À la Recherche du Temps Perdu

Montevideo, Uruguay – 1958 - A short, very fat, socially awkward, geeky 12 year old, played violin in a concert – as a soloist with the orchestra of the S.O.D.R.E. He got a standing ovation and did 4 short encores. The boy had played some Debussy, some Ravel and more, but what conquered the audience’s heart, came at the end when – against his music teacher’s orders – he played a superb rendition of Niccolò Paganini‘s Caprice Number 18. It was an extremely hard piece to play, especially for a little kid. Paganini is known for the devilishly intricate finger work his compositions require. The boy became very sick soon after and his parents (overly protective Holocaust survivors!) stopped his musical career right then and there, so as to take away any added pressure that might adversely affect him.

For more than half his life, since age 5, he’d studied the violin, practicing 3 hours a day after public school (in the mornings) and cheder (in the afternoon). During vacations, he often practiced 8 hours a day. Violin playing was his passion, suddenly, painfully, it was yanked away from him. It took a very long time to overcome the terrible void…

Kiron, Israel – 1968 – The socially awkward kid is no longer fat, no longer awkward, no longer a kid, he is a 22 year old married man who buys a violin. His then father in law – Bernard Fiedler, a”h – who had been a concert violinist in Vienna before WWII, encourages him. His wife proudly tells his parents; after a few days, the new violin disappears. “Your parents felt it was best,” says the wife.

Fast forward, Manhattan, New York – 2013 - The second act of David Rubertone‘s bar mitzvah took place yesterday at noon in The Bentley Hotel‘s Penthouse, at the beautiful Prime Grill Restaurant, I had the privilege of video taping and photographing it, as I did about 6 weeks earlier at the Manhattan Sephardic Congregation. Suddenly – as David entertained the guests – I, the once fat, socially awkward, geeky kid, was filled with emotions at the happy and the sad memories, the tears and the triumphs, that David’s violin playing brought back. Words fail me, but somehow I now feel that while the past is irretrievably gone, it is possible that my temps perdu, the days when I played the violin, might return yet.

One of the people who spoke at the bar mitzvah, addressing David, said that while he might think that it is his teachers who taught him over the years, it is really he who has been teaching them. I can’t speak for his teachers but, I do know that in the three times I’ve met David, I learned a lot and actually found that lost time I so painstakingly had been searching for, seemingly in vain.

Marcel Proust, whose multi – volume novel’s title I borrowed for this post, once said: The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Yesterday’s bar mitzvah boy, unknowingly showed me a solution, taught me how to see with new eyes, gave me new strengths, made me discover new regions within myself…

Thank you David, perhaps it’s time to take up the violin again!

The once short, very fat, socially awkward, geeky kid

//

A Night of Art, Wine, and More

This coming Tuesday, May 7th, Igal Fedida Fine Art (1482 1st Avenue, New York, NY) will host an evening of presentation and conversation. Igal Fedida will talk about his art and his vision. Kosher wine, kosher cheese, fruits and more will be served. Igal’s art, fuses his Torah and mysticism knowledge and combines them into a painting, which (while abstract) is easily understood as a vision of the various facets of creation. As I wrote in these pages before:

He is a modern painter with a message that extends beyond time. His colors are bold, Hebrew letters appear almost invariably, his brush strokes reveal a lot more about the subject matter than do the works of far more photo realistic artists. In short, though he paints Jewish art, his paintings speak to Jew and non-Jew alike, his works stir up emotions beyond what the eyes can perceive. While looking at his creations, you see the colors dance, you see the colors explode; no definable shape is discernible, yet everything that exists or ever existed is in them.

He recently moved his gallery to New York’s Upper East Side, after many successful years in Miami, Florida. Below is a video of the artist creating, one of many on his youtube channel.

Hope to see there!

CS

RELATED POSTS

A Talk With Igal Fedida

A Night of Wine and Art

A Night of Wine and Art – Part 2

My Uncle Henry…

Yesterday, the 17th of Iyar, was the shloshim of the ptirah of my mother’s baby brother – Henry Moss (Yechiel Leib ben Nochum, a”h) from Richmond, VA. He was niftar 6 months short of his 101st birthday. He had always said that all he wanted was to live to be a 100, his wish was certainly granted! He passed on the evening of March 28, at the onset of the second day of chol hamo’ed Pessach (18th of Nissan).

Henry Moss, a Holocaust survivor, left behind neither a wife nor children. I, his nephew, and my children and grandchildren are his only relatives left.

Yechiel Leib ben Nochum né Moszkowicz – Henry Moss, a”h
Photo courtesy of the Virginia Holocaust Museum.

Before WWII, he managed the family’s successful sweater factory in Lodz, Poland. Ten days before his wedding day, his intended was shot point blank by a Nazi murderer in front of his eyes. Since then, though popular, he never found another; no one ever measured up to the girl he had grown up with as neighbors in their native Stopnica. Always cheerful in company, he would have nightmares every night. He relived  the scenes of the shooting, of the concentration camps, of the slave labor, of the beatings… He never got over what he lost, but through it all he showed a remarkable will to live, never allowing his spirit to break, never giving in to the murderers without. That was his revenge!

Shortly before Hanukka 2006, as he was working in his bedroom, a heavy bookshelf somehow fell on him. For three days, he was under it, unable to move. When they finally found him he was rushed to the Medical College of Virginia Hospital. My sons and I came down as soon as we were contacted, we arrived at around 4:30am and immediately went to his hospital bed. He woke up shortly after, he saw us and smiled; against medical expectation he recovered enough after a couple of weeks where he could go to a rehab home. Before leaving they inserted a feeding tube, since he had lost the ability to swallow, he was told it was only a temporary measure but the doctor told me that he would need it for the rest of his life. The learned physician, who had had already performed over 15,000 such insertions, underestimated my uncle. Three months later the tube was removed, because Henry Moss loved life, and would not admit defeat!

The day before he left the hospital, one of his doctors called me outside of the room and said: “When he came in, he was unconscious, had suffered a minor heart attack, had not eaten for three days, was so swollen we had to cut his clothes off. We never expected him to survive.” My uncle, had obviously overheard and chimed in, “Come on doctor, the Nazis couldn’t finish me! You think a piece of wood would do the job?”

Since the ’60s he blew the shofar, at his congregation and – in his last years – at the assisted living home where he lived until a few months ago  (when he switched to a new place). Last year, mere weeks before his hundredth birthday (although the Rabbi originally had misgivings because of his age), he did so again, leaving no one in attendance at the Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services, with a dry eye. I was told, his tekiyos managed to reach the deepest recesses of the heart, as everyone felt the sounds reverberate within them.

The Richmond Times Dispatch (April 2, 2013 issue) devoted a half page to uncle Henry, recounting some events he lived through during the WWII:

[...]He was 29  when Germany invaded Poland and the Nazis forced his family into the Lodz Ghetto.

[The day before the Nazis sealed the Lodz ghetto, he fled to Kielce with his brothers and parents, but without his sister and her husband, my parents] [...] Eventually three-quarters of the ghetto residents, including most of his family, were shipped in cattle cars to Auschwitz, where they died. Only Mr. Moss and his twin brother, Mendel, remained.

Before the Kielce ghetto was liquidated, there was a selection. Mr. Moss told the Germans, “I am a mechanic!” and he was sent to Pionsky to make parts for guns. His brother was shipped to Auschwitz where he perished.

In Pionsky, where they needed bricklayers, Mr. Moss announced “”I am a bricklayer.” An SS man held a gun to his head as he attempted to lay bricks for the first time in his life. Although his work was very poor and the SS man saw it, the SS man told Mr. Moss “you are going to survive, you are a bricklayer.”

After the Pionsky Ghetto was liquidated, the “mechanic” walked to work in wooden shoes and helped build parts of airplanes near the Ratanoff Ghetto. About a year later, he was sent to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg camp.

He recalled standing in all kinds of weather during the interminable morning head counts. He and his fellow prisoners were forced on several occasions top watch the Nazis hang prisoners who had tried to flee the camp.

He remembered that once , when three men who did not have shoes improvised pairs from the wood of their bunk beds, the Nazis forced the entire group of prisoners to stand barefoot in the snow for morning count for three days. Everyone’s feet froze, and Mr. Moss was hospitalized several time during his life because of his damaged feet and legs.

in 1945, when they knew the Russians were close and the SS had destroyed the watchtowers, Mr. Moss, who weighed only 80 pounds, and two friends commandeered three bikes from passing Germans. They somehow summoned the strength to ride into nearby American lines. “they gave us food, and we were liberated! God bless America!” he said in the interview.

Returning to Lodz after the war he went looking for family. He reunited with his sister Sophie [Zoshie, my mom..] in a displaced persons camp. He registered to go to America, Israel or Australia.

In 1950, he made his way by ship to New York, where a Jewish agency [HIAS] sent him to Richmond. He went to North Carolina to work at a sweater factory, but there was no kosher butcher and the only synagogue was not observant enough for him.

Mr. Moss returned to Richmond to board in a kosher home [...] and to work at a 5-and-10 cent store [...]. He eventually retired as top salesman for American Parts, an auto parts business.

His sister eventually moved to Israel. Mr. Moss recalled going twice to visit her and her husband’s graves – the only members of his family who had graves…

When I was a child, growing up in Uruguay, I looked forward to my uncle Henry’s monthly packages filled with toys that became the envy of all my friends. Later, as I got older he would send clothes and books. Though we all dressed well, and far more formally than people do today, I always stood out from the crowd because of my Uncle Henry, because of  “Tio,” as I called him (“uncle” in Spanish)

My three sons and two daughters knew him since they were very little, he often visited us whether we lived in Israel, in Detroit, in Albany, or in Monsey (none of the weddings could go on until we all saw his blue eyes, his smiling face!). Many of my grandchildren were privileged to meet Uncle Henry, as well, and our whole clan – without exception – loved him dearly.

His levayah, which took place in Richmond, on the 31st of of March (20th of Nissan), was well attended in spite of the heavy, non-stop rainy weather. Well over 100 people of all ages, of all walks of life, of all ethnic backgrounds were there. Some were his friends for close to 60 years, some had only known him for a few months; there were those who provided him invaluable help in his last years, by taking him shopping, helping him write when his hands were barely responding and more; all had been touched by his caring, his humor, his zest for life!

Fetter, taierer, we all miss you!

CS

//

About Tomorrow’s Radio Show…

After a far too long hiatus (due to the final disease and subsequent ptirah of my uncle – Henry Moss, alav haShalom), we are back with a radio show special on motzey Shabbat at 11:30 pm (Eastern Time). We prerecorded it on Wednesday, at Sotheby’s, at the press intro to the exhibit of the Michael and Judy Steinhardt Judaica Collection.

The collection’s catalog…

Detail of a very ornate Shabbat oil lamp, from the 18th century Frankfurt am/Main ghetto.

We spoke with Jennifer Roth, Sotheby’s Senior Vice President and Department Head of the Judaica Department, John D. Ward, Vice President and Department Head of the Silver Department, Sharon Liberman Mintz and David Wachtel, Senior Judaica Consultants. The exhibit covers a millennium and a half of Jewish Ceremonial Art, from aquamanile to matza tools, from German Shabbat oil lamps to a British decorative silver plate given by the Jewish community to the Lord Mayor of London, to an illuminated medieval edition of Maimonides‘ Mishnah Torah and hundreds more. Each item is unique, some are very rare, all show the extent to which the Jews appreciated art and integrated the artistic fashion of the time into their every day ceremonial needs.

The conversations with the four experts listed above were fascinating, as they opened up a new way to look at our history, at our values, and how the Jews truly fared in the European societies of old. Please listen to this fascinating show at BlogTalkRadio.com/kosherscene at 11:30 pm (Eastern Time) motzei Shabbat.

Meanwhile, in case you missed, please listen to the archive of our last show with Paula Shoyer.

Don’t forget to listen in tomorrow evening at 11:30 pm (Eastern Time), we’ll be wait’n for ya.

CS

What is Puah?

Leah Davidson, US Director General of Puah, explains the organization’s purpose in the following video:

If you know any couple struggling with fertility issues refer them to Puah and help bring another Jewish neshama to this world. Check them out by phone at 718.336.0603 or online at puahonline.com.

Puah has been featured on these pages before, check them out here, here and here. They’ve been on our internet radio show before here. At the same time look on the right hand side of this blog and help them out with a much needed donation before the 12th of March (this coming Tuesday) and you will be entered to win $100, 000!

CS

 

***UPDATE***

The raffle has been extended for one extra week.

Purchase your winning raffle ticket by March 18th!

Paula Shoyer Will be Our Guest This Evening…

This evening at 10:00pm (Eastern Time), The Kosher Scene’s Internet Radio Show on BlogTalkRadio.com will host Paula Shoyer. Paula has been our guest before (here) and has always been an audience favorite.

Ms. Shoyer is the author of The Kosher Baker and is coming out with a new pastry book, on holiday baking, due out in August this year. Tonight we will talk about baking on Pessach.

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, why not listen to last week’s broadcast with  Leah Schapira - who’s been our guest before – and Victoria Dweck discuss their new book: Passover Made Easy: Favorite Tripple-Tested Recipes.

Please, listen in tonight at 10:00pm when we will be speaking with Paula Shoyer. We’ll be waiting for you!

CS

This Evening’s Radio Show, a Book Review & a Recipe

This evening – Wednesday, the 27th of February – at 10:00 pm (Eastern Time) we will be talking to Leah Schapira and Victoria Dweck, the co-authors of the cookbook: Passover Made Easy: Favorite Triple-Tested Recipes on our BlogTalkRadio.com/kosherscene segment.

Easy to prepare, delicious recipes. What more can you ask?

Leah and her first cookbook already appeared in this pages, and she also was our guest on BlogTalkRadio in 2011. Victoria Dweck is the Managing Director of AMI MAGAZINE‘s Whisk (the weekly food section – a magazine on its own!). Their backgrounds and customs may be very different BUT, their love of food makes them an unbeatable team.

Looking through their new cookbook with sections on:

• Food and Wine Pairing
• Seder Night
• Building Blocks
• Starters
• Soups and Salads
• Main Dishes
• Side Dishes
• Brunch and Dairy
• Desserts
• Replacement Index

…it is obvious this book will please the seasoned as well as the new bride who’s just starting to cook! The recipes from Meatballs in Blueberry Sauce to Brisket Eggrolls (my mouth is watering already!) and Antipasti Rolls, from Orange Soup to Butternut Squash Salad and Lime-Infused Pear Salad, from Eggplant-Wrapped Chicken to Veal Chops in White Wine Sauce and Braised Short Ribs in Homemade Duck Sauce are sure to enhance ANY Seder meal!

With side dishes like Stuffed Onions or Potato and Flanken Kugel, with breakfast goodies like Banana French Toast or Pineapple Pie; with desserts like Frozen Lemon Wafer Cake or Truffled Grapes this is the perfect gift to yourself, your family or Seder host (you can purchase this cookbook here).

With 60 easy to make, mouth watering recipes it was hard to choose just one to share with you, gentle reader, but as an incurable chocolate addict I think the following dessert is just perfect:

Chocolate Crackel  Sandwiches

(From page 112…)

Detail of photo by Daniel Lailah, on page 113

Yield: 9 sandwiches

Ingredients

• 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar (optional)
• 2/3 cup cocoa (scant)
• pinch salt
• 4 egg whites
• 3 cups walnuts halves, toasted

Chocolate Ice Cream Mousse

• 15 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 9 eggs, separated
• 2 1/4 cups sugar, divided
• 3/4 cup oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of a standard mixer (or using a hand mixer), combine confectioners’ sugar, vanilla sugar, and cocoa. Add the salt and egg whites. Beat well. Add the walnuts and mix until incorporated. Do not let the batter sit.
3. Immediately spoon full tablespoons of batter onto each baking sheet. There should be 6 cookies per sheet for a toal of 18 large cookies (the cookies spread). Bake for 12 – 15 minutes.
4. Prepare chocolate ice cream mousse: Line a 9×13 inch baking pan with parchment paper or plastic wrap. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over low heat. In the bowl of a food processor or blender, combine egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, oil, and melted chocolate. Process until well combined.
5. In a bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding the remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar. Add lemon juice. Lower speed and add chocolate mixture.
6. Pour ice cream into prepared pan. Freeze until firm,
7. Assemble the ice cream sandwiches: Pair the cookies that are the most even-sized. Using a deep cookie cutter the size of a cookie cut the ice cream. The ice cream should stick to the sides of the cutter; when you lift the cutter, the ice cream should come with it. Push it out onto a cookie. Sandwich it with the matching cookie. Freeze.

Hot Chocolate Sauce

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup cocoa, sifted
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons oil

1. In a medium saucepan over high heat, combine the sugars, cocoa, salt. water, and oil. Bring to a boil. Lower heat, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens to desired consistency.

TIDBIT – Coca-Cola makes a special batch of soda for Passover using real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, which is kitnyiot. A yellow cap identifies the special bottles.

These crackels are a simply delicious cookie that work well either on their own or paired with ice cream. There’s just one rule. Once you mix the batter, drop it into the cookie sheet immediately. If it sits in the bowl, the batter becomes thick and chunky and result in cookies that aren’t as appealing. I haven’t yet figured out a way to reverse that – so work quickly!

Confess! I can see you salivating as you read the recipe, so… enjoy.

Don’t forget to tune us in, this evening, at 10:00pm (Eastern Time) on BlogTalkRadio.com/kosherscene. Meanwhile, in case you missed, just listen to the archive of our last show with Esther Zafrani?

CS

Bargains at Deals Maven

We never imagined when we started The Kosher Scene that our coverage would include deals and bargains. Let’s face it, however, with (expensive!) Passover fast approaching, with items one needs in the kitchen and outside of it, we felt compelled to tell you about a site – we just discovered – which can save lots of money while bringing you links from all over the internet. Such a site is dealsmaven.com.

Current and recent deals include:

Cuisinart TOB-80 Compact Toaster Oven Broiler, Only $69.95!

Hot!! SodaStream Jet Home Soda Maker, Only $59.99! + Receive $10 Kohl’s Cash!

Seagate Backup Plus 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive, $77!

KitchenAid Professional 5 Plus Series, 5QT Bowl, Stand Mixer, Only $259.77! w/Free Shipping.

New Passover Cookbook: Passover Made Easy: Favorite Triple-Tested Recipes, $10.87!

15% Off Select Baby Products At Amazon!

DeLonghi Juice Extractor, Marked Down To Only $149.99!!

Ends Today! Emeril All-Clad Hard Anodized Nonstick 8″ & 10″ Fry Pan Set, $24.99!

Hurry!! Shop Taste of Home: $5 Sale on Kitchen Gadgets and Cookbooks!

So far the categories covered are:

Categories

• Apparel
• Baby
• Camera
• Coupons
• Credit Cards
• Freebies
• GPS
• Hot Deals
• Kitchen
• Laptops
• Luggage
• Shoes
• Toys
• Travel
• Uncategorized

It may be a new site, but it has a lot to offer. Personally, I know I’ll be visiting and revisiting often.

Meanwhile enjoy the savings, gentle reader, enjoy!!!

CS

Kosher Food and Wine Extravaganza 2013 – Part 1

[I apologize to our readers for posting so late, but I had a family emergency. Immediately after the KFWE 2013 I had to leave for Richmond, VA. to deal with my 100 year old (ad meah ve'esrim!), Holocaust survivor uncle - my mother's baby brother - who both broke a hip and developed pneumonia all at the same time. While far from perfect, things are under control again and I can get back to work. CS]

KFWE 2013 took place on Monday, February 4th, last week. As always the wine selections were superb, the restaurants and caterers exhibiting were tops. Better and bigger than ever, with more people attending than ever. Today we are posting the first of a multi part series of video interviews with winemakers, chefs, restaurateurs and some of the people attending.

We started with Baron Edmond de Rothschild wines…

All videos copyright of © The Kosher Scene, 2013

Next we spoke to Joe A. Hurliman from the Herzog Wine Cellars…

We segued with our friend, producer of award winning wines, Dr. Moises Cohen owner and founder of Spain’s acclaimed Elvi Wines.

After quite a few more interviews we went to the main floor to taste and see what the interviewees were talking about. My favorite was the Clos Mesorah 2009, it tasted even better than last year. On the nose I found it to be rich in blackberry, black cherry, blueberry and floral notes. On the palate it exhibits concentrated and layered fruit, silky tannins, along with plenty of spice, buttered herbs, and good cedar that fills the mouth and makes for a rich and unusual experience, with a long finish of chocolate, vanilla, berries, and butterscotch, with fruit and butterscotch lingering long after the wine is gone. Wooow, we loved it!

We will be telling you about the other wines we also enjoyed at KFWE 2013, so… just stay tuned. Meanwhile enjoy, gentle reader, enjoy!

CS

Chocolate Checkerboard Cookies

Some of my grandkids will be visiting today, I thought these would make a special treat:

(adapted from Jacqueline Bellefontaine‘s What’s Cooking: Chocolate)

Detail of photo from page 125

Yield: 18

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup margarine, softened (use butter if you prefer creamier tasting dairy cookies)
• 6 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or the grated rind of 1/2 an orange
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1oz dark bittersweet chocolate, melted
• a little beaten egg white

Directions

1. Lightly grease a cookie sheet. Beat the margarine and confectioner’s sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract or the grated orange rind.
2. Gradually beat in the flour to form a soft dough. Use your fingers to incorporate the last of the flour and to bring the dough together.
3. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces and beat the melted chocolate into one half. Keeping each half of the dough separate, cover and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. Roll out each piece of dough to a rectangle about 3″ x 8″ inches long and 1 1/2 inches thick. Brush one piece of dough with a little egg white and place the other piece of dough on top.
5. Cut the block of dough in half lengthwise and turn over one half. Brush the side of one strip with egg white and butt the other up to it, so that it resembles a checkerboard.
6. Cut the block into thin slices and place each slice flat on a cookie sheet, allowing enough space to spread a little during baking.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 F. for about 10 minutes, until just firm. Cool on on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before carefully transferring to a wire rack with a spatula. Cool completely.

Enjoy, gentle reader, enjoy!

CS