Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on December 20, 2014

Where Shmaltz and Soul Food Meet

courtesy of michael twitty

Published December 20, 2014.

(Haaretz) Only as a Jew [wearing a skullcap], white women offer me rides wherever I am going. Im like, White woman, you know I am black, right? With that sarcasm-laced remark, Michael Twitty won the hearts of the dozens of students who had gathered on a cold Thursday afternoon in November to hear the historian of Southern food talk about his unusual life. The host was the Jewish studies program of Harlem-based City College, a campus of the City University of New York.

Twitty, 37, grew up in Washington, D.C. A cook and culinary historian, he is African-American, openly gay and a skullcap-wearing Jew. At present he is in Israel where he will be giving a master class in cooking on Sunday as part of the annual Jewish Film Festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque (one of its themes this year is culinary theater).

Twitty is currently at work on a book he has titled The Cooking Gene, a historical survey of the cuisine of the American South. Hes been teaching in Hebrew schools for 12 years, preparing boys and girls for their bar or bat mitzvah in Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist synagogues. (He switches skullcaps to meet the head-covering style of each stream of Judaism.) Twitty also takes part as an actor in historical reenactments at Southern plantations, dressed in slaves clothing and cooking like his ancestors did.

Confused about his identity? He will do little to put you at ease, because this is who he is; if you cant handle it, you dont interest him. Recently, when I was in the process of selling my book HarperCollins bought it another publisher, who shall remain nameless, they loved the idea of me talking about food and cultural roots and introducing my family tree and culinary justice, Twitty tells the City College students. (In the colleges Jewish studies program there are many Arabs, blacks and Latinos in fact, 95 percent of the students are not Jewish.)

But the editor who made the final decision on whether the book will be published or not she basically said, Okay, what about this Jewish part? Can we just get rid of that? And she basically told my agent: We will give him a fabulous book deal if he just wont wear his kippah in public, or talk about it in any radio interviews. And I said, I hope you told them to And she said: Yes, I told them you wont go for that. I said youre damn right.

He adds, without a trace of rancor: Black guy, heritage, food justice, ghetto people, eat broccoli that was cool, but me being complicated and Jewish and all that other stuff was not cool, not marketable, I was, quote, muddying the waters. This is America, the water has been done muddy. And [the publisher] said something on the phone, with a nervous laugh: I dont think America is ready for someone like you. Fk you, I am America. It infuriated me, because this woman was Jewish and she said, Jews dont read our books. Jews dont buy our books. Its this box again, I will put you in this box if you complicate it I dont know what to do with you.

I have a struggle with people who are trying to put me in a box, with people who are trying to break me down according to what makes sense to them. Are you Ethiopian? From black people: Are you a Hebrew Israelite brother? No, Im Jewish. How are you Jewish? You know, three men took me into a little room, and I got dipped in the water, this is how Im Jewish.

Continued here:
Michael Twitty, Black Jewish Foodie, Talks 'Culinary Justice'

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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