We’re continuing this week with more Jewish fiction, this time with Jean Meltzer’s Kissing Kosher, a delectable tale as sweet and rich as a loaf of babka.
In this romantic comedy, with similar vibes to Romeo and Juliet, there are two feuding families whose patriarchs started a bakery half a century ago, but what neither family agrees on is who wronged who.
Caught in the middle is Avital Cohen, granddaughter to Chayim Cohen, founder and owner of Best Babka in Brooklyn, an artisan kosher bakery who is a social media sensation for its pumpkin spiced babka. With the growth their new online popularity is creating, they’re in desperate need for more help around the store. What she doesn’t anticipate when her next interviewee arrives is a dashing man who looks like he’s straight out of a GQ photoshoot.
Ethan Lippman is interviewing incognito because his grandfather—Moshe Lippman—is determined to sink his rival’s bakery once and for all. Even though in the last fifty years, he’s built a baked goods empire, his yellow and blue boxes filing Jewish homes across the nation, Moshe will never be satisfied until he sees Chayim suffer. That’s where his handsome grandson, Ethan, comes in: as his undercover agent for corporate espionage. His mission? Steal the pumpkin spice babka recipe. When he meets Avital, though, he begins to doubt his intentions.
Soon, the two are caught up in a web of their families’ drama, and as they try to sort out the truth from the lies, they find they’re not so different after all. Things heat up in the kitchen, and it’s not just the ovens in this hilarious but apt story about forgiveness, healing, and finding oneself.
Though the main plot of this book is about their grandfather’s rivalry, and their forbidden romance, there are two aspects about Avital and Ethan’s characters I so appreciated, which gave them a depth not often found.
Avital struggles with chronic illness and constant pain. Most of how Ethan romances her is by giving her the love and affection and care she’s long denied herself by trying to manage her symptoms all on her own. It is his tender care and consideration for her well-being as much as his friendship which begin to tear down Avital’s walls allowing her to recognize her worth again, that her pain does not define her, that she is more than her illness. As someone who has a sibling and a husband both with chronic illnesses, I appreciated seeing someone talk about the struggles and exhaustion that come with those conditions.
For Ethan, he has struggles, too, but most are internal battles he has with his grief and shame as well as the psychological torment he has endured from his grandfather, too. There was a moment at the beginning I feared I would have to stop reading because it was so triggering for me, having endured similar manipulation and abuse from others. Thankfully, Ethan spends so much time with Avital, it wasn’t ever an issue, and quickly learns to stand up to his grandfather when he finds love and acceptance not just from Avital, but the entire Greatest Babka family.
Oh, and of course, though this might go without saying—I adored how unapologetically Jewish this entire story is. It was like all the Jewish humour of a Mel Brooks film wrapped up with the coziness and poignancy of a Nora Ephron romcom. I loved every bit of it, even the bizarre pot growing and smoking Rabbi Jason.
There is so much warmth and soul to this story, I highly recommend that you read it with a box of tissues and a generous pile of baked goods. Check it out today and let me know what you think in the comments below!
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Preparing amidst Blessing
Rabellah & the Carpenter: a Myth of Ada’mah
One Day
Won’t Look Back
