Adam Carpenter – Head of Jewish Life Primary

Each fortnight, the Jewish Life staff gather together for a  ‘lunch and learn’, to engage in professional learning and discussion. This week Morah Erika, a prodigious baker, shared different Purim food traditions with us from Jewish communities around the world, whilst exploring the meaning and origin of perhaps the most well known contemporary Purim food… Hamantaschen! 

A common thread with the variety of Purim treats and foods was a connection to Haman and ‘feasting’ on his defeat. Many Sephardi communities, including Morocco, made a purim bread called Ojos de Haman (Eyes of Haman), containing hard boiled eggs for eyes and strips of dough to represent an imprisoned Haman.

For Persian Jews, a Purim treat to eat and give as mishloach manot is a baked, savoury yeast biscuit filled with a soft creamy date filling known as  Ba’ba Tamar. Iraqi Jews feast on a variety of baked treats included baklava, almond macaroons, sambusak (baked dough pockets filled with cheese), fried dough pockets filled with spiced chickpeas and malfouf (rosewater flavoured almond cigars made from filo pastry). 

Not only did we get to learn about this Purim treat, we were able to sample some! 

The Yiddish word מאָן־טאַשן (mon-tashn) for a traditional delicacy, literally meaning “poppyseed pouches or pockets”, was transformed to hamantashen, likely by association with Haman. 

The word tash means “pouch” or “pocket” in Yiddish, and thus may refer to Haman’s pockets, symbolising the money that Haman offered in exchange for permission to destroy the Jews.