What makes food Jewish? Is it the ingredients, the laws governing its preparation, the people who cook it, or the stories passed down from generation to generation?

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The Jewish Table offers a journey through more than three thousand years of history, exploring how food has served as a cultural language: a way of shaping identity, preserving memory, building community, adapting to new places, and responding to exile, persecution, and change.

Through Jewish food, we will explore history from antiquity to the present day, moving through the Bible, the rabbinic world, the Diaspora, Sepharad and al-Andalus, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Arab-Jewish, and North African communities, the Inquisition, major migrations, New York delis, the State of Israel, and contemporary debates surrounding sustainability, cultural appropriation, technology, and food ethics.

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This is not a cooking course. It is a course in history and culture explored through Jewish food - a lens for understanding religion, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, gender, and the social transformations that have shaped diverse Jewish identities.

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About the course

Each session brings together history, texts, images, literature, music, and material culture. Selected sessions may also include tastings that allow participants to encounter food as a source of memory, identity, and cultural transmission.

No previous knowledge of Jewish history is required.

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Course programme

The course is organised into four thematic modules:

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Foundations and Theology
Jewish food, kashrut, Shabbat, and the relationship between religious law and culinary practice.

 

Memory and Diaspora
Passover, Sepharad and al-Andalus, Crypto-Judaism, gender, family memory, and the transmission of culinary traditions.

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Geographies of Nostalgia and Resistance
Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Arab-Jewish, and North African foodways, migration, assimilation, and the American deli.

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Nation, Memory, and Future Ethics
The Shoah, Israeli national cuisine, cultural appropriation, sustainability, technology, and contemporary food ethics.

​Explore the complete 12-session programme, central questions, key concepts, and selected readings.​

 

By the end of the course

Participants will have gained a deeper understanding of the diversity and historical development of Jewish food cultures, as well as a new way of approaching history, memory, migration, and identity through food.

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Facilitator

Monica Buzali Kalach is an art therapist, educator, and teacher whose work explores identity, memory, and family transmission through art, food, and Jewish culture. Her approach brings together historical research, personal narratives, and sensory experience, using food as a point of departure for understanding cultural belonging and the ways traditions move between generations and across geographies.

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Practical information

Dates: Thursdays, 1 October–17 December 2026
Duration: 12 sessions of two hours
Time: 18:00-20:00
Format: Hybrid — in person at Casa Adret and online, with simultaneous participation
Location: Casa Adret, Barcelona
Language: Spanish / English
Price: €340

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