Chicken soup for unaffiliated Jews

NEW YORK -- On bustling Broadway, it was a blustery Tuesday morning rush hour. Inside Abigael's on Broadway kosher restaurant, however, was the unmistakable feeling of Friday evening.

But instead of building to the moment when Shabbat candles are lit and the family gathers at the table, the excitement here was mounting to a different sort of crescendo.

After four hours of slicing, chopping, simmering and tasting, five contestants were awaiting the verdict of the Chicken Soup Challenge, a contest that had brought the finalists -- culled from more than 500 entries -- from as far away as California and as close by as the Upper West Side.

'Jewish penicillin'

Rosely Himmelstein, a native New Yorker and grandmother of two, was the winner of the "Soup-er Tuesday" contest with her traditional soup that had an extra splash of color because she adds sweet potatoes.

Soup was the order of the day, with Abigael's executive chef and proprietor Jeffrey Nathan, who is also the host of the PBS program "New Jewish Cuisine," briefing judges on the two major criteria for good soup: flavor and presentation.

But the contest, which was sponsored by the National Jewish Outreach Program, set its sights much higher than these five cooks and the honor of having the best version of what many people call "Jewish penicillin."

The contest is part of a massive initiative called Shabbat Across America, an effort to bring the smells, tastes and feelings of the Sabbath to Jews who might not otherwise partake. The event will take place on Friday.

Now in its eighth year, Shabbat Across America has reached more than a million Jews and attracted more than 500 synagogues that use NJOP materials to conduct a brief "beginner's service" and provide a traditional Shabbat meal.

Soup as identity

Chicken soup, organizers reasoned, is a universal symbol of Jewish identity.

"Chicken soup is our heritage. It's forever," said Nathan, who donated his time and the ingredients for the contest and whose staff provided support and materials but no advice to the contestants as they worked.

The contest comes at a time when Jewish organizations such as the NJOP are working hard to stem what they see as a tide of alienation and disengagement among American Jews.

The much-quoted 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey found that less than half of American Jews belong to a synagogue, and that while a majority hold Passover seder and observe the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, only 27 percent attend services more than once a month.

To organizers of the contest, this raised the stakes beyond the trip to Israel, "Chicken Soup Challenge Champion" trophy, or other goodies that were awarded to the winner.

"Food is a very crucial element to Jewish survival," said Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, who is the founder and director of NJOP. The organization spends more than $250,000 each year on marketing materials for Shabbat Across America, Buchwald said.

Judaism's family factor

The reason for this is "to make it a little easier" for unaffiliated Jews to feel at home within their religion. "One of the most heroic acts of a 21st century Jew is to walk through the doors of a synagogue," he said.

As opposed to the factors that some Jews find intimidating, like learning Hebrew or refraining from certain activities such as driving on the Sabbath, chicken soup represents the positive and family-oriented aspects of Judaism, said Rabbi Yitzchak Rosenbaum, NJOP's program director.

"It has the whole image of our grandmothers," he said. "It's so much fun."

Himmelstein, whose soup won the contest, is one of those grandmothers. In fact, she had just returned from her grandson's bar mitzvah in California. Already exhausted from the trip, she arrived home only to discover a leak in her apartment's plumbing, which she cleaned up, late into the night just before the contest.

"If chicken soup is the universal comfort food we all know it is, I need some," she declared after her name was announced.

The NJOP is hoping that buzz from the contest and a high turnout at Shabbat Across America might attract Jews to learn more about their traditions and incorporate more active practice of Judaism into their lives.

Fast-track Hebrew

But for Paulette Rochelle-Levy, who was one of the finalists in the chicken soup contest, it was an NJOP program that led her to find out about the contest, not the other way around.

Rochelle-Levy, who lives in Santa Monica, Calif., took the NJOP's "Hebrew Crash Course," which she said enabled her to read Hebrew after five classes with no previous experience. A contest announcement she received afterwards sparked her creative chicken soup recipe, which featured green apple and cinnamon.

Smiling, Rochelle-Levy, who belongs to the Jewish Renewal movement, said that she "channeled" the recipe.

"I got it from the same place I get everything: divine inspiration," she said, gesturing upward with her soup ladle between stirs.

Melting pot of soup

Other contestants also said they felt their recipes were laced with symbolism of Jewish history and heritage.

"It has all the elements of the diaspora," said Jerry Greenberg, a Reconstructionist Jew from Belmont, Calif., of his soup, which included such exotic ingredients as coconut milk, yucca root, crimini mushrooms and the Indian spice turmeric.

Greenberg, 62, had no trouble listing the aspects of Jewish identity that chicken soup -- even his, which was inspired by a recipe he tasted in a Jamaican restaurant -- means to him.

"Family. Connection. Community. Identity. The holidays," he said as he concentrated on his simmering pot.

Veronica Gold, a contestant who is an assistant professor at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., also saw symbolism in the variety of recipes among the contestants.

"It's kind of like a melting pot, a melting soup pot," said Gold, 50, who belongs to an Orthodox synagogue and whose soup was thickened with cream of wheat, a technique she learned from her Viennese mother.

"There are so many ethnic varieties, there's lots of flavor in Jewish cooking," she said, adding, "The cooking unites people."