(JEWISH GROUP) Harlem's queen of Ethiopian Jewish cuisine knows that the histories of Jews and Africans are inseparable
In New York City, where apartments are crowded side-by-side and top-to-bottom like so many Jenga blocks, histories often overlap. I’m standing in front of a stately brownstone in Harlem that used to house Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, an eatery and jazz joint where Art Tatum used to play, and where Charlie Parker, Malcolm X, and Redd Foxx all worked in the 1940s.
Today, that very same space is home to Tsion Cafe, the only restaurant in New York City serving Ethiopian Jewish food. I have an appointment to cook with the restaurant’s owner, Beejhy Barhany. Her work as a chef, writer, and organizer has taught Americans that the stories of Africans and Jews have done more than coincide over time. They’re inseparable.
I knock on the door of the garden unit, and Barhany answers the door. She wears a dark gingham hoodie over a black T-shirt with a golden decal of Africa. The restaurant is narrow and deep, its dimly lit walls painted orange and lined with colorful art. Barhany smiles and holds out her hand. “Beejhy,” she says, pronouncing her name like the letters “b” and j.”
Barhany grew up in Ethiopia in the Beta Israel community, a group of Jews that has lived there since ancient times, and numbers around 168,000 in Israel and 2,500 in the United States. In 1980, when Barhany was a child, she and her family left for Sudan on foot in the middle of the night, fleeing political violence. Two years later, they were smuggled into Israel, where Barhany spent much of her childhood.
“Gursha,” the title of Barhany’s book, refers to feeding another diner from one’s own hand. Photo by Sam Lin-Sommer
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I know the title of her book from an episode of "The Simpsons"! LOL!