It seems that I missed an important celebration last month. May 2 was National Challah Day.
This was the third annual National Challah Day, so it's a very young annual celebration. It is meant to be a good beginning to Jewish American Heritage month. It is a good one.
National Challah Day has true grassroots origins. The Challah Back Girls is a business started by four sisters from Teaneck, New Jersey, in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. Their mission? “To bake the world a more just, equitable and compassionate place through the unity of challah.â€
The Challah Back Girls then partnered with OneTable to hold National Challah Day celebrations. The latter organization is a national nonprofit with a mission to make sure Shabbat dinner is the highlight of your week. For Challah Day this year, OneTable organized over 500 Shabbat dinners in 200 cities with over 4,300 people attending. To accomplish this feat, it partnered with dozens of local organizations and bakeries.
Challah Day seems like a great idea to me. And a very tasty way to celebrate Jewish heritage.
I checked the Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History to see what it might hold regarding challah and Jewish Detroiters. I found the iconic Jewish bread mentioned on 2,500 pages in the Archive.
The first mention was in the July 21, 1922, Jewish Chronicle. A weekly “Young Folks†column, Judith Idh-Kishor's “The Sabbath Angel,†featured a story: The Inquisitive Neighbor. This tale is about a nosy neighbor who, after smelling a wonderful aroma, snuck into the home next door and opened the oven to discover “beautiful brown loaves of challah!â€
It is interesting that all but 50 mentions of challah occur after 1980. I know challah is not a modern discovery, but apparently, it was not a hot topic until recently. Nevertheless, I found lots of good challah stories.
First, the JN has published many stories about the art of making challah. Take for example, “Picture-Perfect Challah†(Sept. 6, 2007). This is an illustrated, step-by-step guide to “braiding a beautiful holiday challah.†Very handy, in case your bubbie did not leave you with a family recipe.
I also found a recipe for low- cholesterol challah (Sept. 9, 1988). The JN does wish you good health.
And there are many, many stories in the Archive about communal challah making. Some are about grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts — and some dads and sons as well — baking together. Some are about communal organizations that sponsor challah bakes. For one recent example, see “An Inspiration†about the annual RISE challah bake in 2024 sponsored by Partners Detroit (Oct. 24, 2024). That year, 600+ women of all ages gathered to make, braid and bake challah.
Speaking of women of all ages, college students are included. See “The Wonders of Challah†about the “MSU Hillel's Challah Girls†(Feb. 11, 2010).
But my favorite challah stories are those featuring the smiling faces of children. See “Challah-Mania,†about kids learning to make the bread at B'nai Moshe (April 4, 1997). Or take a look at the sweet face of Brayden Hirsch in “Challah Connection†(March 24, 2005).
Perhaps the subtitle for the article, “A Whole Loaf,†provides an apt conclusion to this Looking Back (Nov. 24, 1989). “Whether made in batches of one or 2,000, there is nothing quite like challah.â€
