Yoel Blumberger: On the Role of Cheese in Israel

Yoel lives in Tel Aviv where he belongs to a group of cheesemakers who travel around the world, learning to make cheeses in the countries where they originated.

In the last few years, Yoel has generously contributed 8 articles to our blog.* This is the third of 3 articles which Yoel has tied together by a common theme – cheesemaking in Israel today. The first is about the group of cheesemakers mentioned above and it includes a recipe for Castelmagno – Yoel Blumberger: Cheesemaking Group in Israel and a Recipe for Castelmagno. The second article has a recipe for Camembert de Normandie AOP and an explanation of the flocculation point method for determining when the curds are ready (for the specific cheese being made) – Yoel Blumberger: Camembert de Normandie AOP and the Flocculation Point Method.

The Role of Cheese in Israel by Yoel Blumberger

Introduction with a tour:

The State of Israel is quite young. It was founded in 1948, but its history and that of its geographic region goes many years back.

A good and natural starting point is the biblical period. This period is well documented and intensively researched.

Obviously, there was life in this area before the biblical period and the extended area around it is the cradle of the three monotheistic religions but also of less important things like wine, honey and more.

Although this article is aimed at cheesemakers, I tried to expand a little beyond a simple dry review of cheeses and to provide a wider point of view, including connected aspects from other areas as well – history, religion, linguistics, psychology and others. Some of them are related and relevant to other places and people in the world.

What can we see on the right map? On the left (west) is the Mediterranean Sea whose shores are the western border of Israel (Jordan River is the eastern). The upper grey line marks the northern border, with Lebanon. On the bottom right is the northwestern part of Lake of Galilee, which connects you to the history of Christianity.

On this specific part of the lake’s shores is located Capernaum where Jesus may have owned a home, or just stayed in the house of one of his followers. He spent time teaching and healing there. The aerial distance between the lake and the sea is only 30 miles! (The maximum width of Israel is 68 miles, and the length is 270 miles.)

The map covers quite a small area. Dairies are marked by the red Google map pin and I counted 12 dairies. I marked two dairies, which I will refer to later. The one on the right is in the ancient town Safed.

A bit of history and religion – the cheese in Israel in the Biblical period and religious aspects:

The repeated description of the Land of Israel in the Bible is “a land flowing with milk and honey,” with emphasis on “flowing” so it contains a feel of abundance. The honey then was not bee honey; it was a kind of syrupy extract, from fruits. Cheese, unlike milk, is mentioned only once in the Bible.

The first yogurt-like cheeses were accidentally made by shepherds when sheep and goats were first domesticated. Goats, and to a lesser extent sheep, provided milk for part of the year. These animals (as, of course, the cow, which is now the main milk provider) are ritually clean because they “chew the cud” and have a completely split hoof so their milk was permitted to the Israelites.

Because the laws of kashrut forbade the Israelites from mixing milk with meat, they couldn’t use goatskins to handle the milk (hold and curdle), so they used clay jars for these purposes. Among the Bedouin tribes in Israel, there are still women who use dried animal stomachs as their butter churns. Several churns made of clay were found in archeological excavations.

Cheese was made by heating the milk over a fire and stirring it with a fig tree branch. The sap of the fig tree curdled the milk.

Some of the cheese was eaten fresh. It probably was quite like the Labane cheese that is made today and can be preserved without cooling in the form of small balls dipped in olive oil.

The rest of the cheese was left in the sun until it became dry and hard. This type of cheese resembles the Kishk or Jameed cheese being made in our region and has a strong, salty flavor. It could be stored indefinitely in this state and was reconstituted with boiling water and then eaten.

This cheese is a key ingredient in the Jordanian national dish – Mansaf. In Israel, it is called “yogurt stone” and chefs in prestigious restaurants are using it grated on salad. At the end of this article, you will find the Jameed recipe.

Most of the Israelis are non-religious like myself and my family and friends, who are my dairy “clients.” Therefore, I am not bound to the religious rules and sometimes use for cheese making a rennet of animal origin. All the cheeses that are manufactured in Israel are made using a synthetic rennet or rennet of vegetable origin.

A bit of linguistics – the origin of the word cheese in the Hebrew and Semitic languages, side discussion on noun’s gender and sweet and salty story:

It may sound strange, but the Hebrew language is a modern language. It is based on the biblical language, which has not been in use as a daily spoken language for thousands of years.

At the end of the 19th century, a revival started of the neglected Hebrew as a modern language and many words that were not mentioned in the bible were invented. Eliezer Ben Yehuda was the driving force of this revival (if interested, you can find some info regarding him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Ben-Yehuda.

So, we already know that the word milk appears in the bible several times. Cheese, G’vina in Hebrew, is mentioned only once in the Old Testament, “Have you not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?” – Job 10:10. It is not mentioned at all in the New Testament.

Most of the Hebrew words are derived from roots, which consist of 3 consonants and various vowels added to the root to differentiate the words. The same root is used for words that are in the same field.

For example, the root is G B N. Cheese is G‘vina (b and v are the same letter being differentiated by a point in the letter), curd is Geben and the cheese maker is Gaban. How cool and sophisticated!

Another milky product is ice cream, which is a modern product, so the Hebrew word for it was invented, and it is pronounced G’lida.

Here are a few names of the general kinds of cheeses in Hebrew: g’vi•na tze•hu•ba (yellow cheese, means semi hard or hard cheese); g’vi•na ra•ka (soft cheese); g’vi•na le•va•na (white cheese); g’vi•nat izim (goat cheese).

There are languages in which nouns carry gender (gendered languages) and Hebrew is one of them (like Italian, German and more). In Hebrew, the cheese’s gender is feminine (milk on the other hand is masculine).

In Italian (Italy, a superpower in cheese!), the gender of cheese is masculine. In 2003, the linguist Lera Borodizki published research, conducted with two fellow researchers. They claimed that the gender of the noun contributes to the speaker’s perception of it, what he feels regarding it and its characteristics.

One of the examples they provided is the word “bridge.” Die Brücke, in German, is feminine. In Spanish, the term is masculine: El Puente. When native speakers are asked to associate adjectives with the word, the results are startlingly different. German speakers attributed the word “bridge” the terms elegant, fragile, peaceful, and slender. Spanish speakers gave the following characteristics: strong, big, towering and sturdy to the same word.

The same goes with Hebrew speakers (bridge is masculine). It is an interesting question to ask a native English-speaking person which gender he prefers for cheese… Then to ask a cheesemaker….

While writing this article and after raising the question, it seems that I found a clue to the answer. I was reading the book Artisan Cheese Making at Home (Mary Karlin) and this is a quote from it: “Brin d’Amour is a famous soft, unpressed herb-encrusted cheese from Corsica. It’s a beauty, rolled in dried herbs, then decorated with peppercorns, juniper berries, and, sometimes, small red peppers. This lavishly embellished lady is typically made with sheep’s milk.” No doubt, the writer decided the cheese’s gender.

Hebrew belongs to the Semitic family of languages, so it resembles Arabic. For example, cheese in Arabic is G’ibne so it resembles our G’vina. During many years, this was the only type of cheese in Arab countries, so it serves also for the name of that specific cheese.

The very salty G’ibne is the main ingredient in a sweet pastry called K’nafe, which is one of the most popular pastries in Arab countries. The story tells about a cheesemaker who produces G’ibne and sells it to his close neighbor, who is the baker who uses the cheese to make his K’nafe. The cheese is so salty that the baker dips it inside water to remove the salt so his K’nafe will be sweet.

The baker asks the cheesemaker to produce a special batch of G’ibne for him without salt so he will not need to work for the removal of the salt. The cheesemaker refuses, telling his neighbor that he can make the cheese only one way – the way his father and grandfather and great-grandfather made it. This is to show you that, even in our region, cheese attaches strongly to its origins and tradition.

Cheese development after Israel’s foundation:

In the early years of the state, the food supply was limited and sales were rationed. A look at the daily allowance per person reveals interesting things. 200 grams (7 oz) of low-fat white cheese and 20 grams (0.7 oz) of margarine were allotted, meaning there was no butter, and cheese held a big part from the whole amount of daily food. Meat was limited to 75 grams (2.5 oz) per person per month!

After a few years, austerity was abolished and in the grocery stores, one could find two types of cheese – “white cheese” (non-spreadable low-fat white cheese) and “yellow cheese” (an unaged, medium quality hybrid of Gouda and Emmenthal that the shopkeeper would slice for you into thin slices).

Perhaps this is the place to point out that all dairy products in Israel, without exception, are made from pasteurized milk, according to strict law. Over the years, two things have happened:

First, the economic situation improved, and the people’s income increased, and the standard of living raised. People can afford quality food that is more expensive.

Second, the Israelis began to travel abroad. They were exposed to cheese and cheese culture.

These two led to the beginning of the import of foreign cheeses to Israel and an increase in the variety of cheeses and dairy products in general that the local dairies produced and marketed. A few decades ago, specialization of smaller entities in the field of food became a trend. This was strongly expressed in the two areas of wine production and cheese production.

Back in 1974, when many were still struggling to find a range in Israel that went far beyond the dichotomy of white or yellow, soft or hard cheese, Shay Seltzer established the Har Eitan Goat Farm. It was built in the Judean Mountains region, on land with a 6,000-year agricultural tradition.

Six years after establishing the farm, he also opened a dairy there. Seltzer was one of the few to produce cheeses using the traditional method that he studied in France – aging them in a cave, paying special attention and sensitivity to the goats’ diet, the climate and the seasons, with the whole of the ingredients being expressed in the final, complex and unusual taste of the cheese. He is considered the first artisanal cheesemaker in modern Israel.

After him, cheesemakers began to open small dairies that produced cheeses in the style of the most prestigious cheeses in Europe. Gradually they began to develop new cheeses.

A bit of psychology – abundance and multiplicity of choice, the use of images:

The phenomenon of over choice (multiplicity of choice) occurs when many equivalent choices are available. Deciding becomes overwhelming due to the many potential outcomes and risks that may result from making the wrong choice. Having too many approximately equally good options is mentally draining because each option must be weighed against alternatives to select the best one.

This is a general phenomenon shared by all “developed” countries. People are exposed to this phenomenon when, for example, deciding on buying a house but also when trying to choose a yogurt in the store.

When speaking about the evolving of cheese in Israel, in the first years you had to choose between two cheeses – yellow or white and that’s all. When buying ice cream, it was chocolate or vanilla. The same with clothing and with many other products.

Today, you can easily spend 4 minutes in front of the shelves of yogurt in the supermarket just to choose the one you want for your breakfast. What is sure is that this abundance does not necessarily makes people happier. You have many more choices when you enter a good cheese store in France, but this is completely another story. Unlike the supermarket’s yogurt, here every product has its origin, its story, its quality and the people behind it.

Maybe the most beloved and best selling cheese in Israel is a soft white cheese with small crumbles with the foreign name “cottage” (it is also pronounced cottage). The cheese is an adaptation of an American cheese to the Israeli taste, made in 1962. The dairy wanted to keep and strengthen the market share of the cheese and changed its logo to what you can see in the next photo:

The psychologist, Prof. Eliezer Yariv found, in research he conducted, that in children’s drawings there are typical motifs that repeat themselves in every language and every country. For example, the building of the house includes a square with door and window markings and a red triangle on it, which is the roof. Trees usually appear near the house and a path leads to the house (especially for older children).

Yes, this is true for all children, in Japan, Argentina, Morocco and Israel. They all draw a house just like the cottage cheese logo shows. This is how my granddaughter Mia draws a house:

The formal vision of the ‘country house’ is ingrained in us, from books, videos, movies and advertisements – logos that we see all the time. Moreover, the advertising companies are well aware of the effect of that house on our emotions. In Hebrew, it is even stronger as the language uses the same word for house and home. In this case using this image binds the cheese to the concept of home: (Want to feel at home? Eat cottage cheese) by putting it on the cheese’s package.

The word in Hebrew for house is Bayit. There are some American English words originated from Hebrew. The word Bayit probably is the origin of the word BOSS. You can find an explanation here: https://www.balashon.com/2020/09/baal-habayit-and-boss.html

European cheeses in Israel:

The theme of European cheese is divided into two – imported cheese and cheese made here. You can get in Israel almost any European cheese at different levels of quality.

The tendency in Israel is to reduce protections for local products (mainly in the form of reducing import taxes), which increases import. The cheese in Israel is much more expensive than the cheese in Europe (and so is all the food), so for an Israeli who visits Europe, even the most prestigious cheese will not be expensive compared to what he is paying at home.

Of course, the farm animals and the food they consume, the climate, the milk and the cheesemakers are very different in Israel from those in Europe. However, despite all these, the Israeli artisanal cheesemaker tries to get as close as possible to the source when he makes cheeses of foreign origin, and he does it with big success.

Artisanal dairies:

The first small artisanal dairy in Israel is Hameiri dairy, located in the very old town, Safed in the northern part of Israel (see on the map above). They produce the oldest cheese that is being marketed in Israel named Tzfatit (meaning in Hebrew – From Safed).

You can find information on this cheese in Wikipedia. I will quote the beginning, “Tzfat cheese (gvina tzfatit) is a semi-hard salty cheese produced in Israel, originally from sheep’s milk. It was first produced in Safed (Tzfat in Hebrew) in 1840 and is still produced there by descendants of the original cheese makers.

The artisan dairies in Israel are flourishing and there are already original cheeses created here that reflect the special characteristics of the place (terroir, milk, innovation, daring, impudence but in a good way and more ….), the same as the fantastic wine produced in boutique wineries. More Israeli cheesemakers are participating in cheese competitions across Europe, returning with honors and medals.

I chose two diaries out of the many. The name of the first one in Hebrew is “Shirat Roim” which means shepherds’ singing. The founder and the master cheesemaker is Michal Melamed, who studied cheesemaking in Switzerland. Shirat Roim produces quality cheeses from goat and sheep milk.

The dairy produces hard, semi-hard, and soft cheeses, using traditional methods without food coloring preservatives or wax coatings. The cheeses ripen between three weeks and a year and a half. They are washed on a daily basis with salt water throughout the ripening period.

I chose one cheese from their vast offering – Ein Mouda – Pecorino-style cheese made from sheep’s milk. You can read more using Google translate in https://www.shiratroim.co.il/.

The cheese is produced in rolls of about 2 kg (4.5 pounds) and it ripens in 10-12 months. Awards: National silver medal and silver medal at the Cheese World Cup in France 2015! Bronze medal at the 2019-2020 WCA World Championship.

The second dairy is the last one to join the party, two years ago. The dairy was founded by Tamir Peretz in Kibbutz Givat Haim, where he was born and raised.

He traveled with his wife Dana Tal to Italy and for two years specialized with small producers in the preparation of traditional cheeses made of cow’s milk. The two brought all this knowledge back to the kibbutz and renovated an old dairy in the kibbutz.

They produce cheese using methods that are almost non-existent anywhere else. They produce their own cheese cultures and don’t use any freeze-dried ingredients. They stab the blue cheeses with their hands and not with machines. In general, the whole process of making their cheeses is done by four hands, as they are the only workers in the dairy.

The next photo shows two of their cheeses and demonstrates the prices of cheese in Israel. On the right, cheese aged for 2 years costs $10 for 100 grams (0.2 pounds). On the left, blue cheese aged for 100 days costs $5 for 100 grams.

Unfortunately, you can’t taste them, but their quality is definitely shown. The only problem which arose is that the children in the kibbutz developed a very selective taste after eating Tamir’s cheeses and they refuse now to eat any other regular industrial cheese.

Home cheesemakers in Israel:

There is quite a big (relative to the overall population…) community of home cheesemakers. It all started years ago when the price of the milk was very low, so the farmers were losing money. One bit of help came from the Ministry of Agriculture who gave them courses on cheese making so they could make cheese and by this, add value to the milk.

Slowly, people with no connection to farming penetrated the courses and the community started to grow and to raise the professional level of the members. Now there are plenty of courses one can take to learn cheese making.

We share a common problem with the pasteurization issues. In the supermarkets, you find only ultra-pasteurized milk, which you can’t use for cheese making as it will not coagulate. It is also forbidden to sell unpasteurized milk from the farm to private people – only to licensed dairies.

This has two reasons. First, there are still Brucellosis cases in our region and second, as in some other countries, the authorities don’t trust the citizens to know how to pasteurize. So, our milk is white, but we operate in a grey zone …

How to make Jameed (Yogurt Stone):

Jameed is made from low-fat goat or sheep yogurt. You can start by making the yogurt yourself as you probably already have in the past but for this, find a way to reduce its fat. You can start with a low-fat bought yogurt.

1. To thicken the yogurt, heat to 90C (194F) and then cool it a bit.

2. Move the yogurt into a cotton cheesecloth and let it drip through for 24 hours at room temperature.

3. Wipe the cheesecloth with cold water from the outside while the yogurt is still inside and keep it another 24 hours.

4. Move the dried, dense yogurt into a bowl, add salt (8% of the weight of the yogurt), and mix well. Leave it in the bowl for another 24 hours.

5. Manually shape into balls of a tennis ball size or a little bit smaller. The smaller they are, the faster they will be ready for consumption.

6. Put it out to dry in the sun (hope you have plenty of sunny hours).

If the yogurt dries in the sun, it becomes yellow and if it is dried in the shade, it remains white. It is important that the Jameed be dried to the core because any dampness can spoil the preservation process.

If the balls start to sweat fat, clean them with a dry cloth and next time you make Jameed, use less fatty yogurt.

Leave the Jameed to dry at least one month. It should be hard as a stone.

Grate the Jameed in the same manner as Parmigiano on salad and it will serve also as salt.

*We interviewed Yoel in June, 2019 – Yoel Blumberger in Tel Aviv, Israel

**Since then, he has contributed the following articles:

Yoel Blumberger: Camembert de Normandie AOP and the Flocculation Point Method
Yoel Blumberger: Cheesemaking Group in Israel and a Recipe for Castelmagno
Making Pecorino Toscano and Variations by Yoel Blumberger
How to Make Special Containers for Aging Cheeses
How to Make a Peg Mill by Yoel Blumberger
Yoel Blumberger’s Humidity Control System
Yoel’s DIY Cheese Drying Box