Chinese Food on Christmas | Jewish History on the Plate

WARNING: The sound quality in this video is terrible
Special Thanks to Rudi Weinberg

[SamAronow]

*CHANNEL UPDATES*

1. I'm currently working on my next book, so if I'm a little slow to put out videos, this is why. It has nothing to do with Jewish history, but if you liked my first book you'll probably like this one.
2. The WWI halftime recap, Pasadena recap, and viewer survey results are all coming out before the new year.

[rareword]

Yehudi, a European Jew, walks into a kosher restaurant in Brooklin. He is received by a Chinese waiter who speaks Yiddish with a slight Mandarin accent. Pleasantly surprised, Yehudi approaches the owner and asks him:
- How come your waiter speaks Yiddish?
And the boss replies in a low voice: “Don’t speak so loudly. He thinks it’s English!”

[Spearca]

Growing up, I learned "Jewish Christmas" = Chinese food + a movie. Everything else was closed.

[nathanseper]

As a Jewish person who is a proud connoisseur of Chinese food for the holidays, I was hoping you'd cover this topic. Happy Holidays, Sam!

[OldsReporter]

As a Chinese, I laughed when you two ordered the exact same thing. There has been recently a joke trending on Chinese internet platforms: Four Chinese men walk into a Chinese restaurant. They ordered four different dishes to create sort of a "mini buffet". Four white men walk into a Chinese restaurant. They ordered four Kung Pao Chicken.

Edit: for hygiene purposes, sharing food could still work by adding another set of chopsticks/spoon, used only to transfer food into your individual plates or bowls, but never touching your mouths. Then you eat with your individual chopsticks/spoons.

[Rudster]

Hey thats me! I had a great time meeting and filming with Sam!

[smorcrux]

Fulfilling this tradition and looking for Chinese restaurants in tel aviv made me realize that unlike almost any other country, traditional Chinese food is far more popular than Chinese-American food: any other nationality usually has a far more popular American version of their food (for instance burritos, sushi, hamburgers) which is all you can find restaurants of. But for some reason specifically for Chinese food outside of America it's far easier to find actual traditional Chinese food than all these famous Chinese American dishes that I'm sure people would enjoy if they had access to them. For instance in tel aviv there's tons of very famous places like taizu or málà that have pretty authentic Chinese food, but absolutely no American Chinese food.

[Alex.HFA]

Yesterday, we Israelis decided to celebrate Christmas by cooking and eating Chinese American food. Specifically, we have made General Tso's Chicken, which is not readily available in Chinese Restraurants in Israel.

10/10, would Christmas again. Happy Holidays from Haifa!

[jacksonevans]

It's a good day when Sam Aronow posts a video.

[tobybartels]

I appreciate this tradition. In my Christian family, we have a special Christmas breakfast but are otherwise too busy to cook, so we always get Chinese takeout on Christmas Eve and eat the leftovers on Christmas Day. (So for us, it's not important that the Chinese restaurants are open on Christmas, although they are.)

[perryawe]

Considering I ate Chinese last night because of this tradition (in Palm Beach County it can be hard to get Chinese on actual Christmas) and have been for my whole life, it's a great video to put out.

[olgakordonska]

The funniest thing in the world, a few hours ago I have told my Ukrainian Jewish father about the meme about American Jews, going to Chinese restaurant on Christmas, and here's you video 🤭😁

[Lawarch]

Gottlieb's Restaurant near the Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn serves some pretty good kosher lo mein, egg rolls, and sesame chicken

[michaelbettinger]

I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1950's. Christmas was always a big family day for Jews. All the adults were off from work, there were no businesses open except for Chinese restaurants. So Jews visited families on Christmas, and some went to the Chinese restaurants to eat

[Artur_M.]

Not long ago I discovered the channel of Michael Rubenfeld, a Jewish actor, playwright and activist, who moved from Canada to Poland. Recently he talked about this whole eating Chinese food (and watching movies) thing.

BTW I recommend your channel to him in a comment. 😉

[ayu-fqxm]

Damn this was a really fun video, also loved our friend rudy!

[shcfkde]

Just wait until we reach Two-gun Morris. (He is already featured in the video about Jewish history in China).

[jacobtracy]

I love your bit about "news flash! Not all of America is like New York!" Still eating Chinese but I only found out it was a thing in like 2012. Greetings from Kansas! Yes, Jews exist even here!

[jamessheridan]

Enough Chinese take-out to pick over throughout the day and a mountain of DVD's of films I missed throughout the year. Interspersed with lots of chocolate. Some of my happiest Christmases.

[dsmax]

Oh man I wish I ran into you yesterday when I was picking up my take out order from the other Buddha Bodai location. Thank you for the videos!