Pitch Up: Community Voices
To celebrate the opening of our Community Learning Kitchen, our current residences are all food related.
Our first stall has been co-curated with Jewish Museum London’s own Learning Officer, Eliana Mendelsohn, and Engagement Programme Manager, Emma Crew. They lead the challah bread baking sessions for school and family groups respectively and have centred their display on the basic ingredients that are used to make challah. “One of my favourite things about the family programming is it really is families in the broadest sense. We have had families bringing young children to come and bake in the kitchen – I think the youngest being about six months old! – but we’ve also had families where the ‘children’ are adults, but they’re coming to bake with their parents or older relatives still” says Emma.
It was great to involve the London Board for Shechita, who have responsibility for issuing certificates to kosher service providers, ensuring a secure supply of high quality kosher meat and poultry at the lowest possible cost, abiding by the high standards of kashrut. Their display includes a certificate, labels, tape and seals. Says Jeremy Cohen Assistant to the Chief Executive of the board, “We try to help educate the consumer as well, about kosher meat and what goes on behind the scenes”
Alongside this are kosher kitchen products as selected by Rivki Rokach, manager of supermarket Kosher Kingdom. “ Kosher Kingdom is actually the largest kosher supermarket in Europe today. Many of our customers fondly remember our humble beginnings as “Kosher King”, a small local grocery shop which used to be located across the road from where we are today.” says Rivki. Their colourful stall includes chopping boards, utensils, and a selection of sweets from their popular pick and mix stand.
Keeping with the kosher them is Tal Sunderland-Cohen’s stall. Tal is also known as the Israeli Wine Ambassador and his display includes a selection of wines alongside a kiddish cup from the Jewish museum collection and a promotional advert for Palwin from 1922. “Israeli wines are a hidden gem. Our wine is unique and because we don’t mass-produce we don’t have cheap wines but instead we have wines of high quality. And that’s why we receive a lot of trophies and medals in wine competitions all around the world.”
In a museum first, we have a potato on display alongside willow and hazel wood, all grown at Sadeh Farm. Founder of the Orpington based farm, Talia Chain says “Jews are agricultural people. Take a grain of wheat. We sow it, plough it, cut it, harvest it, thresh it, mill it into flour and then make it into bread. It’s so connected to the laws of Shabbat where six days of the week we’re thinking about growing wheat and on the seventh we rest and enjoy what we’ve done”.
Our final stall focuses on a theme close to many people’s hearts… and tongues – Chocolate! Researcher and book publisher Michael Leventhal’s display tells us about the relationship between Jews and the history of chocolate. The display includes cocoa beans, a metate, a molinillo, and a chocolate pot. “I’m not exaggerating when I say they played a crucial role in spreading chocolate around the globe. As Jews were forced to flee to different locations they set up chocolate workshops around the world” says Michael.
Each stall includes a question posed by the individuals or organisation which visitors are invited to write a response to and pin on the stall. Check out our social media posts for other ways to engage with the displays throughout the next six months from January to July 2023.
