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Garlic of the
Jewish Diaspora
While obviously not a uniquely Jewish crop, garlic has long held an important place in our people’s hearts and stomachs. In fact, it’s mentioned right along with qishu’im as one of the foods our ancestors longed for in the desert.
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Shop our Diaspora Garlic Packs!
More About Garlic
Garlic has survived as a key component of Jewish foodways to this day, exerting its potent influence across the global diaspora and flavoring Jewish dishes for 2,000 years.
An indispensable ingredient in the Jewish kitchen, garlic was such a prominent feature of day-to-day life that Jews were often referred to as “garlic eaters” by everyone from rabbis in the Talmud, who considered it an essential component of the celebratory Shabbat meal, to medieval antisemites in Germany and Spain, where simply eating garlic could land someone in trouble with the Inquisition.
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Growing garlic from seed is extremely uncommon; mostly, garlic is grown by planting the previous season’s cloves, resulting in genetically identical clones. This means that the garlic grown by Jews in various diasporas may well be more or less the same as the garlic their ancestors were growing a hundred, two hundred, maybe even five hundred years earlier, or more!
The possibilities this opens for connecting to our individual diasporic heritages are profound. And the way that garlic grows and reproduces means that in one plot, you could plant—and maintain—varieties of garlic from across the Jewish diaspora, if only you can source the seed. Which is exactly what we did!
The Garlic of the Jewish Diaspora Project is an evolving effort to grow, gather, and share garlic varieties connected to the many places around the world where Jewish communities have historically lived and farmed. Of course, the selection of heirloom seed included in this garlic pack represents just a fraction of the Jewish Diaspora, and so far skews toward Ashkenazi cultivars. As the Project develops, we hope to expand this collection to include as many garlics as we can from across the full breadth of the Diaspora.
We are currently cultivating seven Garlic varieties:
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Greek Silverskin
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Russian Giant
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Polish White
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Vekan Czech
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Moroccan Creole
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Donasti Spain
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Ukrainian/Italian Rocambole
Do you grow a garlic cultivar from another place in the Jewish Diaspora? Do you have seed garlic, a family story, or a garlic-forward recipe we should know about?
We’d love to hear from you!
Garlic Recipes
Garlic has found its way into Jewish kitchens across the world, adding depth, warmth, sharpness, and flavor to dishes shaped by countless places and traditions. Thanks to our friends at the Jewish Food Society, we’ve gathered a collection of garlic-forward Jewish recipes from across the Diaspora.
Some are unmistakably centered on garlic, while others use it as one ingredient among many, woven into the everyday foods of Jewish communities around the world.
Garlic Resources
Written for those new to plants and herbalists alike, The Garlic Eaters by Naomi Spector introduces the field of Jewish Herbalism through a deep dive into Jewish relationships with the allium family, through Torah and Talmud, Jewish folk tales, poems and songs, traditional garlic remedies and recipes, and garlic amulets.
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Rooted in Jewish experiences of diaspora, The Garlic Eaters is a children’s story about what it’s like to find a new home, and how a special ingredient can make all the difference.
Garlic has long carried meaning in Jewish kitchens and folk traditions, whether tucked into pockets, hung on doors, or shared with neighbors. Author and illustrator Madison Safer weaves this history into a tale of imagination and tenderness, introducing young readers to the universal experience of starting over somewhere new—and finding, against all odds, a community to call your own.
This print is one of twelve featured in To Sow & To Reap: A 5786 Jewish Agricultural Calendar. Each hand-drawn illustration celebrates a different cultivated plant mentioned in Torah—from wheat and barley to figs and garlic—alongside the hands that tend them.
This series honors both the plants of our tradition and the human labor, care, and intimacy that is essential to the story of the Jewish people.