rnarble twist sourtlougli sunflower 1 grain 10 grain 1 t's been a great 5,755 years, but it's over. Oh, sure, the Jewish religion proba- bly will survive at least another five mil- lennia. The State of Israel still will be going strong well into the next geolog- ic age. The Jewish people, as a com- munity of faith, will be intact to greet the Messiah. But Jewish culture — in the sense of all the everyday habits of speech, dress, and food that distinguish Jews from their neighbors? Kiss it goodbye. 12 grain carrot jalapeno corn a Sunday morning without bagels was not worth getting out of bed for. The bagel was once an apt symbol of the Jew- ish people themselves: round, to represent the unity of life; shaped around a hole, to symbolize the emptiness and sadness we acknowledge even in the midst of joy; tough and chewy, to symbol- ize Jewish resistance to oppression; and imper- ishable, to symbolize Jewish survival. At the same time, as recently as 25 years ago, it was rare, outside the major East Coast cities and Los Angeles, to find a gentile who even knew LOVE You! sof lug DON`T KNOW ABOUT DARLI1 MAIM wHAT tow OLAK 'FAMILIES THINK?, THE D ETROIT J EWIS H NEWS The signs are everywhere: 42 In a recent poll conducted by Chaim Yankelovich Associates, 46 percent of Jewish adolescents defined "kreplach" as "part of the Monroe Doctrine." Eighty-five percent of Iowa farmers use the words "schmooze" and "schmaltz" in everyday conversation. Jalapeno bagels. What's so bad about jalapeno bagels? If you have to ask, you're not part of the solution — you're part of the problem. For if bagels were not the totality of Jewish culture, they were surely a powerful symbol. What wedding, bris, or bar or bat mitzvah cel- ebration was ever complete without those crusty, chewy, lox-laden, cream cheese-slathered, pop- py seed-bedecked delicacies? There was a time, within the living memory of many Jews, when what a bagel was. New York Jews attending col- lege in places like Norman, Okla., or Madison, Wis., sometimes went into severe withdrawal symptoms that the student health services were powerless to treat. Now look what they've gone and done. Jews are celebrating their simchas with croissants, chapatis, and tortillas, while gentiles are lining up at the drive-through windows of 2,000 fast food outlets and shouting into the clown's face, "Two bagels with ham and melted cheese!" The Fruit Of Intermarriage The bagel, in other words, has followed the path of pizza, tacos and other "ethnic" special- ties down the path to assimilation. The bagel has intermarried. What the bagel has mostly intermarried with is muffins, followed closely by coffee cake, soft sun-dried tomato & herbs ?3StO