Sarah Sassoon is the author of the new children's picture book This Is Not a Cholent. Her other books include Shoham's Bangle. She lives in Jerusalem.
Q: What inspired you to write This Is Not a Cholent?
A: My own Nana Aziza used to make T’bit every Saturday, as a traditional Iraqi Jewish stew for Shabbat lunch. Growing up in Sydney, Australia, with Jews who mainly come from Europe, this was a strange and unknown dish.
I wondered what would have happened if I had introduced T’bit in a cholent competition, as an alternative Shabbat lunch stew, and Amira and her story was born.
Q: What do you think Viviana Garofoli’s illustrations add to the story?
A: I think Viviana did such a beautiful job creating colorful, fun pictures that introduce us to a spunky Amira, and a vibrant Australian community. Her vision brings the t’bit stew and Amira’s emotions and relief at the end to life.
Q: Can you describe your relationship with your grandmother?
A: I absolutely loved my grandmother. She was the consistent, unconditional love I needed growing up.
She didn’t speak English properly because she was a Jewish refugee from Iraq to Israel in 1951. So I used to have a hard time understanding her mix of Judeo-Arabic, Hebrew, and Pidgin English, but her hands which massaged me, and cooked, were a whole other language.
I write about her through the traditional Iraqi Jewish food she fed me as a child. I connect to her now more than ever as I research the Iraq she came from that used to have a vibrant Jewish community, which doesn’t exist anymore.
Q: What do you think the book says about family legacies?
A: This book emphasizes how important family legacy is. Even if you have to leave a place like my family had to leave Iraq, where Jews lived for 2,600 years, you still take it with you, and it remains a part of your family tradition, through food, music, culture, and it’s your own unique love language that connects you across generations.
When Amira makes the t’bit she is holding the hands of her grandmother and all her foremothers before. It’s very powerful and holding for a child to know that they are part of a chain of loving ancestors.
It teaches a child resilience and strength to be who they are in the world. That they are not alone. It gives Amira the strength to present a new type of stew in the competition, even if everyone thinks it is strange and “not a cholent.”
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on a variety of projects. The main one is a middle grade, verse novel about a young Iraqi Jewish girl’s life in Iraq, and the traumatic uprooting her family experiences. It’s based on my own family story.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Just that I so appreciate the chance to speak about This is Not a Cholent. I feel it’s a real celebration not only of Iraqi Jewish food and tradition, and intergenerational connection, but it’s also a tribute to the open hearted, multicultural society I grew up in Sydney, Australia.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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