In "Recipe with Memory" sessions, participants cook recipes that IDF casualties loved - and talk about the fallen • Families commemorate their loved ones - and spread their story
The late Sheila Siman Tov during his military service
Photo:
Courtesy of the family
Food is something that brings people together, in every country and every culture in the world.
Because Israel is a country with one big melting pot in its heart, there are countless varied dishes that evoke in each of us memories that come deep from the heart.
When Eden Kohli founded "A Recipe with Memory" in 2015, she probably did not expect that in a few years the site of the project will include hundreds of different and delicious recipes that came from bereaved families of IDF casualties. Memorial Day for the victims of the Israeli military and the victims of hostilities.
"The project team, which includes amazing volunteers who operate the site and the project throughout the year and who accompany the families throughout the process, organizes cooking sessions where we prepare recipes that the spaces loved to eat, that the families themselves shared us. The families can even join these sessions themselves," says Kohli, "While the dish is cooking, all the participants read a presentation in memory of the space, talk about it and what is behind the dish, and when it is ready - a circle closes."
Kohli set up the venture after completing her military service as an intelligence officer in a special unit.
She flew on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Mission in Minnesota in the United States, and after a while, as Memorial Day approached the victims of the Israeli military, she looked for a way to make this all-Israeli day accessible to the Jewish community in which she worked. To community members.
She contacted organizations and associations involved in the field and approached bereaved families through social media to ask them for recipes their loved ones liked.
She also asked those families to tell her about their loved ones who are no longer there, so that she can pass on their legacy while the participants prepare the dishes that the soldiers loved so much.
"It started to roll slowly, and at some point it got to a point where people connected me themselves to the bereaved families they knew," Kohli says.
Even after returning to Israel in 2017, she decided to continue with her idea and set up a website where recipes that came straight from the families of the fallen would be published, alongside the personal stories of those soldiers.
The number of recipes is growing day by day, making the story of the spaces accessible to surfers in this extraordinary way.
"When people taste these dishes, even if they have eaten them countless times in the past, suddenly something very significant and exciting happens, that goes straight into the heart and stomach," Kohli said, "It's not just another dish, it's really a dish with a mission. They are very excited. "
"Recipe with Remembrance" was such a success that it takes place not only in Israel and in the vicinity of Remembrance Day, but also in many other Jewish communities around the world.
Schools, youth movements, community centers and nursing homes are also participating, and thousands of cooking sessions have taken place since the venture was launched following an attempt to connect an American Jewish community to such an Israeli emotion.
Kohli says that there are many bereaved families who do not cook foods that their loved ones loved following the memories they evoke in them.
Because the families participating in the "Recipe with Memory" are not obligated to physically participate in the venture, since the recipes can be cooked anywhere and anytime even without their presence, they still get to commemorate the fallen in this unique way.
One of the bereaved families participating in the project is that of the late Sergeant Sheila Siman Tov, who was killed in a car accident in 2018 along with two other soldiers. He was 23 at the time of his death. Rotem, Sheila's younger sister, says that we conjured up family members Memory "In order to offer them to participate in the project, it was clear to them which dish they would choose to share with the surfers - sponge.
"Four months before he was killed, Sheila was diagnosed with celiac disease. He said that being celiac would prevent him from eating gluten, but he loved donuts and spinach so much that he would eat them anyway," Rotem says, laughing nostalgically. "My mother was "Prepares the spinach regularly. The day Sheila was killed, my parents were on their way to receive his staff with lots of spinach, so this dish took on greater significance for us."
Siman Tov, who lives in the town of Scopus in Samaria, said that her brother was a man with great joy of life and a huge smile, which entered the heart of everyone who spoke to him.
"He was a helper all the time and volunteered in a lot of charities. He was a person of light, giving and joy," she said.
She recalls how her brother would help her mother, who works as a kindergarten teacher in the community, by playing with the kindergarten children.
"First, when he was injured in an accident, the children drew pictures for him and hung them on the kindergarten door. Later, after he died, they drew other paintings. There was one boy who was very close to Sheila, who asked his mother who he would play with now that Sheila is gone," she said. .
The family later decided to donate his organs - thus saving the lives of six other people.
"We are happy and grateful to every family that joins us and shares its recipes with us," says Kohli. "I strive for every whole family to be a part of this venture and to be commemorated with us, to allow people in Israel and around the world to remember the spaces. "People are exposed to the stories of the fallen and spread the word, it's the most important thing to me. It's just worth it."
To the "Recipe with Memory" website
For the sponge recipe and reading about the story of the late Sheila Siman Tov
