Arriving by bus in Kiryat Moshe, it‘s a short walk in this very Jerusalem neighborhood, lined with apartments and the occasional makolet (mini-market). We soon found ourselves on a little lane with homes that were deceptively small on the outside.
The surprisingly spacious, warmly decorated interior of Talmudic scholar, popular public speaker, registered tour guide, and specialty chef Rabbi Josh Weisberg’s home is where the magic happens.
We are seated at the typically sumptuous table (typical in that in the Weisberg home, the Shabbat Queen is treated like royalty not only on Shabbat but also during the week; more about that shortly), where they teach all types of people – Jewish and not – about Shabbat.
There is a real feeling of being in the home of people who live what they preach. It’s a family operation – and as Josh and his wife, Chana Jenny, stress, “It’s a calling.”
Chef Rabbi Josh recalls: “Thirty years ago, we started just doing what we do: hosting guests for Shabbat meals. We would welcome guests over for Friday night dinner from every corner of the world. We used to have all these people who would just come to dinner – we didn’t even know them.”
Then, 11 years ago, the family moved to Kiryat Moshe, where there weren’t many students or tourists who dropped in for Shabbat, but “tour operators started sending us groups.”
They didn’t want to host for money at first, he says, and were happy to continue serving up Shabbat gratis.“But we learned that, though people might enjoy a discount, fundamentally companies and people in general want to pay for services – so that they feel they can rely on them,” shares Rabbi Josh. “And we also realized that taking money for what we do enables us to host as frequently as we do and on such a large scale. “And so, for the last five or six years, we have been hosting as a business.”
IN ADDITION to Shabbat meals – paid for and prepared in advance, of course – the Weisbergs offer Shabbat-like meals during the week for anyone interested in an immersive Jewish culinary spiritual experience.
The family hosts paying guests on Shabbat for three weeks every month, as well as weekday home hospitality groups all month long.
“Like our Shabbat meals, weekday events also provide a rare opportunity to enter someone’s home and share in their experience and personal story. Usually, guests who come to us have tons of questions about Judaism and Israel, so there is lots to talk about,” Rabbi Josh says.
Torah, Judaism, and an elaborate dinner, all during the workweek? In Jerusalem editor Erica Schachne was in – booking to taste and share the experience with her family and friends, who hailed from locations as diverse as Finland, London, Montreal, Phoenix, and New York City.
Who is Chef Josh?
Chef Josh, as he is known – or Rabbi Josh, or Chef Rabbi Josh – is an Orthodox rabbi. He first came to Israel in 1991 to volunteer at a secular kibbutz for a year, then attended Yeshivat Or Etzion, near Ashkelon. By 1996, he had officially made aliyah.
Brought up Reform in Canada, he says his time on kibbutz was an “incredible experience.” He “identified with the country with such deep roots and powerful identity and wanted to understand much more.”
Josh Weisberg was born to a Jewish father. His mother, a Catholic, brought the children up as Jews with a purpose.“My Catholic mother was the one who decided to raise us Jewish, although she never converted. She always said, ‘My people took so many Jewish children; I wanted to give a few back.’”
After studying in yeshiva for a time, he became aware of the need to go through an Orthodox conversion in order to confirm his Jewish status. However, “I consider myself much more of a ba’al teshuva [a Jew who becomes newly observant or returns to observance] than a ger [convert],” he states.
Known for his public speaking ability, Rabbi Josh is also quite the storyteller and shared with In Jerusalem a tale from his Shabbat table.
“A story that I often tell was about when I was hitchhiking from Zichron Ya’acov to Megiddo and the driver pointed out to me how, on the side of the road, various distinct layers of road that had been built on top of each other were visible – evidence that this same road had been in use for four millennia. He took me through the history of Abraham, King Solomon, the Maccabees…
“Then the driver turned to me and said: ‘You are on a road that has many layers going back a long way. You are on that road. You are also on a road in life, and it is worth knowing the road you are on.’”
Chana Jenny Weisberg is the events and logistics coordinator for the family home hospitality business. Their busy household includes their eight children, who, she said, “like us, really enjoy meeting new people from all over” and “alternately help with the serving and pop in and out.”
She is also the creator of the popular blog JewishMom.com and author of two books, Expecting Miracles: Finding Meaning and Spirituality in Pregnancy Through Judaism (2005) and One Baby Step at a Time: Seven Secrets of Jewish Motherhood (2008), both published by Urim Publications.
Born in Baltimore, she began observing Shabbat and adopted an Orthodox lifestyle during a semester in Israel at age 19. She made aliyah in 1991, the year her future husband first came to Israel.
ONE WEEKDAY event is called “Introduction to Jewish holidays through traditional Jewish food,” which Chef Rabbi Josh said is popular among Christians wanting to learn “what the holidays they have read about in the Bible look like and taste like.”
He explained, “There is a growing movement among Christians to come to Israel as part of their embracing of what they call ‘the Jewish Jesus,’ realizing that their own religion is based on 1st-century Judaism and that they can learn a lot about themselves by learning about and encountering a living Judaism.”
He nevertheless stressed that, despite commonalities, Christianity and Judaism are not the same.
“It’s important to me not to fudge the differences between religions and pretend we are the same: We aren’t. And those differences are part of what people want to see and hear about.”
For the Weisbergs, “hosting tens of thousands of guests from across the globe, awakening them to the beauty of Jewish wisdom and traditions, is a thrilling privilege.”
Rabbi Josh said they feel especially indebted to “the American Christians who’ve maintained support of Israel and love for the Jewish people since Oct. 7, courageously defying the disturbing trend of rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment.”
Since the war, of course, it has been harder to visit Israel, so, being they can’t come, communities abroad have been inviting him to travel to them and “recreate the experience there,” he said. “People bring me to them, churches and synagogues, in Switzerland, Germany, Canada, and the United States.”
Asked by In Jerusalem how these communities knew about him, he responded, “They know who I am because they have all come to my house in Jerusalem, 20 to 30 people at a time. We have had very moving and engaging experiences.”
RABBI JOSH is currently on tour, visiting churches and communities around America, speaking about Judaism and Israel, and leading spiritual-culinary journeys that help fortify bonds with the Holy Land and the Jewish people in these turbulent times.
He told In Jerusalem in a phone interview that although he travels with his own knives and basic kitchen tools, he will either kasher (make kosher) the available pots or buy inexpensive new ones. “Generally, the places I go to have pots that can just be kashered, and the kashering process becomes part of the experience,” he said. Part of the meat consumed on his US tour, he said, “was ordered from a butcher in northern New York and delivered frozen.”
He had just finished four “very important and very interesting,” events in 10 days and was spending a weekend with “a Pentecostal Black church and teaching them and developing relationships with incredibly interesting people – totally off the Jewish radar, important allies.”
When in Prague, Zurich, and Lucerne, Rabbi Josh noted, he gives talks and meets with groups, such as Jesuit priests. He spends the evening with them, answering their questions and talking about Judaism. At Charles University in Prague, his experience was “more intellectual, less cultural,” he said.
“It’s positive for them to be allied with Jews – the more they know, the more they come to appreciate.”What exactly does he do? “I speak about Israel, I do a question and answer, a Shabbat dinner; I go on stage at a church and give a one- to two-hour-long Q&A.”
The questions, he said, are often related to classic antisemitic tropes, and he makes it his job to “clear up misunderstandings when they ask about the Palestinians. There are certain underlying narratives that we [as Jews] assume and others don’t understand.”
Addressing the Palestinian question, he also explains that the attitude of the Jews is: “We want to thrive, so let’s make some kind of a deal.” But, he asks, “How come every time you try to make a deal,” it doesn’t work? “What are you supposed to do? What would you do? What would you choose?”
He aims at clarification. “I’ve been a teacher for 30 years. I am a very clear, good public speaker – I do it well,” he admitted with a laugh.
The three points
The three points Rabbi Josh aims to get across about Israel are: “It is a refuge, it is an ancestral homeland, and it is a country trying to be normal among all the madness.”
Chef Josh said he chose to stay in Israel and go to yeshiva after his kibbutz experience because “I wanted to know in-depth learning, traditions, history, culture, literature, and I didn’t know anything; I felt so ignorant.”
Once, after giving a talk, he was approached by “a Hindu American woman” who told him that “the talk made her want to know more about her own religion.”
Chef Josh is currently booked for a simulated Passover Seder by a Catholic church near Dortmund, Germany. “They are very Christian,” he said. “They want to understand. Part of the Christian motivation is a new thing, a new Christian understanding that Jesus was authentically Jewish.” He is putting together the Seder using material from Israel’s 2nd-century rabbinic sources.
“The idea,” he explained, “is you sort of show them how Jewish the experience likely was for Jesus.”
Dinner lasts 1.5 to 2 hours; vegetarian and gluten-free menus are available upon request. For families and groups of up to 40 guests. Languages spoken: English, German, Hebrew. To reserve a four-course feast with Chef Josh and family in their Jerusalem home on any day of the week, contact: chefrabbijosh.com or [email protected].
