by Gil Marks
One of the world's first flavored seltzers was Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray Tonic. Infused with celery seeds and sugar, this drink is said to have been invented in 1869 by a doctor on New York's Lower East Side. This mildly sweetened carbonated beverage with an acquired tart taste became popular with New York Jews in the 1930s; it shares the nickname "Jewish champagne" with plain seltzer. Cel-Ray Tonic became ubiquitous at New York delicatessens, where it provided a better counterpoint to the heavy, briny meats than sweeter, fruit-flavored sodas. Still a common beverage in delis today, Dr. Brown's sells about one million cans a year.
(See also Apio, Karpas, Parsley, and Seder)
Challah
Challah (challot plural) is a much-misunderstood biblical term whose meaning has changed greatly over the centuries. Most contemporary American references describe it as "a braided egg loaf." This, however, was a notion completely unknown in biblical or even Talmudic times. Even many knowledgeable sources call it "a small portion removed from bread dough to be burned," which was also not the original intent. Nor, as described in various translations, did it mean "round," "rolled," or "cake." Rather, the word challah is derived from the root chalal (to pierce/to be hollow), indicating something perforated or poked full of holes, similar to chalil (flute), chalon (window), and challal (a hollow space/hole).
Abraham Ibn Ezra noted that challah was "thick" and the commentator Rashi translated challah into Old French as tourte, which in his time had also developed the connotation of thick. The various breads in the ancient world were typically cooked on hot coals, griddles, or in rudimentary ovens, and thinness was essential in order for them to cook evenly all the way through. Any bread more than about a quarter of an inch or so thick required special baking techniques to allow the center to cook before the exterior burned. Thicker breads needed to be baked in spiked containers that transmitted heat into the loaves in order to properly cook them all the way through before the exterior burned. All of the biblical instances of challah indicate thickness.
The Priestly Portion
One of the three biblical references to challah pertains to the portion of bread given to a Kohain (priest, Kohanim plural): "Of the first of your kneading-troughs, you shall set apart a challah as a gift." This reference to challah was not as an offering in the Temple, but rather as one of the twenty-four perquisites of the Kohanim. Certain of these perquisites were only applicable in the Temple, while challah was given to any Kohain anywhere in the land of Israel.
It is a misconception to suppose that Kohanim went from house to house collecting chunks of raw dough or that housewives had to drop everything in the middle of baking, in those days a very strenuous and time-consuming activity, to run off and find a Kohain to which to give a piece of raw dough. Rather, the commandment involved giving a loaf of baked bread. And not just any old bread, but one baked into a loaf befitting presentation to a Kohain, a superior loaf.
The biblical obligation to give challah to the Kohanim applies only to the land of Israel when the majority of Jews are living there. After the destruction of the Temple, the Sages, in order that "the obligation of challah will not be forgotten," instituted a substitute for giving a baked loaf of bread to the Kohain. Instead, a one-ounce piece of dough, subsequently called challah, is customarily removed and burned in its place. This is called in Hebrew hafrashat challah (removal of challah) or in Yiddish nemn khale. Throughout most of history, and until relatively recently, bread making at home was relegated to women, so beginning in Talmudic times, baking bread for the Sabbath and taking the portion of challah dough became a woman's religious obligation.
There are several opinions as to the minimum amount of flour necessary in a batch of dough for removing this substitute "challah" and for making a benediction over that act. The predominant decision is: If the amount of flour weighs less than 2 pounds and 11 ounces (approximately 9 1/8 cups unsifted), no challah is taken. If the flour weighs more than 2 pounds and 11 ounces, but less than 3 pounds and 11 ounces (about 12 cups unsifted), challah is taken, but without a blessing. A blessing is only recited on the removal of challah when the dough is made from at least 3 pounds and 11 ounces of flour (about 12 cups unsifted).
For the past two millennia, the term challah referred to the small portion of dough removed from each batch and burned. Only much later and initially only among some Ashkenazim did that name become attached to the Sabbath loaves themselves.
The Sabbath Loaves
Following the destruction of the Temple, the altar was symbolically replaced by the home dining table, considered a Mikdash Ma'at (a miniature Sanctuary), and the showbread by the Sabbath loaves. The showbread were twelve special unleavened wheat loaves—which were called challah in the Bible—that were continually on view in the Temple, arranged on a golden table located across the room from the menorah and changed every Sabbath day.
In the early medieval period, a custom developed in Babylonia of reciting the benediction of Hamotzi on the Sabbath and festivals over two loaves of bread (lechem mishneh), representing the double portion of manna gathered on Fridays for the Sabbath during the forty years the Israelites were in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. Some Mizrachim, Kabbalists, and Chasidim use twelve small loaves, representing the number of showbreads. Subsequently, some embellishments to the Sabbath bread became symbolic of the manna.
A tradition common to every Jewish community is to place the Sabbath loaves on a cloth or board and cover them with a cloth (dekel or mapah), usually a specially embroidered one, in recognition of the manna, which was protected by layers of dew. Ashkenazim typically slice the challahs with a knife, while most Sephardim favor breaking the bread with their hands, as a knife is also an object of violence and war and not allowed on the altar of God. In certain Sephardic communities, especially among Syrians, pieces of the Sabbath bread are tossed to the various diners, reflecting the concept that food actually comes from the Lord, not the host.
Historically, Sephardim and Mizrachim used their regular weekday loaves, (generally round flatbreads) for the Sabbath and festivals, and they had no special name for the Sabbath bread. Since one of the most prominent symbols for the Sabbath is that of queen, it was only appropriate that the Sabbath bread would be bread fit for royalty—loaves made from white flour, the type usually reserved for the upper class. Therefore, during the early medieval period, Sephardim and Ashkenazim began to use only white flour, whenever possible, for the Sabbath loaves. This was much more of a problem for Ashkenazim, who generally did not live in areas that grew wheat, while wheat was the predominant grain in the medieval Muslim world. Some communities, however, especially many Persians, used whole-wheat flour for their Sabbath loaves. Some Sephardim and Mizrachim did make one change from their regular bread to their Sabbath loaves—they sprinkled seeds, primarily sesame, over the dough rounds, an allusion to the manna that fell in the form of coriander seeds.
Yemenites still use pita-like loaves called salufe and thin breads called lahuh for the Sabbath. Indian Jews use local flatbreads, such as naan or chapatis, traditionally baked on the sides of a tandoor, a clay oven. The Bene Israel of Mumbai add coconut milk and sugar to their chapatis for the Sabbath.
On the other hand, among the Ashkenazim of northern Europe, most families ate black bread—round loaves of dark rye flour or maslin—throughout the week. For the Sabbath, however, even the poorest of families would make certain to have loaves, even a very small one, made from white flour. If a family was too poor to obtain the more expensive flour themselves, the Jewish community would provide the necessary funds. Whereas Ashkenazim generally purchased their weekday breads, such as rye loaves and bagels, housewives made their Sabbath loaves at home, providing the opportunity to remove the portion of challah.
Ashkenazic Braided Loaves
Initially, Ashkenazim too had no special shape or name for their Sabbath loaves, simply using any type of white bread and calling it either the Yiddish broyt or Hebrew lechem. Then in the fifteenth century, Jews in Austria
and southern Germany adopted a new form of Sabbath bread—an oval, braided loaf, modeled on a popular Teutonic bread, which was called berchisbrod or perchisbrod in southern Germany.
In honor of the winter solstice, ancient German tribes prepared special breads, some shaped in the form of animals. After adopting Christianity, many Germans continued the custom, creating new shapes. Berchta or Perchta was another name of the malevolent demon/witch Holle, an ugly Teutonic crone with long, matted hair. Germans twisted dough to resemble hair and offered the loaves to Holle to escape her punishment. Although European Jews certainly did not worship or even to a large extent know anything about Berchta or Holle, they assimilated the attractive bread. Medieval German Jews also adopted a baby-naming ceremony called Hollekreisch, "Holle's cry," in which the cradle and baby were lifted up before confirming the infant's German name.
So a braided lean loaf, suggestive of a special occasion, soon became the most popular form of Ashkenazic Sabbath bread. Braiding (flekhtn in Yiddish), besides adding an attractive appearance, has a practical usage, keeping bread fresh for slightly longer. Many families developed a unique braid in order to tell their loaves apart from their neighbors' at the bakery or communal oven. Three-strand braids are perhaps the most popular among home bakers, as they are rather easy and uncomplicated. Six-strand braided loaves also became commonplace, two of them together representing the twelve showbreads, as well as being a bit fancier than three- or four-strand braids. Braided loaves sometimes contain two rows of six bumps, a clear allusion to the showbread. There are also challahs with ten or twelve braids in a single loaf.
At this point, Ashkenazic Sabbath bread grew increasingly enriched and embellished. The use of oil replicated the ingredients of the breads prepared in the Temple. Eggs and, less frequently, a pinch of saffron added to the dough simulated the yellow color of cooked manna. Not coincidentally, the large amount of oil and eggs produced a softer texture and richer flavor, as well as serving to keep the loaves fresher for a longer period. A coating of egg wash imparted a glossy sheen. By the end of the fifteenth century, challah was commonly sprinkled with seeds, primarily poppy and sesame.
The original enriched Sabbath braids were not sweetened. With the spread of sugar beet—refining factories in parts of eastern Europe beginning in 1806, the price of sugar in those areas plummeted as its availability rose. Soon Ashkenazim living in sugar beet—producing regions developed a preference for sweeter dishes and began adding sugar to their challahs, sometimes in prodigious amounts. Sweeteners are symbolic of the taste of manna, which, when pounded into cakes, tasted like honey. Many Sephardic authorities, however, disputed whether the Hamotzi (benediction over bread) could properly be recited over enriched loaves, since adding large amounts of eggs or sweetener actually transformed the finished product into a cake, like the Sephardic bollo. This notion was not so farfetched, for some eastern Europeans used part of the sweet egg challah dough to make babka and other yeast cakes.
A Challah by Any Other Name
The usage of the biblical word challah to colloquially refer to the Sabbath bread was first recorded in 1488 in the work Leket Yosher by Joseph ben Moses of Austria. He described the Sabbath loaves served by his teacher, Israel Isserlein, who was born in Regensburg, Germany, and forced to relocate to Austria. It is probable that the braided German Holle bread sounded like the biblical challah.
It would be more than a century before the term challah for the Sabbath breads made its way eastward to Poland and the Baltic region. Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1525—1572) of Cracow, the preeminent Ashkenazic authority of his time, in his glosses on the Shulchan Arukh still referred to the Sabbath loaves by the generic lachamim. However, by the seventeenth century, both the braided loaf (geflokhtene khale) and the name khale, as it is typically pronounced in Eastern Yiddish—challah is the early twentieth century Anglicized version—had spread eastward to become the predominant Sabbath bread in eastern Europe. Challah rolls are commonly called bulke and bilke (bulkalach or bilkelekh plural) in Eastern Yiddish. Toronto, Canada, has a unique Polish-inspired Sabbath bread called bulke challah, consisting of three medium or twelve smaller rolls baked together in a large rectangular loaf pan.
However, challah was far from the only name for the new Ashkenazic braided loaf. In southern Germany, it became known as barches or berches—possibly a corruption of the Yiddish word broches (blessing), but more likely from the German bercht (braid) or the name Berchta, sounding like birkat (blessing). Like most Sabbath loaves, these braided ones were made using the best available white flour. Unlike Austrian and Polish challah, German barches were made from a lean dough containing no oil or eggs and possessed a distinct sourdough flavor. This lean loaf also became known as vasser challah (water bread) in contradistinction to the richer eastern eier challah (egg bread).
Within a short time, the braided barches spread westward to Alsace and south to parts of Hungary—the braids sprinkled with poppy seeds were called barhesz or szombati kalács—to become the prevailing form and name of Sabbath bread in those areas. Today in Austria, bakeries sell braided sweetened loaves sprinkled with poppy seeds called barches, without being aware of the bread's Jewish heritage.
In addition to the braided loaf, some German Jews began making a lean oblong vasser challah with a dough strip running down its center, symbolizing the ascent to heaven. Each center strip also represented the Hebrew letter vav, which has a numerical value of six. Since two loaves are used at each Sabbath meal, the two loaves together equal twelve, the number of tribes of Israel as well as the number showbreads.
Several other lesser-known names emerged for the braided Sabbath loaf as well. In part of western Germany, it became known as datsher or dacher, from the verse in Proverbs "the blessings of the Lord, it ta'ashir [makes rich]." (In that area, d was sometimes substituted for t, as in the prayer shawl being referred to as dallis.)
In Lithuania and Latvia, a braided Sabbath bread or sometimes the braid on top of a regular loaf was called kitke (possibly meaning "weave"). Today in South Africa, where much of the original Jewish population is from Lithuania, kitke is the prevailing term for braided sweet egg bread, while the word challah is completely foreign. The Sabbath bread cover there is called a "kitke cloth." The most widespread form of kitke features a braided large loaf with a second smaller strand of braids arranged over top.
Ashkenazic Festival Loaves
Holiday loaves, many originating in Ukraine in the eighteenth century, possess their own special characteristics. Round thick white loaves seem to have emerged among Ashkenazim during the late medieval period when some began making breads with milk for the festival of Shavuot. To distinguish them as dairy, these loaves were formed into rounds rather than the Sabbath ovals and braids. Afterwards, cooks began making nondairy rounds for Rosh Hashanah, representing the continuity of the year and life, and other shapes, including spirals (faiglan), symbolizing the ascent to heaven; crowns (keter), symbolizing divine majesty; and birds (faigele), an allusion to the verse in Isaiah, "As hovering birds, so will the Lord of hosts shield Jerusalem." Challah for Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot is traditionally kneaded with raisins or various chopped dried fruits, a symbol of sweetness and the harvest.
Ukrainian Jews developed the custom of shaping challahs for the meal before the Yom Kippur fast into images of ascension: birds, symbolizing that all sins should fly away and that our prayers soar to the heavens, or ladders, reminiscent of Jacob's dream and the ascent to heaven. The form of a hand is sometimes placed on the bread for Hoshanah Rabbah, the last day of Sukkot, connoting that the verdict of Yom Kippur is signed on that day. The hand decoration was common in Lithuanian for the meal before Yom Kippur, as it was customary to shake hands while asking forgiveness from others. A schlissel ("key" in Yiddish) shape became traditional for the Sabbath following Passover, the first Sabbath that the manna no longer fell. For Shavuot, a five- or seven-rung ladder was sometimes formed on the challah, because the numerical value of ladder (sulam) is the
same as that of Sinai and symbolizes the ascent of Moses to receive the Torah.
A Polish synonym for a very large braided oval challah of more than one and a half feet is variously spelled koyletsh, keylitsh, keylitch, koilitch, and koylatsh. It is served at festive occasions, notably weddings and the Purim feast. At Polish weddings, a woman holding the koyletsh, sometimes with lit candles set into it, would dance (koyletsh tanz) solo in front of the seated bride and groom, conveying a wish that they might always have bread. In the classic 1936 Yiddish movie Yidl mitn Fidl (Yiddle with a Fiddle), which featured Molly Picon in her most famous role and was the first Yiddish movie to play large American theater chains, a klezmer band helps a perspective bride escape an arranged marriage with a much older rich man after her grandmother performs the koyletsh tanz.
Coming to America
Since most of the Ashkenazic immigrants to America in the nineteenth century came from Germany, not surprisingly they did not call their Sabbath bread challah. In the early American cookbook, Aunt Babette's (1889), the author, who was from a German background, provides recipes for "Butterbarches," consisting of a large braided oval topped by a smaller braided oval and sprinkled with "(mohn) poppy seed all over the top," as well as "Twisted Bread (Barches)," directing for the latter: "This is to be used with meat and made in the same manner, omitting the milk and butter; use water, and a little shortening of nice drippings or rendered suet."
