This might sound rather strange – I was initially introduced to Judaism, Jewish customs and traditions, and Yiddish language by a collection of Jewish jokes. As a teenager in Germany I found a yellowed paperback from 1963, Salcia Landmann’s Jüdische Witze, among my mother’s books. Mind you that these are jokes by Jews, not about them. I read the 200 pages of jokes from beginning to end over and over. It is the only book of jokes I ever read. Continue reading
The small Struwwelpeter Museum on Schubertstraße, a quiet residential street in Frankfurt’s Westend, had been on my to-do list for years. My yearly visits to Germany are always jam-packed so I was glad I finally made it to the museum last September. Continue reading
Plum Dumplings (Zwetschgenknödel) from my book, Spoonfuls of Germany
“Do you want to come over for plum dumplings?”, I asked my friend Gabriele last week after I found a bag of Italian plums in the freezer that I had bought at a farm stand in late summer specifically to make those dumplings. Of course she said yes. Although she has lived in the United States twice as long as I have, she craves that stuff just as much as I do. Continue reading
Spoonfuls of Germany 