Kosher cookbook author Helen Nash, who settled in Brooklyn, dies at 89

NEW YORK CITY — HELEN NASH, A CHILD HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR WHO LATER MOVED TO BROOKLYN and became an acclaimed kosher cookbook author, died on Monday, Dec. 8, at 89. Born as Helen Englander in Krakow, Poland, on Dec. 24, 1935, she, her parents and sister survived World War II after they were sent to a labor camp in Siberia. After the war, Nash and her family immigrated to the U.S. where they reunited with her maternal grandparents in Williamsburg and then settled in Crown Heights.

Nash recalled having to grow up without fruits or vegetables. In 1957, she met and married Jack Nash, a refugee from Berlin who had grown up Orthodox and insisted on keeping a kosher household. This later inspired Helen Nash to pioneer modern kosher cooking during the 1980s. Random House published her first cookbook, titled “Kosher Cuisine,” in 1984. This featured adaptations of several international recipes to meet the stringent kosher laws, “Helen Nash’s New Kosher Cuisine,” published after her husband’s death in 2008, provided innovative recipes on new global ingredients that had since been declared kosher.

“Kosher food is more than chopped liver and gefilte fish,” said Nash when her second book was published in 1988.

✰✰✰