The History of Jewish Families Eating Chinese Food on Christmas

The origin of Jews eating Chinese food dates to the end of the 19th century on the Lower East Side, Manhattan, because Jews and the Chinese lived close together.

There were nearly a million Eastern European Jews living in New York in 1910 and Jews constituted over “one quarter of the city’s population.” The majority of the Chinese immigrated to the Lower East Side from California after the 1880s and many of them went into the restaurant business.

The first mention of the Jewish population eating Chinese food was in 1899 in the American Hebrew Weekly journal. They criticized Jews for eating at non-kosher restaurants, particularly singling out Chinese food. Jews continued to eat at these establishments.

In 1936, it was reported that there were 18 Chinese restaurants open in heavily populated Jewish areas in the Lower East Side. Jews felt more comfortable at these restaurants than they did at the Italian or German eateries that were prevalent during this time period.

Joshua Plaut wrote of the origin of Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas: “It dates at least as early as 1935 when The New York Times reported a certain restaurant owner named Eng Shee Chuck who brought chow mein on Christmas Day to the Jewish Children’s Home in Newark.

“Over the years, Jewish families and friends gather on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at Chinese restaurants across the United States to socialize and to banter, to reinforce social and familiar bonds, and to engage in a favorite activity for Jews during the Christmas holiday. The Chinese restaurant has become a place where Jewish identity is made, remade and announced.”

Reasons for appeal of Chinese food for Jews

In Lower Manhattan, immigrant Jews would open delis for other Jews, Italians ran restaurants primarily for other Italians, and Germans had many places that would serve only Germans, but Chinese restaurant owners “accepted Jews and other immigrant and ethnic groups as customers without precondition.” More of the Jews and Italians would want to eat at Chinese restaurants than they would want to eat at their own ethnic restaurants.

Chinese restaurateurs’ lack of anti-Semitism gave Jews a sense of security, and they were also drawn to the restaurants’ exoticism. “Of all the peoples whom immigrant Jews and their children met, of all the foods they encountered in America, the Chinese were the most foreign, the most ‘un-Jewish’.”

A large majority of the Jews saw “eating in Chinese restaurants as an antidote for Jewish parochialism, for the exclusive and overweening emphasis on the culture of the Jews as it had been.”

Many of the people whom Tuchman and Levine spoke to felt that eating in a place that was “un-Jewish” showed that they could be “somewhat sophisticated, urbane New Yorkers.” The restaurants had unusual wallpaper, eccentric decorations, chopsticks, and exotic food names.

The generations of Jews who grew up in New York after the initial Eastern European Jews immigrated wanted their identity to be based on cosmopolitan ideals.

Chinese food and kosher law

Chinese food allowed Jews to transition from strict kosher to incorporating non-kosher foods into their diets. Chinese cuisine is unusually well suited to Jewish tastes because, unlike virtually any other cuisine available in America, traditional Chinese cooking rarely uses milk products.

Source: wikipedia.org