By Lydia Ettinger

We look at bread; we see sugar, eggs, and flour. We look at challah and we are transported back into our Bubby’s sweltering kitchen on Friday night, peeking into her stove, mesmerized by the rising bread. We see our ultimate comfort food. We see home.

Challah is a portable relic of Jewish tradition, stretching back hundreds of years. As an Ashkenazi tradition, challah comforted Eastern European Jews who lost everything to the Holocaust. In some cases, as Jews escaped Hitler, memorized recipes were all they had.

One does not need to grow up in a challah-making home to connect with the ritual. Before my mother, Upper West Sider Paulette Garbuz-Ettinger, started baking her own challahs, Breads Bakery on 63rd and Broadway was her go-to place. She started baking challahs for shabbat after a trip to Israel that spiritually connected her to the tradition. “The trip made me realize that my home was deprived of many – not only religious – but fun traditions.”

Those who grow up in challah-homes appreciate the memories associated with the bread, not just the baking.  A neighbor remembers, “My father was not a cook, but he was a feeder. He loved tearing up the challah and giving it to us every week, and I loved it when he got involved.”

She loves another involvement as well. Challah is not easily manipulated and does not come with a “one size fits all” recipe, she says. The best challah is one that is unique. “Even though I always try my best, the end result is always in God.”