Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Shishi Mishpachti - Friday Night Family Dinner

As many of you must know by now, I love expressions of Jewish culture in a secular guise. That is why I love this website (link). It is a new project that tries to encourage families to have ONE meal TOGETHER each week. Well, when they did market research, they discovered that for Israelis the most obvious time was Friday Night dinner. And so they have created a project to raise the profile of the good old-fashioned Friday Night Shabbat Meal!

The Website includes recipes; the text of Kiddush, an explanation of all the traditional friday night customs from Gefilte Fish to Shalom Aleichem, and also Zemirot. It is on the one hand clearly secular - there is a list of Israeli celebrities who are supporting and backing this project - and on the other hand, totally traditional. Lots of Fun! Check it out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One of the South African online newspapers had an article about Shishi Mishpachti, so I tried to look at the site. Sadly it is all in Hebrew! I agree there is a need for more emphasis on family time and am so pleased I grew up with this wonderful tradition. Now that my father is no longer with us, and my siblings and mom are scattered all around the world, you especially realise the value of gathering once a week to thank Hashem for all he has done for us. Lechaim!