Pilgrims meet Israelis in the Western Galilee
by Lori Sagarin on November 21, 2011
What is it about Thanksgiving and Americans? We have a visceral connection to this all-American holiday that makes celebration among American Jews almost universal, even American Jews living abroad.
Thanksgiving, maybe because of its biblical roots, or maybe because of its universal theme of giving thanks, is a holiday American Jews continue to celebrate, no matter their current citizenship of geographic location.
In November of 1976 I was living in the Western Galilee on Kibbutz Matzuva learning Hebrew half of the day and working the other. My first work rotation placed me in the kitchen with a humorless kitchen manager and more potatoes in need of peeling then I had ever seen. Luckily, my mother had done a first-rate job of teaching me how to cook tasty food for a crowd and within a month I had endeared myself to said kitchen manager by demonstrating my culinary skills regularly.
Several weeks before Thanksgiving, I began to think about missing home and the upcoming holiday. I have always loved Thanksgiving, the days off from school, the delicious menu and the great movies on TV. I got the idea that I may not be the only one and so I approached the head of the Ulpan and the kitchen manager and asked if it would be possible to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for the Americans living on the Kibbutz. I volunteered to organize an initiative to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for Americans living on the kibbutz. After a bit of negotiating and a promise that I would do all of the preparation on my own time with volunteers, I received the green light.
Thirty-five years ago, Kibbutz Matzuba was known for a number of things; its beautiful location, a now defunct textile factory where most of the country’s cloth diapers were made and its large, loud and smelly turkey farm. My five, twenty- five pound turkeys were going to be fresh, really fresh!
The other parts of the menu required some mild modification, pumpkin pie pumpkins were not available, so we made apple pies, fruit tarts and brownies, a recipe I knew by heart and was able to modify by the dozens. We cooked for days and invited anyone in the kibbutz who wanted to join us to share this traditional American feast. In the end, it was a wonderful evening replete with decorations made by the community’s children and the food prepared by a rag tag band of kibbutz ulpan students and volunteers. Our Dutch-born ulpan teacher seized the opportunity to incorporate the Thanksgiving experience into a living Hebrew lesson. We shared the story of the first Thanksgiving with the agrarian community founded by fleeing Germans in 1940. As we told the story, I think that many contemplated their own fresh starts, in new places, with new climates, foods and cultures. Thinking back it was probably the only Thanksgiving I have ever celebrated that truly was created in the image of the very first Thanksgiving.
This year, as I sit down to create the menu for our holiday dinner far away from Kibbutz Matzuba, I am grateful that the turkey will be frozen and plucked, but I will never forget the year I helped bring the story of the pilgrims to the Galilee.
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Lori B. Sagarin has served as the Director of Congregational Learning at Temple Beth Israel in Skokie, Illinois for fifteen years. She is the former president of the National Association of Temple Educators (NATE), and is also past president of the Chicago Association of Temple Educators. Lori and her husband, Rabbi James Sagarin, are co-authors of Oseh Shalom, published by the URJ press. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin and received a Masters degree in Jewish Education with the designation of Reform Jewish Educator (RJE) from Hebrew Union College.
