High Holiday Memories and Honey Cake
By Marcie Stern Baker
For many in South Carolina, fall began with the first University of South Carolina football game. For me, it was Rosh Hashanah that signaled the beginning of the new season. I always loved the arrival of cooler weather that coincided with the Jewish New Year. School had just started, so the two days of Rosh Hashanah meant my non-Jewish friends were envious of my being able to miss two whole days of school so early in the year.
Before Rosh Hashanah, we would always go shopping to get a new “synagogue” outfit for services. (Moses, Abraham, Sarah and Rachel may have worn shmatas while crossing the desert, but shmatas would not do for high holiday services at Beth Shalom Synagogue.) While a new outfit was certainly not required by Jewish law, my friends and I agreed it seemed like an important part of the holiday ritual.
The high holidays of my early childhood through my teen years were spent at the synagogue on Marion Street which was known then as The House of Peace. This is where I was Bat Mitzvahed. It was a large red brick building with what felt like hundreds of steps leading up to the entrance. I remember the feeling of entering the massive wood doors of the synagogue. Once inside, you could either walk straight into the synagogue’s main sanctuary or upstairs to the balcony. In the years before my bat mitzvah, the balcony was the perfect place for my girlfriends and me to watch the boys we had crushes on who were sitting in the main sanctuary. Downstairs was a kitchen and a social hall, as well the bathrooms which seemed to overflow every holiday.
Image courtesy Russell Maxey Photograph Collection, Richland Library
One of my most vivid and fond memories of the high holidays took place outside of the sanctuary. The front walk of the synagogue was lined with heavy iron railings. My friends and I would gather at these railings to visit, and since we all went to different schools, this was prime time to catch up on what was going on in everyone’s lives. A lot of important information was disseminated while leaning on those railings!
Once services were over, we would return home for our traditional Rosh Hashanah lunch. I can still remember how it smelled entering the house. My mother’s brisket sliced thin with roast potatoes that had turned golden brown in the gravy, both of which we dipped in Duke’s mayonnaise. (Duke’s is the best and only mayo, no matter what you Hellman’s fans say.) We had apples dipped in honey and a lokshen kugel made with noodles, raisins, and nuts. Of course, no high holiday meal would be complete without the two-layer red and green Jello mold with fruit! For dessert my mother made her legendary honey cake which she always worried was either baked too long or not long enough. (As a side note, because we are good Southern Jews, we have added hoppin' john to our Rosh Hashanah menu.)
While my parents are no longer with us, my sister Beryle and I do our best to carry on the traditions of our childhood. Our hope is that our children will never forget how special the high holidays are — not just as a time for prayer, but also as a time to gather with family and recognize how very fortunate we are to have each other.
Honey Cake
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
Dash cinnamon
2 cups strong coffee
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup honey
½ cup oil
½ cup raisins
½ chopped nuts (almonds or any other)
Sift together dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients together. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Bake in Bundt pan at 350 degrees for one hour
Bat Mitzvah Girls 1967 House of Peace Top row left to right: Marlene Breger, Marcie Stern Baker, Marsha Bluestein, Debbie Levine Smith, Janis Nadel Levine Bottom row left to right: Bonnie Rosen Nurick, Debbie Seidenberg Gardner, Zandra Levy Carey, Lyssa Kligman Harvey, Lolly Kohn Fox