Tova Sterling (aka Chef Tova) is a full-time chef, part-time content creator, and the host of “Sinners’ Shabbat,” a burlesque Shabbat series in New York City. Online, she shares videos that combine gourmet cooking and darkly humorous commentary on current events, Jewish and queer identity and much more, to an audience of over 140K followers. She also has a memoir on the way!
In May 2024, in search of a more embodied, artistic and inclusive Jewish community, Sterling started Sinners’ Shabbat. She told me all about it in late June.
Arielle Silver-Willner: First, a little about you–you use your social media platform to talk about things like mental health, social injustice, queerness and your own identity, all with a hefty dose of dark humor. Why this format and tone?
Tova Sterling: I want to put into the world–even through my own chaotic sense of humor–Jewish joy. As a Jew from a cul-de-sac, where there were a bunch of other Jews, it feels important to say, “Where are all my cul-de-sac bitches?” There’s a very specific stereotype about what a Jewish-American princess is. But we can expand people’s ideas of what “JAP” can mean. I’m a JAP and I throw a Burlesque Shabbat. We’re also known for theater and building community. And we are expanding the cultural expression of what it means to be a Jew through the lens of alternative art, performance and expression. We’re bringing in the elements of alternative thought and queerness that are at the fringes of visibly Jewish communities.
ASW: So you’re taking ownership of being a “JAP” as this campy, artsy, community-centered thing?
TS: Yeah, and we’re inviting in non-Jews as well. People are getting exposed to Jewish culture in a way that I think diminishes the mystery behind who Jews are.
ASW: Let’s get into Sinners’ Shabbat! Hit me with your elevator pitch.
TS: It’s a burlesque Shabbat that combines a dance party and a kiddush ceremony. We have a rabbi who says a little bit about that particular Shabbat–last time, he talked about ancient Jewish wisdom and then we all held hands. It was really sweet and it gave people a sense of community.
After the kiddush, we have performances and we eat sushi off of people’s bodies and there are sexy things going on. But I think in this modern era, where it’s so hard to be present because screens are taking us away and our jobs are taking us away and it’s really hard to make a living so you’re always thinking about your job, the shock value of having these performances lends itself to Shabbat and rest because you have no choice when you walk into Sinners’ Shabbat than to be present.
Shabbat is the Jewish tradition of a “day of rest” beginning on Friday nights. As a collective of queer and alternative Jews, artists and creators, we come together to celebrate our own break from judgment, binary structure, and social expectations. Sinners’ Shabbat is an interactive exhibition of alternative art and performance through the lens of Jewish culture and ritual.
ASW: I know some of the inspiration for Sinners’ Shabbat comes from a very disturbing Nazi effort in the 30s to ridicule art that they considered depraved or unworthy–can you talk a bit about that?
TS: My dad was an art history instructor so I grew up around art culture, and one of the things that stuck out to me was the Degenerate Art Exhibition. The Nazis put on display work by many queer and Jewish artists to humiliate them. It was kind of a failed project on the Nazis’ end because now those artists have transcended history as the leaders of artistic movements.
When people see others who are celebrating Judaism in a way that is foreign to them their initial response, oftentimes, is that we’re diluting Judaism–that we are the people who are going to make Judaism extinct. The people looking at the Degenerate Art Exhibition must have also thought that this was the erasure of Judaism–but I think we are the evolution of Judaism! We’re a living embodiment of what Judaism is, because we are Jews, and you can’t take that away.
ASW: It seems to me like this evolution would make more people want to participate in Jewish community because the traditional format doesn’t appeal to a lot of us.
TS: I see religion as theater. There are the outfits and the scripts, and all these things that relate to theater, which is a portal where you get jumped into the present, and for me, presence is God. I’m very Kabbalistic in my spiritual identity–I think that God is dimension. So, when you’re dancing and you’re feeling in that dimension you’re having a religious experience. And when you meet someone and you fall in love, that is a religious experience.
I think there is some lack of evolution within synagogues that scares people away from engaging in that theater. When I talk to young people who want to get back into Judaism, a lot of the time there are not necessarily things that they can identify as their culture. They often just leave and don’t give it a chance. [At Sinners’ Shabbat] we’re evolving ritual in a way that meets people where they’re at, and they’re going home feeling like Jews.
ASW: Hearing you talk about the embodied experiences at Sinners’ Shabbat and about the importance of being present reminds me that in Judaism there is so much value and spirituality around our bodily experiences and our interactions with the physical world, but traditional practices sometimes overlook this.
TS: Yes! This is more esoteric, but Jews have been fleeing different places for so long–after the destruction of the first temple we were like, okay, we need to build a second temple. Then we built a second temple and that got destroyed, and we were like, okay, then where does our religion go? So we created rituals in our homes. Then there were so many exoduses, even pre-Holocaust, so we were like, well, the home can’t be a temple–what is our temple? Then the body became the temple. But then the Holocaust happened, and I think then people thought, if the body is no longer safe then what is our temple? And I think it became all these rules and created a disembodiment. We lost the dancing, the singing, the part that is in your soul–your neshama–what makes you Jewish. So I focus a lot on getting people into their bodies. That’s why, at Sinners’ Shabbat, you’re dressing sexy. That’s why you’re on stage. That’s why you’re meeting other Jews while you’re experiencing being in your body in this way. That’s something very private and I don’t talk about it often, but it went into the thought process behind Sinners’ Shabbat.
ASW: Can you tell me more about what to expect when you walk into the space?
TS: There are a lot of different groups that come. There are communities of young alternative, artistic and queer jews, who have long felt out of place in traditional “Young Jewish Professional” spaces and are looking for a space that embraces a wider spectrum of expression. There are people from the dance scene who come because they love the DJs. There are people who are drawn in by me, because they have a dark sense of humor, and they want to meet other people who are in that comedic strain.
I also like to do exciting twists on passed hors d’oeuvres – I did one recently called Sodom’s Cigars–you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?
ASW: A tiny bit–I grew up Humanistic with very little Torah…
TS: Which is hot. To each their own. So, in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah there was this evil place. And God said, if there aren’t ten good people here I’m going to set brimstone and fire to this city. He did end up destroying the city, and Lot and Lot’s wife escaped, but Lot’s wife turned back and she turned to salt. Does this sound familiar?
ASW: Yes.
TS: Well, especially around Pride Month you’ll see Christian protesters talk about how the Old Testament rejects sodomy and God set fire to the city because there were gay people there. If you actually read the text, the reason Sodom was set aflame was because angels came into Sodom and the people of Sodom wanted to sexually assault the angels, and then God was like, “I’m going to set this thing on fire.” But I think the misinterpretation of the text is really interesting, and so I made these pastries that I called “Sodom’s cigars,” to start a conversation about the word sodomy around Pride.
I like bringing up the story and having something that’s related to the Torah in these intricate dishes that I’m making.
ASW: How does this play out in the performances?
TS: There’s a Jewish mysticism within the performances, too–one woman performed as golem, and the people who grew up religious knew the reference and were explaining it to the people who grew up secular.
ASW: Do you make all the food yourself?
TS: I do.
ASW: And how do you pick a theme?
TS: It’s based on what’s going on–we did a Sinners’ Seder around Passover. And we are in touch with our community, so we did a vote on the next theme: we put a poll up and there was a pretty unanimous decision to do space lasers for the next Sinners’ Shabbat [on July 25th]. I think people love a tongue-in-cheek reference and the Marjorie Taylor Greene reference to Jews running the space lasers is funny to reclaim.
ASW: Really leaning into the dark humor there!
TS: Yes, because dark humor is so Jewish! To take pain and turn it into art? Or even to take humiliation, or people’s perception of humiliation, and turn it into art? It’s incredibly Jewish. Like Fran Leibowitz–Fran Leibowitz is not lighting Shabbat candles, but she’s ours. She’s Jewish. She’s dark.
ASW: So true. What about costumes? What have been the standouts?
TS: We had this amazing singer who dressed up in a full pharoah costume. We have a lot of Jewish star nipple pasties–I think those are delightful. And the person who designed my outfit last time was an amazing fashion designer, Tess Bernstein, and she has designed for Julia Fox. Everybody goes pretty hardcore on the dress code.
ASW: I’m curious about the timing–why is it important for this space to exist now?
TS: I think it’s really important to show that we are joyful people, and to not just have joy within our community but to spread it to people who are not Jewish. We have such a beautiful, rich culture and I want to bring that to people.
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