Former hostage Edan Alexander, having endured periods of near starvation during the 584 days that Hamas kept him captive, was reportedly unable to eat anything following his release. Then, when his mother stepped in and cooked a burger and fries for him, his appetite resurfaced with a vengeance.
In the quiet moments between headlines, Jewish mothers are in their kitchens, rolling out dough and stirring pots with the weight of history in their hands. It’s not just cooking, it’s processing, healing, remembering.
When Alexander was released, his mother did more than give him a burger; she stayed up all night together with his grandmother, preparing his favorite dishes. Can you imagine the love in those hands? The trembling fingers measuring flour, the tears seasoning the broth? I get teary just thinking about it.
After the Hamas mega-atrocities on Oct. 7, as the world turned upside down, Jewish kitchens became command centers for processing unimaginable grief. The hostages’ families even compiled a cookbook of their loved ones’ favorite recipes. Rachel Goldberg-Polin shared the recipe of her son Hersh’s favorite chocolate chip cookies – such a simple, universal joy, now carrying the unbearable weight of absence.
This example was followed by cookbook food bloggers, celebrities, and Instagram food influencers, as well as anyone with a social media account, who started cooking/baking the favorite recipes of the hostages and telling their stories, in what became a wave of viral content.
I’ve interviewed numerous families of hostages and soldiers over these painful 23 months. Behind each camera, I’ve fought back tears while trying to maintain my professional composure. What struck me most profoundly was how often our conversations eventually turned to food: the Shabbat dinners their loved ones missed; the special birthday cakes waiting to be baked; the empty chairs at holiday tables.
There’s something uniquely Jewish about this response to tragedy. Often, our cultural history can be summed up in one classic sentence: “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!” Food is more than symbolic to Jews; it has become our living archive, our edible memory book. Our sages and rabbis knew this; that is why so many of our holidays have a specific food that we eat to celebrate or commemorate the chag.
Remember the pandemic sourdough craze? That wasn’t just boredom; it was therapy. Kneading dough became a physical outlet for our collective anxiety. For Jewish mothers specifically, this cooking-as-coping mechanism runs generations deep.
Cooking is healing
Why does cooking provide such powerful healing? It engages all our senses. The sizzle of onions hitting hot oil – that sound alone is better than therapy; the familiar scent of chicken soup that instantly transports you to your childhood kitchen; and the tactile connection of working dough with your hands. It’s fully immersive, emotional processing disguised as dinner prep.
Jewish cookbooks tell our story of survival. Holocaust cookbooks preserve recipes from villages that no longer exist, written by women who refused to let their culture disappear.
Cookbooks from Jewish communities in Iraq, Morocco, Spain, and Mexico trace our Diaspora journey. Each recipe is a thread connecting us to our past, a form of delicious resistance against erasure.
On the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, I wrote, “We learned this year that a broken heart still beats.” I think about those words often as I watch Jewish mothers in their kitchens, their hearts shattered but still somehow working, still somehow finding the strength to nourish their families through unimaginable pain.
The mothers of soldiers bake care packages with cookies designed to survive desert heat and bumpy military transport. Trust me, engineering the perfect care-package cookie requires NASA-level precision. The families of hostages prepare Shabbat meals with extra portions, setting places at the table for those who cannot be there – yet. These are acts of faith disguised as everyday cooking.
When I visited the site of the Supernova music festival massacre, I wrote that we need to celebrate despite the tears and bring joy into the world for all those who cannot. In Jewish kitchens across the world, this is happening daily.
A batch of rugelach becomes an act of defiance. A perfectly braided challah becomes a prayer. A pot of soup becomes a declaration: We are still here, still nourishing, still sustaining, and still living life.
We process world events through food because it connects us to what matters most: family, tradition, and survival. In a year defined by terrifying attacks, antisemitic hate rising all around us, and witnessing more funerals in the past 20 months than we expected to see in a lifetime, cooking offers something tangible when everything else feels uncertain.
So tonight, as you stand in your kitchen wondering what to make for dinner, remember: You’re not just cooking. You’re healing. You’re remembering. You’re continuing an ancient tradition of Jewish resilience, one measuring cup at a time.
(Written while burning a batch of cookies because I got lost in thought – another Jewish mother tradition I’ve mastered perfectly!)
The writer is the chief communications officer and global spokesperson for Aish, following a career as an award-winning producer and marketing executive with HBO, CNN, and the Food Network. She is also an eight-time bestselling cookbook author. In the past six months, she has been invited to testify three times before the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs regarding global antisemitism and educational solutions.