The Red Tent

Jewish Community Cookbooks in America

For more than a century, Jewish women in America have contributed to the culinary arts by authoring popular cookbooks. In 1901, Lizzie Kander, the daughter of Jewish German immigrants, helped found the Milwaukee Jewish Mission where she taught classes and provided activities to help new immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe. She wrote and collected money to publish the Settlement Cookbook, the most popular charity cookbook ever published and the first collection of American ethnic recipes. Published first in 1901, it has sold 2 million copies and in its 43rd edition, still supports women and children through the Great Milwaukee Foundation. Since then, many women have collected recipes and published Jewish community cookbooks as fundraisers.

At this event The  Red Tent will explore the Settlement Cookbook and other Jewish community cookbooks. Some of these books were the only publication to document the Jewish community in an area…