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 by gilabrand
Eating a pomegranate is no simple feat. It happens to be a favorite of my husband, who eats it over the sink, but still manages to spray the deep red juice all over the place. In ancient times, it was used as a dye – and for good reason. It leaves stains that are very hard to get out…
If you want a bowl of seeds to put on the holiday table (which minimizes the mess), try this: Slice the pomegranate in half, put it cut-side down in a deep plastic bowl, and tap the rounded part with a meat pounder or some kind of hammer. The seeds slide out into the bowl. Discard the rind and pith. Leave a Comment
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 Nuts and seeds for Shabbat by gilabrand
The average Israeli male could win a world record in garinim-eating, if there were such a thing. They have a special technique (which I personally have never mastered) for cracking them open with their teeth, extracting the seeds and spitting out the shells a mile a minute, all without taking their eyes off the newspaper.
The garinim and other nuts and seeds are purchased in little brown bags of 100 or 200 grams which the seller scoops up for you. They can be purchased in cellophane bags in the supermarket, of course, but those in the know say there's nothing like the freshly roasted kind.
In Jerusalem, the most famous garinim shop is Bahari, which opened in 1951. It is located in Simtat Bahari - an alleyway between King George Street and Jaffa Road. Just follow your nose: The smell of roasting nuts wafts through the air. Leave a Comment
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 by gilabrand
I grew up with dreidels imprinted with a different lettering. The miracle of Hanukkah took place in Eretz Yisrael – the Land of Israel, hence the word “po,” which means “here.” Dreidels made outside of Israel have letters corresponding with the words “Ness Gadol Haya Sham” (A Great Miracle Happened There), “sham” meaning “there.”
Kids spin the top just for fun, or play a game in which you win or lose depending on what letter it falls on. The "pot" could be anything - pennies, candies, or whatever. When I was little, my siblings and I played with raisins. We were a large bunch (six kids) and I guess that was the least expensive option…
The best is "gimmel" or "G" - If your dreidel falls on this letter, you take the whole pot. If it falls on "nun" or "N" for ness, you get half, and so on. Nowadays, kids have new-fangled battery powered dreidels that play music, change color, etc.
“I had a little dreidel” is a popular children’s song for Hanukkah in English-speaking countries:
I have a little dreidel
I made it out of clay
And when it’s dry and ready
Oh dreidel I shall play.
(For more on Hanukkah, see my Jerusalem page) Leave a Comment
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One of the long-standing traditions of Hanukkah is eating latkes – potato pancakes. American Jews usually serve them with sour cream or applesauce. In Israel, this tradition has been largely replaced by eating jelly doughnuts – sufganiyot. The common denominator here is that both are fried in oil.
The story of Hanukkah dates back to 165 B.C.E., when a band of Jews recaptured the Temple in Jerusalem from the Syrian-Greeks. When they entered the desecrated sanctuary, they found only enough pure oil to kindle the menorah for a day. Miraculously, the oil lasted for eight days.
To commemorate this miracle, fried foods are the order of the day (or rather, week). Sufganiyot go on sale sometime around the end of November, several weeks before the holiday. You’ll see them everywhere, in supermarkets, bakeries, street kiosks and open markets – big puffy rounds the size of tennis balls, sprinkled with powdered sugar. After Hanukkah, they vanish until next year (to the sorrow of sufganiya lovers like myself).
Until recently, the only filling was bright red jelly. In the days of yore, the big question was whether your doughnut had jelly in it or not. Sometimes, somewhere along the production line, some of the doughnuts would slip by without getting filled. That was always a bummer: biting into the yeasty dough only to find you’d been gypped…
Nowadays, variety is the thing. There are sufganiyot with custard, caramel and other fillings. But no matter what they’re filled with, dietetic they are not. Figure on 500 calories or so, per sufganiya. Leave a Comment
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Be aware that the clothing customs are quite different in Jerusalem when you tour the churches. Women, carry a scarf or hat with you, because you must cover your head in the Greek Orthodox Churches, and in some of the Roman Catholic Churches. Do not wear shorts, or a short skirt. Your knees must be covered. The best bet is wear a pair of slacks and a sleeved shirt (long sleeves for the Greek Orthodox Church) and a scarf.
men, just don't wear shorts! Wear slacks and a sleeved shirt (again, long sleeves for the G.O.)
Don't make jokes when you go through the churches. If you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, be aware that it is "run" by four different church groups and when you go from place to place, the rules may change quite quickly. Do not take a camera into the Greek Orthodox section, or if you have to, make sure it is turned off. The monks have been known to grab cameras, and strike people that don't follow the rules. I was hit on the head by a monk because my camera wasn't turned off on my first visit. Leave a Comment
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 I'm all ears by gilabrand
This chief minister to King Ahasuerus in Shushan, Persia felt he wasn't getting enough respect. Mordechai the Jew refused to bow down to him. So he made up his mind to kill all the Jews in the kingdom. He picked a number out of a hat and set the day for the massacre: the 13th of Adar.
But Esther, the queen, was a Jew herself, and Mordechai was her uncle. At Mordechai's urging she leapt into action. She invited Haman to a banquet and he ended up putting his foot in his mouth. The king asked him for advice on how best to honor someone. Haman thought the king was referring to him. "Dress this person in royal garments, seat him on the king's horse, and lead him through the streets announcing his worthiness to one and all," Haman told him. Ironically, it was Mordechai the king wanted to honor, and Haman was ordered to lead the horse and proclaim Mordechai's greatness.
Esther then whipped up another banquet and revealed Haman's plot. The king was furious and had Haman hung on the 13th of Adar, on the gallows prepared for Mordechai.
Purim is celebrated on the 14th of Adar with masquerade parties, listening to the Book of Esther read out in the synagogue and sending "mishloah manot" - packages of goodies - to friends and the needy. In those packages, you will usually find at least a couple of Ozney Haman, known outside of Israel as Hamentaschen (Yiddish for "Haman's pockets").
The most traditional fillings are poppy seeds, prunes or jam. Leave a Comment
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 by gilabrand
When I first arrived, this combination of chocolate and bread struck me as weird and unappetizing. Actually, America went through a “fluffernutter” stage – marshmallow fluff and peanut butter sandwiches - so I guess it shouldn’t have shocked me so much. I always frowned on those mothers who took the easy way out and sent their kids to school with chocolate sandwiches instead of doing the motherly thing of standing there in your pajamas every morning chopping eggs for egg salad sandwiches and concocting all sorts of nutritious snacks.
But good mother that I was, what the kids hankered for was to have sandwiches like the other kids for the 10 o’clock break: Bread or pita slathered with gooey chocolate spread. If you go into an Israeli supermarket, you will find row upon row of chocolate spreads that will make children happy (and their dentists rich).
Our very own VT dentist, Dr. Firas, is a great believer in chocolate sandwiches. “They are bad for teeth, but they are yummy and very
healthy, and they raise up the happiness hormones Serotonin and Endorfin,” he writes. He advises chewing a piece of sugarless gum afterwards to minimize the damage. Leave a Comment
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 by gilabrand
At Jewish funerals, it is not customary to bring flowers or wreaths. Burials take place as soon as possible after death, and coffins are made of the plainest wood. In Israel, in fact, coffins are not used at all. The deceased is buried in a simple prayer shawl. It is considered wasteful to chop down trees and spend money on ostentatious flower arrangements for the dead. There is no viewing of the body or embalming. Simplicity is the word.
And after you visit a grave, you leave a small pebble to show you've been there - not flowers.
No one really knows the real reason for this. Some say it goes back to ancient times when tombs were sealed with a stone to keep evil spirits from escaping or the corpse from being preyed on by animals. Others speculate that it is a way of showing that building a monument to the deceased never ends, or symbolic of the idea that “here lies a person who is worth remembering.”
Whatever the origins of this custom, it is one that is practiced until today. Go into a Jewish cemetery anywhere in the world and you will see pebbles on the tombstones. Flowers fade and die, but a stone is an enduring reminder that someone cared. Leave a Comment
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 by gilabrand
This is a Yemenite custom, as far as I know, but in Israel, it has been adopted by people from other ethnic groups, among them Moroccan, Kurdish and Iraqi Jews. A few days before the wedding they have what is called a "hina" party - which is actually henna - the stuff that dyes hair kind of reddish and is used in henna tatooes. They make a paste of this henna and it is brushed on the palms of the bride and groom, leaving a yellowy-brown stain. Exactly what it's for, I can't say. Maybe good luck.
The couple dresses up in traditional garb and the family dances and sings around them. At a Yemenite hina I attended, the women arranged candles in a big flat tray covered with sand, lit them and danced with the tray on their heads. The musical accompaniment was provided by the men, who beat out a rhythm on big square jerrycans that were once filled with gasoline.
Another custom is to prepare trays of fancy little cakes wrapped in cellophane and ribbons, and dance around with them, too. If you click on the picture, you can see some of these trays behind the couple.
The photo shows my niece Etti and her husband-to-be Alon, at their hina party a few years ago. Leave a Comment
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 Sabra cactus - prickly &
sweet by gilabrand
Obviously, this is a stereotype, but stereotypes often have a grain of truth in them. When visiting Israel, there are behaviors you may encounter that rub you the wrong way. Depending on where you come from, you may be misinterpreting things and judging by a different value system.
Here is a guide that can help you keep differing value systems in perspective:
(1) An Israeli's directness and honesty may be perceived by Americans as rude and tactless.
(2) Assertiveness --> aggressiveness.
(3) Informality --> lack of consideration or rudeness.
(4) Pride and self-confidence --> arrogance.
(5) Warmth and familiarity --> intrusiveness or invasion of privacy.
(6) Spontaneity -->lack of restraint or lack of order.
And vice versa:
(1) An American's friendliness may be perceived by Israelis as superficiality.
(2) Politeness -->artificiality
(3) Clear-cut instructions -->rigidity, inability to improvise
(4) Openness about anxieties -->tasteless exposure of private matters
(5) Planning, advance scheduling -->rigidity, excessive formality. Leave a Comment
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