Specialty #7: Mish Mosh Soup
A multitude of tikkun olam in Jewish Chaos Cuisine (JCC, if you please)
My spring allergies were intensifying, as was my daily anxiety, and all I wanted was matzo ball soup. Not just any matzo ball soup, of which there is plenty to be delivered on demand in Brooklyn, but mish mosh soup, the most elite tier of Jewish soups.
Cutely named, stunningly filling, mish mosh is matzo ball soup in its highest form. Ideally served in a very, very big bowl, mish mosh soup fills chicken broth with matzo balls, kasha, rice, kreplach, noodles (or lukshen, as my grandfather called it) — all the Ashkenazi starches that go so well together. Shredded chicken, carrots, celery and herbs are optional (for nutrition), but the carbs are requisite.
Using my own bone broth and matzo ball mix enhanced with fresh parsley, I made a face-sized bowl of comforting, very filling mish mosh soup. It was everything I wanted: Soothing, indulgent, in a quirky retro Eastern European kind of way. It was the perfect balm for my scratchy throat and achy head, and also somehow a key to clarity in a tumultuous (that’s an understatement) time.
Over the past year, I’ve had various friends of various mindsets tell me they’re embarrassed to be Jewish. They don’t want folks to think the massacre in Gaza is happening in our names. They’re ashamed of (some) American Jews, reclaiming antisemitism in a self-victimizing agenda that puts Israel above all.
I understand where they’re coming from, but I don’t feel the same. I am proud to be Jewish. I am happy to be Jewish. Being Jewish is core to who I am, and that won’t change.
This pride wasn’t always clear to me. I grew up in a non-egalitarian synagogue, not a safe space for queer youth (or adults, for that matter). When I was a teenager, the shul clarified that despite recent rabbinic decisions, they would not welcome gay clergy, gay marriages, or gay families. Simultaneously, I was taught that we should love Israel, the only safe place for LGBTQ people in the Middle East. I didn’t have the language for pinkwashing, but I felt it, despite the staunch Zionism of my upbringing.
I moved to New York and experienced a new world of gay Jews, many of whom were religious. Some were rabbis’ kids. Some were rebellious. The first Friday of every month, my college hosted a queer dance, full of so much queer joy, like a Friday night Shabbat service, which I also attended, and I knew I could be both Jewish and gay. I could taste popcorn shrimp at Coney Island and sing L’kah Dodi at shul and then dance to Lady Gaga and make out with a semi-stranger. I took a feminist Jewish literature course with a lesbian Holocaust survivor. I wrote a thesis on being me (literally, how self-indulgent is that?).
I stopped keeping kosher, I stopped praying, I became weary of Israel, but I was still Jewish. Yiddish-isms slipped into conversations naturally, I bonded with young adults from suburbs I had never visited with but felt intimately acquainted with ala Jewish geography, and hosted Rosh Hashanah dinners.
I threw away my copy of Alan Dershowitz’s book The Case for Israel —someone who defended both OJ and Trump was not worthy of my bookshelf.
Lifelong learning is a tenant of Judaism, one that I’ve held onto deeply. I love to learn! I am a nerd. Unlearning, however, is something I came to slowly, and then rapidly over the past two years, immersing myself in the core Jewish tenant of questioning.
This winter, I devoured Peter Beinart’s Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. It was unlike any book I’ve ever read. Emphasizing Jewish values, Beinart explains why flattening Gaza is wrong, how we have a responsibility to end the cycle of violence, and how American Jews’ idolatry of Israel is kind of the number one thing we’re not supposed to do.
This idolatry, provoking an inability to look at a dire situation with compassion increasingly scares me.
So-called pro-Jewish groups connect fighting antisemitism with abolishing anti-Zionism, explicitly tying all Jews to Israel, stifling those of us who don’t want Palestinians murdered and starved and injured. Jews have suffered plenty of atrocities, we’ve been scapegoated countlessly. My daily conversations have been peppered with Holocaust facts and stories since third grade. How do we not know better by now?
I’ve been lucky to live a life very sheltered from antisemitism, and that’s by design. I grew up in a Jewish community, lived in a Jewish dorm in college, surround myself with progressive, loving, respectful, open-minded people, many of whom are not religious in any vein, but familiar with Judaism and our culture, thanks to New York’s general Jewiness.
I’ve been privileged to find myself in spaces where Palestinian justice and Judaism co-exist. I’ve seen Jewish books on shelves in shops waving the Palestinian flag; Jews wearing watermelon Kippahs at justice marches; Palestinian restaurants catering Shabbat dinners; rabbis and Jewish leaders speaking out for peace.
I have never once felt safer because a bomb was dropped, and yet, I’m told by Jewish leaders and elders that I am self-hating or brainwashed because I long for an end to the violence.
I’m confused about how the massive environmental impacts of bombings promise a better Jewish future. How can generations of Jews thrive if we don’t have breathable air, a planet? How can others respect Jews if our minority is inextricably linked with violence, and protests against preschool teachers who raise money to feed starving children?
The Trump administration does not care about antisemitism. The party that declared a “war on Christmas” certainly doesn’t value safety and equality for Jews. Yet, I see Jews cheering on the party of bigots claiming to fight antisemitism with even more hatred. Again, how is the Jewish future secure if we defund medical research at universities?
With these recent actions, all I see is a high potential for more antisemitism. Who will be blamed for the deportations of so-called antisemitic demonstrators? Whose fault is it that scholarships will be revoked? Why do Jews want to defend, even encourage, mass violence, which will be attributed as a Jewish value, especially by those who do not know any Jews personally, more than anything else?
None of this makes me ashamed to be Jewish, but it makes me scared.
It’s in this anxiety, that I find Jewish tradition ala mish-mosh soup, chaos in a bowl that calms. We have the recipes to self-soothe and build community. We have a rich tradition of storytelling that can take place over a bowl of soup at a diner or via text or at home on a holiday. We have infinite stories of resilience and compassion and fond family memories to share and generational trauma to learn and grow from. We have fun dances and songs and humor and so much joy that need not be co-opted by a political agenda.
We have the beautiful core value of tikkun olam, repairing the world. It’s a big responsibility, but small and collective actions can help. And if that means repairing yourself with soup, to put your best self out there, it’s a start.
Yes yes yes all of this. Stunningly written, too.