During her time abroad in Copenhagen last fall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) senior Amanda Lalezarian immersed herself in the Danish Jewish community. Her time abroad became Against the Odds: Embracing Judaism in Denmark, a powerful documentary that explores both the history of and the current state of affairs for Jews in this Scandinavian country. 

At 20 minutes, Against the Odds provides a comprehensive picture of how Danes view religion, what occurred in Denmark during the Holocaust, and the varied experiences of Danish Jews in the 21st century. The film, which is Lalezarian’s senior honors thesis, is designed for an American audience that is not familiar with the Jews of Denmark. Much like her audience, Lalezarian, who hails from Long Island and whose mother is Swedish and father is Persian Jewish, had limited knowledge about Danish Jews when she embarked on this project. 

Lalezarian screened the film for the first time in late April at UNC, and has made it available on Vimeo. You can watch it yourself, embedded below this interview!

What inspired you to make a documentary about the Jews of Denmark?

It was mid-August, school was starting in two weeks, and I still didn’t have an idea for my thesis. I was home for less than 48 hours in between covering the Olympics in Brazil and going abroad to Copenhagen — which is nuts but that’s what I do — and I was having dinner with my parents and my dad asked, “You have an idea yet?” And I said, “No.” He said, “Do you know anything about the Jewish community in Copenhagen?” And I said, “No.” I just did a quick Google search and found out they’re a very small population of the country. I was like, “This sounds interesting; it could be an interesting project because I don’t know anything about them.”

Then two, three weeks later the program that I was on had a club fair where you can walk around the building and see what organizations have clubs for students. And I walked by the Chabad table and the first Jew that I met in Denmark was the Chabad Denmark Rabbi Yitzi Loewenthal. I told him that I had this idea and he said, “Oh yeah, that sounds interesting. We can chat later if you want to come to my office,” and it just started from there.

When you began, did you have any idea where this documentary would end up going?

At the beginning, I knew that I had to cover past, present, and future. For me, someone who didn’t know anything, I knew that an audience from America that didn’t know anything about the issues, they would need that background. I knew that I had to meet a Holocaust survivor. A majority of the project was about the Copenhagen attacks in 2015. That became a part of the story I didn’t expect going into it. 

How did you approach finding individuals to interview?

The first person I met was the Chabad Rabbi. He gave me the numbers for three Holocaust survivors, and the one who is in my documentary, Dan Edelsten, is the one I ended up connecting with. Through Dan Edelsten, I met his granddaughter. I met the kosher butcher just by looking him up. Everyone is connected and everyone knows everyone so people just kept introducing me to other people.

As you went about making the documentary, what did you learn about the Jews of Denmark?

The Jews came to Denmark in the 1640s and there was a small group of maybe a 1,000 of them. They came from Eastern Europe, and today there is 6-8,000. The number has increased, but not really that much and I think it’s amazing that they haven’t left. I think it’s amazing that they’ve continued to carry out their religion and culture and not shy away because of hard times. I think there they really hang onto their religion; I think that’s changing, but I think that’s amazing that they’ve continued to do it. 

The end is really powerful. You just don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. 

I kind of wanted to leave it that way. It is open ended because there isn’t an answer. There won’t be an answer until you look back at it. There is a conclusion, but not really— because who am I to say what’s going to happen?

From making this documentary, what sense did you get about the future of the Jews in country?

I asked everyone the same question: What is the future of Judaism in Denmark? And people would laugh and say, “I’m not a prophet.” “I don’t know.” One guy said, “People have been staying for the past 400 years . . . and we’re still here.” I just think some people will move, but I don’t think that many people will move. I think they will just become more cultural. 

But I really don’t see the numbers getting stronger because there’s not much opportunity. Not that you need a kosher market or a Jewish school to be Jewish … they have one daily active synagogue and the other one is a progressive. It’s just hard. I would be interested in seeing what happens 20, 50 years from now.

Do you think this experience changed or added to your own perspective on Judaism? 

It just added to my knowledge I think, to my understanding of Judaism. I think living in the States and being a Jew, you just have such a different perception of what that means compared to people who are from Europe who are Jewish. I think it’s opened my eyes to what Judaism is like in another country. 

What do you hope viewers take away from this experience? 

I just want them learn one thing they didn’t know before. So if you watch it, not that I expect everyone to get the same understanding out of it, but for them to at least acknowledge the story and whatever they walk away from it learning, and it can be different from one person to the next. And that’s kind of what I like to do with my projects, leave it open for interpretation. 

***

When asked the following question, “Did the interviewees feel it was very important to discuss the state of Jews in Denmark?,” Lalezarian felt it was best to ask an interviewee directly. The answer to this question comes from interviewee Mette Bentow, a Jewish activist, whose daughter Hannah’s bat mitzvah took place during the 2015 terrorist attack in Copenhagen. 

Why did you feel it was important to be part of Against the Odds: Embracing Judaism in Denmark? 

Mette: Firstly, I will always do my utmost to help out a fellow Jew, especially when a young Jewish student needs a helping hand. Secondly, having had the experience we did, I feel it is my obligation to share that story – for the sake of my kids and for the everlasting memory of Dan Uzan, Z”L. [Dan was Jewish, and killed in the 2015 terrorist attack.]

Jews in Europe, all of Europe, is experiencing a rise in anti-Semitism, verbal attacks, bias from the media in their reporting of the Israel/Palestinian conflict. In Denmark, we have had a long, peaceful Danish-Jewish history, without much anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews — even during the Holocaust we had the unique story of the rescue of 95% of the Danish Jewish population.

But these days, exemplified to the extreme by the terrorist attack, Danish Jews are not in the safe haven they used to be in. I think that it is very important to speak out, to insist on our rights and to be an active part, instead of bowing my head and wait for others to fix it for me — or even worse, take the abuse and degradation.

Against the Odds: Embracing Judaism in Denmark can be viewed on Vimeo, or below:

Image from Against the Odds.

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For Jews born in September and early October, birthdays and High Holidays go hand-in-hand. Checking the calendar to see if Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur falls your birthday becomes par for the course. Birthdays might be spent praying or eating apples dipped in honey—or fasting—and festivities are often postponed.

I’m a September baby myself, but Rosh Hashanah has only fallen on my birthday twice. The first occurrence—and I had to look this up—was in 1988, when I turned two. I can’t say I remember it, but I do remember being wished a happy birthday and Shana Tova the second time, in 1999, on my thirteenth birthday. It was a unique day at synagogue; a blend of birthday wishes and Rosh Hashanah ritual. I spent plenty of time with friends during services (we celebrated my bat mitzvah in October).

Philip Wolgin, who lives in Washington, D.C., will be celebrating his birthday as Rosh Hashanah begins on Wednesday. For him, this is nothing new. “My birthday is September 24, so it almost always falls during the chagim,” he wrote in an email. “I’ve never been the biggest birthday person, particularly since mine is so late in the year, pretty much everyone in my class had already had their birthday by the time mine rolled around. Honestly, I don’t mind it.”

Even though Wolgin’s used to having a High-Holy-Birth-Day, one year really stands out, and it was a big one: “My 21st birthday was erev Yom Kippur, so of course that put a bit of a damper in the plans!”

New Yorker Rebecca Eskreis has also had a birthday fall on Yom Kippur. In fact, she has had several. “I’ve been ‘blessed’ with having my birthday, October 9, fall on at least four or five Yom Kippurs (either erev, or the actual holiday),” she explained in an email.

Having experienced a birthday on both “days”of Yom Kippur (Jewish holidays run from sundown to sundown, spanning two days on the calendar), Eskreis, who lives in New York, has come down in favor of a birthday on the day of Yom Kippur, as opposed to the eve. “It’s actually better because after fasting the whole day you can really pig out and have lots of cake without feeling guilty!” she wrote.

While adulthood has led Eskreis to an appreciation of the birthday cake/break-fast correlation, as a kid, she used to view the day differently: “It meant I also got to have the day off from school,” she explained. It’s fair to say there are adults out there who approach the day with similar levels of excitement, even if it’s not their birthday.

A birthday on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur can also mean a chance to spend time with family and friends. Last year, Lindsey Schnitt was delighted when Rosh Hashanah fell unusually early, in the first week of September, coinciding with her birthday. “For me, I am such a big birthday person, but I love being with my family, and I also love this time of year being at Temple,” she said.

“I think I went into services being excited that it was my birthday, not really making the day about me, but it was very special to be alongside people who have known me my entire life,” she explained.

Not everyone likes sharing a birthday with the High Holidays. Tiffany Nassimi’s birthday falls during Rosh Hashanah this year. “You can never celebrate on your birthday,” she wrote in a Facebook message. As for the social media perks of a birthday, “no one ever ends up writing on your [Facebook] wall.” She pointed out that birthday or no birthday, the timing of the High Holidays has always been awkward, given that they fall at the very beginning of the school year. This year, her friends want to take her out after the holiday, “but we’ll see.”

In the end, how you feel about your birthday falling on a High Holiday is pretty much moot point—it’s part of the reality of being a fall baby. Eskreis summed up the experience well: “I don’t look forward to having my birthday fall on [a holiday], but I’ve also learned to make the best of it.” This year at least, she has a reprieve from a Yom Kippur birthday.

As for me: I’m looking forward to my next Rosh Hashanah birthday, but I just checked the calendar and I’ll have to wait until 2018. Until then, honey birthday cake for the other September babies.

(Image: Shutterstock)

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A few weeks before my sister’s wedding, she was discussing ordering kippot, trying to figure out how many she would need for the big day. How many might be too many? Well, I said to her, if you order too many you could use the extras for when guests come to your home.

Within a second of saying this, I was immediately transported back to my family’s kippah drawer. It’s been a long time since I opened this drawer, which was located in a dark brown wood unit in the dining room. The top portion of the unit had glass doors that held candlesticks and the Seder plate. The bottom part of the unit was made up of three drawers. The kippah drawer was the top drawer and it had a very distinct wood smell; if I concentrate, I can still smell it.

It was outfitted with brass handles that made a sound when you pulled them up from their resting position. And as the drawer opened, it made an ever-so-slight noise. Inside this drawer my family kept all the kippot we acquired. A few were from weddings, but most were from bar and bat mitzvahs. We opened the drawer when a family member or a guest needed a kippah. And when a kippah was chosen—sometimes it was selected based on color to match an outfit—the inscription inside would be read aloud. You know, today’s kippah is brought to you by so and so who became a bar or bat mitzvah on this date in this year. This might have been followed by a factoid about the person, or information on the party’s theme. Such details are important.

What’s interesting about the kippot in this drawer is how they got there. Often we were invited, or someone in the family was invited, to the simcha. Hence the sharing of factoids and themes. Sometimes the kippah was from a bar or bat mitzvah at our synagogue that we attended because we happened to be there that day. In this case, someone in my family took a kippah from the basket outside the sanctuary and brought it home. Occasionally, we simply acquired a kippah and added it to the collection. Who knows how it got there, but it got there. That’s the beauty of the kippah drawer—kippot will mysteriously find their way to it.

Regardless of their exact route to the drawer, the kippot were in our home, and if someone needed one, we could provide it. Our kippah drawer signified that our home was a Jewish home.

There’s another way to look at the drawer. Beyond a kippah’s color and material (I am partial to non-nylon), a kippah from a bar or bat mitzvah is a historical link to an important day in a young person’s life. Forever stamped with the date and year, a bar or bat mitzvah kippah symbolizes my moment, your moment, her moment, the moment of someone we might not even know. A kippah is a Jewish artifact. Whenever it is worn, it connects the wearer back to that day, regardless of whether they knew the honored bar or bat mitzvah. There is something truly powerful about a drawer full of Jewish history.

Currently, my family has many kippot lying around at each of our homes, and some of them are in drawers. They may not be in the drawer, but they are in drawers nevertheless. I’m not sure how many we have. The good news is that wedding season is upon us, and there are many kippot that are about to make their way into my home. I’m thinking of designating a drawer to be the drawer.

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Chicken fingers, fries, and a Coke. That was my standard order at Ben’s, and I was always loyal. I especially loved the fries, with their crinkles and those little bits of potato skin. Being a Ben’s regular, I ordered them often.

Growing up on Long Island, my family would go there every few Saturday nights for dinner. We were booth people, who occasionally sat at a table. Once seated, I was focused on one thing: that very first sip of Coke in one of Ben’s signature tinted, textured plastic glasses. There was something so special about them. I don’t know if I thought Coke tasted better in plastic tinted glass, or if it was that since I rarely had it, Coke was a treat, but I was enraptured.

Thinking about it, childhood is all about identifying fascinating objects. These are usually objects that possess a novel and coolness factor, because we don’t have them in our homes. Ben’s glasses had it; they may have even had a power to them. The power of the glasses was directly associated with how many times my family ate at Ben’s. We were regulars, and there is always something comforting about a ritual behavior. For the Cohen children, each Ben’s meal was one giant coveted family ritual with exciting sub-rituals throughout the evening.

I’m not sure whether I was aware of this childhood ritual as a kid or not, but I certainly knew it was fun and special to have dinner at Ben’s. Instead of seeing it as a ritual, I was probably more aware of the order of the meal, only anticipating the crispy chicken fingers. The glasses, though, happened to be the first poignant element of the evening.

As soon as the waitress brought the coleslaw and pickles over, I knew what was going to happen. My parents could not get enough of the coleslaw, which was followed up with everything from a turkey sandwich, to pastrami, to a hot dog. My older sister was all about the pickles, which she always followed up with matzo ball soup and a hot dog. Like his sister, my younger brother kept his orders to the children’s menu. Food was abundant at the table, and I came to expect that.

At the end of dinner, my siblings and I would fight over who got to look at the check first, one of the highest honors among the Cohen children. It was so exciting to see our order and the amount due. Vying for the check was followed by the next ritual: who got to go to the front to pay the check with our dad. I don’t know of any children that found paying at a restaurant so exciting. We couldn’t get enough of it.

The most exciting part about grabbing the check and paying was that we connected with our father, because he always reviewed the check and paid the bill. Doing either meant more “grown up time” with him. It offered insights into his areas of expertise: numbers. Walking over to pay was a chance to see him in action, and more importantly, to actively participate alongside him in taking care of the family.

Reflecting back, my family had the greatest time at Ben’s. The customary nature of these meals became a truly integral part of my childhood.

The magic may not have been in the glasses, but it was certainly all around them. Every time my family came together in a Ben’s booth, something unforgettable happened, and I will always smile at the thought of those tinted, textured plastic glasses.

(Photo by Shutterstock)

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I associate setting back the clock with Hebrew school. I call it the “Hebrew School Feeling.” Each year, before the clock changes, I’m reminded of my association. And once we set back the clock, the “Hebrew School Feeling” returns, and it happens like clockwork each afternoon—pun intended.

Naturally, the “Hebrew School Feeling” goes back to when I was in Hebrew school.

Hebrew school mirrored the light outside. During a fair amount of the year, class started when the sun was still out, and it ended after sunset.

For six years, I arrived to Hebrew school just before 4 p.m. The sun would shine as I walked through the doors. However, within minutes of starting class, it would get a little darker outside. Each time I would peer out the window it was even darker. Finally, when it was time to leave and I would walk outside, it was nighttime, and the moon was shining.

At the time, I was aware of the association between the light and Hebrew school, but I thought it was a characteristic of Hebrew school specifically. My memories of the light are vivid. I can place myself inside the classroom, and I know what it looks like outside. Each classroom had a different view, and I can still move between them.

But Hebrew school was more than just the light outside. I believe that attending Hebrew school is an essential part of growing up Jewish. I can pull up tons of memories ranging from which teachers I had to our class’ seder each year. There was always anticipation over who was going to get assigned which passage from the Haggadah. I loved when we got to nibble on raisins, figs, and dates—nature’s candy— on Tu B’Shevat. I even kept my final assignment— I’m hoping to use the questions from it someday at a dinner party.

So it makes sense that the “Hebrew School Feeling” I have is so strong that it came back to me several years later, when I began college.

During my first semester, I took Introduction to Psychology from 4 to 6 p.m, the same time that Hebrew school had been. The light would change during class just like it had before. The feeling rushed back to me.

I returned to the “Hebrew School Feeling” again when I started working after college. I would go into the office when it was sunny and leave when it was dark. I developed a habit of looking out the window every day after 3 p.m. and then looking again as it got darker. Just like back in Hebrew school when I used to look out the window.

Attending Hebrew school is a tradition. When you begin your Hebrew school education, you join an extensive roster of current and former students; a community. It’s going to have an impact. And, because of this, I am going to connect with Hebrew school throughout my life.

I love that I can find a little bit of Hebrew school after we set back the clock. I love that the sun setting at an hour earlier still holds meaning for me. Otherwise, it would just be darkness at 5 p.m. Hebrew school has given this change in light meaning.

Feel free to adopt the “Hebrew School Feeling.” It’s bigger than just me.

(Photo by Olga Miltsova/Shutterstock)

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This month, I celebrated my gluten-free bat mitzvah. That sentence needs a bit of clarification: no, I’m not becoming a bat mitzvah nor am I becoming a bat mitzvah and then celebrating with a party that is catered to be gluten-free. I became a bat mitzvah when I was 13, in 1999. And yes, if you’re wondering, I recognize my bat mitzvah anniversary each year—I’m still really proud of that day.

What I’m actually referring to is that this month marks thirteen years since I was diagnosed with celiac disease and began a gluten-free diet. Just as I once turned 13 and became a bat mitzvah, now I’m turning 13 in gluten-free years.

I figured I would buy a gluten-free cupcake on the actual day, text a few people that it was my “gluten-free bat mitzvah,” and that would be that. But upon further reflection, I realized I was actually doing more than just marking a numerical rite of passage. The truth is, there’s a deep connection between my actual bat mitzvah and my diagnosis of Celiac. I was diagnosed about nine months after my bat mitzvah, and the fact that I’m now marking that important moment in my adolescence in a similar manner is meaningful. It’s beyond the number thirteen.

Nine months after I came of age in my community and was asked to take responsibility for myself, I suddenly had to take responsibility for my health. No one was going to do it for me, I was old enough that I had to do it for myself. I was not diagnosed as a toddler or child, an age at which adults would have had to monitor me. Instead, I was a teenager and in my religious community, I was already considered an adult. It was up to me. I would have to learn how to be on a gluten-free diet.

So, at almost 14, right before high school started, I began a strict gluten-free diet. I learned which foods were and were not gluten-free. I learned about cross-contamination, a big issue for those on gluten-free diets. A french fry may start out gluten-free, but once it falls in a fryer with onion rings it’s no longer gluten-free. I tried every gluten-free product out there and stuck with the ones I liked. Most importantly, I learned—and still continue to learn—how to be an advocate for myself.

I cannot expect a waiter at a restaurant to read my mind or the host of a dinner party to remember my restrictions. I have to ask questions about the menu and how foods are prepared to see, first, if a gluten-free meal is possible and, if so, which items are best for me. If I’m traveling, I have to make a plan. I’m not perfect. Sometimes I’m not the best advocate, but I always try and do better the next time.

My first major responsibility after my bat mitzvah has now been a responsibility for thirteen years. As an adult, the diet is now just one of many responsibilities, but it remains an important one, and one that I’ve learned a great deal from. Maybe that’s why I began to feel so strongly about my “gluten-free bat mitzvah.”

Responsibility and all that it entails was first bestowed upon me as a bat mitzvah. I then put those notions into practice with the gluten-free diet, and I’m still learning how to apply them when a question or a problem arises and I have to handle it. I have to make the decision to protect what is important to me and speak up when it’s right—a lesson I also learned upon becoming a bat mitzvah.

My “gluten-free bat mitzvah” may have started out as a lighthearted way to mark a milestone, but it ended up being much more emotionally significant than I could have realized. In a way, I came full circle.

Previous: The Best Gluten-Free Passover Products

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While many feel restricted during the leaven-free days of Passover, those of us on gluten-free diets find the holiday culinarily liberating. In fact, Passover is the Jewish holiday that keeps on gluten-free giving now that many companies have naturally gluten-free products or developed a gluten-free line alongside their traditional Passover line. Thanks to these products, we can fulfill the mitzvahs of the holiday while adhering to our dietary restriction—and making sure our palettes are satisfied.

Here are a few of my favorite kosher for Passover gluten-free things (to be sung to “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music, naturally). I hope you find as much joy in them as I do. I also hope you have better self-control than I do with some of these products (see: macaroons).

Matzoh for the Seder Table: Traditional matzoh is off limits since it has gluten. To fulfill the mitzvah of saying the blessing and eating matzoh, those of us who are on gluten-free diets can turn to oat matzoh. Lakewood Matzoh Bakery offers wonderful gluten-free oat matzohs available in Oat Machine Square and Traditional Shmurah, which I found at Fairway. Challah was taken on the matzohs that are made with certified gluten-free oats—oats must be certified gluten-free—and have Gluten-Intolerance Group’s certification seal.

Matzoh for the Breakfast Table: For the breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the ‘I need a snack’ kind of matzoh, I like Yehuda’s Gluten-Free Matzoh-Style Squares. The Squares are not intended for use during a seder, but are perfect with a shmear of cream cheese or for matzoh pizza.

I also recommend the newest gluten-free matzoh on the block: Manischewitz’s Gluten Free Matzo-Style Squares. I almost couldn’t believe this product was real when I saw it on the shelf. Then again, the words gluten-free on a Manischewitz box just seem so perfect.

When it comes to matzoh in cracker form, both Yehuda and Manischewitz crackers do the job. If you are like my sister, you might like them with cream cheese and a half sour pick on top.

Gluten-Free Matzoh Balls—Need I Say More? Your soup will thank you (and then your gluten-free guests will also) for using Yehuda’s Gluten-Free Matzoh Meal for the matzoh balls. In other words, if you plan on having chicken soup like I do at seder, make sure to pick up a box or two or even three.

Chicken Cutlet Time: Gluten-free chicken cutlets are just a coating away thanks to Jeff Nathan Creations’ Gluten Free Panko Flakes. The flakes are brand new and are available in plain or seasoned. Any chicken cutlet lucky enough to be made with these flakes is going to be a hit, which mean my chicken cutlets are going to be quite popular this week.

Passover Pasta: Whether you need gluten-free noodles for your kugel or are looking for a bowl of pasta, Manischewitz and Gefen have you covered. I like Manischewitz Gluten-Free Fine Yolk Free Noodles for my kugel and enjoy their spiral and shell-shaped noodles for everyday pasta fun. For a wider noodle, I recommend Gefen’s Gluten Free Egg Free Wide, which are perfect in soup.

Dessert: I love Manischewitz Gluten Free Chocolate and Yellow Cake Mixes. They are a great gluten-free cake and the fact that they are kosher for Passover is just the cherry on top. But my favorite part of the Manischewitz cakes might just be that the pan is included.

Macaroons: Passover hasn’t even started and I have already gone through two containers of Streit’s chocolate chip macaroons. There is just something about these moist treats, whether coconut, chocolate, chocolate chip or toffee crunch. If you’re a red velvet lover like I am, Manischewitz Red Velvet Macaroons are a must, as is the Chocolate Macaroon Dough. I repeat: Chocolate Macaroon Dough. This dough is the mother of all Passover products. Pure genius. It comes in a tub—how fun—and makes 44 macaroons.

And what would Passover be without candy fruit slices? Original Sweet Shoppe offers gluten-free raspberry, orange & lemon fruit slices that are the perfect treat at your seder.

The post The Best Gluten-Free Passover Products appeared first on Jewcy.

Upon hearing the biblical casting news out of Hollywood this summer that Russell Crowe was cast as the title character in Darren Aronofsky’s epic film Noah, I immediately thought that Crowe was a great choice. His skill set and experience—both in B.C. and A.D.—qualify him to build the ark on the big screen. However, after seeing a picture of Crowe in character, I started to question whether he was the right choice visually.

I’m skeptical because Aronofsky’s vision of Noah doesn’t really match with my vision of Noah, shaped over years of hearing and reading the story of the biblical ark builder. The first images of Crowe in character reveal a middle-aged Noah: a man of thick stock who’s a bit muscular and rugged, with a beard that’s not quite biblical length. (I define biblical length as a very long beard. I know that’s vague, but it makes sense to me.) My vision of Noah is a much older man, lean with a long white flowing beard, dressed in a white tunic or a cloak-like outfit (I think it may have been more of a brown color when I was younger.)

In Aronofsky’s defense, it’s possible that as the film progresses, Crowe ages and develops into the Noah I’ve always imagined. Another possibility is that my vision is just that: my own conception of a biblical figure. Better yet, maybe Aronofsky’s characterization will ultimately change how I picture Noah. But for now, something just seems off.

If Aronofsky and I have such a major difference in our visions of Noah, what does it say about the personalization of Biblical figures on a wider scale? What roles do our Jewish upbringings and imaginations, as well as outside forces, have in developing and influencing these images? My biblical visuals are rooted in a combination of Hebrew School lessons, d’var Torah passages, and good old-fashioned daydreaming. I remember being a kid listening to the stories told from the bimah and the front of the Hebrew School classroom. As the details of the story were read aloud, I would begin to visualize everything: I would picture the people, in varying degrees of detail, and the settings.

I distinctly remember envisioning Abraham when I was younger. I remember picturing him breaking his father’s idols as a skinny, average-height boy. Older Abraham has the ultimate biblical beard, though I’m not sure whether it’s salt-and-peppered or completely white. I think I usually give him a white beard, but I can’t remember for sure. He wears long tribal garb, and as of press time I still can’t picture his face. He’s more of a figure seen from behind or the side.

When it comes to Moses, there’s no need for imagination. Hollywood gave me Moses in the form of Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. There is no other Moses. When I hear the name Moses, I see Heston. His face, beard, build, garb, even his voice are as they should be. But are they as they should be because I have fully accepted and internalized director Cecil B. DeMille’s image of Moses? Or is there a chance that his vision supports a preexisting notion of Moses in my head? It’s so ingrained in my consciousness at this point that I can’t know for sure.

Since Hollywood has clearly had a profound impact on my conception of Moses, I wonder if Aronofsky’s blockbuster will have a similar effect with Noah. Will this Hollywood depiction reinforce aspects of my Noah or completely replace him? Moses was offered to me when I was young–DeMille’s film, released in 1956, had already become a classic by the time I was born—but I’ve had twenty-plus years of picturing some form of a Noah without any big screen influence. If anything, Hollywood only confirmed that vision with Steve Carrell’s Noah-esque character in 2007’s less-than-stellar Evan Almighty.

I’ll have to wait until Noah is released in 2014 to see if Aronofsky can replace my vision of this particular biblical figure. Perhaps when I see Crowe, staff in hand, leading the animals two by two into the ark, everything will change. There’s a chance that Crowe could even become my Noah. But I’m pretty sure that Crowe won’t ever be my Noah the way Heston is my Moses.

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Growing up, I loved kiddush. It was the reason I went to temple—or at least it was my favorite part of going to temple. I knew there was more to services than the mounds of cookies that came after Adon Olam. The junior congregation service, intended for Hebrew school-aged children, was fun. We prayed, and there were activities to keep us engaged. We learned that temple was exciting and meaningful while being introduced to the basics of the service. For me, the fun just happened to continue at kiddush, and Adon Olam was my cue.

The junior congregation kiddush always had Drake’s goodies like Yodels or Devil Dogs. But the adult kiddush, usually sponsored by that week’s bar or bat mitzvah family, was where the real treats could be found. Here were the cookies I longed for—the kosher cookies that somehow made my Saturday special. Even though as a kid I should have liked Drake’s more, there was something about those adult kiddush cookies that did it for me. Perhaps it was in my DNA.

I would start with the yellow cookies with the pink or yellow circle in the middle—you know the ones—soft but with a nice little icing crunch. Then I would move on to rugelech, a cookie that speaks for itself. When I ate the rainbow cookies, I ate around the jelly (if only my childhood self understood the joys of jelly!). After the cookies, I would indulge in a marble slice. What more could a young kiddush lover ask for after a morning of davening?

Then, things changed for this Kiddush lover. No, I didn’t grow up and decide to give up cookies. Who would say no to a cookie at Kiddush? What a shonda. Instead, at 13, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. A diagnosis of celiac requires one to go on a gluten-free diet: a diet free of wheat, rye, and barely. The kosher kiddush cookies I once loved and devoured were now off limits. Kiddush was gluten. It was the end of an era.

At that time, I was very accepting of my diagnosis because I understood that my health was dependent on strictly following the new diet. There was no time to long for the gluten goodies I once ate. The kosher kiddush cookies were just cookies, and I could not have them.

I left it at that until I discovered gluten-free kosher cookies from Shabtai Gourmet and rugelech from Katz Gluten-Free. It was a gluten-free miracle. These cookies tasted just like kiddush. These cookies contained, for me, the essence of kiddush. They reminded me of the Saturdays of my childhood. Without realizing it, I had been longing for a gluten-free cookie in the style of a kiddush cookie.

My Judaism is by no means rooted in cookies, but those vivid kiddush memories are part of my relationship with my Judaism—just as being gluten-free is not who I am, but at the same time, it is a very real part of me. The rationale behind my post-diagnosis desire for cookies identical to those of my youth is common for a gluten-free eater. Often those of us on the gluten-free diet look for foods that are exact or very close replications of the gluten foods we once ate. I have found many replacement items that have had been meaningful for my palette, but the gluten-free kosher cookie discovery was monumental. Food is so enmeshed in the cultural fabric of being Jewish, and I was again able to feel like I could fully participate.

These days, my kiddush is no longer sponsored by the bar or bat mitzvah family, instead it’s brought to me by Shabtai Gourmet and Katz’s Gluten-Free. Shabtai Gourmet has the kosher classics, gluten-free: everything from Florentine Lace Cookies to Rainbow Cookies to Mini Black & Whites. Katz Gluten-Free has my chocolate rugelech. Together, these two companies recreated the essence of kiddush for me.

The gluten-free Jewish community can finally have their kiddush cookies, and eat them too.

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After Yom Kippur ended this year, my family began to prepare for Sukkot. We took the sukkah out, set up the frame, and then carefully put on the top and covered it with leaves. We then hung up construction paper fruit and two bunches of plastic grapes. Between two of the poles, my mother tied a piece of string, and then, one by one, hung up Rosh Hashanah cards.

Together, we then set up the tables and chairs, placed a plant near a rear pole and a basket of apples near another. Finally, just before sukkot started, we set the table with a tray of black and white cookies, a plate of cupcakes, two bowls of fruit, and bottles of seltzer and wine. All of this was on the same table.

The sukkah we so meticulously set up and decorated is my grandmother’s tabletop sukkah, which my family curates each year. I say curate because it will always be my grandmother’s sukkah, and anything we place in it was not in the original design, but honors her artistic vision.

When my grandmother, an artist and rabbi’s wife, came up with the idea for the sukkah, she had a florist create the frame. The frame consists of four green wooden rods that serve as poles and a green wooden rectangle, which sits on top of the four poles. In the center of the rectangle is mesh wiring. The sukkah’s design reflects that of a traditional sukkah, only on a much smaller scale.

I never celebrated Sukkot with my grandmother so I never had the chance to see how she set up and decorated her sukkah. My Aunt tells me that it sat prominently on the table and that my grandmother adorned it with evergreens and hung miniature squash from the wire. Since my grandparents lived in an apartment in Chicago, it was this small sukkah that was the Cohen family sukkah.

A few years before she passed away, my grandmother gave us the sukkah. Sitting proudly on our dining room table, the Cohen sukkah was decorated to match our backyard sukkah. Construction paper apples, oranges, and bananas were hung with string from the wire, just as plastic fruit hung from the top of our sukkah. We turned to my dollhouse for a table that would mirror the patio table from our backyard, and then sat the family that lived in the dollhouse around the table.

This lasted for several years, until the dollhouse contents and residents were misplaced when my mother moved into an apartment in Manhattan. Last year, a sukkah remodeling was needed, and we took the task very seriously. My mom went to a dollhouse store and purchased the equivalent of a backyard bench and chairs, a small table with plates and cups, and a mini basket of apples. We still had the construction paper fruit, and bunches of plastic grapes that had once hung in our backyard sukkah.

But then last week, as we started setting up the tabletop sukkah, we realized that the new furniture was not enough. The structure felt incomplete. To make it into my grandmother’s sukkah again, we had to do more. More dollhouse items—a floor plant, a full table set, and food and beverages—made it feel warm, but we needed more of a sense of family tradition. We settled upon our longtime suburban ritual of hanging Rosh Hashanah cards from the top of our backyard sukkah.

My mom took a card we had recently received from a family friend, and from it made a dozen mini cards. Then, we made the first major change to the sukkah frame since it sat in my grandmother’s apartment in Chicago. We added cloth walls, a significant addition to the structure and a pretty emotional renovation.

All together the furniture, construction paper and plastic fruit, food, cards, and cloth walls make this year’s sukkah one that we would very much like to sit in, were it full size. More important, it’s a structure that honors my grandmother. How the sukkah is decorated may have changed, but its meaning remains the same—it’s the Cohen family sukkah, and we’re very proud of it.

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