So tired you almost forget who you are? Looking for a way to reintroduce yourself to your inner Jew? It's time to hit the road. Along with a much needed break, I have found summer family vacations a good time for reconnections with Jewish identity.
A trip to New York's Ellis Island one summer connected us to the immigration stories of our families. Another year, a visit to the Untied States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. provided painful perspective on the Shoah. Another trip, this time to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, highlighted the ever-evolving portrait that American Jews are creating in the arts.
But, sometimes it's not until you get out of the big cities and well-known venues that you can begin to see the roles that American Jews have played in collecting the pop of our culture and putting it into perspective.
Sometimes without map or GPS you just fall into these places.
On a recent visit to Madison, Wisconsin, we wandered a few miles away from the state's capital to nearby downtown Middleton. There on a corner amidst a few blocks of mostly tidy one story brick shops, banks, restaurants and galleries, I saw something called, the National Mustard Museum.
An entire museum devoted to the stuff I shmear on hot dogs. How Jewish is that?
Walking across the street to check the place out, I didn't have to go too deep to conjure up my Jewish connections to pastrami sandwiches, pretzels, even tongue, to feel the draw of an entire museum devoted to mustard. http://mustardmuseum.com/
Besides, admission was free. So we went in.
The first floor is a retail shop devoted to, well, mustard. Once downstairs though, things went historical, sociological, and mellow yellow. Along with displays about origins, and ingredients, there was what the museum called 'The Great Wall of Mustard." With over 5,000 jars, bottles, and tubes it's a collection of mustard from all 50 states and more than 60 countries.
Wandering along the display I began to wonder if I had found a Jew who loved mustard even more than I did.
So I wasn't surprised when under a photo of the museum's founder and curator, I read the name, "Barry Levenson."
Lucky for me Barry was at the museum that morning. Right off, I needed someone to answer: "Why a mustard museum?"
"Growing up in a Jewish home you have mustard," said Levenson perhaps giving a clue to the origins of his tasty obsession.
"I started collecting just after Boston lost the 1986 World Series," said Levenson who being a big Red Sox fan needed something to take his mind off the loss.
By 1992 his collection had grown enough to open a museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. The museum which has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Food Network, HGTV's The Good Life, moved to its current location in 2009.
"There's something magical and mystical about mustard. Every faith has something about mustard in it," continued Levenson, who after college chose law over rabbinic school, eventually becoming an Assistant Attorney General for Wisconsin.
"In the bible, strangers come to visit Avram in his tent," continued Levenson holding forth on his favorite condiment, and "In one version he serves them mustard."
Meanwhile during the interview, "Mrs. Mustard," aka Patti Levenson, the other half of the Mustard Museum, stopped by to give me a taste of fiery horseradish mustard.
It was good, hot and kosher; perfect for gefilte fish.
"It's also a mitzvah for your sandwich," said Levenson," who supplies mustard for restaurants, parties bar/bat mitzvahs, and has printed up bright yellow kippahs.
Patti also let me know that for the Levensons, mustard is much more than just the foundation of the museum.
When she was still single, "Barry came to a Milwaukee Ort meeting to talk about mustard," Patti explained. "It's how we met," she said.
Edmon J. Rodman has written about making his own matzah for JTA, Jewish love music for the Jerusalem Post, yiddisheh legerdemain for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a Bernie MadoffHalloween mask for the Forward, and what really gets stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits for the Los Angeles Times. He has edited several Jewish population studies, and is one of the founders of the Movable Minyan, an over twenty-year-old chavura-size, independent congregation. He once designed a pop-up seder plate.In 2011 Rodman received a First Place Simon Rockower Award for "Excellence in Feature Writing" from the American Jewish Press Association."
By 1992 his collection had grown enough to open a museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin.
