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Despite what (Ashkenazi) tradition says, not everyone eats dairy on Shavuot

JL;DR SUMMARY Shavuot is traditionally associated with dairy foods, especially among Ashkenazi Jews. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

AshkenaziSephardiJewish Culinary TraditionsCultural DiversityShavuotRuthBeta IsraelMizrahiDairyBene Israel

Places mentioned

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
"A shofar is blown at a Mumbai synagogue."
India
"When Sephardic families arrived in present-day Kerala after their expulsion from Spain, these practices helped them identify the Bene Israel as Jewish."
Brooklyn, New York, United States
"Jesse VanDusen is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer whose work has been published in Village Voice and various small fiction presses."
Maharashtra, India
"When people ask about Bene Israel food, and they say, So, is it really Maharashtrian food? said Joseph, referring to the Indian state where the Bene Israels ancestral home is located today."
Ethiopia
"To escape persecution in Ethiopia in the early 1980s, Beejhy Barhany, Ethiopian-born founder and executive chef of the Harlem cultural hub and event-space Tsion Caf, immigrated to a kibbutz in Israel, where she immersed herself in the tradition of bikkurim, or festival of the first fruits."

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Cairo Item ID 82745
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2026-05-22 05:31:07 UTC
Curated 2026-05-22 08:31:08 UTC