Jewish-American patronage of Chinese restaurants

The Jewish-American patronage of Chinese restaurants became prominent in the 20th century, especially among Jewish New Yorkers. It has received attention as a paradoxical form of assimilation by embracing an unfamiliar cuisine.

Factors include the relative absence of dairy products compared to European cuisines, concern over German and Italian antisemitic regimes in the 1930s and the proximity of Jewish and Chinese immigrants to each other in New York City.

The American Jewish habit of eating at Chinese restaurants on Christmas is a common stereotype portrayed in film and television, but has a factual basis as the tradition may have arisen from the lack of other open restaurants on Christmas Day.

Historical background

According to Jennifer 8. Lee, producer of The Search for General Tso, at the turn of the 20th century in New York City, Jewish and Chinese immigrants were bound by proximity and otherness. They lived in close proximity to each other on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and were the two largest non-Christian immigrant groups. By 1910, there were nearly a million Americans of Eastern European Jewish ancestry living in New York City, where they constituted over one-fourth of the city’s population.

The first mention of American Jews eating Chinese food was in 1899 in The American Hebrew. An article in the magazine criticized the Jewish community for eating at non-kosher restaurants, particularly singling out Chinese food. In 1936, there were at least 18 Chinese tea gardens and restaurants open in heavily populated Jewish neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side, all of which located in close proximity to Ratner's, then the most famous Jewish dairy restaurant. Jews felt more comfortable at these restaurants than they did at the Italian or German eateries that were prevalent during this time period.

Reasons for appeal

In Lower Manhattan, immigrant eateries were usual operated to serve their own communities. Jews would open delis for other Jews, Italians ran restaurants primarily for other Italians, and Germans had many places that would serve only Germans. However, Chinese restaurant owners accepted Jews and other immigrant and ethnic groups as customers without precondition. In addition, unlike many Italian establishments in Lower Manhattan, Chinese restaurants usually lacked Christian iconography. The lack of antisemitism from Chinese-American restaurateurs gave Jews a sense of security, and the Chinese didn't look down on Jews as being less American like other immigrant groups did.

For the Jewish immigrants seeking to assimilate into American life, Chinese restaurants gave the illusion of adherence to Jewish dietary laws. According to these laws, Jews are forbidden from mixing milk and meat, which are traditionally excluded from Chinese dishes. However, the dishes were still treyf due to ample inclusion of pork and shellfish. According to Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, the process of cutting, chopping, and mincing, called ko p'eng (to cut and cook) in ancient Chinese texts, made foods like pork, shrimp, and lobster appear disguised and thus appear as safe treyf to Jews seeking to assimilate into American culture. For example, pork was hidden and wrapped in wontons that looked similar to Jewish kreplach (dumplings).

Ultimately this gave way to many US-born Jews rejecting kashrut altogether as "impractical and anachronistic". Breaking the rules of kashrut by eating Chinese food allowed the younger generation to assert their independence and further established a "cosmopolitan spirit".

Jews were also drawn to the restaurants' oriental 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.

Eating on Christmas

Before the emancipation of the Jews in Europe, Christmas was a dangerous holiday for Jews. It was a night of drunken violence and sometimes pogroms against the Jewish populations. Jews stayed at home for their safety. In America, Jews felt alienated but did not want to stay home.

The tradition of Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas dates to as early as 1935, when The New York Times reported a restaurant owner named Eng Shee Chuck brought chow mein on Christmas Day to the Jewish Children’s Home in Newark.

"Over the years, Jewish American 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."

Cultural significance

According to historians, eating Chinese food became a meaningful symbol of American Judaism and part of a ritualized celebration of immigration, education, family, community, and continuity.

Michael Tong of Shun Lee Palace talked about the issue in a 2003 interview with The New York Times:

Welcome to the conundrum that is Christmas New York style: while most restaurants close for the holiday, or in a few cases, stay open and serve a prix fixe meal laden with froufrou, thousands of diners, most of them Jewish, are faced with a dilemma. There's nothing to celebrate at home and no place to eat out, at least if they want a regular dinner. That leaves Chinese restaurants...

In popular culture

• The phenomenon was mentioned on television skits by Jewish comedians Alan King and Buddy Hackett and lampooned on Caesar's Hour by Sid Caesar
• Philip Roth jokes in Portnoy's Complaint that Chinese restauranteurs thought the Jews' Yiddish-infused English was the King's English
• During the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2010, Senator Lindsey Graham asked where Kagan had been the previous Christmas. Kagan replied, "You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant," which drew laughter and media coverage.

See also

• American Chinese cuisine
• History of the Jews in China
• History of the Jews in Taiwan
• Kaifeng Jews
• Jews and Christmas
• Nittel Nacht, Jewish observance on Christmas Eve

Further reading

• Plaut, Joshua Eli (2012). A Kosher Christmas: 'Tis the Season to Be Jewish. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-5381-8.