How do you encourage Israelis to change their perceptions of today's Poland? November's Polish Culinary Week, which took place in restaurants, bakeries and bars in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem, was a unique first attempt at redefining Israeli relations with the Polish people. For this ambitious festival, a first-of-its-kind culinary event, the Polish Institute invited chefs, restaurant owners, culinary experts and journalists from Poland to bridge the two cultures and expose Israelis to Polish contemporary cuisine. Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in Europe up until the Holocaust.
The man behind the initiative is Aryeh Rosen, director of cultural programs at the Polish Institute.
"During my visits to Poland, I went through an outstanding culinary experience," says Rosen. "I was very surprised, because in Israel, Polish cuisine has become synonymous with awful food. I thought that Polish food could be a wonderful way to tell a story with a larger cultural significance and a way of breaking stigmas about Polish Jewry and its cuisine."
Polish Jewish cuisine has become the target of comical sketches in Israel. The national joke archive qualifies this cuisine as flavorless and unappetizing, with grey meatballs, lifeless noodles, washed-out meat stock and white fat. Rosen wishes to rectify this image with that remembered by Israelis of Polish origin.
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