any other day (which it is to us),
: >it is marking the day as special - even if doing so in a way not recognised
: >by Christians themselves.
: Fiona - it already has a special custom, i.e., not learning Torah. So it's
: not ignored and treated like any other day. Objection overruled. Got
: another one?
: --s
: --
Interesting as our MO shul often holds a Yom Iyun on Cristmas day and
children's programs as well so families have sometinhing to do when all
the museums (except the Jeewish Museum in NYC that runs special programs
on that day), etc are closed.
Wendy Baker
Steve Goldfarb
>Interesting as our MO shul often holds a Yom Iyun on Cristmas day and
>children's programs as well so families have sometinhing to do when all
>the museums (except the Jeewish Museum in NYC that runs special programs
>on that day), etc are closed.
I believe the issue/minhag, for those who observe it, is only related to
Christmas Eve, not the following day.
--s
--
Henry Goodman
news:30256339-cc93-461b...@e37g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
Meir B.
_____________________________
Good. So is observance of Nittel confined to New York?
Henry Goodman
Hence the shiur mentioned earlier in the thread that postponed its start
till after midnight.
Yisroel Markov
<schvan...@yahoo.com> said:
[snip]
>so they haven't had to work in restaurants for a very long time. There is
>another reason that you don't see any Kosher restaurants outside of a few
>Orthodox Jewish enclaves, it's almost impossible to make money on a
>restaurant that's closed on Friday night and Saturday. Even in very
>Jewish areas it's extremely difficult. I can only think of a couple of
>Kosher restaurants in Skokie (there must be one or two more that I don't
>know about), and there are only two or three in Brookline MA, one of
>which is Chinese.
In Brookline, MA, there are three kosher restaraunts - American and
Chinese, and three cafes. The third, also Chinese (and older than the
other one) went non-kosher last year.
--
Yisroel "Godwrestler Warriorson" Markov - Boston, MA Member
www.reason.com -- for a sober analysis of the world DNRC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Judge, and be prepared to be judged" -- Ayn Rand
mm
<ey.m...@MUNGiname.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:30:47 +0000 (UTC), General Schvantzkoph
><schvan...@yahoo.com> said:
>
>[snip]
>
>>so they haven't had to work in restaurants for a very long time. There is
>>another reason that you don't see any Kosher restaurants outside of a few
>>Orthodox Jewish enclaves, it's almost impossible to make money on a
>>restaurant that's closed on Friday night and Saturday. Even in very
>>Jewish areas it's extremely difficult. I can only think of a couple of
>>Kosher restaurants in Skokie (there must be one or two more that I don't
>>know about), and there are only two or three in Brookline MA, one of
>>which is Chinese.
>
>In Brookline, MA, there are three kosher restaraunts - American and
>Chinese, and three cafes. The third, also Chinese (and older than the
>other one) went non-kosher last year.
It's a shame when a restaurant goes OTD. <grin>