Ashkenazi traditions are so pervasive in Jewish American communities, that many – Jews and non-Jews – think that those traditions are THE Jewish ways to observe and celebrate holidays. Those of Sephardic and Mizrahi heritage would most likely disagree.
In fact, a new report commissioned by JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) estimates that Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the United States comprise 10 percent of the American Jewish population and that these denominations have higher rates of Jewish communal participation, a stronger connection to Israel, and the lowest intermarriage rates. Sephardim and Mizrahim say that being Jewish is somewhat or very much a part of their daily life compared to Ashkenazi Jews.
And, from those groups stem unique traditions.
For the Jewish New Year, for example, Sephardic Jews, who observe Jewish customs from Spain, and Mizrahi Jews, who observe customs of the Middle East and North Africa, often host a Rosh Hashanah seder, which includes a series of special foods eaten as symbols of positive omens for a good new year.
Jewish Tidewater’s Jackie Dratch, Avidan Itzak, and Dinah Halioua share some of their families’ traditions here.
Jackie Dratch, whose family is Israeli with a Mizrahi background, says she loves turning to Jewish traditions to help ground her into the current season and moment in time. She explains that the symbolic foods of Rosh Hashanah, called simanim, represent positive outcomes for the year ahead. Each carries a special significance: dates for peace, green beans for prosperity, and a pomegranate for mitzvot, among others. As participants go through the foods on the seder plate, members bless each food and connect it to a wish for the year ahead.
Avidan Itzak’s family prepares a customary seder, where they eat roasted leeks and choose to feature a fish head on the table to represent Rosh Hashanah, or the head of the year. Itzak adds that his paternal grandparents in Israel include a sheep’s head at their meal, which symbolizes the ram that spared Isaac.
Originally from Tunisia and France, Dinah Halioua (pronounced al-ee-wah), finds preparing for the Rosh Hashanah seder far more time-consuming than the Passover seder. In advance of the holiday, she purchases the “feuilles de miel,” (honey leaves), a document which provides a step-by-step guide to observing the holiday, including the calendar dates to visit the cemetery, the days during which you cannot marry, and all of the brachot or blessings for the Rosh Hashanah holiday.
She then travels to seven or eight stores to gather the ingredients for her meals: a Lebanese store for fava beans, an Asian shop for dates, and a Korean supplier for fish. Her Rosh Hashanah meal typically consists of four or five salads, a quiche, spicy fish, and pkaila, a dish of beans, meat, sausage, and spinach that accompanies every celebration, including a bris. “Yoyo,” or fried donut, serves as dessert, accompanied by debla, or thin, fried dough that is cut into strips, shaped into a rose and dipped in honey. “We make everything round,” Halioua adds.
Halioua’s husband of 55 years, Raphael, is from Morocco, and while both spouses are Sephardic, his traditions differ slightly from her customs. Halioua explains how her mother-in-law cooked a soup of seven vegetables and meat in place of the salads, and spinach was served as a separate dish.
Not until arriving in the United States had Halioua seen the custom of baking challah with apples and honey.
For the motzi, or blessing over the challah, Halioua and her family dip the bread into sugar. Two blessings are offered for the apple: one dipped in honey and the other dipped in honey and sesame seeds, to signify the multiplying of the Jewish population.
“I do it with love,” Halioua says about all of the prep in advance of the holiday. “It’s a lot of work but you have to remember your parents. That’s what my mother taught me.”
