By Rachel Gordan, National Endowment for the Humanities Scholar in Residence 2025 A Major Breakthrough: When Passover Cakes Were Big News At the end of the summer of 1955, Jewish novelist Herman Wouk’s (1915-2019) fourth novel, Marjorie Morningstar was published. At this point in his career, Wouk was a celebrity-writer, having won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his war novel, The Caine Mutiny…
By Ella Jordan-Smith Reference Services Librarian, Center for Jewish History Kosher Food Production in the United States and the Manischewitz Empire The Jewish population in the U.S. currently makes up just under 2.5% of the total population, with an even lower percentage keeping kosher. Yet, over 40% of the packaged food produced in the U.S. is labeled as kosher, and American food production companies…
By Cassia Kisshauer Reference Services Librarian, Center for Jewish History Babka & Beignets: Jewish Foodways of the South Food is a way to maintain cherished traditions and connect to ancestors, particularly for marginalized groups. It can also be a method to adapt to a new environment. The American South has a rich Jewish history dating back to the 17th century. Port cities like Charleston,…
By Lauren Gilbert, Senior Manager for Public Services, Center for Jewish History A Survivors’ Haggadah “And the khaki-clad sons of Israel commanded by Lt. General Truscott gathered together as was the custom in Israel, to celebrate the Passover festival.” So begins the preamble to the so-called Survivors’ Haggadah (left), published for the first Passover after Liberation by the U.S. Army of Occupation in Bavaria,…
Out of the Box: Four Unique Passover Items At the Center for Jewish History, there are tens of thousands of boxes in our partners’ archival and museum collections. Our series, Out of the Box, showcases some of the remarkable treasures and stories tucked away inside. In collaboration with Yeshiva University Museum, we had intended this March to highlight just a few of the over 230 Passover items, which span over 200 years,…
