The holiday of Thanksgiving is as uniquely American as baseball and apple pie, and the Yanover family, who came to Israel in 2011, has continued making a Thanksgiving feast as a matter of course.
Yoram (Yori), a native Israeli, moved to the United States in 1975 when he was 21 years old, after serving as an emcee in entertainment and a reporter for Bamahane Nahal magazine (“in the Nahal Brigade camp”) in the IDF. He met his wife, Nancy, a year later, got married a year after that, and stayed in New York. Their daughter, Yarden, was born in 1991. Nancy passed away in 2019. Yori and Yarden live in Ra’anana.
“Until I met Nancy, I don’t think I ever ate turkey,” recalls Yori Yanover, who was born in Tel Aviv. He says his introduction to Thanksgiving was quick and easy: “Sit down, shut up, and eat the turkey!” she had said.
Yarden was involved in Thanksgiving preparation, even as a very young child.
“My mom taught me everything,” Yarden, now 34, remembers. “Going to the butcher, doing the shopping – which for Thanksgiving in Israel is never easy – setting the table, and making all the key dishes. We always have turkey, stuffing, two kinds of cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and pies for dessert.”
Living in Netanya in 2019, shortly after Nancy passed away, Yori and Yarden decided to keep the Thanksgiving tradition that they had brought with them from America and continued it after moving to Herzliya and later, Ra’anana.
“We invited everyone – neighbors, friends, friends of friends,” Yori says. “The first one [Thanksgiving] was bittersweet. I didn’t think I’d have the energy; but we got the turkey, and somehow we got around 15 guests together in two days.”
“Thanksgiving moved from my mom’s tradition to my tradition,” Yarden says. Since then, their celebrations usually include around eight guests.
There are Thanksgiving traditions besides the food that the Yanovers enjoy. Yarden, who is studying art, puts up a “Joe the Turkey” poster every year – the banner her mother made for the front door.
“It’s the most fun to watch the snow coming down over the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade,” adds Yori, who streams the famous Fifth Avenue event, replete with legendary floats, gigantic cartoon balloons, Broadway show excerpts, and news anchors describing the parade participants. “Especially when it is 32 degrees Celsius here.”
Find the food fast
Finding the food to augment the feast is indeed a hunt, according to the father-daughter team.
“You have to start early,” Yarden says.
Meatland, which used to be the go-to place in Ra’anana for foods imported from America, South Africa, and Europe, closed two years ago, which Yori says was a “tragic event,” leaving a void in certain aspects of Thanksgiving. Big Deal, a few blocks down on Ahuza Street, has picked up the slack, stocking ingredients like corn syrup (for pecan pies), Domino brown sugar (vastly superior to Israeli brands, they say), and plain white marshmallows (made with corn syrup, not cane sugar) to melt over the sweet potatoes.
This year, Yarden has already started looking for cranberries for the cranberry sauce and canned pumpkin filling for her pies. Fresh cranberries are hard to find, she says, although she has found them at some of the Russian stores.
In communities with many Americans, the butchers are aware that they need to have whole turkeys – although, according to Yarden, they aren’t always sure why anyone would need an entire turkey. In Israel, turkey is generally sold as skinless, boneless turkey breasts, wings, and necks for soups, and the dark meat is fileted for shwarma.
Yarden says that while Thanksgiving takes effort, it has made her appreciative of the way she grew up with it as part of her Jewish tradition.
“We have friends who celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday night because it makes life easier,” Yori says. “But Friday night for us is delicious leftovers. I think when an entire nation [the US] is united in giving thanks, that’s something we should encourage.”
The Kenigsbergs – football feast for all
Amy and Larry Kenigsberg of Ma’aleh Shomron began their Thanksgiving tradition together here in 2003, shortly after they met. Larry made aliyah in 2002.
“Thanksgiving is a happy holiday with no religious overtones,” Larry explains. “You just get together with people you like.”
They host upwards of 20 people, besides their own family of five.
For their debut feast in Jerusalem in their space-challenged two-bedroom railroad flat, they used Larry’s office desk as a dining table. The tradition grew when they moved to Petah Tikva, where they had a roof terrace and increased their guest list accordingly.
When they moved to a private house in Ma’aleh Shomron, the guest list got even bigger, frequently including fifty plus people, as well as children.
“For two years while Larry was coaching football, he invited the entire football team,” Amy recalls. “’I’m not feeding that many people’ was my first response. But somehow we did.”
Larry adds, “I asked at the game, ‘Who can’t come?’ and only three hands went up!”
“That year and the next, we had 108 people, including some giant linemen – some Arabs, some Israelis, some Americans – big guys, and Jews do like free food,” he says.
“That year we bought three male turkeys, which gave us 90 pounds of meat,” Amy says. “Male turkeys are around 15 pounds larger than turkey hens.”
Larry recounts, “When we told him we wanted a whole turkey – and a big male turkey – the local butcher thought we had three heads until he realized he was about to make a lot of money.”
Over the years, the Kenigsbergs say, prices have gone up from NIS 33 per kilo to NIS 42 ($13, about $6 per lb.).
The couple made sure to buy an oven that measured 90 centimeters inside to be big enough to accommodate the large birds.
Together Amy and Larry operate a global public relations company working with tech companies that promote their products and services internationally. Although their Thanksgiving preparations begin well in advance, they don’t take off a day work to make their holiday event a success.
Cranberry quest
Although Thanksgiving is in November, Amy’s system can begin as early as July, when she begins the hunt for canned cranberries.
“Years ago, the only places to get cranberries were Meatland and on Emek Refaim,” she says. “Now even Rami Levi sometimes stocks them, but you have to start looking early. Sometimes you can find frozen cranberries at health food stores.”
American cranberries come in a jelled form or as whole cranberry sauce.
“But you’ve got to get it out of the can,” Larry interjects. “I love it when it’s shaped like the can!”
The Thanksgiving host says he tends to “overprepare.” “I’m not afraid of terrorists or criminals, but I live in terror of running out of food when I have company. There must always be leftovers!”
“I make my pie crusts two weeks before, and then I freeze them,” Amy says.
She says she also cleans out her pantry, refrigerator, and freezer to begin stocking her Thanksgiving larder. The Thanksgiving hostess buys flour, sugar, and cornmeal.
“We order the turkeys and buy potatoes, sweet potatoes, and dried mushrooms for the stuffing two weeks beforehand,” she continues. “I make the corn bread for the stuffing one week before Thanksgiving so it will be dry enough. The Tuesday before, I make and freeze all my pecan and apple pies. On Wednesday I make the stuffing, and on Wednesday night and Thursday we cook the turkeys. Each male turkey roasts for eight hours.
“It’s the one time of year we use margarine – to coat the outside of the turkey,” she says.
Partially potluck, national thanks
The rest of the food and alcohol for the Kenigsbergs’ feast is provided by friends and neighbors in potluck fashion. But, according to Larry and Amy, although they bring out every bottle of alcohol they have, the crowd is not composed of drinkers, so by the end of the party there may be only two empty bottles of wine.
“We provide turkeys, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, pecan pie, and apple pie. Everyone else brings the rest of the food,” Amy says.
Most of the time, she recounts, the leftovers are plentiful, so the family eats turkey for Friday night dinner and Shabbat lunch, although in the years that they hosted the football team, they didn’t have any leftovers. On Thanksgiving, as the host and hostess rarely have time to eat, the turkey is a treat for many meals. Amy freezes it, and the children have lunch for a month or so.
Amy has an important tip: Scout stores that sell disposable aluminum pans, and look for the biggest ones you can find for the gigantic turkey.
“You may have to go to three or four stores,” she says. “So prepare to do it a few weeks in advance – and when you find them, stock up because they aren’t always available.”
Getting it here is half the fun
Bringing food into Israel from other countries is no easy feat.
Ram Blotman is one of the importers that enable Americans (and other ethnic Israelis – Greek, German, Italian, etc.) to enjoy foods from home. In the import/export business since 2007, Blotman has spearheaded the import of Tofutti products, and he brought the Häagen-Dazs brand to Israel in 1994. A self-avowed foodie, he says bringing your favorite foods in is not an easy process.
“It is hard to get permission from the Health Department to bring in foods,” he explains. “For every food brought in, they require certificates of quality assurance, lab tests, samples of the packaging, and then the company must put its own label on the products. Then you must bring it in a container that is temperature-controlled, and constantly tested and monitored by temperature graph.”
He adds that the process of bringing in containers with frozen foods takes many months and endless paperwork.
He says there is a shortage of reefer containers – the containers for chilled and frozen products– because of the rerouting that has been going on since the Gaza war started.
“It used to take six weeks to bring a container in,” he explains. “Two weeks to prepare, and one month to ship. But now it takes a minimum of two months.”
He says that while the BDS movement has not affected his shipments, there are ports in Europe that refuse to load containers that are going to Israel, and that can affect the import business. He is careful to monitor his shipments closely, and he checks logistics to ensure that imported products are not tampered with.
Blotman’s company, called Foods & Stuff, was initially the largest importer for organic all-natural foods. Now he goes all over the world to find the finest kosher foods to bring into Israel. His expeditions take him to the Fancy Food Show in New York and Expo West in California, as well as to smaller shows in any country that offers tasty kosher products.
His warehouse is adjacent to his small store near Osher Ad in Kfar Saba, called Bagels & Stuff, which features some of the products he imports. These are mostly frozen products such as soft pretzels from Germany, pizza crusts from Italy, sourdough baguettes from France, croissants from Spain, and New York bagels that are flash frozen and delivered to Israel. Some of the top hotels serve his products. In fact, he says, he recently supplied bagels for the Trump entourage.
In addition to offering a wide range of frozen and packaged foods, Bagels & Stuff has tables and chairs. It is a nice place to sit and enjoy coffee with an American-style muffin or an authentic New York bagel with cream cheese and lox.