Jewish Food Festival Returns to Mequon’s Rotary Park

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The fourth annual Jewish Food Festival takes place Sunday, Aug. 14 and Monday, Aug. 15, from noon to 7 p.m. at Rotary Park, 4100 Highland Road, Mequon. Admission is free. The menu will feature favorites like matzah ball soup, and pastrami knish, a popular Jewish snack food in which a mixture of fillings is wrapped with delicate dough and baked or fried.

Attendees can also try deli sandwiches such as classic pastrami, corned beef or turkey, pulled beef on a pretzel bun, shawarma and falafel with pita bread. Menu items start at $4.50 for ala carte items. Sandwiches range from $7.50-$16.

Both evenings will feature dinner specials from 5-7 p.m. On Sunday, it’s classic Jewish cholent, a slow-cooked meat stew that has been served traditionally for Shabbat (the Jewish day of rest), along with potato kugel ($12). On Monday, the dinner special is the popular glazed beef ribs ($29).

Rabbi Moshe Luchins explains the origins of cholent. “Cooking during Shabbat is prohibited, so a pot with the assembled but uncooked ingredients was brought to the local baker before sunset on Fridays. The baker would put the pot with the cholent mixture in his oven, which was always kept fired, and families would come by to pick up their cooked cholent on Saturday mornings.”

Activities for children include a petting zoo, jugglers, clowns, stilt walkers and a magician. The Fun Zone, available on Sunday, will have activities for kids of all ages with unlimited access with a wristband ($4). There will also be live music, and the Milwaukee Flyers acrobat group will perform twice on Sunday.

The festival grew out of the “Taste of Kosher” tables that Luchins and his wife, Sheina, hosted at local grocery stores. Store customers loved the matzah ball soup, challah, kugel, and dessert items such as babka. They asked where they could purchase the food. The Luchins thought combining the Milwaukee festival tradition with the requests for traditional foods would make for a fun and delicious experience, and the Jewish Food Festival was born.

Last year’s Festival drew 5,000 people from throughout the greater Milwaukee area. A staff of 100 volunteers helped run the festival. “The Jewish Food Festival provides a great opportunity for folks to enjoy a nice day at the park, eat good food, and meet up with friends, family and neighbors,” shared Luchins.

The Jewish Food Festival is a program of the Peltz Center for Jewish Life, a division of Lubavitch of Wisconsin. The Center serves as a Jewish educational and spiritual lighthouse for Jewish families in the Mequon area. The Center offers educational, religious and social opportunities for all ages. Proceeds from the Jewish Food Festival will fund the community outreach programs of the Peltz Center for Jewish Life.

For more information and to view the menu, visit JewishFoodMequon.com.