A fork is a tool for a person to cut wood, but it’s also a weapon and a tool of destruction.
Hatchet-wielding Jewish people were especially at odds with Jews from the Ottoman Empire who would use their weapons to punish anyone who dared to use a fork for cutting wood.
They were often called “the sword of Hatred,” and they were so feared that when the Ottomans finally capitulated in 1883, they put a ban on the use of forks.
This ban had to be lifted in 1905, but the Jews continued to use their knives as they would in other parts of the world, especially in India and in Asia Minor.
This is how they created the first hatchet-shaped wooden shovels and then became known as the Hatchetheads.
When I saw the hatchetheads and saw them being carried around by Jewish people, I started thinking about my father and my mother and thought, How could they be like that?
They were very young and very impressionable, and my father’s friends said that I should give up my knife to get a hatchetter, but I thought, Why not?
This is my life.
So I got a new one.
And this was how I started my career in the kitchen, and now I have three hatchets, three sets of knives and an arsenal of kitchen utensils.
I used to make bread and potatoes and make cakes, and when I got to my 50s, I would take these knives and go out and hunt wild boar and wild boars and deer, and the hatchettings were my bread and butter.
When my husband died, I had a little boy who loved to play with the hatches.
He would cut holes in the wood and then he would climb on top of them and carve his name on the inside.
He had to have a big knife, so I gave him a knife he could hold on to.
Now he carries a knife with him everywhere he goes.
Now I have a new son and he’s my best friend.
This has been a lifelong journey.
Nowadays, I like to use them to cut vegetables and make salads and stir-fries.
I use them for cutting butter into cakes and baking bread.
I like them for making pizza and I think they are very good for making a lot of sauces.
I make them for salads and I use the forks in stir-fried vegetables and soups.
I think it is amazing that in all of history, no one had invented a tool that is more useful than a fork.
Today, we are seeing an increase in the use and abuse of knives, but in my opinion, knives are one of the most important tools in the toolbox of every Jewish person, because they are used for so many different tasks.
This article was originally published in Hebrew on the website of the Jewish Federations of America, a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization.