Jews love food which is why I had a gut instinct that A Taste of Limmud, exploring flavours of Jewish Cuisine held at the newly renovated Shaarey Zedek synagogue on Jan 30,2025 would be sold out–and it was!
A total of six local “chefs” prepared six Jewish staples -kurtz ( a dumpling with ground beef), borscht , sambusak (a Middle Eastern turnover pastry that has been around since Persian Babylonian times and has been enjoyed by Sephardic Jews for centuries. It was filled with chickpeas ), chicken shawarma with a Mexican spin, Matbucha ( a tomatoe salad with roasted red peppers) and Moroccan fish. I had tried matbucha, shawarma and Morroccan fish before, all during my many travels to Israel. But kurtz was a new dish for me, as was the sambusak. People lined up at the food stations where they got samples of the tasty food, which was all devoured.
Before I rave about how good the above food items were I want to note that at my table I met two Israelis who had recently come to Winnipeg to be enrolled in a course for pilots at St Andrews, and apparently there are 30 Israelis who will be here for a couple years learning to be pilots.I asked them why they came here.One explained that in Israel there are not enough spots to train to be a pilot, but since Canada is a large country, that requires many pilots, including those that will go up North, there are more spots available. St Andrews Airport is used mainly for commercial operations, particularly flight training, air charters, scheduled passenger service and air ambulances)I enjoyed speaking Hebrew at my table.
The crowd at the event reflected the growing diversity of our community, with new immigrants from Spanish speaking countries and of course Israelis, as well as born and bred Winnipeggers, and there were people of all ages.(At my tabel there were people in their twenties and one around ninety).
Now back to the food at the event, it was all delicious, and flavourful-my personal favorites were the Moroccan fish and the sambusak.
There was lots of shmoozing, and an opportunity to meet new faces and strengthen bonds of community, which is why the program was so sucessful. There was on the whole a lot of attention to detail.
Fanny Levy, president of Shaarey Zedek welcomed everyone and noted her remarks would be short since she was standing in the way of participants being able to eat a felafel dinner with French fries prepared by Chef Joel Lafond and his team at Shaarey Zedek. For dessert there was some excellent apple strudel prepared by Shaarey Zedek.
The cost was $18 a person which was very reasonable given all the food that was offered. People enjoyed the event.
To leaen more about Limmud, which takes place on Sunday March 23, go to
