INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightMONARCH CAKE SHOPImage caption
Pearl Levine opened Monaco Cake Shop, Melbourne's first Jewish bakery, in
1931
Australia's largest Jewish community is found in Melbourne.Numbering 50,000, many are descendants of Holocaust
survivors and refugees from eastern Europe who settled here in the 1930s and 1940s, and they live mostly in the city's inner
south-east.There they built a gamut of institutions: synagogues, schools, retirement homes as well as kosher restaurants and butchers.The
area is also home to a number of Jewish bakeries famous for making the best bagels in town and drool-worthy cakes based on age-old Polish,
German and Hungarian recipes."The Jewish bakeries of Melbourne have strong traditions that hark back to homespun origins and offer a
culinary link to the places many had fled to make new lives," says Damien Green, an author and educator at King David, a Jewish day school
in Melbourne.The pioneersIn 1931, Pearl Lavine, a Jewish migrant from Poland, opened the Monaco Cake Shop in central Melbourne
There she sold sweets like kooglhoupf, a layer cake infused with chocolate, and rugelach, cream cheese pastries filled with honey and
nuts.In 1934, Mrs Lavine moved to bayside suburb St Kilda to cater to the influx of Jewish migrants settling there.Image copyrightIAN LLOYD
NEUBAUERImage caption
Old culinary traditions live on in today's rebranded Monarch Cake Shop
But people
came from all over the city to ogle at the colourful cakes displayed in the window of the rebranded Monarch Cake Shop.The concept was so
successful that three of her apprentices quit and opened their own cake shops on the same street
Mrs Lavine has died but her legacy lives on under the watchful eyes of Gideon Markham, a Polish Jew who bought Monarch Cake Shop in
1996."Our cheesecake is still based on a 100-year-old recipe Mrs Lavine brought from Poland and it's still baked fresh on the premises every
day using fermented quark cheese," he says.Mr Markham's daughter, Nikki Laski, says in a fast-changing world, the absence of change gives
Monarch its appeal.Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Melbourne's largest Jewish communities are found in the
city's inner south-east and bayside suburbs
"The young people in St Kilda have embraced this place because they feel they
live in a word without substance, where everything is a contrived idea that some marketing guru made up," she says
Nothing is manufactured."Bagel townAbout 20 minutes' walk from St Kilda, Carlisle St in the suburb of Balaclava is home to Glick's, a bakery
founded in 1960 by Holocaust survivor Mendel Glick."My father was the first one in Australia to revive the old eastern European recipe for
They were an instant crowd-pleaser and began replacing other bread items in homes and cafes," says his daughter, Penina Levitan.Mr Glick
also came up with the idea of selling piping hot challah - braided egg loaf used on ceremonial occasions like the Sabbath, Passover and
Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah)."When we first brought them out people would line up around the corner on Fridays," Ms Levitan says
Image copyrightPeter Haskin/The Australian Jewish NewsImage caption
Mendel Glick worked in his original bakery for
almost six decades
There are now three more Glick's bakeries in Melbourne and two in Sydney
Mendel Glick continued to work at the original Carlisle St store until his death in 2017
He was 94."All my father's family was murdered in the Holocaust and he felt because God spared him, he would do whatever he could to
succeed," Ms Levitan says."He had nine children and we don't even know how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren - probably more than
Even after we all pass away, people will still eat Glick's bagels."One block from Glick's, Haymisha Bakery was established in 1979 by Zalmy
Weisz, a son of Hungarian Holocaust survivor Flora Weisz.Haymisha sell bagels and challahs but their specialities are kosher biscuits and
cakes."My uncle Zalmy used to have a chocolate factory and a bakery," says store manager Hannah Fried.Image copyrightIAN LLOYD NEUBAUERImage
caption
The bakeries offer a link to old homespun traditions, local historians say
"One day he made an
experiment where he chocolate-coated horseshoe biscuits and it was a real hit
It's still one of our bestsellers"The next generationWhen Lichtenstein's Bakehouse opened across the road from Glick's in 2002, the
objective wasn't to offer the Jewish community something new."We started with kosher breads that no-one else had like country loaf that's
65% seeds, sourdough spelt bread and Turkish bread," says Moshe Lichtenstein.In 2006, Lichtenstein's became the first kosher bakery in
Australia to offer a gluten-free range."You can't really make gluten-free challah because you can't plaid the dough
The texture is too soft," he says
"So we do gluten-free rolls instead and gluten-free bagels
With the health food craze, it's become really popular."Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Carlisle St in
Balaclava is home to many Jewish bakeries and businesses
King David's Damien Green adds: "That these traditional baked goods
are in major supermarket chains shows the influence of Jewish bakers on the city itself and the widespread appeal of their craft."Mr Green
describes one of Melbourne's newest Jewish bakeries, Zeppelin Bakehouse in the affluent suburb Brighton, as "a fusion between older
traditions and modern artisan bakeries".Zeppelin Bakehouse is not a certified kosher business
But it draws heavily on the Jewish heritage of owner Terry Kallenbach, who sells challah on Fridays, Danish pastries with ricotta and the
kind of rye bread favoured by many in eastern Europe
"I didn't set out to open a Jewish bakery but I certainly feel lots of pride in the fact that our food and service has a basis in Jewish
