Fania Lewando

Fania Lewando (before 1938)

Fania Lewando b. Fiszelewicz (Yiddish: Fanny Levanda , Hebrew: פאנני לעוואנדא, born around 1887 in Włocławek , Russian Empire , today Poland ; died around 1941 ) was a cook and the author of the first vegetarian cookbook in Europe to be written in Yiddish .

life and work

Fania Fiszelewicz's parents were the fishmonger Haim Efraim Fiszliewicz (1865–1941), also called Hyman, and Esther Malka nee. Stulzaft. She was the second of six children, had four sisters and one brother. While her family emigrated to England in 1901 and changed the family name to Fisher, Fania stayed in Poland. She married the egg dealer Lazar Lewando, also Eliezer, who was born in Belarus in 1880 . Plans to emigrate to the United States failed due to a leg injury suffered by Lazar Lewando.

In the 1920s, the couple moved to Vilnius , then part of Poland, and opened the vegetarian- kosher restaurant Elaine's at Vokiečių gatvė 14 . In the 1930s intellectuals and artists like Marc Chagall and Itzik Manger frequented the city . Fania Lewando led next to her work as a chef , a cooking school, gave lectures and conducted between 1936 and 1939 the kitchen of a Polish passenger ship on the route Gdynia - New York City . In 1937/1938 her kosher cookbook, written in Yiddish , appeared וועגעטאריש דיעטישער קאכבוך: 400 שפייזן געמאכט אויסשליסלעך פון גרינסן (German: vegetarian-diet cookbook: 400 dishes, prepared exclusively from vegetables ). With her health-conscious meatless kosher cuisine, she broke the Ashkenazi custom of preparing meat-based meals on the Sabbath and other holidays. The book in Yiddish was sold in Eastern Europe, England and the United States.

In 1941 the couple had to flee from the Germans who invaded Lithuania, which was now Soviet. It was arrested by Soviet soldiers and then disappeared without a trace. Fania Lewando's death is assumed to be 1941.

The cookbook

Front page

The book was published in 1937/1938 in a one-time edition of 3000 copies. In addition to classic vegetarian dishes from Eastern European Jewish cuisine, it contains a number of innovations and the author's own creations. It contains a total of 400 recipes and six pages with color illustrations. Wojciech Oleksiak describes it as “revolutionary” for its time, as it advocated a complete renunciation of meat and included a program from starters and soups to main courses and desserts.

As part of a reading group at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York at the beginning of the 21st century, Barbara Mazur became aware of Lewando's cookbook in the institute's library. Barbara Mazur and Wendy Waxman raised US $ 20,000, hired Eve Jochnowitz for the translation and editing, and won over cookbook author Joan Nathan for the foreword. Through Nathan's mediation, the first English edition was published in 2015 under the title The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook. Garden-Fresh Recipes Rediscovered and Adapted for Today's Kitchen , published by Schocken Books , New York. In addition to the original content, the book contains Fania Lewando's excerpts from the restaurant's guest book, comments by the translator and Joan Nathan's foreword.

Commemoration

In August 2016, the Cologne artist Gunter Demnig laid two stumbling blocks for the Lewando couple in Vilnius.

Book publications

• וועגעטאריש דיעטישער קאכבוך: 400 שפייזן געמאכט אויסשליסלעך פון גרינסן Ṿegeṭarish-dieṭisher kokhbukh: 400 shpayzn gemakht oysshlishlekh fun grinsn (transliterated Yiddish title: for dishes, German: Vegetarian book only). Vilnius: Druk. Inż. G. Kleckina, 1938 (or 1937)
• The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook. Garden-Fresh Recipes Rediscovered and Adapted for Today's Kitchen , translated by Eve Jochnowitz, with a foreword by Joan Nathan. Schocken Books, New York City 2015, ISBN 978-0-8052-4327-7 .

Web links

• Polish National Library: וועגעטאריש דיעטישער קאכבוך: 400 שפייזן געמאכט אויסשליסלעך פון גרינסן (digitized version of the Yiddish original, Vilnius 1938, with illustrations)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Ofer Aderet: Veggie Burgers in 1930s Vilna - a Jewish Chef Ahead of Her Time , Haaretz, May 26, 2015
2. ↑ Wojciech Oleksiak: The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook - Fania Lewando , at culture.pl, June 25, 2015, accessed on July 14, 2018.
3. ↑ Lithuanian Jewish Community: A Jewish Culinary Legend Reborn: Fania Lewando's Vilnius , accessed on July 14, 2018.
4. ↑ According to the information on the specimen copy dated August 10, 1937
5. ↑ On the phase of Soviet rule in Lithuania 1940/41, see Christoph Dieckmann: Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Lithuania 1941–1944 . Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011, pp. 147–177; for June / July 1941 see p. 299ff
6. ↑ Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke: Jewish Vegetarians Rejoice: The Resurrection of a Rare Yiddish Cookbook , Observer.com (New York), May 28, 2015
7. ↑ According to the information on the specimen copy dated August 10, 1937
8. ↑ Wojciech Oleksiak: The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook - Fania Lewando , at culture.pl, June 25, 2015, accessed on July 14, 2018.
9. ↑ Jewlicious: Jewlicious Eats: The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook Pays Homage to Fania Lewando . May 27, 2015, accessed July 20, 2018.
10. ^ Catalog entry in Library of Congress
11. ↑ Ugnius Babinskas: stumbling blocks in Vilnius: a meeting with relatives of famous Lithuanian Jews , Vilius Jewish public library, 31 August 2016
12. ↑ Fanni Levando: Vegetarian-dietisher kokhbukh: 400 shpayzn gemakht oysshlislekh fun grins  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Catalog entry at Biblioteka Narodowa (BNW). The library's receipt stamp for the specimen copy shows 1937.