Baking a Difference One Loaf at a Time

 

Matzah is called the “bread of affliction.” Challah, of course, is its opposite – gloriously risen (and round at Rosh Hashanah) – a bread of celebration and Shabbat. For Eli Winkelman, those sweet, golden and sustaining loaves became a path to ease affliction. Ten years ago, as a college student in southern California, she co-founded Challah for Hunger – bringing people together to bake and sell challah, raising money and awareness for social justice causes. The organization has now grown to include 70 chapters on three continents. Each chapter donates 50% of its profits to a cause chosen collectively by the entire Challah for Hunger organization and the other half goes to a charity picked by the individual chapter.

 

Winkelman says Challah for Hunger, appropriately, came about very organically as she has always enjoyed baking. After arriving at Scripps College near Los Angeles, she felt restless and decided to expend some energy at the Hillel kitchen there. Having told her roommate that she was baking challah every week, Winkelman soon attracted fellow students who wanted to learn from her. As she says, “They returned week after week, reporting that their friends had eaten all of their challah.  So I saw that there was demand for this product that people enjoyed making, and I thought that we should jump on that opportunity and do some tzedekah work.”

 

That was late 2004, when few people were aware of the violence and atrocities in Darfur, Sudan. Winkelman says another student and a member of the Hillel student board, had learned about Darfur through a summer internship.  “So [she] had a cause and needed a way to support it, and the challah bakers and I had a program and were looking for a cause,” Winkleman says, “It was a perfect fit.” She adds that “Bill Clinton says to start from where you are. Challah for Hunger wasn’t some grand scheme or eureka moment.  I enjoy baking, so that’s what it was about at first.”

 

President Clinton famously mentioned Winkelman and Challah for Hunger in his book Giving: How each of us can change the world.

 

Now with 70 chapters, the organization is getting creative with its product. Winkelman says that while the most popular challah flavors are chocolate chip and cinnamon sugar, chapters have come up with varieties including garlic, rosemary, and pecan pie.  Winkelman adds that she wants to do “challah dough track and field day.  Like, toss the challah dough, or challah dough wrestling.”

 

You can hear more about Winkelman’s work to change the world, one loaf at a time, at FEDtalks, September 17th.