“I’ll Have What She’s Having”: The Jewish Deli

“I’ll Have What She’s Having”: The Jewish Deli explores how American Jews imported traditions, adapted culture, and built community through the experience of food. In addition to showing how the Jewish deli forged an entirely new, quintessentially American cuisine by combining Central and Eastern European dishes with ingredients abundantly available in the United States, the exhibition traces the larger arc of the Jewish experience in the US during the twentieth century.

On view will be store signs, menus, advertisements, fixtures, historical footage, film and television clips, and artifacts that illuminate how delicatessens evolved from specialty stores catering to immigrant populations into the beloved national institutions they are today.

For the Washington, DC, presentation, the Capital Jewish Museum will incorporate new research and works from its collection to highlight the local Jewish community’s contributions to deli culture. Additions to the galleries include photographs, menus, and ephemera from local Jewish-owned delicatessens.

The exhibition is organized into the following sections:

Food of Immigration

The Food

Mid-Century Heyday

No Substitutions

Who’s at the Table?

Survivor Communities

Pop Culture on Rye

Shifting Landscapes