11-04-2025
Where to find Jewish food in New Orleans
The Jewish holiday of Passover starts this weekend, and several New Orleans restaurants have food for your gatherings.
The big picture: During Passover, which is sundown Saturday to sundown April 20 this year, observers eat matzo and other unleavened breads as a way to remember that the Jews fled Egypt so fast that their dough didn't have time to rise.
Zoom in: Kosher Cajun Deli in Metairie has been open for more than 30 years and is one of the oldest Jewish delis in south Louisiana.
It's half restaurant and half market. You can get dine in with matzo ball soup and deli sandwiches.
Plus, you can also get kosher grocery items and deli offerings, like fresh pickles and sliced meat. The deli also flies in bagels from New York.
Zoom out: Other places you can get Jewish food in town:
What is Passover?
State of play: The holiday, also called Pesach in Hebrew, is observed for eight days in the U.S.
It commemorates the biblical story of the Jewish people's escape from slavery in ancient Egypt.
The seder is the main Passover ritual and is a holiday meal that includes the re-telling of the story of the exodus from Egypt.
Seder feasts are held on the first two nights of the holiday in the U.S.
After lighting candles, it's a 15-step feast, according to Chabad-Lubavitch Media Center.
The service uses Haggadah prayer books and includes drinking four cups of wine.
Good to know: You can wish someone a "Happy Passover," Chabad notes.
Other holiday sayings include have a "kosher and joyous Passover" and "chag Pesach" in Hebrew.
It is not appropriate to say "Happy Yom Kippur" during the fall Jewish holiday, which marks the day of atonement.
Passover food rules
Dig in: Passover observers eat matzo, an unleavened bread, which is a flat crisp bread like a cracker.
People who observe the holiday try to avoid food with grains, known as "chametz," like breads, pastas, pizza and beer.
Between the lines: Lots of matzo can back you up.
"Matzo can have an extremely binding effect," says dietitian and author Tamara Duker Freuman, who's Jewish. "Its ingredient list essentially reads the same as a can of Play-Doh."
A sheet of matzo is "equivalent to two slices of bread, flour-wise," she says, and people tend to eat multiple sheets, without getting enough fluids.
