Erna Meyer. How to Cook in Palestine.

“How to cook in Palestine? This question was addressed in a plethora of publications in the Yishuv of the 1930s. One of the most active participants in this debate was Dr. Erna Meyer. Herself an immigrant from Nazi Germany, she had been a well-known expert on the domestic economy and the rationalization of housework prior to her immigration. Her cookbook How to Cook in Palestine was published in 1936 in Tel Aviv on behalf of the WIZO. It appeared in German, Hebrew, and English. The three languages notwithstanding, its main target group was the newly immigrated women from Nazi Germany. The cookbook provides insights into the norms that women were supposed to follow in the allegedly private realm of housework and nutrition in pre-state Israel. In the book, Meyer argues that the newcomers from Germany should overcome their Diaspora-identity through a new way of cooking, thereby becoming entrenched in their new homeland, Palestine. She prompts her readers to acquaint themselves with "healthy Palestine cooking." This cuisine should be based on local food staples (e.g. eggplants and zucchini) instead of European cooking traditions. Meyer also makes it clear that the homemakers were no longer responsible solely for their own family but also for the Yishuv as a whole. In the struggle for supporting the developing national economy of the Yishuv, it was the responsibility of the homemaker to "vigorously strive to buy local products" (Tozeret Haaretz).” Viola Alianov-Rautenberg, Dwelling on the Domestic, the Familial, and the Lived-In. An Online Exhibition from the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies