Amid the smells of cooked meats, the hum of conversation and the unique coo of a clarinet wailing over drums and bass, a stern call cut across the downtown River Market Pavilion in Little Rock on Sunday.
The horn blew for 15 seconds, eliciting smiles and applause from passersby, but it eventually ended with a curt signature that left Rabbi David Lipper a bit winded and a bit red in the face.
Lipper, interim rabbi at Little Rock’s Congregation B’Nai Israel, was blowing on a spiraled ram’s horn, a shofar, a sacred horn used to usher in the Jewish new year of Rosh Hashana.
As part of the Jewish Food Festival’s informational outreach booth, the horn wasjust one religious artifact that drew a lot of questions from the event’s many guests.
Lipper was joined by Rabbi Kalman Winnick of the Congregation Agudath Achim, and together, the two were part of an expansive display of Jewish culture and tradition.
“A lot of people have questions about things they’ve heard, about the Torah scroll, translations,” Lipper said. “It was amazing to me, I’ve been in larger [Jewish] communities that don’t get half of [a crowd] as they get in Little Rock.”
The event, the sixth-annual festival put on by the Jewish Federation of Arkansas, offered a smorgasbord of Jewish staples, including latkes (Yiddish for pancake), blintzes (cheese-filled, crepe-like pastries), falafel, corn beef deli and bagels with lox spread.
But as organizer Scott Levine pointed out, the festival, which drew more than 12,000 people last year, isn’t merely a gourmand undertaking.
“The purpose and the message, it’s about community outreach,” Levine said. “There are plenty of people who don’t know Jewish people … it gives us an opportunity to share our food and our culture.”
As Levine pointed out, the Jewish community in Arkansas dates back to the state’s foundation.
“We have a strong history here, a steady generational flow,” Levine said.
With 1,200 to 1,400 Jewish families in the state, Levine sees the array of Jewish artists, craftsmen and musicians who volunteered for the event opening their community to the state.
For Ruth Rogers, the free festival was another window into a history intertwined with her own faith.
A member of the First Assembly of God in Pine Bluff, Rogers, 70, has been to Israel four times. Talking translations with Lipper at the informational booth is an opportunity to learn not just about Judaism, but her own faith.
“It makes me feel alive,” Rogers said.
The day-long event, put on by hundreds of volunteers and sponsored by several area businesses, featured eight musical performers as well as potters, painters and other artists.
Some of the proceeds from the event cover costs while others will go to charities, according to Levine, who said he expected the attendance at Sunday’s event would surpass 2012 numbers.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/29/2013