The round loaf with ‘no beginning ad no end’ symbolizes continuity of life. This challah is baked for Rosh HaShanah, the first and most important New Moon feast at the beginning of the Jewish calendar. We wish each other Shana Tovah, means “A good year”. The sweetness symbolizes the goodness that we receive from our...
In Beth Haemek, Israel, I saw the big bunches of ripe dates hanging in the Date Palm trees. Walking between the overripe fruits fallen on the ground, made my mouth water. There I learned that you can even save ripe dates in the freezer. When the Bible writes about honey, it is possibly sirup or...
Charoset is a kind of relish. Always found on the Passover Seder plate. The structure remembers us on the brickwork mortar, made by the men of Israel in Egypt to build the cities and pyramids under very hard circumstances. See the bitter herbs on the Seder plate. There are several combinations of ingredients used for...
This delicacy probably came with the Sephardic community, via Poland from the Middle East to Europe. Also in America is it a well-known cookie. The mother of my Polish student knows this pastry-like cookie as “Rogalik”. In Yiddish Rugelach means “hornshaped”. In some books is written that Rugelach belongs to Hanukkah. The horn points often...
Purim cookies: Memulah by Jacoba Spijker-Kort On the fourteenth day of the month Adar, mostly in March, we celebrate the feast of Purim. In the synagogue we read the scroll of Ester (megilat Ester) and make a lot of noise when the name of Haman is called. It’s a habit to give each other eatable...