Kurier, September 25, 2020

German Original: https://kurier.at/freizeit/essen-trinken/das-juedische-festtagsgebaeck-ist-ur-wiener/401036471

A Viennese rabbi extended the term "challah" for Jewish holiday bread and changed its meaning.

A mixture of semmel (bread roll) and striezel - unlike the Austrian zopf (braid), the world-famous Jewish festive pastry is prepared without butter and milk, and it doesn't taste as sweet.

To prepare the braided bread, white flour, yeast, oil, sugar, salt, eggs and water are needed - often poppy seeds or sesame seeds are sprinkled over the dough. Food blogger Nino Shaye Weiss causes astonishment when he tells people abroad that the holiday pastry got its name in Austria.

Perfect French Toast

Since the Hebrew term "challah" goes back to the Book of Numbers, no one suspected a connection to Austria: "Yet the holiday pastry is something primeval Viennese: the Viennese Rabbi Israel Isserlein first described the whole holiday pastry as challah in his writing of Jewish laws in the 15th century - by chance he expanded this term. For until then, only the small ball of dough, which was once intended as an offering for the temple priests, was called challah".

The extension of the term is not the only reference to Vienna: "The weaving also originates from Southern Germany. Typical in Vienna are four strands, today the challah is often found with six strands - often in the form of a braid, but also in other forms like a knot".

Religious people serve the pastry on Friday evenings, Saturday midday and on holidays such as Yom Kippur. The braid is also to be found in the everyday life of non-religious people: "In classic New York Delis, for example, French toast is often prepared with a slice of challah, and every major U.S. supermarket also offers the pastry.

Why is the bread unknown today? "Until 1938, 60 percent of Vienna's bakeries were in Jewish hands. They killed the bakers and also the history of challah."