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The second annual Jewish Food Festival will feature a bake shop and sampling menu of Jewish food, all of which will be prepared in the Temple Adath Israel’s certified kitchen. Photo furnished
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The second annual Jewish Food Festival will feature a bake shop and sampling menu of Jewish food, all of which will be prepared in the Temple Adath Israel’s certified kitchen. Photo furnished
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The second annual Jewish Food Festival will feature a bake shop and sampling menu of Jewish food, all of which will be prepared in the Temple Adath Israel’s certified kitchen. Photo furnished
Building upon the success of last year’s inaugural event, which drew in a crowd of nearly 600 people, Temple Adath Israel will host its second annual Jewish Food Festival at the end of this month. The festival, which features a bake shop as well as a sampling menu of traditional Jewish foods, aims to strengthen the temple’s ties with the community and provide attendees with an authentic educational and cultural experience.
According to Mary Engel, co-chair of the event, “We were looking for a way to reach out to the community and to have a major fundraiser. This seemed like something we could do because there are certain foods people equate with a Jewish deli.”
In the past, the temple has hosted a pop-up deli twice a year called “Tai on Rye” twice a year, serving pastrami and corned beef sandwiches. While taking a break from making matzo balls in the temple’s certified kitchen recently, Engel explained the festival was born out of the desire to expand the concept of the pop-up shop while also reaching out to the community.
While the event doubles as a fundraiser for the temple, Engel believes that, more importantly, the festival encourages acceptance and understanding of a faith that may be foreign to some.
“In these times of tension, it’s good to show the community, many of whom are not familiar with the Jewish faith, that we’re just like everyone else,” she said.
Additionally, the festival is a way to get the temple’s congregants more involved. All of the food on the sampling menu and the baked goods in the bakery are made on-site at the temple by congregants.
“Because of the pop-up deli, we are a health department-certified kitchen,” said Engel.
Furthermore, Engel and another co-director of the event are certified food managers and the majority of those serving the food are certified food handlers.
Among the items available for sampling with the purchase of a $20 ticket are Israeli salad, honey cake, matzo ball soup, and corned beef and pastrami sandwiches.
According to Engel, Israeli salad is a garden fresh mix of vegetables like cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes – all of which will be bought from the farmer’s market or picked fresh from the temple’s very own garden. Honey cake is a moist loaf cake spiked with honey, orange juice and bourbon.
Tickets come with 16 punch squares, with each sampling item worth a certain number of squares. Half tickets will be available for purchase if attendees manage to use up all 16 of their squares too quickly. The family friendly-event also allows children 12 and under to piggyback on an adult ticket.
In addition to the 12 sampling stations, the festival will feature a bakery with pre-packaged baked goods for sale. New to the bakery’s lineup this year is mandelbrot, a sweet that Engel describes as a Jewish biscotti.
Although it draws in a significant crowd, the food festival isn’t the only way in which Temple Adath Israel is involved with the local community. Last year, the temple sponsored two refugees families through Kentucky Refugee Ministries, furnishing their households and mentoring their families. And notably, the temple is also home to a preschool that has been in operation and open to the local community since 1985.
Engel, who also serves as the preschool committee chair, explained that the preschool has the capacity for 45 kids but is not currently full. Although it takes children as young as 18-months-old, they also have classes for 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds. Starting this fall, it will also offer a transitional kindergarten program.
“The state has changed the cut-off for when you can go to kindergarten – it used to be Oct. 1 but starting this fall it’s Aug. 1,” Engel explained. “We have a couple of 4 year olds who missed the cutoff date.”
The pre-school offers extended lunch and extended day programs until 2:30 p.m. several afternoons each week. The temple’s weekly services are at 7 p.m. on Friday evenings, and people of all faiths are welcome to attend.
For more information about both the event and the temple, visit www.lextai.org.
Lexington Jewish Food Festival
Aug. 27, 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Temple Adath Israel, 124 N. Ashland Ave.