Comments on: Shwarma conclusion

by: Nils

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:11:05 +0000

I always feel so sorry for the Jews who lost so much of their own culture and culinary traditions throughout their 2000 year exile that in modern times they had to resort to copying arabs and other middle eastern cultures in order to even begin to have anything like native cuisine in Israel. Hummus is THE dish of the Palestinians, tabbouleh is Lebanese without a doubt and shawarma originated with the turks and then was spread by them throughout the middle east (turkish-shvarmek-to rotate) Falafel is also clearly an arab dish of the eastern med, especially if made with garbanzo beans rather than fava, as in Egypt. It’s not even eaten in other parts of the mid east. I’ve eaten at the table of Jews in Tunisia, Turkey, and with Iranian and Iraqi jews and they basically adopted the local cuisine and what was truly Jewish and unique the other people in those countries did not normally make or eat, as in Matza for western jews or challah bread or certain types of couscous and fricasses from Djerba, Tunisia. Recently I heard of a Palestinian Debka group that through good will agreed to train and dance with an Israeli group in order to foster peace and understanding. Then how were they repaid? Years on that same group began to promote Debka as the National dance of Israel, even using the same name. Granted there is much in common among debka and the other step dances of turkey, kurdistan, greece and the balkans’ however, why did the jews have to stoop to such dissambling. they’ve got lots of smart folks in archeology and history and such. Couldn’t they have recollected some parts of their own dance style and revived it. Or better yet, if the Jews could just finally admit that the only other semites in the world are arabs and accept the fact that they are linguistic, cultural and genetic cousins and heal the rift they created in their victimized minds as an attempt to compensate for their murder at the hands of the European nazi’s russians and spanish, then maybe then, it wouldn’t be sooo bad that Israelis had to steal/adopt arab food and dance as their own. It’s pitiful really. if only they had learned the lesson they have failed to learn in all their persecutions!

by: Dan Lozovatsky

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 01:21:48 +0000

Tzvi, come out to Seattle and start a Shwarma place. We desperately need one out here. It can be the next big Seattle franchise!!

by: Gary Rubin

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:22:29 +0000

All I have to say is, “Shwarma the hard way.”

by: erica sanieoff

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:08:53 +0000

is maoz shwarma the place you took our group when you said you took us to “the best shwarma place ever”? because that shwarma place was amazing and i can’t imagine a better shwarma. also, since i am back in boston and can no longer get amazing israeli shwarma i went to ramis the other day and although the shwarama was amazing….it just wasn’t the same i want to go back to israel as soon as possible, not only because i miss the land….but also because i miss the shwarma

by: Gluckin wife

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 03:12:18 +0000

I liked what you wrote it made me laugh as usual…..I think your eyes are bigger than your belly ( whose aren’t?) but to do half a schwarma? Maybe some is better than none. Very interesting comment by Mr Grasso…… yes Rabbi Tzvi does know aishes Chayil…..and as far as honoring my request to go to Maoz….I think maybe that is in the affirmative…time will tell. But Rabbi Tzvi did take me to Flatbush and we did go to the garden of eatin’ and I LOVED it. It was good and the waitress was really nice…highly recommend it. Tzvi…..what will you eat in Poland? That will have an entry of it’s own I am sure…!

by: John A. Grasso

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 09:32:00 +0000

W-O-W ! A near mystical experience…
I had just gone to the Westeern Wall Camera to daven Arvit (and to include in my prayers that in the two week absence of your report on Maoz to complete the Book Of Shwarma, that you had not succumbed to an overdose of shwarma in a nefarious addiction at the expense of heavenly vegetarian falafel). I feared that in Isreal that you might have soliliquized as Falstaff to addict our sons to shwarma.
A chill ran up my spine when the Wall Cam was blank; black. Nothing. Was this an omen?
I bolted to More shwarma.com (OOPS! More Torah.com, that is) detouring only for a glass of sack (actually Manischewitz Blackberry) and found no new shwarma entry.
I reconsulted Rabbi Noah Weinberg’s “How To Get Your
Prayers Answered” and went to the Window On The Wall to say a few more–the Wall was back and so were the prayerful. This was a good sign.
I wondered if Rabbi Tzvi honored “Gluckin Wife” last entry to take her to Maoz in Isreal next time he goes. And her penultimate entry, to dine at the Garden Of Eatin’. I thoght I heard thunder. I comforted myself, certain that no rabbi ordained by Rabbi Noah Weinberg could have failed to memorize Prover 31, Eshet Hayil.
I went back to More Torah.com and found more evidence of Tikkun Olam: the concluding chapter of The Great Shwarma Challenge is here, and you have survvived a closer call than the encounterwith New York’s Finest, the police. More evidence of Divine Providence.
Though I noticed, Rabbi Tzvi after your blessing Friday night, Shlomo forgot to remind you from heaven Saturday night to split the sponsored shwarma, so both Julia and Julie are blessed and partake together in the Big Mitvah. I can hardly wait to see how Heaven responds.
And so, may I be blessed to enter the line to sponsor a shwarma for you. Or a falafel, or a kashruth plate of pasta. (Is there such a thing in the north end of Boston?) And Julie, you can sponsor a falafel, aplate of pasta or a shwarma for me anytime. Just as long as its vegetarian.