By Danielle Hester
When Betty Bogan opened the front door of her mother’s apartment for 17-year-old Mushky Bruck, the aroma of fried chicken flowing from the kitchen struck Bruck’s nose. As she continued down the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen, the portraits of Bogan’s southern African-American family, draped on the walls, created a welcoming feeling for Bruck and the 13 other teenage girls with her.
While Bogan finished cooking her “beloved” fried chicken, Bruck and the other young ladies sat and talked to Bogan’s mother about culture and food. Although Bruck, who is Jewish, would not be able to eat the feast Bogan was preparing due to kosher laws, the welcoming aroma of Southern food intrigued her. “The house seemed very homely and welcoming,” Bruck recalled. “And, oh yes, the food smelled good.”
The home visit was for a cookbook the girls were producing called “Crown Heights is Cookin’”—a collection of interviews and recipes from various black and Jewish neighbors in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The 14 young women—half black, half Jewish—produced the book while participating in a program through the Crown Heights Mediation Community Center, an institution that works to improve inter-group relations in the area. “This program is all about togetherness,” said Bruck. “After the project, it made me understand that everyone has a history.”
The idea for the two groups to unite through food came two years ago, when two Jewish men, in what police described as a hate-crime, attacked Andrew Charles, a black college student. A month later, in retaliation, a Hasidic Jew, Alon Sherman, 16, was beaten up by a group of blacks.
“After racial tensions rose with Andrew Charles, we hoped to do something that would bring together people from different backgrounds in the same community.” said Amy Ellenbogen, project director for Crown Heights Community Mediation Center.
And racial tensions between Blacks and Jews in the community go further back than 2008. In 1991, friction reached a peak when a car driven by a Hasidic Jew veered out of control and killed a seven-year-old black boy. Blacks retaliated by stabbing a 29-year-old Jewish man who was visiting from Australia. The incident sparked a three-day riot along Eastern Parkway. The former Mayor David Dinkins had to dispatch more than 1,000 police officers to Crown Heights.
In its aftermath, several efforts throughout the years were launched in order to bridge the chasm. The Crown Heights Coalition, made up of African-American, Caribbean-American and Hasidic community leaders, was one of the first groups formed after the riot. It lasted for more than ten years.
When community leaders gathered recently to talk about a project that would promote unity and cultural openness between blacks and Jews in the Crown Heights neighborhood, food became the right recipe. “Food often builds foundations for good relationships and heals wounds after argument,” explained Ellenbogen.
The young women, all 17- or 18-years-old, had the opportunity to learn about other communities by going to residents’ homes and interviewing them about their cultural background and cooking practices.
“When we first came together, we sat on different sides of the room,” said participant Ashana Joseph, who recently graduated from Paul Robeson High School. “I was kind of nervous and a little funny at first. I didn’t know anything about Jews.”
Bruck grew up in a very religious Lubavitcher Hasidic home. She has lived in the Crown Heights area near Eastern Parkway for two years and explained that Eastern Parkway divides blacks and Jews.
“The project made me interact more with them,” she said of blacks in the neighborhood. “They showed me about their personalities. They are very spunky and high energy and fun.”
The young women , who first came together in January, all laughed when they talked about their first team-building exercise. “We had to put together a pinhole camera with all these pieces and one wooden box,” Joseph recalled. “We didn’t know what we were doing.”
The exercise helped loosen the tension in the room and the ladies started to learn things about each other. “We all learned each others strong points and weaknesses and really interacted,” said Bruck.
Working on the cookbook allowed the participants to bond over foods such as fried chicken, matbucha (cooked tomato salad) and apple dumplings. They visited the homes of each neighbor, watched them cook, talked about life, and, when Jewish kosher laws, called Kashrut, did not forbid it, ate their food together.
“It was very nice cooking for the girls, I love to cook for people,” said Leah Seliger, who prepared three kosher dishes—matbucha, cilantro pesto and baba ghanoush.
On the day the young women visited Bogan, she was still in the middle of preparing the food. Bogan said, “They came into the kitchen and saw fried chicken, candy yams, greens, corn pudding,”—and the list goes on. “I wanted them to get a real Southern cooked meal,” she said.
As the group socialized around a small table, Bogan, 63, who grew up in North Carolina and has lived in Crown Heights for 49 years, said she enjoyed both the food and the diversity they shared. “When they saw the picture of my grandmother and she looked Native American, that’s when they became very interested,” recalled Bogan, whose mother is Native American and father is African-American. “My mom was able to tell them about growing up and about the herb gardens and how they lived and cooked with healing ingredients.”
Considering all the Jewish girls could not eat her food because of their religious laws, Bogan had them make their own Jell-O dish to bring. “I wanted us to united and fellowship together,” she explained. “I prepared what I call corn pudding and the Jewish girls prepared what they consider their jello. We were able to find similarities in each dish and eat it together.” Bogan added, “Ten years ago this wouldn’t have happened.”
For the “Crown Heights is Cookin’” project, The UJA Federation of New York provided about $40,000 in funds for the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center and the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council to collaborate.
“There are such strong histories of tensions in this neighborhood,” said Seliger. “It’s just exciting to see this kind of program going on. I can imagine this is their first opportunity to really talk to each other; especially the Jewish girls.”
For a Jewish participant, Menucha Klar, 18, helping with the cookbook gave her the chance to connect with girls she would not have met otherwise. For Mushky Bruck the experience gave her a more realistic image of blacks. “I learned that they are very attached to their roots, they are very connected with their country,” she said. “It made me more open to meeting new people.”
Joseph, who is the child of Caribbean immigrants, said the most interesting thing she learned was that married Jewish women wear wigs. “I didn’t know that at all,” she excitingly added.
“The good thing about this program is that it’s not about racism,” continued Joseph. “It’s about coming together as young women and sharing the same ideas in life. I’ve learned so much about their culture. I learned that we have differences but we have similarities also.”
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