How did Jerusalem become a culinary melting pot?
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Also in today’s dispatch:
Two Holocaust survivors meet again after 80 years (video)
A Muslim-owned delicatessen makes some of New York’s best pastrami (article)
Tour the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s old city (video)
Inside the mind of a Jewish hedge fund manager (podcast)
Persecution of Mallorca’s hidden Jews is finally acknowledged (article)
What is the Jewish holiday of huts (Sukkot) all about? (video)
Former Israeli PM Naftali Bennet on healing Israel’s divide (article)
🔝 Today’s Featured Story
Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda open air market is a bustling hive of activity. Exotic smells linger in the air, bright colours are everywhere, and people throng its alleys; here chatting to a vendor, there tasting some produce. Elderly ladies tug along their shopping carts, young students sip coffee at the latest hip spot, and tourists wander around wide-eyed, trying to capture the atmosphere on their iPhone cameras.
Tali Friedman, head of Machane Yehuda’s merchant’s association, calls this 100-year old market ‘a museum of life, where you meet all of Israeli society.’ This diversity is reflected in the markets’ variety of restaurants and food stalls, offering culinary experiences from around the world. It displays food from at least twenty different countries, a microcosm of the melting pot that is Israeli society.
In this video, tour guide and Jewish food researcher, Joel Haber, takes Unpacked presenter Yirmiyahu on a walk through the market. Together they explore (and taste!) unique dishes from Yemen, Spain, Lebanon, Colombia, Venezuela and Georgia, while learning about the history of Jewish people throughout the Diaspora.