Temple rings in new year with challah-bake goodness

By Dana Kampa
| 10:00 a.m. September 20, 2025

Longboat Key
Neighbors

Sylvia Pastor has one simple philosophy when it comes to the kitchen: If you can read, you can bake.

Some bakers may have more natural talent and experience than others when it comes to interpreting a recipe card, but everyone was welcome to a free challah baking workshop on Sept. 18 at Temple Beth Israel in celebration of the new year.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year many people celebrate with a variety of traditions, often including a feast featuring a round challah loaf.

Rabbi Howard Simon teamed up with Sylvia Pastor's husband, Irwin, to make their loaves, and he explained that challah can come in several forms.

Bakers often make a simple three-braid rectangular loaf. But New Year breads tend to be more intricate, perhaps featuring five braids and pressed into a circular shape to reference the cyclical nature of the seasons. According to the individual's taste, they may also have raisins, sesame seeds and other inclusions.

Attendees prepped plain round loaves to take home and bake, after sharing challah-making stories.

Longboaters and other community members joined in a challah-making workshop on Sept. 18 at Temple Beth Israel ahead of the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Sylvia Pastor, Rabbi Jessica Spitalnic Mates and fellow temple leaders organized the workshop, where attendees had the opportunity to work in pairs to craft their six-ingredient dough balls. Clouds of flour puffed into the air as they pounded the dough, bartered for measuring cups and teaspoons with table mates, and called for hot water to wake up the yeast.

While they worked away, they swapped stories about growing up enjoying challah.

Kelli Veit fondly recalled her mother baking a Friday morning and evening loaf every week to feed the whole family.

"She'd wake up at the crack of dawn, and by the time I went down to the kitchen for breakfast, there would be two challahs," she said. "Later on in the day, if I happened to open the oven, I would find a little ball of dough that was burnt at the bottom of the oven. I asked her about it once or twice, and she always said it was tradition."

Sarasota resident Sylvia Saba shared similar warm memories.

"My mom, Marie, is an expert in this. She would make it every Friday for Shabbat. Hers tastes amazing. Mine is, mmm," she said with a chuckle.

Her personal favorite is a simple egg wash with crunchy sesame seeds on top.

The Pastors have been Longboat Key residents for more than 20 years. They moved from Buffalo, New York, after starting a family that has grown to include 16 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Suzanne Schuster and Maxine Spitzer work to get the right balance of flour and water for their challah dough while Susan Goldfarb, program director at Temple Beth Israel's Education Center, looks on.

Now on Longboat Key, Sylvia Pastor serves as co-chair of the temple's sisterhood group, Beth Israel Women. She expresses her love for neighboring friends with her baking talents.

"I've loved to cook since I was born," she said. "My mom says I must have come out of her womb with a wooden spoon."

She enjoys crafting baked goods of all sorts, including rugelach and lemon pound cake, and even some traditional Italian cookies and Greek baked goods.

While sharing her cooking with others, she jokes that sometimes the only problem is they eat the treats too quickly.

"It's always worth the time it takes to make them, though," she said. "I like to see everyone's smiles."

Challah can be braided in multiple styles but is often formed into a round loaf for Rosh Hashanah.

Photo by Dana Kampa

Make Your Own

Ingredients

2 ½ tsp loose yeast + 1 tsp sugar + 1 cup very warm water (almost too warm, but not hot) 2 eggs + 2 tsp salt + ½ cup sugar + ½ cup oil + 4 cups flour + one egg yolk

Directions

Mix yeast, sugar & warm water together in a small bowl. Let stand 10 minutes. The mixture will start to bubble.
Meanwhile in a large mixing bowl, mix eggs, salt, sugar, oil & 4 cups flour together. Add yeast mixture to flour mixture.
Add 1 ½ cups of flour to mixture. Dough should start to form a ball, separating from the bowl.
Place dough on a floured surface & knead, lifting up with one hand & then the other. Knead at least 5 minutes as dough becomes increasingly elastic. If still sticky, add a bit more flour. Dough should form into a ball.
Place dough back into oiled bowl, cover & place bowl somewhere warm for 1-1 ½ hours to rise, doubling in volume.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Remove cover from bowl, place dough on floured surface. Take a small piece of dough (size of an egg), double wrap in plastic wrap & set aside.
Punch out dough one more time. Cut dough in half, one for each challah. Then divide each half into 3 equal pcs. Roll out each piece, crimp together at the top and braid into a loaf. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Repeat with second half of dough. May let rise again at this step.
Paint each challah with a mixture made of egg yolk plus a little water.
Bake 25-30 mins, or until bread rises & is golden brown. Remove, cool.
Place challah on platter, cover and wait for Shabbat dinner. Eat and enjoy!

Mates said she looks forward to hosting another challah workshop with residents returning later in the season on Jan. 6, ahead of her Jan. 9-10 installation. It was one event she mentioned in her interview to be TBI's new rabbi that she would like to bring to the Longboat community.

"This is something we haven't done before, and it's something I love to do," Mates said. "I'm honored that people came out to see something I think is really important, accessible and easy. It's a great icebreaker too."

Jim Heskett and Marion Levine measure out flour for their challah at a free community baking workshop hosted Sept. 18 at Temple Beth Israel for Rosh Hashanah.

Maxine Spitzer rolls a challah braid at a Temple Beth Israel workshop on Sept. 18.

Arlene Skversky and Diane Weisman don't claim to be the most experienced bakers, but they were all smiles while learning how to bake challah on Sept. 18 at Temple Beth Israel.

Norma Koppel, Brenda Boynton, Carole Shaw, Irwin Pastor, Rabbi Howard Simon, Sylvia Pastor and Sylvia Saba

While bakers can make many styles of challah, workshop attendees made round braided loaves on Sept. 18 at Temple Beth Israel to celebrate Rosh Hashanah.

Rabbi Jessica Spitalnic Mates explains how to get a challah dough started to attendees at a Sept. 18 bread-making workshop at Temple Beth Israel.

Jim Heskett, an accomplished baker in his own right, practices his challah braiding technique at a Sept. 18 workshop at Temple Beth Israel.

Irwin Pastor and Rabbi Howard Simon share a laugh while they craft the self-proclaimed "#1 Winner" challah dough during a workshop on Sept. 18 at Temple Beth Israel.

Flour went flying every which way as workshop attendees got involved with making their own challah, taking child-like glee in the hands-on activity.

Sylvia Saba shows her round braided challah, a staple for celebrating Rosh Hashanah.

During a video call with challah expert Dr. Beth Ricanati, workshop attendee Kelli Veit shares memories of her mother making loaves for breakfast and dinner for the whole family.

Chris Lesser and Judy Posner add the final touches to their challah loaves.

author

Dana Kampa

Dana Kampa is the Longboat Key neighbors reporter for the Observer. She first ventured into journalism in her home state of Wisconsin, going on to report community stories everywhere from the snowy mountains of Washington State to the sunny shores of the Caribbean. She has been a writer and photographer for more than a decade, covering what matters most to readers.