Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

One of the more popular section of our collection is the cookbooks. Knowing this I was happy to integrate five plus one cookbooks somebody donated to us last week. The “plus one” is a bilingual booklet titled “Tempting kosher dishes, prepared from world famous Manischewitz Matzo products.” As you can guess it was published by Manischewitz company and our (the sixth) edition is from 1949. If you open the booklet form the left you will find recipes on 40 pages in English. If you open it from the other end you can read the same recipes in Yiddish, also on 40 pages. And in the center there is a photo/graphic spread with Manischewitz products. The recipes are short and simple and each of them contains at least one Manischewitz product, although some of them are no longer produced.

The other five cookbooks are all spiral bound volumes; three of them were produced by a sisterhood of a synagogue (Keneseth Israel in Louisville, KY; Adath Israel Synagogue in Cincinnati, OH; Temple Israel in Dayton, OH) and two by women of other type of communities: East Brunswick (NJ) Hadassah and Hillel Academy of Dayton, OH. Their publishing date ranges from 1946 to 1979 and their scope from 96 pages to 347 pages. They are all organized the traditional way following the order of the types of dishes one can make and serve. The condition of these cookbooks are all good, although it shows that every single one of them was used. In my view that just adds to the value of these books, because it proves that they were and are worthy to cook from. I hope you will come and pick up one or two to learn recipes from women of other communities.