The Old World Plant Project
On the eve of Sukes: a woman carrying a bundle of 'heshaynes' or willow, and a covered basket along a commercial street
Two men in Warsaw examine an etrog
Polish peasants selling greenery for Sukkot
(*All images from YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
The Old World Plant Project centers Shoah* survivors, eliciting and documenting their memories of plant use, before and during the war. These are stories of their relationships to plants, in medicine, food, ritual and communal foraging.
In the Old World, Jewish communities enjoyed vibrant alternative medicine systems. This was because of the widespread legitimate fear that one might go to the hospital with a routine ailment and die of antisemitism.
There were midwives and bonesetters, herbalists and magico-religious healers (balei shem), and, not to be overlooked, the everyday balebuste, who understood food as medicine and fed her family to maintain, extend and expand their health.
There was a terrible rent in the continuity of communal care when these practitioners were murdered en masse during the Shoah. The Old World Plant Project revives the memories of the children alive in that time, to pass along to future generations.
*Follow this link to read a useful post from Reddit's "Ask a Historian" feature, about why this term is preferable to the term "Holocaust".
Renee, a Sephardic woman born in Paris in 1932, remembered dandelion leaves in salads.
Tamara, born in 1939 Moscow, put fresh mint leaves in tea.
Evelyn shared, "My family didn’t really use that much plants as medicine. Parsley was used because it was German, but my family always called it Jewish, and we ate it a lot."
Marika born in Hungary in 1933, remembered her family doctor fondly. Her husband of 73 years (in 2023) Lazlo (also from Hungary, born 1931) went on to recall also having a Jewish family doctor as a child. This doctor would make house visits, and he recalled feeling better as soon as he heard his doctor coming up the stairs. "I knew him from birth. And when I was sick I would hear his steps on the stairs and I would feel better.". This same doctor gave him vitamin injections in 1945 to help him recover from all the deprivation. He recalled not liking the shots -- referred to them as US shots, and explained they were a mixture of Vitamins C and A. Tamara, who was born in 1939 in Moscow, told us she went to any doctor in Moscow. She said “They can be Jews, Chinese, Ukrainian, anything”.
“There is no field of science in which cooperation between Jews and non-Jews took place to a greater extent than in medicine. In spite of all the social, political, and religious restrictions - as far as Christian Europe is concerned - in cases of illness non-Jews sought remedies from Jews and Jews asked non-Jews for help. This applies to all classes of the population and to all centuries. Medicine alone did not respect any boundary.” - From Magicians, Theologians and Doctors, Jakob Zimmels"
Tamara, from Moscow, pickles fermented cabbage + sour sauerkraut at home currently, remembering her childhood traditions. Galupse, from Odessa, remembered eating stuffed cabbage with meat as a child.
Tamara confidently stated “Garlic is the most Jewish plant!”. Shirley, the volunteer driver, countered that specifically black garlic is the most Jewish plant.
Anna told us of her memory of “very good potato pancakes with garlic and dill”and “chicken soup also with dill”
Renee, was born in 1932 in Paris, but fondly remembered her family’s summer home in Versailles. She remembered her Mother tending roses there, and that her mother loved to make rose petal jam — when asked to clarify whether it was rosehips or rose petals, she confirmed again that it was rose petals. She also remembered her Mother putting rose petals in salad.
Lazlo, born in Hungary in 1931 told us his Grandma sent him to harvest currants as a young boy. When he opened the bush and looked, there was a snake inside - an experience that still conjured a clear memory 9 decades later!
Tamara, born in 1939 in Moscow remembered that “There were red,white,yellow, and black currents in Russia”. She remembered making jam out of them, and every available berry. I asked her if she made jams for special occasions and she told me that because she was a Soviet Jew she did not celebrate Jewish holidays before coming to America, and that she would make jam at home for everyday life rather than specific holidays. In her own words “ Currants very rich in vitamin C. When you prepare the jam, and if it was fresh, we would grind it with sugar. Black, white, and red ones were particularly good. White currants were from Leningrad. We didn’t have enough oranges and lemons, but currants are very rich in vitamin C.”
Anna: "The raspberry was special In the winter. Tea with raspberry and plum jams. Very good, very popular. We made many jams from raspberries, from strawberries, from everything. Got them in a market and made the jam with mother. “From black currant” (another participant we didn’t catch the name of)."
Renee, a Sephardic woman born in Paris in 1932,recalled leaving Paris as a child and hiding from the Nazis with her mother. Her mother’s name was Ferité, z”l, and she gave her mother a Hebrew name: “Zipporah” or , little bird, because her mother was petite like her. While in hiding she got very sick with a fever, but going to the doctor was out of the question, they’d be exposed as Jews. Instead, as her mother was an opera singer, she sang her a song and held her hand to heal her. She told us she was burning up from the fever and fading in and out of consciousness but she wanted to stay alive to hear her mother’s voice. She wanted to hear the rest of the song. And she did, and told us about it some 80 years later.
This powerful story reminded me of the recollections of Stella Levi, chronicled in the book 100 Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World by Michael Frank. In it, she describes the practice of communal singing in the Jewish community of Rhodes, painting the picture of the women hanging their families laundry out to dry and singing all together. Singing as wellness, singing as cure. These remind me of the Biblical example of David, singing to express gratitude, in II Samuel 2, and similarly in Psalm 18.
Marika born in Hungary in 1933 was, at the point I interviewed them in 2023, was married to Lazlo for 73 years. (Editors note, it must be said that this woman was extraordinarily beautiful, I just couldn’t believe her age. Also I noticed this sweet couple holding hands as they left the event.) She told me "peanuts were called American nuts" Lazlo finishes her sentence with soviet occupation they could not call peanuts the "american nut" we called it "the brown nut". Nothing American was good.
Renee,was born in 1932 in Paris, shared that as a little girl she had a big walnut tree at her family’s country home in Versailles. During the occupation, her family fled to Southern France, and when she returned home she went to a cobbler to fix her shoes. She hadn’t had new shoes throughout the entire six years of war - she was 7 at the outbreak and 13 at the end of the war. While she was on this errand, she ran into a non-Jewish man who, upon seeing her, bluntly said “I thought you were dead”. He was sad that she was alive because he stole and then sold the walnuts from her family tree while her family was hiding in Southern France.
I asked her if she climbed the tree as a girl, and she told me she didn’t because it was too large. I researched walnut trees in that time and place after I’d met with her and learned that France is in the top 10 walnut producing countries in the world, and that a mature walnut tree as she described could have produced 30-50 kilos of walnuts. During the war and rationing the price the walnuts could fetch was significant. I haven't been able to find the data to do an exact calculation but in today's dollars a single kilo in France sells for anywhere between $7.50-$20. Imagine the intense inflation that the time inflicted on all food prices, and then multiply it by 30-50 kilos. Quite a treasure trove of a tree. While she was too little to climb a mature walnut tree, whose lowest branches can be 8 feet off the ground, she climbed a cherry tree in the same yard. She would pick cherries from this tree to eat right there and then, and also and share with her Mother. Her Mother did not cook them but served them fresh.
Other nuts Tamara (b. 1939 Moscow) mentioned eating hazelnuts, walnuts, and pine nuts from Siberia.