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Tuesday, June 1 , 201 0

Recipe for racial harmony

Teens unite,
pen cookbook
BY ELIZIBEIH TAZAROWIZ
COOKING UP togetherness be-
tween Jews and blacks in Crown
Heights might just be as easy as
pie - or baking apple dump-
lings.
W.E.B. DuBois Academic High
School senior Kelsey Burwell, 17,
squeezed dough last week as
Mushky Bruch, 17, diligently
snapped photos.
"Oh, yum. I'm so excited for
this," Bruch said.
Three other young women
packed into the tiny kitchen -
two white and Jewish and one
African-American - nodded in
agreement.
Bonding over pastries is a bit
of what the Crown Heights Medi-
ation Center had in mind when it Jewish and African-American teens in Crown Heights teamed up to write cookbook Photo by Steve Sunshine
got teens together to create the
cookbook, "Crown Heights is The photo book will go on sale While Jacobs, Bruch, and borhood, said the Mediation Cen-
Cookin'." June 28 at the Mediation Center roommate Menucha Klar, 18, are ter's director, Amy Ellenbogen. i
The program began in Janu- on Kingston Ave. as well as on- less observant than many
ary, with a group of 16 teens, Ellenbogen said she wanted
line at blurb.com, and the au- Hasids, who usually don't ven- the book to unite people around
half of them black and half of thors will share any profits. ture outside their community,
them from the Hasidic communi- a topic that often divides Crown
"lt brought two different cul- they said the project gave them Heights residents since strict Ko-
]

ty, learning basic photography tures together - and not just the chance to connect with girls
]

and editing skills. The group
then interviewed over a
dozen
neighborhood residents, collect-
ing their stories and treasured
recipes.
"lt's really cool because we
share the same ideas," said
Shannique Asmart, 18, who
moved to Brooklyn from St. Mar-
tin three years ago and also at-
tends DuBois. "We just came to-
gether as one."
two," said Mariasha Jacobs, 18, a
senior at B'nosh Chomesh in
Crown Heights. "l'm seeing a lot
of other people's cultures, too."
One woman shared her grand-
mother's ginger chicken dish and
tales of her life as black child
growing up in segregated Missis-
sippi, An lsraeli-born woman
contributed a Kosher recipe for
fried bread passed down from
her Yemenite grandparents.
they wouldn't likely have met
otherwise.
"lf you're Jewish, you usually
stay in your own community,"
Klar said.
The idea for the project came
about two years ago after the
beating of a black college stu-
dent allegedly by members of a
Hasidic anti-crime patrol height-
ened racial tensions in the neigh-
sher laws often keep them from
eating at the same table,
"lt's meant to show real peo-
ple in the community, how they
are in their homes and their pri-
vate spaces, around the thing
that nurtures us," she said.
There are a lot of sidelong
glances people make of others in
this community. Hopefully, this
helps people peek inside."
e I az ar ow itz@ ny d ai I y n ew s. c o m t