Mele Kalikimakanukkah (Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukkah)

25 Dec 2011 11 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, Food, Hawaii, Holiday, Traditions Tags: , , , , , , ,

Everybody gets to celebrate today. Hallelujah!

My family is spending this Christmas morning delivering holiday meals for Lanakila Pacific’s Meals on Wheels program. Our Synagogue organizes an annual group of volunteers and we joined the team three years ago. We have made it a family tradition ever since.

And tonight we will celebrate the sixth night of Chanukkah with a holiday meal shared among friends at our home. I got up early to make chocolate fudge dreidles with the mold we got as a gift from my younger sister, boo. We’ll make brownies later with the other molds  she sent. Of course we will make latkes too.

Whenever I cook for the Jewish holidays it makes me think of my mom, especially when I make chopped liver. It was her specialty. She used a hand grinder to combine the liver and eggs and onions. When food processors debuted she continued to grind it by hand,  insisting that the new contraption made the liver to mushy. She put it in a circle mold and served it with mini pieces of rye bread. My dad loved it.

My mom made chopped liver for every holiday and I always helped her. Using a special meat grinder attachment to her Betty Crocker mixer, she would grind the liver and the eggs and the onions separately and mix them all together for the perfect blend and consistency. I remember one year she had me separate the egg yolks from the whites and we ground those separately so that when we combined it all together it wouldn’t be too “Yolky.”

I started making it about ten years ago for celebrations at our home in Hawaii. It connected us to her, living so far away, as she shared her recipe and techniques. It evoked vivid memories of childhood that I could share with my daughter. And now it brings wonderful memories of my mom (may she rest in peace) and makes me miss her very much.

The first time I made it, she sent me a meat grinder she  used post Betty Crocker mixer. I still use it every year. I’m willing to use a food processor for the potatoes for the latkes, but in honor of Gloria, not for the liver.

The biggest obstacles have been the shmaltz (chicken fat) and the liver. You can’t buy shmaltz in Hawaii. One year she came to visit around Chanukkah time and brought a small cooler on the plane with a jar of schmaltz just for me. Talk about the love of a Jewish Mother!

Since then, I have alternately made my own or just used Crisco.

My mom always swore that calf’s liver was the best choice for chopped liver. I have looked island wide for years, never found any and had to let chicken livers suffice. I ordered them fresh from Tamura Super Market in Wai’anae and they turned out just fine. This year I found calf liver in the commissary. Oh Happy Day.

On this Christmas day, I will grind the liver and eggs and onions as my mother has done before me.  We will fry latkes as Jews around the world have done for ages. We will start a new tradition of making chocolate dreidles for dessert.

And on this sixth night of Chanukkah, we will embrace our holiday traditions as we light the candles, say the blessings, share a meal and honor all of the miracles that people celebrate this season.

My apologies….

15 Oct 2011 9 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Family, Holiday, Parenting, Traditions Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I must apologize to my parents. I am sorry, Mom and Dad. I forgot to light the yarzheit candles in your memory on Yom Kippur.

It wasn’t until  the Yizkor service that I realized my mistake.

I love the moment  when we are sitting in the Sanctuary, the late afternoon sun is streaming through the stained glass windows casting a golden glow over the congregation  and  representatives from the Sisterhood stand at each of the memorial boards and  turn on all of the lights on the memorial plaques.

I know this is a memorial service for those who have passed away and it is traditionally very solemn, but something about the moment makes me feel more joyous than sad.

There is something comforting about all of those people and all of their lights and all of their lives lighting up together for us to feel and remember them all. It is not like the lonely one or two lights that shine during services at each Shabbat, commemorating the individual Yahrzeits.

It is collective and powerful and fills me.

Somehow I imagine that it has a similar effect on  those whose memories are being honored as well. They might feel a little less lonely since they are being remembered in a crowd. Lighting up together, connecting through our collective memories.

So that’s when I remembered that I forgot to light the candles at home and I was sad. It gives me similar solace to see the light of my parents’ memories dancing together on our kitchen counter for a full 24 hours and I missed it.

I light a single candle on the anniversary of each of their deaths, but it feels a bit more lonely and a reminder of our  loss.

The funny thing is that I planned ahead. If you call shopping on eBay planning ahead. I ordered yarzheit candles and special holders from Israel. I purchased them months in advance in anticipation of this moment.

And then I forgot.

My family suggested that I could still do it when we got home, but it did not feel right. The flame would seem false. In reality, the service would be enough.

I am pretty sure that it bothers me more than it would my parents. They were of a generally forgiving nature in life. I can’t imagine it would be any different now.

I will remember next year. I will remember them and the others and the candles.

Meanwhile, in the spirit of the Yamim Noraim, my apologies. I will try again in 5773.

What’s your New Year’s resolution?

28 Sep 2011 6 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Holiday, Traditions Tags: , , , , , ,

When we go to visit my youngest sister at “camp boo” in the summer, we enjoy one of their many traditions of “Highs and Lows.” It is a simple one.

At dinner we go around the table and share the high moment and low moment of the day. Sometimes there are as many as 13 guests around the dinner table, so there’s a lot of sharing going on.

When I try to do this sharing thing around my small family table at home, I usually get groans and reluctant participation. They don’t enjoy it as much as I or the campers at my sister’s table do.

I love this kind of stuff. It could probably be said that I am one of those people who is always trying to appreciate the meaning in the moment.

I also like to make New Year’s resolutions. I do it every year. The cool thing about being Jewish is that we celebrate the Jewish New Year in the fall and then there’s another one in January. I know that Chinese New Year is also an option, but I have not gone there yet.

One of my many resolutions last January was to start using the calendar on my computer. I have been very successful at this, adding a smart phone to the mix and syncing the two. I have even gone so far as to find a way to update my husband’s electronic calendar with our family schedule.

For Rosh Hashanah I usually take a more spiritual approach. But I make resolutions nonetheless.

So instead of torturing my family this year, I have decided to turn to you and ask: What is your New Year’s resolution for 5772?

Perhaps you will be more like the campers at “camp boo.”

Happy New Year from Walgreens

23 Sep 2011 3 Comments

by Being Jewish in Hawaii in Holiday Tags: , , , , , ,

My mainland family is getting New Year’s cards from us this year. Just the immediate family, sisters and parents. We don’t usually send cards for the High Holy Days. We don’t really send them for many occasions –except maybe birthdays, Mother’s and Father’s Day and Halloween to my youngest sister whose nickname is “boo.”

Why is this year different from all other years? Oops, wrong holiday. Then why are we sending New Year’s cards you may ask? Because they had them on display at the Walgreens in the Kapalama Shopping Center on North School Street in Kalihi, that’s why.

They didn’t have just one generic card for the occasion, they had an entire section of cards for Rosh Hashanah. It’s like a Rosh Hashanah miracle.

That Walgreens is my new hangout. I go there a few times a week because it is near Kamehameha’s Kapalama campus where I pick up my older daughter when she stays after school for hula or study hall. I can pick up a snack for her and use the bathroom before I drive up the hill.

When I discovered their New Year’s cards I had to support them. The Jewish community in Hawaii doesn’t get much acknowledgment from very many local retail establishments. When we, do I want to show my appreciation by spending my money there.

Since I am seeing Christmas trees going up in the stores before the Halloween candy comes out, I was doubly struck by the wonderfulness of Walgreens.

I had to share.

And even if you did not get a card from us in the mail, from my family to yours:

L’shanah Tovah Tikatevu–May you be inscribed for a blessing in the Book of Life.

I’m thinking that somebody at Walgreens will.