food & dining
GRADUATE GREETINGS
Jacob, All the Best on
your next plateau.

From your Philly Mishpacha,
Libby, Temmy, Alan, Danielle & Roy
Congratulations Amanda,
We wish you all the best in this
next chapter of your life.

Love you!
Mommom, Poppop, & Justin
18 JUNE 30, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Fish Bake
Summer Dinner
KERI WHITE | SPECIAL TO THE JE
M y sister made this for a crowd at the beach
last weekend. It showcased the local fi sh, was
simple to prepare and was enjoyed by all.

One great benefi t of the dish is that it can be done a
bit ahead of time. I would not do it at 8 a.m. to serve
for dinner — the fi sh could begin to break down
if it is coated with the lemon/garlic mixture for a
long spell — but Sis put it together around 2 p.m.,
chucked it in the fridge and headed to the beach for
a few hours.

Th e lemon/garlic/salt/pepper combo is acceptable
to even the pickiest palates and, accompanied by a
summery salad and a loaf of bread, dinner was done!
If you want more items on the table, serve rice or
quinoa tossed with some fresh summer herbs, your
favorite slaw or a couscous or tabouli salad.

We kept dessert super-simple — a selection of
ice creams for people to scoop and serve as desired.

Ice cream sandwiches or pops are even better — no
spoons or bowls to clean. If you want something
more elaborate, lean toward fruit or chocolate and
away from custards or puddings to optimize the
contrast and complement rather than compete with
the fi sh main course.

Fish Bake
Serves 4
We used fl ounder for this, layered into a casse-
role, but any white fi sh would be fi ne — haddock,
tilapia, cod, sole, et cetera. The key is to layer
it up so that you sort of cut squares to serve —
almost like lasagna. It is easily multiplied for a
crowd; we served 12 and used a large rectangular
baking dish to cook it, but the recipe here is for
a more normal-sized group. A loaf pan or square
baking pan would work best for this version.

The panko gives the dish some additional tex-
ture and heft, as well as a nice crispy topping, but
if you are cutting carbs or are allergic to gluten
you can skip it.

Another pro tip: Double the butter mixture and
serve it on the table with crusty bread, or save it
to stir into pasta or rice tomorrow.

1½ pounds fresh white fi sh such as fl ounder or
haddock ½ stick butter, softened
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 lemon, juice and zest
½ teaspoon salt
Summer salad
Photo by Keri White
½ teaspoon pepper
⅔ cup panko
Fresh parsley and/or dill to garnish
Heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, mix the softened butter with
the garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice and zest.

Pat the fi sh dry. Coat a square 8-inch-by-8-inch
baking pan or loaf pan with nonstick spray. Place
a layer of fi sh in the pan. Spread it lightly with the
butter mixture, and then sprinkle it with panko.

Continue this until all the fi sh and butter are used
up. Top it with a layer of panko.

Bake for 30-40 minutes (depending on how
thick your fi sh is) until done — it should cut/fl ake
easily and be opaque throughout, and the panko
crumbs should be toasted. When you are ready
to serve, top the fi sh with chopped fresh parsley
and/or dill, if desired.

Summer Salad
Serves 4
The fi sh dish above is delicious but a little mono-
chromatic. This colorful salad will jazz up your
table visually and tastily. The beer vinegar was a
unique and fl avorful addition to the dressing — a
random item that came in a gourmet gift basket
that I had lying around. If you don’t have it, just
use malt, cider or sherry vinegar instead.

6 cups arugula or other baby lettuce, such as
spring mix
1 raw beet, peeled and sliced thinly with a
vegetable peeler (It should look like
fl ower petals.)
1 ear of corn (raw or cooked), kernels sliced off
1 scallion, sliced, or a few tablespoons chopped
red or sweet onion
1 tablespoon beer vinegar
¼ teaspoon salt
Generous sprinkle of fresh-cracked pepper
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
3 tablespoons olive oil
In a large salad bowl, mix all the vegetables.

Right before serving, sprinkle the dressing ingre-
dients over the salad, toss and serve. JE



arts & culture
Philadelphia-based FilmShul Pays Homage
to Jewish Hollywood
G SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
rowing up, Irv Slifkin seldom
watched a movie with his family
uninterrupted. His mother would kvell whenever she saw a Jewish
star on the silver screen, giving her son a nudge and
pointing out the actor.

“I walked out of the theater loving the movie but
really hurting from my ribs being elbowed by her,”
Slifkin said.

Slifkin’s mother passed down the generational pride
in Jewish presence in arts and culture to her son and,
a few decades later, Slifkin is doing the same for hun-
dreds of other Jews across the country.

In 2021, the Philadelphia native and Cherry Hill,
New Jersey, resident teamed up with longtime col-
league Laurence Lerman, a Jersey City, New Jersey,
resident, to create FilmShul, an interactive series of
presentations of Jewish film and film history.

Through FilmShul, the 50-something-year-old duo
provides 13 Zoom-friendly courses to synagogues,
JCCs, libraries and other Jewish organizations. The
courses span topics from Jewish beginnings in the film
industry to the Coen brothers to the Hollywood black-
list of the 1950s and ’60s.

Slifkin and Lerman have about 60 years of combined
experience in the industry, making them more than
just avid fans of Jewish American cinema.

Lerman “always had a film bug,” but jump-started his
career in the industry during his time at Muhlenberg
College in Allentown. He would go to the various rep
houses — repertory cinema theaters to watch older
films — and read any supplemental materials he could
get his hands on.

After studying philosophy and communica-
tions in school, he worked in distribution for Kino
International, a large, European-based independent
film distributor, at the dawn of the “Miramax era,”
when VHS tapes were flying off store shelves.

He honed his skills as a writer working for Variety
magazine for 15 years before starting an independent
review site and writing press notes for independent
production companies for the past decade.

“I threw it all at being a follower, a student of
cinema,” Lerman said.

While Lerman poured over films at Muhlenberg,
Slifkin did the same at Temple University, where he
studied film and philosophy, writing for the school
paper. He’s now an instructor at the university’s jour-
nalism department, teaching on how to review film;
he wrote the books “Filmadelphia: A Celebration of a
City’s Movies” and “VideoHound’s Groovy Movies:
Far-Out Films of the Psychedelic Era.”
Slifkin crossed paths with Lerman at Movies
Unlimited, a Philadelphia movie rental store, in the
1990s. Lerman was working distribution for a perform-
ing arts company, and Movies Unlimited, where Slifkin
worked, was one of their biggest clients. The two con-
ducted business over the phone, realizing their mutual
love of film and becoming friends.

In the years before the pandemic, Slifkin took up
speaking gigs at Golden Slipper Gems and the Katz
JCC, giving lectures on film. When the pandemic hit,
Slifkin gave Zoom presentations and, by late 2020,
Lerman had joined his friend. The two began designing
a slate of 60-90 minute lectures.

The online format of the class gave FilmShul many
unlikely opportunities, including giving lectures to
audiences on the West Coast and Canada. Early this
month, Lerman and Slifkin did a presentation to a con-
sortium of 10 synagogues and a couple hundred people
all over the country.

The rise of Jewish giants in the film industry tugs at
the heartstrings of many Jewish Americans, particu-
larly Ashkenazi Jews, making film history an engaging
topic to FilmShul’s audiences, Lerman said.

The film industry of the early 20th century was
composed primarily of Jewish immigrants fleeing their
home countries.

“They weren’t looking for a better way of life,”
Lerman said. “They were looking to have a life.”
Many fled pogroms in Eastern and Central Europe
to America during the emergence of early film tech-
nology. Immigrants worked at nickelodeons, theaters
where film viewings cost a nickel, and eventually began
producing their own films.

In the 1950s, many Jews in the industry were victims
of Hollywood blacklisting and were refused employ-
ment, accused of being affiliated or sympathizing with
the Communist party. Nevertheless, Jewish filmmak-
ers such as Mel Brooks and Stanley Kubrick survived
and advanced during the era.

Though educational, film media is an homage to Jewish
roots and values; it’s both nostalgic and motivational.

“I look at it as a combination of ambition and
chutzpah and pride, wanting to take care of their
families and wanting to assimilate to this new world
where this technology was happening,” Lerman said.

“We were the ones that were doing this. It was a
purely American wave of new media.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Congratulations
Jenna, We are so very
proud of you.

Off to University
of Indiana Kelly
School if Business!
Our love,
Mom Mom, Pop Pop, and Nanny
With great pride,
Bobbie and Joe Ralis
announce the graduations of
our grandchildren
Nicole, Tara,
& Shane Weitz
Nicole received her Doctor of
Osteopathic Medicine from PCOM
5/23/2022 Tara received her Juris Doctorate
(cum laude) from Widener
Law School 5/20/2022
Shane is a 2021 graduate of
St. Joe’s where he received a
Bachelor of Science and
Business degree
The devoted and grateful parents are:
Carolyn and Bruce Weitz of Philadelphia
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 19