Jewish World Review July 24, 2000 / 21 Tamuz, 5760


Not quite "kosher" these days

Shulamit Babitz

These days, trendiness is an essential kosher ingredient



http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- AS A COLLEGE STUDENT not that long ago, I decided to embrace religious observance. Immediately, family, friends and teachers insisted that practices such as celebrating the Sabbath and keeping kosher were not only outdated, but that no one my age still abided by them. To say they were shocked and dismayed at my "lifestyle choice," would definitely be an understatement.

"Why don't you just go out and have some fun," they all asked.

Unfortunately, their idea of fun -- dating a different guy every night, traveling the world, subverting the male, heterosexist, dominant paradigm -- just didn't appeal to me. When I decided to spend a year away from my small, liberal arts college and check out the scene on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, my hope of finding a community of young, interesting observant Jews materialized. The shuls are filled to capacity. The restaurants are crowded and lively. And courses on a myriad of Torah topics abound.

And it's not just the Upper West Side, either. Communities of well-educated, sophisticated religious Jews exist, and are constantly growing --- all over the country.

Young and living on Manhattan's Lower East Side, today, I am a member of the Orthodox community as well as a professional. No longer must I defend myself against those who believe religion cannot have value for contemporary youth.

An article in a recent edition of the national Jewish weekly, Forward, however, served as a reminder that Jews like me have a long way to go in demonstrating our prevalence.

In what was, essentially, an obituary for Ratner's -- the fabled dairy restaurant that opened on the Lower East Side over 90 years ago -- Fred Harmatz, its owner, tried to justify shedding the eatery's kosher status.

Packs of yuppies are reviving the Lower East Side, and Harmatz hopes Ratner's, born anew, will cater to their needs. These yuppies, he observes, "give you a blank stare" when you mention gefilte fish.

I'll give him this point. But he then goes on to claim in the Forward interview that for the small kosher crowd that used to form Ratner's customer base, "dairy isn't an in-thing anymore."

On this point, I know his rhetoric is wrong.

While conceding the financial constraints of keeping a restaurant closed every Friday night and Saturday -- though the very kosher consumer he was catering to, is not lost, as he would not patronize a store that was open on those days -- Harmatz's reasoning is terribly misguided.

Kosher food is not only gefilte fish and blintzes. Hardly. At restaurants such as Gusto va Mare, The Village Crown and Joseph's Cafe -- all kosher dairy establishments that thrive in New York City -- gefilte fish is not even on the menu. Instead, salmon, fettucine al fredo and creative veggie-meat and veggie-chicken entrees are the standard fare.

Gusto va Mare even provides each table with a network hook-up for laptop computers.

The Village Crown is small, with coral-colored walls and dim, romantic lighting, and is perfect for an intimate conversation.

And at Joseph's Cafe, the furnishings are bright, and one will almost always find a crowd of young friends celebrating a birthday or recent marriage. My husband and I love to go to places like this to play the "guess the date" game. We try to guess which couples are there on a shidduch, and, if so, how many other dates do we think they've had together? (Some couples are more obviously dating than others, especially if they're wearing a freshly pressed white shirt or a straight-from-Flatbush twin-set. )

The clientele at these places clearly aren't bubbes (grannies) and zaydes (granddads) who come in just for the early bird special. The patrons are young -- students, professionals and families -- looking for healthy, delicious food in an appealing environment that also must be kosher.

Harmatz does not credit them for their sophistication.

As a health-conscious vegetarian myself, I have been to all three of these restaurants and I know that Ratner's never provided any similar sort of offerings.

Who in the year 2000 really wants to eat latkes drenched in oil? At Ratner's, the waiters were deliberately churlish, the décor was outdated and the food, both uninteresting and unhealthy.

Mr. Harmatz, it's not dairy or kosher that's out --- it's bad food and backwards thinking.

The last time I went to Ratner's, I was accompanied by my husband and his parents. Our waiter was a cantankerous old man. When we asked him, for instance, to put cheese in our matzo brei, not an unusual request, he scowled at us. It was as if we'd asked for bacon. Quickly he barked, "we don't do that here!" and moved on to the next order. Since he couldn't hear very well, further attempts to convince him that our request was justified were out of the question. I wonder if he would have been more understanding if, in fact, we had asked him for bacon.

If you were trying to impress someone enough to marry you, is this the kind of place you'd pick to set the tone?

Mr. Harmatz further claims in the Forward, that resorts in the Catskills, traditionally one of the only feasible vacation spots for kosher Jews, are closing because they do not have enough customers. I imagine that he has never opened a copy of the Jewish Press or the Jewish Week and does not realize that there are now kosher vacation tours to countries all over Europe and Asia, as well as to Alaska, Mexico and Orlando. These tours offer a competitive force to the old-time bungalows. It's not that there aren't enough kosher Jews who want to visit the Catskills, it's that there are so many more interesting choices available now.

There are many Jews who do keep kosher today and seek the kind of spiritual purpose that can only be found through religion. I am not the only one. Perhaps if Mr. Harmatz understood that there are young people who not only value, but adhere to religion, he could have saved his generations-old establishment and done his ancestors proud.


Shulamit Babitz works as a writer for marketing and Jewish philanthropic publications at Weitz and Luxenberg, a Wall Street law firm. You may comment by clicking here.


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