Not By Bread Alone ...

Last night Diane and I set out with a group of bread enthusiasts to explore some of the wonderful bakeries around the Mahane Yehuda market and Meah Shearim.  

Challot in a Jerusalem bakery.

In Psalm 136, known as “the Great Hallel”, King David praises G-d “Who gives bread to all flesh, for His mercy endures forever” and compares this sustenance to the miracle of splitting the Red Sea during the Exodus from Egypt.  In his last great speech to the Children of Israel, however, Moses reminded them that “Man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that comes out of the mouth of the Lord does man live”.  In Jewish life food is elevated to a level of sanctity.  This is especially true of bread.  Bread was given a special blessing by the Rabbis.  On Shabbat we begin each meal with a blessing over two loaves to recall the double portion of manna that was granted us before Shabbat during our 40 years wandering in the desert.

Millstones from Berman's
1886 flour mill. Photo: Yoninah

Jerusalem is blessed with many wonderful bakeries that provide us with bread for the week and challot for Shabbat and festivals.  The largest is the Angel Bakery.  The oldest is Berman’s Bakery. It was founded in 1875 in the Old City by Kreshe Berman who immigrated from Lithuania with her husband Rabbi Todrus Halevi Berman and their two small sons.  Although the business has moved several times and has grown enormously, Berman’s Bakery has operated continuously for 136 years.  In 1886 Kreshe’s son Yehoshua opened the first Jewish owned flour mill by the Cotton Market in today’s Muslim Quarter.  During the British Mandate, Berman’s had a contract to supply the British Army with bread.  In the War of Independence all the bakeries in the city except Angel and Berman’s were closed down because of the shortage of supplies.  Nowadays these two giant bakeries face each other in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul neighbourhood.

Natural Choice shop and bakery

Bread can be made from any of the five species of grain that could become chametz - wheat, barley spelt, rye, and oats.  They use all these grains at the unique Natural Choice bakery on Agrippas Street opposite the Mahane Yehuda market.  Natural Choice bake and sell a range of breads, pastries and biscuits all from natural products with no preservatives and no food additives.  Here you can buy organic, gluten free or sugar free products and even bread baked without yeast.  It’s the only place I know that you can find bread made from spelt. 

Plaiting challot at Lendner's bakery.

If Angel is the biggest and Berman’s the oldest bakery in Jerusalem, the most traditional is Lendner’s Bakery in the haredi Beit Israel neighbourhood next to Meah Shearim.  Lendner’s is small, a hole in the wall, but venerable enough to have a street named after it.  It was established in 1887.  Here they bake just one type of challah and sweet rolls.  A constant stream of visitors troops in and out of the bakery and somehow Bentzi Gudinger and his small group of workers welcome them without stopping work for a moment.  On Thursday nights there are thousands of challot to be made.  Each one is plaited by hand and placed on a tray which goes first to a special warming cupboard where the dough rises.  The traditional brick oven has a deceptively small door.  It can bake nearly 500 challot at a time!  The aroma of the baking bread is wonderful.  We just couldn’t resist buying our Shabbat challot there!