Edinburgh’s Jewish community celebrates Burns supper with a Yiddish twist
Haggis, neeps and tatties as one hundred guests raise a toast to Scotland's beloved national poet
Vegetarian haggis and a Burns-inspired Scots-Yiddish hybrid address marked Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation’s Burns Night on Sunday 25 January.
Around one hundred members from the city’s diverse Jewish community came together to celebrate the life and works of the Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns.
The evening was a cross-communal celebration involving Edinburgh Jewish Culture Centre, Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation, Sukkat Shalom, the Edinburgh Liberal Jewish Community; the Edinburgh Jewish Literary Society and The University of Edinburgh’s Jewish Society.
Food included haggis, (sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, combined with onions, spices, and oats), neeps (mashed swede) and tatties (mashed potatoes) followed by Cloutie dumpling (traditional Scottish spiced pudding) and custard.
Members of the community performed traditional verses in poetry in Scots, English and Yiddish. including Burns’s love song “Ae Fond Kiss”, a rendition of his epic poem “Tam O’Shanter” and his “Address to a Haggis”.
Born into a poor farming family on 25 January 1759, Burns died in Dumfries aged 37 years old on 26 July 1796, on the same day that his wife gave birth to their ninth child. More than two centuries on, his life and works are still celebrated in Scotland and across the world.
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