Forget Falafel Wars, the Latest Battle Is over Vorschmack By David Israel and Documentary ‘Four Winters’ recounts the hell and fury of Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis and Fake toes for sale? An ad aimed at Orthodox women provokes questions about modesty rules gone too far and Israelis Discover This Exercise is Good for Your Brain and the 59th anniversary of the assignation of John F Kennedy
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
Israelis Discover This Exercise is Good for Your Brain
igh-intensity resistance training is good for your brain, according to a new Israeli study.
High-intensity, interval resistance training may have a greater effect on cognitive function and neurogenesis – the formation of nerve cells — than lower intensity continuous exercise, according to researchers from Israel's Ariel University.
In a paper published in the Israeli Medical Association Journal, the researchers looked at the impact of aerobic, anaerobic and resistance exercise on brain plasticity and cognitive function.
Each exercise type has been demonstrated to have positive effects, but through different specific mechanisms.
"The effect of aerobic and anaerobic exercise appears to be primarily mediated by changes in expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), lactate, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and several additional proteins within the brain," they write.
"However, resistance exercise appears to influence brain plasticity by myokines such as irisin, insulin-growth factor-1 (IGF1), and BDNF that are secreted from skeletal tissue and stimulate neurogenesis within the brain."
Variables such as intensity, volume and rest intervals also appear to influence neurogenesis – a process that occurs mainly in the developing brain but also to a limited extent in the adult brain.
The researchers noted that recent investigations have indicated that high-intensity interval training may have a greater advantage to the brain than lower intensity, continuous exercise.
"In addition, initial studies on the effect of resistance exercise on brain plasticity and cognitive function is quite positive and together with the benefits associated with resistance training and bone and muscle health, may make this mode of training ideal for most population groups," they conclude.
The team included strength and weightlifting coach Tavor Ben-Zeev, a PhD student at Prof. Jay Hoffman's exercise physiology lab; Prof. Yehuda Sheinfeld, president of Ariel University and a specialist in internal medicine and immunology; and Hoffman, who directs the sports science program at Ariel and is head coach of the Israel National Team in American Football.
Fake toes for sale? An ad aimed at Orthodox women provokes questions about modesty rules gone too far
Lebanese and other Arabs are offended every time Humus, Falafel, and other Mid-Eastern dishes are described as "Israeli." Now, the war over the authenticity of Jewish food is moving to eastern Europe, where, According to Moscow Times writers Pavel and Olga Syutkin (Forshmak: A Russian-Jewish-German Dish), "Today if you asked Russians, most of them would tell you that forshmak is part of Jewish cuisine. But 150 years ago, it was absolutely considered a Russian dish."
Vorschmack, or forshmak (meaning "appetizer" in Yiddish) is an eastern European dish made of salty minced fish, common in Ashkenazi Jewish and Finnish cuisine, according to the late Jewish-American food historian Gil Marks' Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, 2010. There are Ukrainian, Polish, and German variants.
According to Marks, the originally Prussian dish was made of fried herring but was later adopted and brought to the east by Ashkenazi Jews who served it as a cold appetizer, a pâté made of chopped brined herring. Polish and Lithuanian Jews dropped the German name and just called it gehakte herring (hacked herring).
The Syutkin say Yekaterina Alekseyevna Avdeyeva, a Russian writer known for her books on homemaking and collections of Russian folk tales, described the smacked herring dish in her recipe for Veal Herring, published in her 1842 "Handbook of an Experienced Russian Hostess":
Put in a pot boned veal and two herrings that have been soaked, skinned, and boned; chop them finely all together. Sieve boiled potatoes, and add them to the veal along with a teaspoon of breadcrumbs, finely ground, and chopped onion. Stir everything and mince it all together until it has the consistency of dough. Then pour into this batter a teaspoon of cream, five raw eggs, and two tablespoons of butter. Take a flat tin or deep-frying pan, grease it, sprinkle it with breadcrumbs, put the prepared batter into it, put it in the oven, and let it brown well. This dish can be served for breakfast or as an appetizer at the beginning of a meal.
According to the Syutkin, Catherine the Great created Russia's Pale of Settlement, where Jews were forced to reside. Known for its extreme poverty, the Jews of the Pale of Settlements had to do with the most inexpensive products, and "what could be cheaper than last year's pickled herring? That's where the habit of soaking salted herring overnight in tea came in: old fish had to be firmed up before it could be ground into the forshmak. So in Jewish cuisine, forshmak was transformed into a cold appetizer of ground herring mixed with onion, egg, and apple."
According to Jake Marmer, writing in My Jewish Learning (Forshmak: Jewish Herring), Forshmak is probably the most authentically Jewish herring recipe:
Ingredients
1 teaspoon sugar
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
2-3 hard-boiled eggs, yolks separated from whites
1 sour apple, peeled and cored
2-3 pieces of white bread, soaked in water or milk (squeeze out the liquid before using)
2 nicely sized herrings, fillets separated a few scallions, chopped
In a food processor, blend the fish fillets, apples, egg-whites, and bread. Add the oil and vinegar, mix thoroughly, and place the mixture in a dish. Crumble the egg yolk and scallions on top. Refrigerate before serving.
Vorschmack was one of the favorite appetizers of the Finnish president, statesman, war hero, and gourmand Marshall Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1952). In Finnish cuisine, Vorschmack is usually prepared with ground meat, anchovies or herring, and onions, and garnished with potatoes, pickles, and smetana (sour cream). Some recipes include cognac.
Now, speaking of smetana, Czech composer Bedřich Smetana's 1874 piece, Die Moldau, is considered the inspiration for Israel's national Anthem, Hatikvah, although Shlomo Maital claims the Hatikvah melody "has traveled the world for centuries, almost like the Diaspora Jewry." He cites Astrith Baltsan, an Israeli concert pianist and musicologist, known for her Beethoven interpretation and her unique concert style, who believes the Hatikvah melody goes back 600 years to a Sefardic prayer for dew, Birkat Ha'tal.
Dew also goes nicely with hacked herring.
See you tomorrow bli neder
The 22nd of November is of course the 59th anniversary of the assignation of John Kennedy. Where were you when it happened?
