Talk:Challah

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Contents 1 Advertising? 2 Pictures 3 Prayer 4 Sephardic Challah tradition???? 5 Hebrew transliteration / vocalization 6 Midrash about challah? 7 Picture 8 Also called egg bread? 9 Why was the external link to the Virtual Challah Lessons deleted?

[edit] Advertising?

I'm translating texts about Jewish holiday quisine and customs, and have found the Wikipedia pages very helpful. When I came to the challah page, though, I was surprised that there were things that looked far too commercial for Wikipedia here -- such as the name and address of the bakery under the challah photo, and also the link to "organic whole wheat" challahs in New York City or whatever it was, in the External Links section below the text. Is this really appropriate? It kind of turned me off. I thought I should point this out, just in case. 195.146.150.48 08:13, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Christina

[edit] Pictures

Would it be possible to get a picture of what more common Challah looks like, with the egg batter and seseme seeds as a additional picture? yeah

[edit] Prayer

The words of the special prayer will be interesting to know. What are they? How old are they? This is a gesture of very great antiquity, clearly, with parallels in the Ancient Near east and the Aegean. The identical egg bread, formed as a braid, is part of Portuguese cuisine too. (Im familiar with both.) Wetman 04:16, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Which prayer? The one before eating bread, or the one before separating the challah from the dough? Flourdustedhazzn 04:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sephardic Challah tradition????

I was just watching "New Jewish Cuisine", a TV cooking show, and they were preparing a challah recipe. My question is whether Sephardic Jews also had a tradition of preparing Challah.

Challah is an Ashkenazi bread similar to other festive breads found throughout Europe. Different non-Ashkenazi Jewish cultures (usually inaccurately lumped as "Sefaradim") do have their own special Shabbat breads, but they do not generally resemble challah. The closest you're likely to get is Moroccan pain petri, which is a round loaf containing eggs and anise seed.

This is a bit inaccurate and, especially, unnuanced. Similar breads are not found "throughout" Europe, but only in certain regions of Europe -- central and eastern Europe, particularly; southern Europe, to a lesser degree, including Greek, Armenian, and Turkish loafs. In few of these cases are the breads "festive". Finally, while it may once have been true that non-Ashkenazim rarely included hallah among their shabbat foods, that is not true today: it has become common among many "Sephardic" families and communities, just as many Sephardic customs became common among Moroccan Jews, etc.

[edit] Hebrew transliteration / vocalization

The text of 'birkat hamotzi' given in the article gives the shem adnut ("Adonai") intact, but gives a truncated second name ("Elokim"), presumably in order to avoid writing God's name. Why the discrepancy? I feel that the K ought to be changed to an H — text on a computer screen is not halakhically considered to be writing, and therefore cannot be erased.

[edit] Midrash about challah?

What is the source for the midrash about Eve's hair? My understanding is that challah postdates most classic midrash by several centuries. Flourdustedhazzn

[edit] Picture

I am curious why the image to the right was removed? I would like to repost it. Mgarten 20:58, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Also called egg bread?

Should egg bread redirect here? 69.143.26.71 06:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why was the external link to the Virtual Challah Lessons deleted?

It's a popular tutorial about all the aspects of making challah, on a non-commercial site, was listed as an external link. It has been used to help many people - and a number of groups - learn to bake challah.

Please explain.