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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Opening doors, building bridges

Taylor Bressler prepares the sauce for carrot tzimmes, a dish that will be served at the 65th annual Kosher Dinner at Temple Beth Shalom. A community outreach for the temple, the dinner will be held Sunday and is expected to draw about 2,000 people. (Holly Pickett / The Spokesman-Review)
Gina Ferrer Staff writer
Taylor Bressler prepares the sauce for carrot tzimmes, a dish that will be served at the 65th annual Kosher Dinner at Temple Beth Shalom. A community outreach for the temple, the dinner will be held Sunday and is expected to draw about 2,000 people. (Holly Pickett / The Spokesman-Review)

For more than 50 years, Dick Rubens has volunteered behind the scenes at the annual Kosher Dinner at Temple Beth Shalom.

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to carve all that brisket. Rubens is on the slicing team, and together it takes them six hours to slice enough meat to feed more than 2,000 diners every year.

Sunday is the 65th annual dinner prepared to exacting kosher standards. Each year the congregants prepare beef brisket, potato knishes, apricot kuchen and a host of other dishes, and invite the community into their temple for a taste of Jewish culture.

When he was a Boy Scout in the late 1930s, Rubens said, he got to visit other Scouts’ churches, to witness their rituals and understand their faiths. He sees the Kosher Dinner as an opportunity to build bridges between the area’s small Jewish population and the community.

“We want people to understand we’re not crazy, we’re not unusual, we’re just like them,” Rubens said.

And everyone understands the universal language of food.

Dan Glatt, youth minister at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, brings a group of teens to the dinner every year.

“They try things like pickled herring and find out they like them. I personally like the horseradish,” Glatt said.

The dinner may get the teens inside the temple door, but the real purpose is to learn more about Jewish traditions. Glatt said that Hebrew Scripture is an important element of the Catholic faith, and visiting the synagogue helps his students understand their own history.

According to Rubens, the dinner began as a small fundraiser for temple members only, and then the members started bringing friends. Eventually the crowd grew so large they added entertainment to keep diners happy while waiting in line. Now they take to-go orders for those who can’t wait.

Though some places around Spokane call themselves delicatessens, Rubens contends they’re not the real thing. But the food at the Kosher Dinner is an authentic Jewish experience.

“Once somebody tries it, boy, they want to come back,” he said.