YIVO to Host New York Premiere of Fania’s World of Flavors, Smells, and Colors
A Story about Vilna’s Vegetarian Chef Fania Lewando and Her Lost Cookbook
(New York, NY) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research will present the New York premiere of Fania’s World of Flavors, Smells, and Colors, a documentary exploring the life and culinary legacy of vegetarian chef and cookbook author Fania Lewando. The screening will take place on Monday, November 23, 2026, at 7:00pm ET at YIVO, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY.
The premiere will mark the first screening of the Polish-language film with English subtitles. Following the screening, director Andrzej Ciecierski will join NYU professor emerita and POLIN Museum chief curator Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett for a conversation about the film.
The documentary tells the story of Fania Lewando, a Polish Jewish woman whose popular restaurant Dietojarska Jadłodajnia brought vegetarian cuisine rooted in Ashkenazi tradition to prewar Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). A firm believer in the health benefits of a meat-free, vitamin-rich diet, Lewando gained widespread recognition for her culinary talents. Her restaurant attracted prominent visitors, including a young and then little-known Marc Chagall. Her reputation also earned her a distinction at sea where she was the only woman invited to serve as a chef aboard the Polish ocean liner M/S Batory, where she prepared kosher meals for its passengers.
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Lewando published one of the first Jewish cookbooks dedicated to vegetarianism. Featuring 400 vegetarian recipes, it appeared in Yiddish and Polish editions. In 1941, Fania Lewando and her husband perished, and her cookbook disappeared.
Decades later, a copy turned up at an antiquarian book fair in England and was donated to YIVO, who commissioned an English translation. The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook, translated from the Yiddish to English by Eve Jochnowitz with a foreword by Joan Nathan, became a bestseller and has since been published in Lithuanian, Polish, and Czech. The English edition is available at the YIVO Store.
Fania’s World of Flavors, Smells, and Colors premiered on Telewizja Polska (TVP) in January 2026 and made its theatrical debut on October 15, 2026, in Vilnius, the city where Lewando’s restaurant once thrived. Additional screenings are planned in Tel Aviv and England.
Program: Fania’s World of Flavors, Smells, and Colors | New York Premiere
When: Monday, November 23, 2026, at 7:00pm ET
Where: Taking place in person at YIVO, located in the Center for Jewish History
(15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011)
Reservations: yivo.org/Fanias-World
Cost: General: $15 | YIVO members, American Friends of POLIN Museum supporters, & students: $10
Co-sponsored by American Friends of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and Polish Cultural Institute New York.
For any media inquiries please contact:
Jessica Tauber
Marketing and Communications Manager
The Participants
Andrzej Ciecierski is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer for Polish Television.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is University Professor Emerita and Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University. She is currently the Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
YIVO
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of Eastern European Jewry worldwide. For over a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our global outreach and enable us to share our vast resources. The YIVO Archives contains more than 24 million original items, and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for such study in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story