Kosher Food Truck Spices Up SXSW, Along With Shabbat Dinner

A performance of a different kind has surfaced this year at South by Southwest (SXSW), the 10-day music, film and interactive festival that started Friday in Austin.

Chef Deborah Benaim, 26, knows how to capture attention through food—hip kosher food. Now she’ll turn up the heat in Texas with the addition of an on-site kosher food truck. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Dallas, she now runs her own catering company in Los Angeles.

Benaim is serving up her version of “street food”: Latin-Jewish-inspired fare eaten out of hand. As she describes, “it’s fun, it’s playful, and it’s refined in its own way.”

The menu includes arepas (a flatbread made of ground maize dough or cooked flour prominent in the cuisine of Colombia and Venezuela), yucca fries or fried plantains, and possibly a limeade to wash it all down. One standout will be a barbecued-beef arepa, an “ode to Austin,” the state’s capital.

“Texas is all about brisket and beef; it’s a Shabbat-dinner staple,” she says.

What’s key about the crowd at SXSW—and this will be her first time there—is the versatile age group.

Chef Deborah Benaim will serve up Latin-Jewish-inspired kosher fare from a food truck at the festival.

“More and more young people are open-minded with foods,” explains Benaim. “They like to try different foods, take pictures of them and put them on social media like Instagram. It’s a huge thing, and it’s built up an interest, along with an aesthetic, a visual. Food is a real conversation starter.”

She expects to serve about 200 meals a day for five days, the time the truck will be operating. Assisting her will be her sister and sous chef, Michelle Benaim, in addition to Miami-based food-truck owner and sous chef Shalom Zeines.

Austin is also the home of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries Rabbi Yosef and Rochel Levertov, and Rabbi Mendy and Chaya Levertov of Chabad Lubavitch of Austin; and Rabbi Zev and Ariela Johnson, of the Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center @ the University of Texas.

A ‘Uniting Platform’

The food truck emerged from the collaboration between Chabad Rabbi Mordechai and Chana Lightstone, and the Jewish National Fund. The Lightstones started a Shabbat dinner for Jewish participants called #openShabbat at the festival six years ago.

Jessica Schapiro, 26, manager of JNF’s affinity groups out of New York, started talking with the Lightstones about a kosher food truck 10 months ago as part of a “new attempt to reach out” and offer SXSW-goers “a taste of Jewish flavor.”

Food, she notes, is a “uniting platform”—a natural way to draw Jews across the board to the literal warmth of Judaism (a hot kosher meal) with an underlying positive message about Israel (“bringing Israel to Austin” as JNF-related conference materials are touting), particularly on a local level. There will also be contests and giveaways near the truck, which will be stationed at 503 E. Cesar Chavez St., across from the Austin Convention Center.

Co-founders of First Dynamic Mike Sheffer, left, and Jared Ringel. Sheffer has attended SXSW and the Shabbat dinner for the past six years.

As for the Shabbat dinner, which for many is one of the highlights of their SXSW experience, more than 150 people attended last year; twice that number—as many as 300—are expected this Friday. That, too, is being partnered by the Lightstones and JNF, along with a grassroots grant from the ROI Community. The evening offers an opportunity for the tuned-in types—meaning most of the folks who come to town—to unplug, and focus on personal connections and an authentic Friday-night meal.

“SXSW is the epicenter of emerging technology and the future of communications,” says Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, 30, of Brooklyn, N.Y. “To give so many young Jews a chance to connect with each other—and their heritage—in the veritable eye of the digital maelstrom is an incredible experience.”

And young is really what it’s all about. That demographic represents the mainstay of SXSW; according to national statistics, some 43 percent of attendees are between 25 and 34, with 32 percent ages 35 to 44.

‘Relax and Recharge’

The festival/conference draws an estimated 75,000 people to central Texas in the middle of March. The event began in 1987 and is run by the company SXSW, Inc.

The logo of the food truck

Music is its mainstay in a college town long known for its live-music scene, followed by the film counterpart, which focuses on budding new talent, both in front of and behind the camera. The more recent interactive sector spotlights emerging technologies, part of the city’s business development.

Mike Sheffer, a 25-year-old entrepreneur—co-founder of First Dynamic, a New York City-based website design and development agency—grew up Modern Orthodox and went to day school through eighth grade. In college, he says he spent almost every Friday night with Chabad for Shabbat dinner.

Currently, he lives in Hoboken, N.J., and occasionally attends the Chabad Jewish Center of Hoboken, co-directed by Rabbi Moshe and Shaindel Schapiro.

This will be Sheffer’s sixth time at SXSW, where he has attended every #openShabbat dinner to date.

Says Sheffer: “I love having a ‘home away from home’ at SXSW every year. Shabbat dinner on Friday night is always a grounding experience—one that keeps me focused, and able to relax and recharge in a way most people don’t get to. I’m extremely grateful for it every year. I also meet a ton of great people each time and love the familial atmosphere.”

The menu will includes a barbecued-beef "arepa," typical of Texas flavors.

This year, in particular, he’s looking forward to some warm weather (“New York City was brutal this winter”), in addition to reconnecting with friends and meeting a new group of people “to do business with, learn from and grow with.”

As for the food truck, he says it sounds “super exciting.”

“Where will it be?” he asks. “I definitely want to go!”

The Shabbat dinner will be held on Friday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m. at the Hilton, 500 E. Fourth St. in Austin. Tickets are available here. Additional information about #openShabbat can be found on Facebook. The kosher food truck will be open Saturday, March 14, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.; and March 15-19, from noon to 11 p.m. More information can be found here.

The annual SXSW festival draws some 75,000 people to Austin, the capital of Texas.