Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, starts at sundown tomorrow evening. I wasn't thinking about that at all, though, when I dashed into my favorite nearby bakery to grab something resembling breakfast on the way to work at the Spiegel Online offices on Friday morning.
So imagine my delight when I realized the bakery – which is also a Jewish bakery to some degree that I've never quite worked out, but mostly is just a really good German bakery that's still individually owned and bakes everything there on their own premises – had the special, round challah breads that are only made for Rosh Hashanah:
I bought one and took it to the office with me, to share around with the others there together with an explanation of what Rosh Hashanah is and why I was excited to find round challah in the first place.
Well, most of the others needed an explanation, but the new American intern looked up from his desk and said, "Shana tova" to me, so that was nice too!
Here's my lovely challah with a hand for scale:
It seems a strange thing to say, but in this particular moment, I found myself happy to be a Jew in Berlin.
NIce to read your post. Where's the bakery? We were in Berlin last week - I was covering the opening of the opera season and my husband went to the Pestalozzi Synagogue on MOnday, Rosh Hashanah.
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Thanks for commenting! The bakery is Kädtler, at Danziger Str. 135 in Prenzlauer Berg, just off Greifswalder Str. A fantastic all-around bakery, as well as having Jewish standards like challah and hamentashen!
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