Mini-Project: Your Visions of Fall

When my parents moved from New York to Florida in the 1970s, they sought Jewish comfort food like pastrami, blintzes, kosher hot dogs, and by the 1980s they were able to find it at a place around the corner from our house called Pastrami Club. Such a feat is significantly less possible now. While by the 1930s, Jewish delis numbered some 3,000 in New York alone, there are only a comparative few left today in the city, not to mention around the country in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Ann Arbor, among others. What if it was easier to get treats like these, if Jewish food and thereby the culture from which it came was more accessible? After all, Jewish culture is part of American culture, too.

A possible answer to this question comes this week in the form of the new Manischewitz food truck, which begins today in Brooklyn and will be traversing different parts of New York and New Jersey until Passover, when it will close and then reopen the following week. The famous Jewish food brand, which started in Cincinnati in 1888, is rebranding, and the food truck is part of this initiative. Not only did their logo and social media presence get an update, they’ve got merch now, too. With bright orange hues and retro styling, it’s as much an welcoming appreciation of the culture as it is fun and campy–a tote says “schlep,” and a tank top says “man, I shvitz,” for example.