New Article: Awafi Kitchen and JFREJ: Jewish Currents Goes “Bourekas and Haminados” Sephardischkeit!
David Shasha
Awafi Kitchen and JFREJ: Jewish Currents Goes “Bourekas and Haminados” Sephardischkeit!
I have recently been including Jewish Currents Shabbat reading lists as examples of Left Wing White Jewish Supremacy:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/qUCdYTATVGE
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/0NXYpLlfZzU
They just confirmed the point with the following item in their daily e-mail newsletter:
Friday, May 22nd, at 6 PM eastern, we are partnering with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) for a presentation on how to make make Ba'be 'btamur (بعبع بتمر), an Iraqi-Jewish hand-rolled date pastry—which will also serve as a springboard for a discussion of the politics of Mizrahi and Sephardi food, culture, and ancestral memory.
This event will be hosted by Annabel Rabiyeh of Awafi Kitchen and Hannah Aliza Goldman of JFREJ.
We will recall that JFREJ was the spot where AOC expressed her inner Tevye!
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/tevye/davidshasha/XpXkpgpZCNo/Uf4K2tKjCAAJ
At least it wasn’t Sallah Shabbati!
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/Davidshasha/2C5E2s-qqqs
I met with JFREJ at their Chelsea office many years ago, under a previous regime, but they were not at all interested in Sephardim. Not much it seems has really changed.
They are now apparently run by “one of us”:
https://melaniekayekantrowitz.com/audrey-sasson/
But, as Ms. Sasson frankly admits, and as I have learned the hard way, she is not much of a Sephardi:
There was no way to reconcile being a budding socialist of Middle Eastern origin with the stories I had been told about who I was and what I was expected to believe and fight for. So I went from assimilating into white Ashkenazi & Zionist spaces to assimilating into activist spaces. I was becoming so disconnected from my Jewish identity – from my lineage, in fact – that I didn’t know I missed it and craved it.
In any case, there is then the matter of Awafi Kitchen, which has proven to be more of a challenge to uncover:
Their website is pretty vague about who they are:
We are cousins of Iraqi Jewish diaspora, making meals as a tribute to our heritage. We host events in restaurants where we are based in Boston, as well as the greater Northeast . All of our family left Iraq between 1950 and 1970. Much was left behind, but not the food.
Our menus are recreations of the meals we grew up eating as children, and the stories they heard of food in the old country. We are cooking to preserve the lesser known pieces of Jewish history, and Iraqi history. Plus, share some delicious recipes with our community.
Here is something I found on-line about them:
https://www.bostonchefs.com/events/ingriyeh-iraqi-jewish-dinner/
It appears that the restaurant is not Kosher, but has Kosher “options”!
Not that Kosher means anything, as even many Israeli restaurants in America are not interested in Judaism:
I was more intrigued by the fact that Awafi is connected to Mamaleh’s:
Indeed, we cannot really make these things up.
Jewish Currents ignores Sephardim – except for food.
Though the food appears not to be Jewish in Halakhic terms.
And the food is served in the back of an Ashkenazi restaurant!
How’s that for back of the bus?
Hungry for more information, I decided to contact Awafi through their website – and got a fairly uninterested and rude anonymous e-mail in response to my sincere query. I tried to explain to them that I am an Iraqi Jew and wanted to learn more about what they are doing.
I never heard back from them after that.
And then they sent this out to the restaurant’s e-mail subscribers – of which I am now one!
https://greatbig.jewishfoodfest.org/events/1470e827-1c83-49ed-8575-00d083a9e01f
The announcement provided a bit more detail than the one from Jewish Currents:
Join Jewish Currents, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice,
and Awafi Kitchen for a cooking demo and conversation before Shabbat. Annabel
Rabiyah (Awafi Kitchen) will make Ba'be 'btamur بعبع بتمر an Iraqi-Jewish
hand-rolled date pastry, while in conversation with Hannah Aliza Goldman (Jews
for Racial & Economic Justice) about the politics of Mizrahi and Sephardi
food, culture, and ancestral memory.
The Great Big Jewish Food Fest, Darim Online and/or OneTable are not
responsible for the content of presenters, hosts and/or participants in
Community Produced Events. Individuals and organizations offering and producing
and hosting all Community Produced events assume all responsibility and
liability for the content of those events.
I decided to do one more google search and found this:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-nosher/fall-in-love-with-zangula-a-sweet-iraqi-funnel-cake/
My Jewish Learning, naturally, is an Ashkenazi website, but when I googled the name of Awafi co-founder Annabel Rabiyah – who is apparently herself an Iraqi Jew – that is all that came up.
Here is the complete “Bourekas and Haminados” nostalgia-tinged article:
Readers, meet zangula. The sweet delicacy of spirals of lightly fried dough is the go-to treat enjoyed by Iraqi Jews on holidays and special occasions.
Among the pastry’s fans and promoters is Annabel Rabiyah, a Boston-based chef and cofounder of The Awafi Kitchen. Rabiyah hosts pop-ups and other events that introduce people to a tantalizing array of foods from her Iraqi Jewish heritage passed down through generations of her father’s family.
The crispy pastry dates back millennia to the ancient Mesopotamian region, and there are records of recipes going back to the 10th century. Flavorings vary across regions reflecting the local palate and ingredients, from the Levant, Iran, Iraq, North Africa, and South Asia.
The global sweet is often called funnel cake. Similar to zangula, the Iranian version, known as zalabia or zalabi, has hints of rosewater and lemon. In India, the popular cardamom-infused pastry jalebi is made from chickpea flour. Like zangula, it’s served on festive occasions. The chewy confection is sometimes prepared with saffron water, imbuing it with a golden glow.
Growing up in New York, Rabiyah enjoyed eating and hearing stories about the Iraqi foods of her family from aunts and uncles — such as kubbeh, a savory ground meat dumpling wrapped in semolina or ground rice and cooked in soup. Rabiyah’s dad often recruited her help making the labor-intensive dish served at Rosh Hashanah.
Her relatives have fond memories of enjoying zangula at Purim. Among Iraqi Jewish families, Purim celebrations outshone Hanukkah. Rabiyah’s family celebrated with a series of large parties that featured card games and even gambling. On the menu was an abundance of decadent pastries and sweets including savory filled sambusak, date pastries, baklava, and zangula. “It elicits a soft spot for my family,” Rabiyah said.
When Rabiyah’s dad fled Baghdad as a young child with his family in 1967, they continued to cherish their food traditions. “Food is the core thing you hold onto,” Rabiyah observed.
Her dad learned to prepare Iraqi Jewish recipes from his mother before she died, when Rabiyah was young, but his weekday family meals tended to the practical more than fanciful and included a lot of kebabs, Rabiyah recalled.
Last year, she was inspired to try her hand with the sweet pastry, after partnering with a Pakistani chef who was familiar with the South Asian version of jalebi, which uses turmeric for the golden orange color. They joined efforts to recreate the widely popular sweet. Rabiyah’s version is based on a recipe by Daisy Iny, author of The Best of Baghdad Cooking, who calls zalabia “the oldest Baghdad confection.” It’s simple but labor-intensive.
The batter is enriched by yogurt and eggs with a bit of baking powder. There’s an art to balancing the consistency: The batter should be thick but runny. For frying, Rabiyah prefers a cast iron wok or other pan with a wide opening. Working quickly, the batter is squeezed through a piping bag in a spiral into a shallow pool of hot oil. It’s flipped and fried until both sides are golden. Each zangula spiral is then dipped in a reduced syrup of sugar, lemon, and rosewater.
Rabiyah’s tip: Make sure the zangula is air-dried to maintain the crunch. It’s best enjoyed right away or within just a few hours.
Rabiyah recently served up trays of zangula in advance of Purim at Beyond Bubbe’s Kitchen, a cultural food event in Boston sponsored by Jewish Arts Collaborative. The pastry delighted Jeff Gabel, of Kitchen Kibitz, who described it as “a curly crunchy sweet treat, sticky with rose water and cardamom. A carnival of flavor in your mouth!”
When Rabiyah prepares her family’s traditional dishes and pastries, she is transported back to another time and place. “It feels like a very spiritual connection,” she said. “You think of all these women who did all this cooking,” including her grandmother, who died when Rabiyah was ten years old. “I feel like she is present.”
As we can now see from the minimal evidence I dug up, Ms. Rabiyah clearly understands the nature of White Jewish Supremacy in its many variations. She is very much down with the program.
Pointedly, JFREJ chose an Ashkenazi to run the Awafi event:
https://www.hannah-goldman.com/bio
Here is the bio, with yet one more fascinating tell-tale sign of the White Jewish Supremacy, see if you can spot it:
HANNAH ALIZA GOLDMAN (she/her) is a performer, writer, and producer based in Brooklyn. She has performed everything from Shakespeare to stand up comedy at venues including Dixon Place, The Tank, & WOW Cafe Theater. Her original work In the Kitchen, commissioned for the International Human Rights Arts Festival, has enjoyed private home performances and a sold-out run at Access Theater produced by Experimental Bitch Presents. Recently, In the Kitchen received a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council. In 2019 Hannah co-created and performed in Between the Threads (Jewish Women Project) at HERE Arts Center, which also toured the D.C. area. As a comedian, she co-hosts a seasonal variety show at the Peoples Improv Theater called “The Straight Man: A Comedy Show Without One.” As a writer, Hannah has contributed to The Forward. She is active in Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ)and produced their inaugural Mimouna event celebrating Mizrahi culture. You can check out her stand up, voiceover demo, and more on this site! Training: Duke Ellington School of the Arts & NYU Tisch (B.F.A.)
Yes, that’s right, Ms. Goldman was also put in charge of another JFREJ “Bourekas and Haminados” event – the oh-so-exotic MIMOUNA!
https://www.jfrej.org/events/2019/04/jfrej-mimouna
I have not said much in the past about the Moroccan post-Passover tradition and its Orientalist aspect:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/mimouna/davidshasha/byd5-B4h0uk/KhuXYU7eAQAJ
This is what I said there:
And where would we be with the classic Orientalist trope of Mimouna and its place in contemporary Israeli culture?
Continuing its usual Anti-Sephardi racism, The Forward has just published a bizarre piece on “Mimouna Envy” written by an Ashkenazi:
It is no wonder that the self-haters at the Point of No Return blog proudly featured a post on Mimouna:
While the Mimouna tradition was celebrated in Morocco by Jews and Muslims, the anonymous Point of No Return editor comments that there are now fewer than 2,500 Jews in that country, implying that this cultural Convivencia is now dead.
It is another swipe at the Arab world and a reminder that Arab Jews have now become loyal Israelis who see Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett as their true leaders.
It is thus clear that Mimouna has become one of the great Orientalist tropes in contemporary Israel, with Arab Jews taking center stage for their culinary culture.
So while Sephardim have no place in the intellectual culture of contemporary Jewish discourse, we have this offensive “Adopt an Ashkenazi for Mimouna” nonsense.
Sephardim are only good when they are in the kitchen or on the bandstand – when it comes to the adult concerns of the Jewish community, we are nowhere to be found. Our history is not our own; only the Ashkenazim and their Sephardi lackeys are authorized to speak on our behalf.
We can see that very little changes in the White Jewish Supremacist world; whether it is Left Wing or Right Wing. Arab Jews are exotic objects who have no real agency in the Jewish institutional world.
It is White Jewish Supremacy and the Back of the Bus all the way.
Know your place!
David Shasha