Fifty shades of kosher: negotiating kashrut in Palestinian food spaces in Israel

Introduction

In January 2017, a picture of a chicken chunks package circulated the instant messaging service “WhatsApp” and appeared on my screen. The reason it went viral is the paradox between the location where this picture was taken, a butcher shop in the Muslim-Palestinian town Kafr Qasim, and the label informing that the product was “under the supervision of the local Rabbinate of Kafr Qasim.” After all, it is known to many that there are no Jewish religious authorities in Palestinian towns in Israel. Some Ultra-Orthodox news websites published the picture and reported that the case was under investigation by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel under suspicion of fraud due to the illegal misrepresentation of kosher food.

I asked some of my interlocutors why anyone would print and paste this label? Some said that kosher means clean, which is an essential concern for the town’s Muslim inhabitants – especially regarding meat and chicken products. Others explained that everyone wants to sell to Jewish customers, where “the good money” lies, and the label was aimed at them. Others suggested the motive was to mock the kashrut system in Israel by presenting the arbitrariness under which official kashrut is granted. Although I never got a definitive answer to my question, a common local saying made it clear that the discourse around Jewish and Muslim religious eating habits is a unique prism through which one may scrutinize the relations between the Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. The locals interpret the saying “Eat with the Jew and sleep with the Christian” (كُل عِنْد يَهودي ونام عِنْد مَسيحي), as “You can trust the food of the Jews, but you can’t trust the Jews themselves” – a reflection of the ambivalent feelings toward Jews in Israel.

Kashrut is a central feature of food spaces in Israel; surveys show that 70% of Israeli Jews observe kashrut laws outside their homes (Arian and Keissar-Sugarmen Citation2011). However, the concept of kashrut in Israel is more flexible, self-defined, and context-dependent than the statistical data depicts (Avieli Citation2018, 90). Israeli Jews adopt positions and practices that, in their view, are faithful to the Jewish tradition and fits neither of the polar opposites of the secularist–rationalist vs. religious–conservative dichotomy (Yadgar Citation2015). Drawing on kashrut’s flexibility, more and more food businesses in Palestinian cities engage with its concept. This is mainly for economic reasons, but also due to those of a socio-political nature. In their opinion, highlighting some kosher characteristics of their food will broaden the Jewish clientele and contribute to their profits, alongside positioning themselves within Israeli society. The Palestinian citizen’s status is unstable, and the Relations with the Israeli Jews are fragile and frequently disrupted by national and political issues. About one-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Palestinians, most of them Muslims, who are excluded from Jewish majority society and are discriminated by the state both formally and informally (Shafir and Peled Citation2002).

In this paper, I argue that the negotiation over the concept of kashrut in the Palestinian food businesses in Israel reflects Palestinian citizens’ attitudes toward Israel and Israeli Jews. I illustrate my argument by suggesting patterns in which Palestinian food business owners adjust or merely present their foods according to the Israeli-Jewish dietary laws, tastes, and culture. I also offer an interpretation of the meanings they attribute to serving dishes with certain shades of kosher.

Without disregarding the economic motives, this paper will focus on the social-political reasons as they manifest in the owner’s explanations and actions. This paper draws on Theodore Bestor’s argument that “economic behavior is not analyzed as an autonomous sphere of human activity, but as inseparably intertwined with a wide variety of social, political, ritual, and other cultural behaviors, institutions, and beliefs” (Bestor Citation2001, 9227). A similar idea was presented by Iwona Kaliszewska, who suggested the term “Halal landscapes” to describe small businesses in Dagestan in the Russian Federation as “Islam-inspired” social spaces. She argues that in these food spaces, “economic and moral dimensions are interwoven with formal and informal norms and regulations, and where social life has its own materiality and temporality” (Kaliszewska Citation2020, 711).

By closely examining the negotiations held in food spaces in Kafr Qasim, a Palestinian town in central Israel, the following questions arise: How do business owners perceive the concept of kosher? What meanings do they attribute to their actions? And what can we learn about the relationship between Jewish and Palestinian citizens in Israel from this behavior? I will answer these questions by suggesting three patterns of negotiations as they manifest in Palestinian food businesses: Interceding Kashrut, Declarative Kashrut, and Official Kashrut. Each presents a slightly different attitude toward Israeli-Jewish customers in particular and Israeli society in general. Lastly, I suggest that these patterns – especially the third – create new hybrid foods representing the roots of an innovative and controversial “Palestinian-Israeli food” in contrast to Palestinian food outside of Israel that evolves differently. The aim of this paper is to contribute to both the understanding of the relations between the Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel and to add to the discussion of negotiating religious eating habits as a political practice for achieving social and cultural goals.

The discussion is based on ethnographic research conducted between 2013 and 2018 as part of a doctoral dissertation, mainly in Kafr Qasim, a Muslim-Palestinian town inhabited by twenty-five thousand people. The fieldwork included dwelling six months in town, dozens of observations in local food spaces, and hundreds of conversations with local and Jewish customers. This paper’s central theme arose during my fieldwork: an accidental situation in a bakery, a customer’s casual remark, a marginal story by a restaurant employee, and on. All of these situations accumulated and exposed some of the Practices discussed below. The ethnographic material led me to conduct ten in-depth interviews with Palestinian food business owners who very openly shared stories about food, small business problems, and their relations with Israeli-Jewish customers.

Religious food taboos as socio-political boundaries

Kashrut, the Jewish dietary regulations, permits eating only land animals that chew their cud and have cloven hooves. The laws that originated in the book of Leviticus forbid eating pork and some other specifically mentioned animals. Jews who keep kosher do not eat shellfish, birds of prey, and do not mix meat and milk. Halal is the equivalent concept that describes what is allowed for the Muslim believer to eat according to the fifth Surah of the Qur’an. The main prohibitions are eating pork and drinking alcoholic beverages, but it is also forbidden to eat animals that were not slaughtered in the name of Allah.

The distinction between the religious and the socio-political roles of one’s religious eating habits relies heavily on Mary Douglas’ classic work. She argues that food taboos constitute social boundaries between groups (Douglas Citation1972). In her 1966 essay “Purity and Danger,” she points out the human obsession with classification and the difficulty in accepting things that do not fit into distinct categories. She suggests ways to deal with such cases that she defines an anomaly: “Negatively, we can ignore, just not perceive them, or perceiving we can condemn. Positively we can deliberately confront the anomaly and try to create a new pattern of reality in which it has a place. It is not impossible for an individual to revise his own personal scheme of classifications. But no individual lives in isolation, and his scheme will have been partly received from others” (Citation1966 [1984], 39). Following Douglas, I illustrate how Palestinian business owners and Jewish customers deal with the anomaly, selling, and consuming foods that are difficult to fit into the rigid kosher or non-kosher categories as defined by Israeli law.

Social boundaries become more pronounced when two religious groups with different eating habits live side-by-side. Religious minorities in nation-states who observe kosher or halal often negotiate between their religious and commercial needs (Campbell, Murcott, and MacKenzie Citation2011). This also highlights the distinction between religious laws and the Socio-political everyday life practices of Jewish and Muslim individuals. Many studies have examined the consumption and eating practices of religious minorities living within a majority population of a different faith. An example would be Jews in New York (Tuchman and Levine Citation1992), France (Bahloul Citation2018), and Denmark (Buckser Citation1999) who negotiate kosher laws as part of their cultural identity in relation to the local non-Jewish majority culture. Similarly, Muslims in non-Islamic populations such as in South Africa (Tayob Citation2016) or in London (Fischer Citation2011) are also negotiating their eating habits as a means of managing daily life in a non-Muslim environment. The case of a Palestinian town in Israel shed light on the minority-majority relations in Israel, focusing on the unique political context – the common perception that Israel is characterized by increasing radicalization on all sides, leading eventually to confrontation and the collapse of mutual relations (Smooha Citation2017, 17).

Kashrut in Israel: an arena for social struggles

Kashrut plays an essential part in the construction of Israeli nationalism and of Israel as the Jewish state. The kosher laws were among the most prominent features of Jewish everyday life and identity in the Diaspora while they were establishing communities and creating a nation (Cinotto and Diner Citation2018, 9). Yael Raviv (Citation2003) argues that the Zionist-Jews who came to Palestine before Israel was founded appropriated some of the local’s foods to strengthen the link between their history and the land as part of the nation-building endeavor. In many cases, these were foods affiliated with Palestinians that could easily be adjusted to kosher laws, such as falafel and hummus (Hirsch Citation2011).

With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, it was constitutionally defined as a Jewish and democratic state, which led to inherent tensions between “Jewish” and “democratic” values. This tension highlighted the political dimensions of the kashrut as a site of struggle between various groups in Israel. For example, the law prohibiting the breeding and selling of pork uncovers struggles between religious and secular Jews, as well as between sectoral parties that are competing over achievements in religious legislation (Barak-Erez Citation2010). Another example is the tension between old-time Israeli Jews and Jews who emigrated from the former Soviet Union; for some, eating pork is part of everyday life practices. This migration of about one million Jews during the 1990s meant that these individuals had to deal with the notion that pork consumption in Israel is inconsistent with the dominant image of what constitutes a “proper Jew” (Bernstein Citation2012). Heiman, Gordon, and Zilberman (Citation2019) summarize that, when religious groups in Israel have political power, they use it to restrict food that does not meet their norms.

Allegedly, the Palestinian citizens of Israel are less concerned by the struggles mentioned above; they are mostly Muslims who are equally averse to pork. However, Daphne Barak-Erez (Citation2010) argues that, as time passed, secular Israelis viewed the pig prohibitions more as a symbol of religious coercion than as a national symbol of identification. In this sense, the civil rights of both Palestinians and secular Israeli Jews were violated due to the infringement of the freedom of occupation and the prohibition of the operation of businesses and public transportation on Saturdays. Specifically, regarding kashrut laws, non-Jews are more vulnerable than secular Jews due to some cooking and food production processes that must only be performed by Jews in order to be kosher. In this case, the lack of trust between Jews and Palestinians in Israel has a significant role.

The kashrut in Israel is enshrined in law under the exclusive authority of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. With the help of local Rabbinates, they are also responsible for the enforcement of the 1983 law that forbids the presentation of food as kosher unless authorized. This limits the creation of different levels of kosher or even the presentation of “kosher-style” foods, which are common in other countries. The monopolistic nature of the formal kashrut system in Israel leads to many deficiencies that cause frustration among people and groups who seek alternative ways to determine what is and is not kosher (Friedman and Finkelstein Citation2017). Palestinian business owners in Israel take part in this inner-Israeli debate alongside religious ‎organizations seeking to dismantle the monopoly, restaurateurs’ associations seek to ease ‎conditions and secularists who see it as religious coercion. To the best of my knowledge, this ‎paper is the first empirical research that analyzes this growing phenomenon of Palestinians in Israel ‎engaging kashrut issues. ‎

Palestinian food spaces in Israel and Israeli-Jewish customers

The scholarship on Israeli foodways inevitably refers to power relations, especially when it comes to Jews and Palestinians (Avieli and Grosglik Citation2013). Given the role of food in creating and sustaining national feelings (DeSoucey Citation2010), it only makes sense that the contradictory national narratives between Palestinians and Israeli Jews will also arise in the food field. However, the case presented here resonates with the ongoing process of the Israelization of Palestinian citizens in which they are drawn nearer to Israeli Jews in language, culture, lifestyle, and means of struggle (Smooha Citation2017, 85).

According to Liora Gvion (Citation2014), the Palestinian restaurant in Israel is a socially constructed space where both Palestinian diners and restaurateurs negotiate narratives of modernity and tradition. When it comes to Israeli-Jewish customers, they perceive the Palestinian restaurant in the Palestinian town as a tourist destination (Stein Citation1998) or as part of a culinary cultic mission to find the best and most authentic hummus (Hirsch and Tene Citation2013). The food businesses described below – restaurants, food stands, cafes, bakeries, and artisanal shops – demonstrate a different phenomenon in which Jewish customers visit as part of their daily routines. Therefore, these spaces are less performative than the expectation of a tourist site and less cultic than the expectation of a known hummus place. I would like to suggest that these food spaces, where negotiations over the concept of kashrut are held, are what Homi Bhabha (Citation1994, 2) identifies as “in-between” spaces in which there is a process of cultural hybridization. Such places, where the colonized and colonizer are merging and creating something new, have the potential to spur change by challenging existing social conditions.

The Palestinian restaurateur in Israel uses the restaurants’ space to gain control over the commodification of Palestinian dishes and voice their protest against the position that Palestinians occupy in Israeli society (Gvion Citation2014). It is compatible with Krishnendu Ray’s (Citation2016) explanation that ethnic restaurateurs are positioned as buffers between two cultures and carry opposing meanings simultaneously: inferiority, for being outside the dominant group, and great potential, for having the opportunity to obtain economical, social, and cultural capital. I see the Palestinian business owner as an agent of change because of their “in-between” position. A similar process was presented by Guy Ben-Porat (Citation2013, xviii), who argued that changes in Saturdays’ trading restrictions were due to secular business owners who exploited holes in the system, undermined religious authority, and led to widespread secularization processes in Israel.

In the next section, I demonstrate how Palestinian food business owners take part in negotiating these allegedly “Jewish” issues not because of its cultural-religious implication, but due to the broader cultural-political context and its effect on Israel’s nature. I suggest three patterns in which they act to present new forms of kosher, sometimes tangible and sometimes conceptual: Interceding Kashrut, Declarative Kashrut, and Official Kashrut. This typology points out landmarks in a range of countless practices and the different outcomes of negotiations.

Interceding Kashrut: respect for religion and the proper way to treat minorities

Many food businesses in Palestinian communities in Israel make minor and deliberate adjustments to the Israeli Jew’s eating habits. This includes a wide range of practices such as serving some kosher products or offering dishes without the ingredients that make them non-kosher or even a particular insistence on central kashrut principles such as the separation of meat and milk. However, these businesses do not meet most conditions of kashrut. One explanation, which clarifies at least the common use of kosher meat products, lies in Palestinian customers’ perception of kosher as clean and safe. Since kosher food does not contain pork, forbidden by both Judaism and Islam, it is safer to consume than other non-labeled food items. For many people in Kafr Qasim, kashrut is a confirmation that the food has undergone various inspections from its production until its sale and is therefore clean.

Although kashrut also appeals to the local Palestinian consumer, many business owners admit it is even more useful with Jewish customers. These are relatively easy adjustments, which are frequently referred to by the owners as no trouble at all. “If I can, so why not?” one said, explaining this act as reaching out to a wider audience by creating a more inclusive space for Jews. For example, during Passover, some restaurants in town also serve Matzah, the traditional flatbread of the Jewish holiday. Local business owners are well aware that many Israeli Jews who do not keep kosher laws throughout the year, nor adhere to other eating restrictions, still avoid eating bread and other flour-based products on Passover.

In many cases, it is noticeable that Israeli Jews in Palestinian restaurants ask for dishes that are kosher-style. Waiters, in response, point out several dishes that can mainly be considered kosher due to the separation of meat and dairy products. Vegetarian dishes are often a satisfying solution to what can be perceived as kosher. Occasionally, one can even observe customers with external religious symbols who eat salad and hummus from disposable plastic plates. Once, I witnessed a religious diner kindly request that they prepare a fresh fish wrapped in foil paper and placed directly onto the oven grill. Later, the restaurant manager explained that his mission was to make every customer feel welcome. “Whatever they wish for, I’m happy to make this effort for them to feel comfortable. The same feeling, I wish for myself anywhere I go, hopefully at your [Jewish] places as well,” he concluded sarcastically, referring to the lack of sensitivity toward Muslim eating habits in Israeli-Jewish food spaces. Another restaurateur resonated with the same notion, “Show me one restaurant in Tel Aviv that knows what’s halal or indicates on the menu what does not contain alcohol?”

The Interceding Kashrut pattern is well illustrated in a meat restaurant that operates on Fridays and Saturdays from a small butcher shop in Kafr Qasim. The owner, who returned the city after an extended stay in the Southern United States, combines cooking methods he learned there with local cooking methods that carry his childhood memories. He explained why, for example, he did not prepare a Mansaf – a traditional lamb dish with yogurt served on rice, “The challenge is to make the same flavors and the same texture, but without yogurt […], I’m dying to make the dish with yogurt, but I’ll never do. Even if I have only one customer who eats kosher, it is not worth it. Let’s say 99% wants [yogurt], and one does not; I’m aiming at this one.” He is not at all convinced of the economic benefits of separating meat and milk; most of his Jewish costumers are secular and do not care. So why insist? He and other business owners, most of whom keep Muslims Halal laws and believe in the importance of warm hospitality, repeatedly express sympathy toward the avoidance of foods prohibited by religion. One elucidated that, “kosher is not a joke; it is a serious thing.” Another described situations in which he organized a packed kosher ready-made meal for an individual within a group of friends sitting in his restaurant. He noted that he had more respect for this individual who did not pretend: “It’s a tradition, and you have to decide either to respect it or not.”

The practices included in the Interceding Kashrut pattern express Palestinian business owners’ respect for the Jewish religion and their wish to create an inclusive space that allows more Israeli Jews to eat. At the same time, they criticize the absence of these notions of religious and cultural sensitivity toward the Palestinian minority in Israel. While they begin with allegations of discrimination in the food industry, such as licensing issues and stringent supervision, for the most part, they also specify injustices in other areas of life. For example, one restaurateur in town who owned another restaurant in Thailand angrily decided to stop flying with Israel’s national airline due to the disgraceful treatment he receives as a Palestinian citizen of Israel. Their actions sometimes seem like a marginal side effect that requires minimal effort and sometimes solely symbolic, alongside the equally small potential for an extra profit. However, the uniqueness is the preoccupation with the issue, rather than merely saying that the food is not kosher. This is furthered because it is sometimes accompanied by a detailed and conscious explanation of the act.

Declarative Kashrut: a leap of faith

This pattern demonstrates a higher level of fit to kosher laws and includes food spaces whose owners declare them as intrinsically kosher, albeit not officially. It is a more common pattern in places such as bakeries and falafel stands where the issue of kosher is seemingly less problematic due to the lack of meat. In these cases, a declaration by the seller that all ingredients are kosher would sometimes be enough, even for Israeli Jews who strictly keep kosher. For example, I once met a young Jewish woman wearing a headscarf at one of the falafel stands in town. She lived in the nearby Jewish community of Oranit and confirmed that she adheres to a religious lifestyle as well as kosher laws. “I only eat falafel. What could be non-kosher here?” She smiles. “I’ve been eating here for years, and I have total faith in this place.” The seller confirmed her words with a nod and showed the kosher label on the plastic lid of a Coleslaw salad. He explained that although his falafel stand has no kashrut certificate, all the ingredients he uses are certified kosher by the Chief Rabbinate. The same goes for bakeries in town – although none are officially kosher, many Israeli Jews, including those who define themselves as religious, have no fear buying baked goods. In some cases, I witnessed a quick inquiry by a customer to dispel the concern, which was followed by an even quicker statement by the seller that the oven was only used for baking meatless pastries.

These examples illustrate the trust-based unwritten agreement between Palestinian business owners and their Israeli-Jewish customers, as well as the dissatisfaction frequently affiliated with the official kashrut system. One of the regular customers of a known bakery in town explained that he trusted the bakery worker’s words more than he trusted “the faulty and corrupted” Chief Rabbinate’s authorization. Another Israeli-Jewish customer, who identified themselves as religious, emphasized that “whoever is concerned about kosher laws knows very well that certificates cannot be trusted – only people.” Similar thoughts are expressed on the Palestinian owners’ side. One explained the importance of honesty in this agreement, “It’s all about trust and faith. Like going to the doctor, you are entirely giving yourself to his mercy. You have to believe in him. Not only to trust him but to really put your whole faith in him. It’s the same with food. It is something that goes deep in your body.”

Another example is a grilled meat restaurant in the industrial area of Kafr Qasim. The owner, in his forties, held an official kashrut certificate for two years and decided to give it up due to high costs. He explained, “Let’s say my profits from being kosher were ten more percent – this is exactly how much it cost me! The Rabbinate’s supervisors are like my partners without taking any risks, they think religion is their own business.” Although he waived the official certificate, he continued to adhere to the same strict conditions required for kosher purposes, hoping some of his religious customers could still enjoy his food. He closed on Saturdays, had no milk products, and all the raw materials in the restaurant were strictly kosher. He said, “I work exactly the same way. It hasn’t changed one bit. All my meat is the same, and I have all the signatures I need. […] Some people ask me if I’m kosher, I say yes and they buy, others are more difficult. I show them what I got, and they decide.” He promised to his customers that he was trustworthy, but in return, he asked them to demonstrate their flexibility by continuing to eat his food on account of it being intrinsically kosher. A good number of his regular customers continue to eat in his place, including some who keep kosher. From time to time, he is asked to present the kashrut labels on the meat packages or the boxes of the ready-made salads. Some customers politely apologize and explain that they need a valid, official certificate.

The practices included in the Declarative Kashrut pattern reveals that negotiations over the concept of kashrut are not one-sided. Palestinian business owners and Israeli-Jewish customers alike take part in the process of redefining what is and is not kosher. By doing so, they offer alternative ways to authorize different levels of kashrut; it also underscores the vital need for more trust-based relationships between Palestinians and Jews in Israel.

Official Kashrut: making kosher Palestinian food

Only a few Palestinian-owned food businesses have official kashrut certificates. These are usually factories that aim for mass production and distribution in the largest retail chains in Israel; restaurants and small businesses that hold official kashrut certificates are even rarer. To fully understand the phenomenon of Palestinians producing kosher food, I traced businesses outside of Kafr Qasim that illustrate the pattern of Official Kashrut.

As mentioned above, to get an official kashrut certificate from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the business owner needs to have daily inspections and meet some other conditions that require significant financial expenses. For many, it is a highly bureaucratic process known to be frustrating. For Palestinian business owners, it is even harder. Partly because some food making actions must be performed by Jews according to the Halacha, but also because of the Chief Rabbinate representatives’ suspicion and distrust. The two examples below explain why, nonetheless, there are Palestinian business owners who chose to walk this path.

One example is a local Palestinian artisanal dairy located in the middle of the family’s olive grove that specializes in producing “Arab-style cheeses” using traditional methods. The Palestinian owner and cheesemaker, in his early forties, wished to expand his homely business and to sell unique goat’s milk Jibni, Yogurt, and Labneh to Jewish costumers. He turned to grocery stores and specialty cheese shops in Tel Aviv, but many made it clear that only kosher products would be sold. Others suggested miserable conditions to display his cheese on the shelf, so he decided to turn his dairy kosher. A seventy-year-old Palestinian woman I met insisted this cheese “has a taste of yesteryear.” After hearing about the recent changes, she expressed concerns that they would impair the products.

The Chief Rabbinate intervened in almost every process in the cheese making. For example, every morning at 7:30, a rabbi came to put the enzyme needed to prepare the cheese in the milk containers. They also demanded that anything milked on Saturdays be thrown out and to install a closed-circuit camera system to make sure all conditions are maintained. Before Passover, due to the Jewish custom of not eating wheat and its products, he needed to change the diet of the livestock that, according to him, “drives the whole digestive system crazy and it is against all nutrition theories.” After doing all this, he claimed that the expenses almost exceeded the income. He once teased the supervisor, asking him if he wants to switch places, “Maybe you will give me 5000 Shekels a month to do your job, and you will do mine?” Despite all the difficulties, he was convinced of his methods. He said his goal was to get Jews to consume his “Arab-style cheese,” embodying the Palestinian “taste of yesteryear.” He was not ignoring the blatant intervention in the preparation process and its effect on the final product. Still, he insisted it does no harm the quality and taste of the cheese, nor the connection to the Arab-Palestinian tradition.

Another example is a young restaurant owner in his late twenties from a small Palestinian village near Jerusalem that is well known for its cuisine. He decided to open a meat restaurant in the industrial area of a Jewish city in central Israel. After analyzing the potential clientele, he realized he had to hold an official kosher certificate. In addition to the economic motive, he emphasized it was essential for him to reach out to the strictly kosher-keeping audience. “I want that the most religious people in Israel will be able to eat my food […] I want them to know my cuisine, the taste of my village. The non-religious ones can go and eat in my village, I’m aiming for those who can’t,” he explained.

He also experienced some obstacles. For example, only Jews could light the fire and stoves in the restaurant, so he had to employ at least one Jewish worker on every shift. He also had to replace all his original product suppliers for others who may or may not be in close relations with the local rabbinate supervisors. He was mainly concerned with his famous meat spices blend, which contained twenty-three different spices. Although he would be able to remake an almost identical mix from the new suppliers’ spices, it would not be the same.

The new kosher Palestinian-style meat restaurant was continuously under suspecting eyes, and supervisors visited frequently. The owner partly understood it: “Maybe because we’re new,” he smiled. Some customers expressed doubts and asked to take a closer look at the certificate, sometimes even calling the Chief Rabbinate to make sure of its validity. He found these doubts understandable, “I, too, do not eat pork, so when I go into a restaurant abroad, I always check.” I asked why an explicit declaration of the food fitting his beliefs was not enough – he replied, “You can teach someone to drive, and he can be the best driver; nonetheless, he still needs the certificate.”

Both business owners see great importance in reaching out to Jewish customers by fully adapting their foods to kashrut laws as defined by the religious authority of Israel. From their point of view, reaching out to a broader audience was not necessarily about selling more food, but selling it to Jewish customers who would otherwise never eat their food if it was not kosher. The owner’s goal was to make Palestinian food more edible to Israeli Jews in order to both position themselves within the Israeli society and strengthen the connections between these foods and Palestinian traditions. Although there is no certainty that it is financially lucrative, they believe it paves the way for other Palestinians because this pattern allows more and more Israeli Jews to be exposed to foods and tastes affiliated with Palestinians.

Conclusion: the roots of new and controversial Palestinian-Israeli food

The typology presented above tries to point out landmarks in a wide range of practices included in the growing phenomenon of Palestinian food businesses that are engaging with the issue of kashrut. I found that the negotiations reflect the attitudes of Palestinian business owners toward Israel and its Jewish majority and are means of positioning themselves within Israeli society. The first two patterns include practices around foods and spaces that cannot easily fit into kosher or non-kosher definitions. It allows business owners to negotiate the boundaries of kashrut together with Israeli-Jewish customers while resonating their attitudes toward Israeli society. The third pattern, the Official kashrut, illustrates the process of creating a Palestinian-affiliated kosher food. These are dishes and products that are primarily cooked and manufactured by Palestinians, but also carry the most notable earmark of Jewish and Israeli food. I suggest that these patterns, especially the third, create new hybrid foods that represent the roots of an innovative and controversial “Palestinian-Israeli food” as opposed to Palestinian food outside of Israel that evolves differently.

Some can equally view this process as an outcome of power relations in which the Palestinian business owners are forced to adjust their food to prosper, or even to survive in the Israeli-Jewish oriented economic system. For example, Dan Rabinowitz (Citation1992) explained that such economic actions may be a tactic used by Palestinians designed to examine the degree of freedom they get from the Israeli public sphere. From a different angle, Michael Herzfeld (Citation2014) warned of such hybrid labels of food that sometimes blur and hide the problematic stories of oppression, exploitation, poverty, and racism that constitute the historical background in the creation of the food.

Nevertheless, I found that the acts of the Palestinian business owners demonstrate control over the level of change they want to make in their cultural assets; therefore, the food’s Palestinian origins can no longer be denied or blurred. This is compatible with Michael Dietler’s (Citation2007, 229) notion that it is difficult to predict the intended and unintended consequences of food adoption in the colonial encounter, as well as the subtle transformation of consciousness and identity. While it often appears that only Palestinians are at risk of losing their identity, Bhabha (Citation1994, 224) reminds us that hybridity is heresy on both sides and that transformation is the greatest fear of racists.

The practices I have presented transform Palestinian food to be “edible” for most Israeli Jews, allowing them to consume Palestinian cultural products that proudly carry their origin – not an everyday activity in Israel. More significant is the fact that many Israeli Jews, including some who strictly keep kosher, eat in these places and express trust toward Palestinians, adjusting kashrut laws that better suit their beliefs and lifestyles. Indeed, “Palestinian-Israeli” is still a rare and almost nonexistent combination, like water and oil – these do not mix. It is not yet a “cuisine” – a set of staple dishes nationally or ethnically preformed and recognized. Drawing on Douglas’s claim that, “Menu negotiation is the essential process by which a commensal unit shifts its habits from one cultural pattern to a new one” (Douglas 1984 [Citation2003], 29), the findings show that, beneath the surface, the infrastructure for Palestinian-Israeli cuisine is slowly being built.