Is a Christian Delicacy Behind the Shlissel Challah Phenomenon?

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I confess to liking a slice of challah as well as the next person—or better yet, a thick chunk of it torn from a not overbaked, still moistly warm loaf, especially when it’s spread with freshly made jam from the kumquat tree in our garden as it was on a recent Shabbat. But that doesn’t make me a challah expert, and I also confess to having never heard until recently about “shlissel challah” and to having had no idea that it is, with or without the jam, what I should have been eating on the first Shabbat after Passover.

This was brought to my attention by a group email received from my friend Menachem Butler, an inveterate blogger, fellow for Jewish legal studies at Harvard Law School, and contributing editor at Tablet magazine. Known to his readers for his far-ranging knowledge and indefatigable curiosity in all areas of Jewish law and custom, Menachem was announcing a lecture to be given by him on the subject of “Unlocking the Key to Tradition: The Schlissel Challah Tradition and the Influence of Frum Instagram.” By way of explanation, he wrote: