Recently, a young Israeli wrote me and asked me about Thanksgiving. He did not know what the holiday was about and was curious whether it was a religious holiday. How can one explain Thanksgiving to a non-American?

In the 19th century, Esther Levy pinpointed a problem: how to juggle being Jewish with being American.

She worried that Jews were assimilating too quickly, shedding their time-honored traditions. So Levy wrote a Jewish cookbook, the first of its kind in this country.

Encyclopedic in scope, “Jewish Cookery Book on Principles of Economy: Adapted for Jewish Housekeepers with the Addition of Many Useful Medicinal Recipes and Other Valuable Information Relative to Housekeeping and Domestic Management,” by Mrs. Esther Levy, was published in 1871 by W.. Turner of Philadelphia.

When most grapegrowers talk about history, they talk about a time nearly 150 years ago when the first vines were planted in the Napa Valley.

Rabbi Elchonon Tenenbaum, the director of Chabad of Napa Valley, connects with history, too — only it is ancient history, when Orthodox Jews tended vines and made wine for the temple in Jerusalem.

This Sukkot, spiritually speaking, whom are you inviting into your outback shack? The official crew of ushpizin, Aramaic for guests, such as King David or Moses? Or are you ready to add some newcomers?

Why do we say Kol Nidre on Yom Kippur? Or, more importantly, why is Kol Nidre —which means “all vows” — the last thing we say before the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest of holy days, the Shabbos of Shabboses? What is the big deal about vows?

How do Matisyahu and Ed Koch spend their High Holidays? The Jewish Channel reveals their answers, as well as the laugh-out-loud recollections of Jewish personalities ranging from editors of New York Magazine and Huffington Post to up-and-coming comedians — and even the president of Hebrew Union College.

The Manischewitz company, based in Newark, has provided our readers with this recipe for the High Holy Days.

Sept. 11, 2001 occurred just six days before Rosh HaShanah. It was the tail end of what had been a difficult 12 months on the Jewish calendar: violence in Israel, a presidential election arbitrated by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Enron scandal.