by Laura Weisskopf Bleill
When we go to my mom’s house for Passover or almost any other Jewish holiday, the meal is always traditional — but it is certainly not kosher.
But on Thanksgiving, the turkey is kosher. And it’s not just the bird; since Jewish dietary laws forbid the eating of milk and meat together, that means making modifications to the traditional favorites. My sister-in-law dug up a stuffing recipe that’s made with challah; it’s delicious. Mashed potatoes can be made with soy milk, and pumpkin pie can take rice milk. In fact, it’s a gourmet kosher meal. My mom even has special dishes she purchased just for her Thanksgiving feast, so that the food — as well as the plates — would be kosher.
Thanksgiving is a very special holiday for my family because it brings everyone together. That may seem odd and incongruous — there’s so many Jewish holidays over the course of the year. But I have several cousins and aunts and uncles who practice various shades of observant Judaism. Among other things, it means that we rarely get to celebrate Rosh Hashanah or Passover together, because they don’t drive — and aren’t comfortable with us driving to them — during the major religious holidays.
So Thanksgiving was the one holiday where everyone could be present — where there were no barriers to participation. And to pull it off, it had to be kosher.
My family, like many liberal Jews, does not observe the traditional dietary laws (yet I still won’t eat any pork products. Yeah, that means bacon. But Bac-Os are kosher! Now you know). So having a kosher Thanksgiving isn’t a piece of cake. It takes planing and patience, but it’s something my mom has been able to pull off for years.
(As an aside, it was when I moved to Central Illinois that I realized that most people don’t eat Thanksgiving dinner at dinner time. This is evidently an inherently Jewish thing. By the time the dinner hour rolls around, most gentiles are already eating leftovers!)
As the years go by, the Thanksgiving table is changing. The cousins are older. Some have families of their own; others have moved away. We don’t get to see each other nearly as much anymore. But for the foreseeable future, we will always have our kosher Thanksgiving. And I am grateful for that.
Laura Weisskopf Bleill is a co-founder of chambanamoms.com. She spent many years as a vegetarian on Thanksgiving. Laura writes “Being a Jew in C-U,” a column about being a Jewish suburban girl in a cornfield, on Thursdays. You can reach her at laura@chambanamoms.com.