Have you told your kids about shemittah?

You might know already that here in Israel, this is a shemittah year.

Shemittah is the 7th year of a 7-year cycle found in the Torah, and all year long, Torah-observant farmers aren't working their crops in the usual way.  Yet thanks to a few modern loopholes, many of us, even here, are just buying fruits and vegetables the normal way.

I've been studying shemittah for the last couple of months with a wonderful group of KShmu ladies, using a book called (surprisingly enough!) Shemitah, by Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Rimon.  (There are lots of ways to spell Shemittah!)

If you live in Israel, your kids may find out about shemittah in school if they’re old enough.  But for younger kids, there’s not really any way to find out what it’s all about (at least, not that I could find). 

When I lived outside of Israel, I knew nothing about it… let alone knowing enough to share some of the main ideas with my kids.  We read about it when we read the weekly parsha, and that was that.

The laws of modern shemittah observance can be complicated and daunting for adults, but it really does boil down to a few simple principles.  And my favourite thing to do once I’ve learned something, is to turn around and find a way to transform it into a kids’ book.

So I’ve taken some of what I’ve learned, from Rabbi Rimon’s book and other sources, and turned it into a short, sweet rhyming song. 

(think, "This is the way we wash our hands..." but with a few fun poetic twists and turns)

Here’s the result… a little book called Sharing Shmittah, a “learn-along” song for the whole family.

Things that are weird in Israel #10: Celery

Does my hand look disgusted in this picture?

It should.

This is a stalk of what passes for “celery” in most parts of Israel.

The celery here came as a bit of a surprise, because of what everybody (truthfully) says about the produce here in Israel – which is almost universally fantastic.

Almost.

We have found a few exceptions. 

Early oranges, for example, are not inspiring in the least.  But they sell like crazy anyway, because people are so eager for oranges after months without them.

The cucumbers here are tasty, but they are tiny, more like little pickles than a full-blooded cucumber.  Most people don’t bother peeling them, making them a convenient snack (for most people). 

But in me, the peeling habit has become ingrained, making them a totally annoying treat.  I’ve read too much about all the pesticides and bad stuff in the peels to just munch away on them.  So I have to peel and slice four of them to have enough to serve even me and the kids.  (slicing is optional, I admit)

And as for celery…

When chummus comes a-knocking…

Ya know, it’s the worst cliché about Israeli society, but like many bad clichés, it turns out to be a true one: 

Israelis love them their chummus.

When I saw this truck parked outside our building this morning, I called Akiva to take its picture.  Just too funny to think about chummus being delivered to your door in just about the biggest truck I’ve seen since moving here.

I got so excited when I saw this. I imagined some sort of spigot at the back where you could just get the stuff on tap, but Naomi Rivka said, very seriously, "no, you need olive oil." Hmm... maybe from a separate tap?

In the crazy Adam Sandler movie, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, he plays a chummus-obsessed former Mossad agent who moves to America and reveals that all he wants to do is style women’s hair.

And he LOVES chummus, at one point even going so far as to use it as a hair styling product.

In that, he’s a typical Israeli, which I suppose was the idea in the first place.

Me, I don’t even like the WORD chummus, because, in English-speaking countries, they call it “humus.”  Little suspecting that there is ALREADY a word “humus” in English, and this is what it looks like:

(photo credit:  Wolfgang Berger, via flickr)

Ew.  Just a little too close for comfort.

So even back in Canada, I made an effort to pronounce it right:  “chhhhhoooo-mooos.”  With a topping of “techeeeeena” - no Anglicized taheeeneee for me.

When we did our little home matzah-baking workshop before Pesach, I bought a variety of condiments for the kids to enjoy on their homemade matzah:  butter, cream cheese… and, as an afterthought, chummus.

Let me tell you, there was no other condiment in the WORLD, as far as the Israeli kids were concerned, that could top the chummus.   They didn’t even glance at the butter (my kids’ choice) or cream cheese; just shmeared their matzahs with great generous dollops of chick-pea lotion. 

Like, I had to bring out more knives so they could devour it with greater rapidity.  Children don’t lie:  they are the true harbingers of Israeli culture.

So this might be a good time to mention that I don’t like chummus? 

Not just the word, the foodstuff.  It’s not exactly true; I’m coming around and will tolerate a streak of it in a falafel or wherever.  Even better if it’s tinged with roasted red pepper or something else to give it an actual non-grimy taste.

You heard me – grimy.  And don’t tell me you can “brighten” the flavour with lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, paprika, hair tonic or puppydog toenails.   I have MADE chummus that other people have told me is fantastic, and I still didn’t like it.  So don’t tell me I haven’t met the right chummus yet.

My favourite homemade “chummus” back in Toronto, when I still had a food processor, was made with black beans.  Second best, kidney beans.  Actual chummus made with chummus aka chick peas aka garbanzo beans (ew, garbage-o beans!), came a very distant ninetieth.

Like humus, chummus is not particularly photogenic.  If you ask Wikipedia what it looks like, you’ll find out soon enough…

(photo credit:  Donovan Govan via Wikimedia)

(I love the looming shadow on that picture, as if the chummus is evilly plotting to kill you in your sleep.)

Various attempts are often made to disguise it with condiments.  These often end up just making things worse.

(photo credit:  Gilabrand via Wikimedia)

It seems that there is even no word for chick peas in this country – it’s all just chummus.  The bagged chick peas in the freezer section of the grocery store:  chummus.  The dried beans lurking on the shelf:  chummus.  I imagine if you could find them in tins, those, too, would be chummus. 

It’s all just chummus waiting to happen.

I know it’s ubiquitous throughout the middle east, but really, there is no more Israeli food than chummus.  It’s cheap, plentiful, supremely nutritious, savoury and goes with almost anything (if by “goes” you mean, “contributes a grimy taste”).

So in honour of Israel’s 66th birthday, let’s raise up a glass… of this quintessential Israeli food!  Or just style our hair with it and say le’chaim.  Oh, yummy yum.  I just can’t wait!

First Tomato

In Rosemary Wells’ poignant First Tomato, a little girl (rabbit) is having an awful day.  Everything goes wrong.  And then, magically, she’s transported to the “bunny planet,” where, in one of the world’s most awkward but sweetly endearing rhymes ever, “And the Bunny Queen is Janet.”

After cradling the little girl (bunny) for a while, the Bunny Queen escorts her to a land of eternal summer, where her mother is cooking in the kitchen, and one perfect tomato is ripening in the garden, perfect for First Tomato soup.

I could use a big bowlful of First Tomato soup these days.

And so, fittingly, I spotted my First Tomato, a self-sown volunteer just outside our local bakery:

As far as I can tell, it is the one and only tomato of its kind on any sidewalk of Kiryat Yam.  (We don’t live in Kiryat Yam, but still spend a lot of time there, given that it’s three minutes away.)

How can I be sure it’s a tomato???

 

Well, how do I recognize my own children when I see them in the street? 

(Okay, sometimes I don’t – and I have the hardest time picking out Elisheva in a class of 20 girls with long, flowing brown hair!)

Also, I went up to it, rubbed the leaves and even tore off a bit.  (That’s how I pick out my children from a lineup as well.)

If I could have nibbled it, I would have (as with all nightshade family vegetables, tomato leaves are toxic - beware!) – the smell was at once so familiar and so distant, a message from some far-off bunny planet.

A bunny planet where I grew tomatoes.  A bunny planet where I could pinch and prune and tend my tomatoes to my heart’s content (and sometimes beyond).  I think every oleh must have a bunny planet – somewhere they miss, that exists for them now only in fantasy in the midst of their saddest, loneliest and darkest days.

What’s yours???