Letter from Israel

Kosher haute cuisine

By Nechemia Meyers

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Kosher restaurants are enjoying a real boom and the non-observant no longer have to feel that they are missing out on a good meal when they go out to dine with their observant friends.

Today there are dozens of top kosher restaurants where the food is at least as tasty as at the fanciest non-kosher eateries. And every week more upscale kosher restaurants are opening their doors.

This is not because a growing number of Israelis are now seeing the light or because of an influx of observant olim.

Most people from the former Soviet Union, the largest immigrant group of recent years, know little about kashrut and care less. But some other immigrants, particularly from the United States and Canada, do care about kashrut and some of them have the funds to patronize upscale kosher restaurants.

Most important of all, there are elements among the existing Israeli population who have prospered economically and can afford to eat at places that were previously out of reach for the great majority of people.

The first week of July a special event symbolized the new balance of power in the culinary world. It was the Israel’s first kosher food festival, held in Petach Tikva, east of Tel Aviv. For many years there has been a “regular” food festival in Tel Aviv, where dozens of restaurateurs set up stands next to the Yarkon River and offer their specialties to passers-by at bargain prices. Some are kosher and others not.

Now, for those for whom that arrangement isn’t kosher enough, there is an attractive alternative.

The organizers of the Petach Tikva event declared that it would be on the “highest gastronomic level” and strictly kosher. Dishes cost about $6 each, prepared by the top kosher eating places in the Tel Aviv area.

Entertainment also was provided. The first evening was devoted to the ever popular songs of Shlomo Carlebach. Popular singers and klezmer artists were scheduled for the other nights.

Among the best known personalities behind the kosher festival is former minister Shaul Yahalom, who recently explained why it is important that the festival be held: “On the one hand, everybody knows that kosher food in Israel is as tasty and innovative as any other kind. But it has a limited place at the general food fair, and we who keep kashrut are not comfortable with that situation. Now we will have a food fair where everybody can partake of everything.”

Nechemia Meyers is a writer in Rehovot, Israel.