By Emma Driban, Editor
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There’s no doubt that, for many American Jews, Manischewitz is synonymous with Passover. From matzo meal to macaroons, the brand has been present at every seder I’ve ever attended and for good reason. Their 130-year track record of consistent, quality goods has made them an easy brand on which we can rely.
In February 2026, Manischewitz celebrated the launch of their new line of jarred soups, bringing traditional Jewish flavors into a modern, ready-to-serve format.
“The launch of the new Manischewitz Jarred Soup line really grew out of a desire to reimagine one of the most meaningful staples in Jewish cuisine for today’s kitchens,” says Manischewitz Director of Marketing Talia Sabag. “Soup has always been at the heart of Jewish home cooking, from matzo ball soup on Shabbat to comforting chicken or vegetable broths shared during holidays or times of need. As we looked at how families are cooking today, we saw an opportunity to bring those same slow-simmered, traditional flavors into a modern, shelf-stable format that’s ready whenever families need it.”
With so many cultures and flavors that make up Jewish life, choosing the line-up was no easy feat. When asked how they came up with which soups to include, Sabag shared with a laugh, “The most Jewish way imaginable! We all sat around a table and argued over which soups we had to develop.”
After what must have been a lively discussion, Manischewitz’s 24-oz jars come in flavors such as clear chicken broth, chicken noodle, chicken matzo ball, tomato and rice, split pea, mushroom barley, and “Bubby’s Vegetable.” Whether making a quick dinner or a 10-course meal, their aim was to make cooking easy.
To celebrate the launch of their new product, Manischewitz hosted a gallery with a curated art and photography exhibition aimed at examining Jewish cuisine, memory, and identity as a living, evolving culture. Through contemporary visual art and storytelling, SOUP explored how food serves as a cultural connector—offering comfort, care, and shared memory—across generations and countries. The evening also boasted custom cocktails, samples of the new jarred soups, Manischewitz swag—including personalized Manischewitz hats—and opportunities to speak with the artists and representatives from Manischewitz.
The gallery, held just around the corner from the iconic Katz’s Delicatessen in Manhattan, featured three artists from different Jewish backgrounds—Ohad Romano, Rosemarie Gleiser, and Dan Weinstein—and with different mediums.
Ohad Romano, one of Israel’s leading photographers, is known for his cinematic, evocative imagery, distilling narrative, tension, and character. Romano’s work captures life suspended between moments—deliberate, intimate, and deeply human.
“Soup just felt honest,” Romano reflects. “It’s something every Jewish family knows. It’s comfort. It’s home. It’s memory.”
To Romano, Jewish food is sacred and ridiculous. Much like the symbols of the Passover seder, Romano suggests that soup is cultural icon that carries stories. His pieces offer a glimpse of the familiar: a family—quirky characters included—sitting around a dinner table, enjoying a meal together.
“That quirky feeling comes from real life,” says Romano. “Family dinners are warm, chaotic, dramatic. I try to capture that.”
Similarly, for Rosemarie Gleiser, art is meant to capture life as it is experienced. A Peruvian-Jewish interdisciplinary artist, her unique art examines diaspora, memory, food culture, and migration—all themes seen in Exodus—through deeply personal narrative. Gleiser’s work intertwines language, recipes, and imagery as acts of cultural preservation.
“It is precisely the layering process of working with images, colors, and text that makes me feel I am layering different identities,” Gleiser explains. “I see text also as another character in the composition, not only for the significance it represents but also due to the visual impact it brings into the layout.”
Many pieces blend English, Yiddish, and Spanish across different mediums, such as vellum, parchment, mylar, and watercolor. Just as different parts of the Seder hold distinct spiritual significance, these different mediums evoke different feelings.
Gleiser expands on this, saying, “If the material used is silicon, immediately the connection would be about fluids—depending on the context it might be bodily fluids or maybe water. If, on the other hand, the material used is watercolor, it connects to immediacy, to something ethereal. If the material is oil or something thicker, it would refer to something heavier, maybe something that needed
a long time to be developed. When using photography, it directly connects to memory and images that are more real and commonly shared than if the imagery is abstract.”
Gleiser’s pieces in this collection use bright colors and often utilize culinary imagery, highlighting the importance of food in her identity. From eggs to gefilte fish to cooking tools, she illustrates how different dishes and different cuisines might represent different parts of her sense of self.
For Dan Weinstein, his upbringing in Monsey, NY was steeped in Jewish imagery and symbolism. “Judaism naturally lives somewhere in my visual language,” he philosophizes.
A multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges design and narrative storytelling, Weinstein’s art explores identity, power, and modern allegory through bold—and often humorous—visual language. For me, his works are reminiscent of Kabbalah art. His use of vibrant colors, swirling patterns and texture, and distinctive characters and symbols bring me back to Tzfat.
“I’m not trying to recreate Kabbalistic art,” Weinstein assured me, “but I am interested in how spirituality can be visual—how energy, prayer, and sound might look if you could see them.”
As the artist says, it’s often about letting ancient ideas move through a modern lens. In the same philosophy is the modernization of our Passover sederim—including water for Miriam, olives for peace, bananas for refugees, and many other recent additions to many a seder table.
“Tradition isn’t static. It keeps evolving,” adds Weinstein. Manischewitz takes a similar approach, continuously evolving to better meet the needs of present-day Jews.
“With the new Manischewitz Soup collection, our goal was to create something that honors the brand’s legacy of bringing authentic Jewish foods to American households, while making it easier than ever for a new generation to enjoy those timeless recipes in a convenient, high-quality jarred format,” says Sabag.
The iconic brand is making strides to meet the Jews of today where they are, making authentic Jewish flavors—be they Ashkenazi, Sephardic, or Mizrahi—easily accessible. Sabag also shared the brand’s desire to foster a love of Jewish food and culture in the next generation, starting by making tradition accessible and approachable no matter where you are in life. From young families to students to busy professionals, time and energy should not prevent you from experiencing the flavors of your heritage in your own home.
“Food is one of the most powerful ways we pass down stories, rituals, and identity,” Sabag says. “Our soup line was created with just that idea in mind.”
Whether you are a brand loyalist or someone seeking some new Kosher finds in the aisles of the grocery store, Manischewitz will be there, standing by their role as a caretaker of Jewish culinary tradition and showing up to the table to nourish people physically and spiritually.
Thank you to Manischewitz and Stacy Bender (of Bender Group PR) for inviting me to participate in this amazing experience.
