“The thing we Jews are best at (is) arguing.”
- Bob Deresiewicz, Jewish Culture Festival advisory committee
In a season where the Vineyard is more aware of the above sentiment than usual, there was a relaxed, joyful feast for the senses at the Jewish Culture Festival Tuesday as a crowd of about 300 people gathered to celebrate elements of Jewish culture.
The festival, in its 3rd year, is sponsored by Chabad, an Orthodox branch of Judaism with an enormous world-wide following. This year’s event, under several large white pavilions at private residence in West Tisbury, offered not only treats for the palette and the ears — the excellent violinist Yaeko Elmaleh and accompanying string quartet, as well as the engaging folk trio Distant Cousins — but even for the nose. In the pavilion of exhibitions, perhaps the most original offering was Rabbi Dr. Yosef Glassman’s “Spices & Scents of Judaism,” in which participants were invited to breathe in the wafting aromas of incense and seasonings associated with ancient Jerusalem. The rabbi described each spice and resin, and where it originally came from, emphasizing the warm trade and travel relationships ancient Israel had with other cultures.
The food pavilion boasted the creative offering of foods symbolic of significant Jewish holidays. Catered by VIP Catering out of New York City, there were five tables; the two most familiar offerings were foods for Pesach (Passover), variations of items that would be found on the ritual Seder plate, particularly for an Ashkenazi Seder. The Chanukah table featured comfort foods that were high in oil, to honor the oil-lamp that miraculously burned for 8 days without replenishment. All of the food was laid out in resplendent beauty and was delicious.
The other three holidays might be less familiar to those unschooled in Judaism: joyous Purim was observed with largely triangular foods such as hamantaschen, to represent the tricornered hat of Haman, the villain in the Purim story. The Rosh Hashanah table included foods symbolic of abundance, blessings, and sweetness, to welcome in the new year, such as honey cakes and pomegranates. Finally, the holiday Shavuot is associated with eating dairy (one rabbi has collected over a hundred different stories explaining why), although here all offerings were non-dairy equivalents (keeping kosher forbids meats and dairy products being served at the same meal, and most other tables offered meat). Herzog Wine Cellars offered pairings for many of the foods.
The final sense that was engaged was, of course, the Jewish sense of humor. Bob Deresiewicz, introducing the evening’s entertainment, described humor as “the secret sauce of our people,” and headliner comedian Elon Gold demonstrated this with gusto. While the biggest laugh of his act was arguably his spot-on impersonation of President Trump, the majority of his jokes reflected the time-honored and familiar expression of Jewish comedy: self-deprecating humor, both personal and tribal. For example: “Pharoah is the only guy in all of human history who would say, ‘Hey, you know who I want to build all my tall buildings? The Jews.’”
There were also less sense-oriented interactive opportunities. Rabbi Schmuly G, a scribe, wrote attendees’ Jewish names in elegant Hebrew and discussed how he worked. At one table, children and adults could paint their own mezuzah case (a mezuzah is a scroll traditionally placed on Jewish doorposts.) A genealogy table run by Sallyann Sack and her researchers allows you to seek the linguistic and geographical location of a Jewish family name, although at the moment most information is available for Ashkenazim (Jews of Central/Northern European background), more so than Jews of other ethnic backgrounds such as Sephardic (Spanish), Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) or Ethiopian. Their hope is to expand their reach (this writer was impressed that Sallyann knew that my grandmother’s maiden name denoted her a Kurdish Jew).
Early in the evening, Bob Deresiewicz’s introductory comments were inclusive, emphasizing that Chabad respects all living creatures, and that – despite his tongue-in-cheek comment about Jewish people loving a good argument – Judaism “encourages people to come to an argument with a willingness to be convinced.” May this sentiment, and all the good energy generated at the festival, inspire and elevate everyone long after the pavilions have come down.
It’s a huge relief to read this year’s MVTIMES positive coverage of the Jewish Cultural Festival, by contrast to the blatant hostility and negativity of last year’s coverage.
It’s a disgrace, however, that for no articulated reason, the West Tisbury Board restricted this joyful Jewish gathering to less than half the size of last year’s festival.
I watched the entire West Tisbury Board meeting and came away with the unshakable impression that words of the Board members and staffer who spoke in opposition to allowing a festival of the same size as last year were cover for entirely non-kosher thoughts.