I admit it. The Times hates us.

The New York Times steps up its attack on traditional religious values today, by publishing a photo of a purple matzoh ball (Thank God it's not on-line.) The anti-Israel communists who write for the food section, think that this obcenity is an appropriate dumpling for Rosh Hashana. Something about the holiday and fruit, they say (Do you notice how those liberal food-lovers manage to shoehorn the queers into everything?)

With their eyes gleaming with comtempt for our faith and history, they also repeat this shocking tale of (rachmana l'tzlon) changing tastes and traditions:

Matzo balls seem like a universal Jewish icon, but that wasn't true until the B. Manischewitz Company produced the first commercial matzo at the turn of the last century and then began promoting its matzo and, later, its matzo meal and matzo ball mix, said Jonathan D. Sarna, author of American Judaism: A History(Yale University Press, 2004).

Until then, matzo balls were strictly a Passover dish, and dumplings - called knoedel, also known as kneidlach in Yiddish or kleis in German - made with breadcrumbs, bread or flour, filled their role at others times of the year.

Manischewitz was in the business of finding ways of making people use their machine-made matzo products all year round, Dr. Sarna said.

This reminds me of the old wives tale about how our European ancestors never tasted potato kugel, because the main ingredient (Potatoes. Duh.) is a New World vegetable. As any propely educated Haredi will tell you that's nonsense. I mean, how could the sainted and holy Hasidic Rabbis of the 14th and 13th centuries have possibley helped couples conceive, and bestowed upon them blessings of health and prosperity if he had no potato kugel to offer them?