The Bittersweet History Of Hamantaschen Might Not Be So Bitter After All
Image by iStock
If you’ve been getting ready for Purim by obsessively baking varieties of these triangular cookies (may I advise avoiding the chocolate chips and using fresh, tart raspberry jam instead) — you might be wondering exactly how they came to be such iconographic representations of Judaism.
Worry not, because you’re about to find out.
If you were to call your rabbi for an answer, he’d tell you that Hamantaschen represent the shape of the triangular hat worn by Haman, the genocidal villain of the Purim story. In fact, Israelis even refer to hamantaschen as ‘oznei haman’, which translates literally to ‘Haman’s ears.’ One of the oldest mentions of oznei haman as a Purim treat shows up in a skit done by an Italian Jew named Yehuda Sommo (1527-1592). The Roman scholar Immanuel ben Solomon suggests that it is because Haman’s ears were cut off as he was hanged in “a misinterpretation arising from the medieval Italian custom of cutting off a criminal’s ear before execution.”
But there’s another, less grim explanation.
In Germany and parts of Eastern Europe in the 18th or 19th century, triangular baked goods called ‘mohntaschen’ exploded onto the culinary scene. Mohn is German for poppy, referring to the poppy seed filling, and tasch is German for pocket. Somewhere along the way, the Jewish desire to eat triangular cookies shaped like Haman’s hat (or ears) plus the existence of mohntaschen for European Jews translated into hamantaschen, the pastry we now feast on for Purim.
Purim is a day of good defeating evil, of turning darkness into light. There’s no better way to celebrate that than by eating sweet cookies with a very bitter namesake. Happy Purim!
Shira Feder is a writer at the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected].
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
