Stories
How we got our name…
The legend of Moishe’s Bagel is as old as the story of bread itself. Or as hidden as the history of music. Or both.
Because of this, the exact details of Moishe and the Bagel (and how they are connected) are somewhat hazy. But most stories agree on at least two things: Moishe was either poor, a musician, or both. And the bagel of the tale is not just a piece of dough, but more often a symbol of love, food, or life itself. Or all three.
Here are some of the versions of the story of Moishe’s Bagel that have been handed down to us over the years…
Wedding day at Poldansk
In the small shtetl of Poldansk lived Rahel. Rahel was the most beautiful girl in the village, and she was also the daughter of Yasha, the (comparatively) wealthiest man for miles around. In Poldansk also lived Moishe, and Moishe and Rahel were deeply in love. Unfortunately, Moishe was a poor fiddler, and no match for the shtetl’s most illustrious debutante. Against the odds, the couple continued their clandestine relationship as best they could, snatching kisses under the cherry trees in springtime and secret caresses by the stream in summer. But (as they knew all along) Rahel’s father had other plans. One year, after a particularly successful harvest season, it was announced that Yasha had given Rahel’s hand in marriage to the neighbouring village’s most eligible bachelor, the notoriously bad-breathed Shlomo Schlotz. Rahel was horrified, but could never bring herself to go against her father’s wishes. And Moishe, unable to do anything to prevent the match, retreated to the rooftops where he consoled himself with his music…
Four weeks later, it was the day of Shlomo and Rahel’s wedding. The whole shtetl turned out to celebrate. The whole shtetl, that is, except Moishe, who had taken up residence on the rooftop of the village bakery, where that morning his friend D’vid the baker was rolling out long thin strips of dough. Each strip was rolled out to over twenty feet, whereupon it would be left out in the sun to partly dry, before being chopped into small sections, each section then carefully rounded over into a perfect bagel. From his vantage point on the roof, Moishe had a clear view of the wedding canopy set up in the village square, where at that moment Rahel was circling her groom seven times to declare her devotion, while the klezmorim (minus their fiddler) played Eshes Chayil (or something similar). Enraged, passionate, and utterly helpless, Moishe was consumed by the need to do something, anything, so as not to lose the woman he loved. The nearest thing to hand was one of D’vid’s long strips of bagel dough. Not really thinking things through, Moishe picked up one of the strips and hurled it towards the chuppah, where Rahel was just about to start her seventh circle.
As the unfurled proto-bagel flew through the air, Rahel looked up. Her and Moishe’s eyes met, and in that glance the long strip of dough was transformed by the power of their love. It encircled Rahel like a coil and lifted her up off the ground, carrying her towards the baker’s roof. As it passed the roof the coiled bagel picked up Moishe as well, binding the two lovers in a cirle of unleavened love, untouchable from the outside, and unbreakable from within. The spiralling bagel lifted the couple high into the air and carried them west, towards an unknown future in a strange land, but doubtless a future they would face together…
Back on the ground, the startled family and friends were at a complete loss. The father of the (not any more) bride, angry and embarassed, signalled to the band to play something, and quickly, to calm the escalating chaos. As their repertoire didn’t include any special tunes to accompany the mysterious and magical disappearance of a bride, the band did what any self-respecting musicians would do: they made something up on the spot. And what came out was generally agreed, by all who were actually able to make it out above the noise, to have been one of the finest and most majestic horas ever heard. So much so that the band began to incorporate it into their regular set, where it gradually became known as “Poldansk wedding, or Rahel and the Bagel”.
The King’s Challenge
Once upon a time, there were only two types of bread: round bread and square bread. This was before the days of croissants, focaccia, pitta, oatcakes (even matzoh), and it was certainly before the days of bread with a hole in the middle. There were at this time things called bagels, but they were indistinguishable from all types of other round bread. In fact, they only became bagels once they were served with lox and cream cheese. And they definitely didn’t have a hole…
One day the King, a keen patron of all types of culinary invention, offered a challenge to the bakers in the royal district, and the challenge went thus: “Design me a bread which is as beautiful as the sunrise. If you succeed you shall have riches and ovens beyond your wildest dreams. If you fail I shall cut off your head with your own breadknife.”
The twelve royal bakers were at a loss: surely nothing could be as beautiful as the sunrise. Although they loved bread as they loved life itself, none of them had any illusions as to its aesthetic merit, certainly not compared to the lofty glory of the golden sky which greeted them every morning. However, the King’s challenge had been laid down, and they had no choice but to accept…
One week later, the day of reckoning had arrived. Just before dawn, the twelve royal bakers nervously lined up, ready to present their offerings to the notoriously fickle King. In their right hand they carried their baked creations, in their left they carried their breadknifes. The breads were wonderful: there were intricate bas-relief landscapes, fabulous bursting sunrises, and several strange and wondrous fantasy creations, but none seemed to please the royal eye. One by one, each baker would march up to the King, holding out both hands in front of him. Without fail, the King would look at the breaded sunrise in the baker’s right hand, shake his head, and point to the baker’s left hand, wherein lay the unhappy breadsmith’s destiny.
The final baker, on shpilkes by this point, was Moishe. Always held to be slightly different from all the other bakers, Moishe had kept his bread hidden while the other bakers were being despatched, and he now stepped up to the royal platform with trepidation. Slowly he extended both hands…
The King looked at what Moishe had brought, and began to laugh. “Is this a joke?” he said. “I offer a respectable challenge, and you bring me a roll?” “A bagel, sire”, corrected Moishe, indicating the lox and cream cheese filling. “A bagel, you say? A bagel? Why, it is not even complete! Look, you fool, you have left a large gap in the centre of your bread! Not only do you bring me an insult, but you fail to even bake it properly! Who ever heard of a bagel with a hole in the middle?”
Whereupon Moishe lifted up his bagel until the hole in the middle was level with the King’s left eye. As Moishe held the bagel steady, the early morning clouds parted to reveal the breaking dawn. And there, through the bagel’s newly-acquired hole, was clearly visible, more beautiful than it had ever appeared before, the sunrise, framed now by a bagel (and some lox and cream cheese).
The Biblical Mix-Up (courtesy of Larry Mindel)
1500 years before the first bottle of whisky was distilled, Moses (aka Moishe) was tending his flock of sheep in the hot hills outside of Cairo. Suddenly a nearby bush caught fire and a sonorous voice addressed him thus:”Moses, I am the Lord thy God and I have a mission for you. Go, my son, and deliver the people of Israel from slavery, from that brute Pharaoh. They will give the world that bread of life, the Great Bagel.”
Yea, and Moses went to the court of Pharaoh (who, it is little known, was pretty damn deaf). And Moses pleaded with him (verily) and said “Give my people dough”. But Pharaoh mis-heard this as “Let my people go”.
Thus, the Israelites were free, but the development of Jewish cuisine was put back 2000 years.
The Chazzan’s Legacy
In the early years of the twentieth century, Jews moved in huge numbers from East to West. Some ended up in Palestine, many went to America, and some landed in Bethnal Green. One of the latter was Moishe Skatzim, a young man with a fabulous voice and a lot of determination. Through hard work, supportive friends and a lot of chutzpah, within a few years Moishe had become one of the East End’s favourite cantors, and his fame began to spread. Soon he was performing at shuls up and down the country, from West Ham to West Didsbury, always drawing huge and adoring crowds. Adding elements of klezmer, comedy, and even jazz (his name, after all, was Skatzim), Moishe became something of a pop star on the synagogue circuit. Women would throw their shawls at him, and men would discreetly have the initials MS embroidered into their yarmulkes.
As well as a star, Moishe was a good man, and he wanted to give something back to the community which had helped him thrive. An orphan himself, Moishe felt a particular affinity with the orphans and urchins who peopled the East End, surviving as best they could from whatever they could beg or steal from their neighbourhood. So he took as many as he could under his wing: he clothed them, he fed them, he housed them, and he taught them everything he knew about music. Soon, Moishe’s orphans were singing and playing alongside their mentor at local weddings, bar mitzvahs and concerts.
Moishe, despite his kind nature, had two weaknesses: tobacco and women, and it was clear to all that sooner or later at least one of them would catch up with him. In this case it was the cigarettes, and in his forties Moishe developed nodules in his throat which within months had rendered his glorious voice all but useless. Unable to perform, Moishe began to lose all self-esteem (and not a little money, as well). Moishe’s orphans became increasingly worried about him, and decided that it was time they stepped in to help. Putting all their old hustling skills to work, they began to collect money and clothes for Moishe, just as he had done for them years before. But cash and clothing only go so far, so what they chiefly collected was food. And as the most generous people in the neighbourhood tended to be bakers, the food they mostly collected was bread, and in particular bagels: poppy seed bagels, sunflower seed bagels, garlic bagels, gefilte fish bagels, latke bagels, even special passover bagels (a bit flatter than the others). Moishe’s orphans were also keen to continue his artistic legacy, and so they began to perform up and down the country, spreading the musical message that Moishe Skatzim had begun, calling themselves “Moishe’s Bagels”.
Any the wiser? Please email us your versions of how we got our name…
