Fasting and feasting: Yom Kippur inspiration from five Jewish Australians

When we were first dating, I couldn’t believe my now-husband’s (Ashkenazi) family broke their Yom Kippur fast on roast chicken. He was shocked to hear that my (Sephardi-Mizrahi) family broke ours on Iraqi-Jewish sweets and baked treats. Even after we married, for some years my husband would break his fast with me on tea, date babas (date-filled biscuits) and cheese samoosas (cheese-filled pastries), and then head to his mum’s for a meat meal.

Many families have their own traditions for starting and breaking the fast. A friend insists on drinking coconut water before fasting, my mother swears by dark chocolate and some South African Jews down a mix of Coca-Cola and milk they call “brown cows”.

We asked five Jewish Australians share their pre- and post-Yom Kippur tips and traditions.

The Foodie: Lisa Goldberg

Lisa Goldberg grew up in Melbourne in a Polish-Ashkenazi family, with a pre-fast meal that included boiled chicken and apple compote. Goldberg remembers how she felt “absolutely sick and stuffed” afterwards, which informs how she cooks for her own family’s pre-fast meal. “I don’t ever want to go to Kol Nidre again and sit in shul feeling like I’ve overeaten.”

Goldberg says she used to think her pre-fast meal had to be traditional Jewish food, but she now makes a very light dinner. This year, her family will be starting their fast on their favourite meal: pasta with homemade tomato sauce and mozzarella, plus salad and honey cake.

For breaking the fast, Goldberg’s mother always packed food in their car, and after shul finished “we’d open the boot and stand there eating honey cake and drinking TAB [cola].” That would be followed by a feast which Goldberg describes as “the most wonderful breaking-fast meal” with chopped liver, herring and challah; cholent, roast chicken and potatoes.