Category Archives: Poland

Passover in Poland – Memories from Max

29 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in Jewish Culture & Traditions, Jewish Foods, Poland

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Charoset made with kosher wine, apples, pears,...

Charoses made with kosher wine, apples, pears, cinnamon, honey, pine nuts, and crushed walnuts.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PASSOVER (Pesach) is still one week away, and I’m delighted to present a few holiday recipes from several wonderful readers to help make cooking “Kosher for Passover” not only delicious, but a shared experience.

In GOLANSKI’S TREASURES, Max’s mementoes trigger fond recollections of his life in Poland before WWII. Here’s a short clip from a story he shares during his flight home with a student who carried two items he purchased in a curio shop in Warsaw . . . an old wooden chopping bowl and a distinctive three-bladed chopper (called a “hackmesser” in Yiddish).

When I was a young and curious boy, Mama (of blessed memory), allowed my sitting quietly in a corner of our kitchen to watch the women work.  She was quite the expert on Seder preparations, and by the time I was ten she felt I could do simple tasks. That’s how I became the only boy around who knew how to make charoses, a delicious chopped spread symbolizing the mortar Hebrew slaves used to cement together bricks for the great pyramids.

I somehow became convinced that the quality of my charoses contributed to the ongoing architectural integrity of the pyramids, so I worked extra hard to perfect the dish.  I can still remember the ‘chop, chop, chopping’ sound as the multi-bladed hackmesser struck the wooden bowl.  Mama taught me how to create a charoses worthy of the Seder plate.  I could even remove the thin red, green and yellow glossy skins from each apple in long, continuous spirals with one of Papa’s sharpest knives.

Crisp and tart, the clear juices from the apples coated the hackmesser’s blades as I worked.  Chopping the walnuts into the apples, I’d add crushed cinnamon and a dollop of honey, then dribble sweet, red wine into the mix.  Chopping and blending, the fragrance of apples meeting walnuts, honey, cinnamon and wine was intoxicating.  Learning to reach the proper consistency took years to perfect.  As I grew older, I enjoyed embellishing upon the original recipe Mama had taught me, and must confess I became quite well known for my charoses!

Check out the new page just added to the blog called “GOLANSKI’S KITCHEN.”  I’ve started the ball rolling with Max’s description of the ingredients and process of creating an easy, thick and chunky, yet spreadable charoses — the traditional Ashkenazi (Eastern European) recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
  • 1/4 cup ground cinnamon (or to taste)
  • 5 cups fuji apples – peeled, cored and chopped
  • 2 cups red wine
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts
Directions:
  1. In a bowl, mix the honey, cinnamon, apples, wine, and walnuts thoroughly and let sit several hours.

While I no longer cook that much (I’m blessed with Charles’ fabulous creativity in the kitchen), I still look forward to preparing my annual Chicken Soup with Matzo Balls for Pesach.  I confess that I generally use box mixes for the matzo balls, but please take note of the technique employed in shaping and introducing the mixture into the boiling water (a trick learned from my own “Yiddisha Mama”).

You’ll also find other Passover dishes from two contributing cooks who answered my call for recipes.  More have come in, but preparing recipe posts for the blog are somewhat labor intense for me, so please be patient and keep a lookout for other Jewish dishes that will be posted periodically.  All reflect the ongoing love affair between Jewish people and food.

(Please feel free to send your favorite recipes for future postings.)

Seeking Jewish Roots

01 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in anti-Semitism, History, Holocaust, Jewish Culture & Traditions, Jewish Genealogy, Poland, Sokoly

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

SOKOLY (So-koh-wee)! The first time I heard the name of my grandfather’s birthplace was from my father’s cousin, Marie.  She lived in Paris, was a doctor, medical researcher, and reputedly a Polish Countess. Now what, you might ask, does my distant cousin and Polish Countess have to do with the story of Max Golanski?  

In 1989, when I traveled to Poland on behalf of Chicago’s Spertus Museum, I stopped in Paris to ask Marie to fill in missing blanks regarding our family heritage.  Grandpa Ross had arrived in the United States as a young man seeking to leave Russia rather than face the mandatory 12-year military service required of Jews.  (Non-Jews served four years for the Czar.)  He had followed his brother Willie to this country via Ellis Island, and couldn’t remember our family’s original last name, or why his brother had selected the surname Ross.  Fortunately, Cousin Marie remembered names and places that helped round out our family lore.

When Great Uncle Willie arrived at Ellis Island, Immigration officials asked where he was from and without hesitation he replied, “Białystok” (Bee-al-i-stok).  When asked his last name he said, “Białystokski” (Bee-al-i-stos-kee), which translates “from the Białystok region.”  Białystok shifted between  Russian and Polish rule over a period of several hundred years.

Immigration officials decided that Great Uncle Willie was either confused, or his name was too difficult to pronounce, so asked him to select “an American name.”  Of course, he didn’t know any “American names,” so when an attractive female Immigration worker walked past he pointed to her and asked, “Vat’s her name?” in a thick Yiddish accent.  “ROSS!” Without hesitation he said, “If it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me.  I’ll take it!”  And so my Eastern European Jewish family had a new, Scottish surname.

And SOKOLY?  Once Marie related the story regarding our family name she also remembered our family’s village.  Upon arriving in Poland I hired a driver to take me to the town (25 miles from Białystok).  Sokoly was a modest farming community of 3,500 people, distinguished by an impressive Catholic church in the town’s center. Surprisingly, my visit generated substantial excitement as word quickly spread that an American Jew was visiting.  People poured from their homes to meet me, saying “No ‘Shoah.’  We like Jews!”  I later discovered that the 9 1/2-hour film “Shoah,” by Claude Lanzmann, had recently found its way to Sokoly.  Residents seemed to feel that by convincing one Jew that not all Poles were anti-Semitic, they absolved themselves of participation in the Holocaust to all the Jews of the world.

Pulled into the kitchen of a humble farmer and his wife, I sat with them seeking the answer to my one burning question:  “What happened to the Jews of Sokoly?”  Their response was translated for me by my Polish driver, and the tape was donated to the Chicago Jewish Archives.

Years later, the Internet made possible more extensive research.  I was surprised to discover that Sokoly had been a renowned center of Jewish scholarship, claiming many doctors, scientists, literary scholars and other distinguished native sons and daughters.  The majority of Sokoly’s survivors immigrated to Israel.  A few others came to the States.  As one might expect, their stories were markedly different from the farmer’s original tale.  Folding differing perspectives of my impressions visiting in 1989, the farmer’s story, and researched testimony of Sokoly’s Jewish Survivors into a fictionalized tale gave birth to several chapters in GOLANSKI’S TREASURES.

As for my family’s Polish Countess?  A story onto itself for another time!

(Church in Sokoly, Poland - Photo by Leszek Zaremba)