Is There Such A Thing As A Delicious Hamantasch?

Image by iStock
On February 25, 2018, Twitter was set aflame. The cause of the turmoil? Acclaimed writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s very public and prolongued disavowal of the festive food of her people, the hamantasch.
I know the Internet is as bad as it gets these days, and I sure don’t mean to make it worse, but I have to say this anyway: There is no such thing as a delicious hamentasch.
— Taffy Brodesser-Akner-Porzingis (@taffyakner) February 25, 2018
She doubled down on her unhinged trolling in the comments, saying “the dough is terrible and the fillings are worse.”
But she didn’t stop there. She also called the poor defenseless cookies “dismal” and “BAD vanilla cookies with filling.”
“Don’t you think I want to love them?” she wrote. “But I’m a journalist, a truth-teller at heart.” This objectively horrific take is almost (dare I say it?) treasonous in nature.
Alright then, Taffy. Meet me outside Breads Bakery on East 16th Street and let’s handle this like adults.
I mean, hamantaschen are cookies stuffed with fillings. Cookies! Fillings! These are words that have never harmed anybody. Indeed, on the contrary, they are words that have spread laughter and light the world over. And now they are being treated in this criminal fashion. We truly are in the darkest times.
I mean, hamantaschen are good. You know who likes hamantaschen? The good folks down at Bon Appetit magazine, who spent their time lovingly crafting the best hamantasch recipe they could come up with. Also The New York Times. And that bastion of modern vigilante journalism, Buzzfeed.
You know who doesn’t like hamantaschen? Only one beloved Jewish journalist with the initials TBA who will, with any luck, one day try a blackberry hamantasch, flaky and crispy in all the right places, that will convince her that she was wrong and will cause her to delete all the offending, blasphemous tweets.
The Jews are waiting.
Shira Feder is a writer for the Forward, and an avowed hamantasch-defender. 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
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
Fast Forward A Palestinian man in Philadelphia served kosher bagels for decades. Then customers found his Facebook profile.
- 3
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 4
Fast Forward Trump’s antisemitism chief shares ‘Jew card’ post from white supremacist
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward What Mahmoud Khalil says about Gaza and Israel in ‘The Encampments’ documentary
-
Fast Forward Frankfurt’s Jewish community launches its own sexual abuse hotline amid crises and pressure
-
Fast Forward Trump nixes pro-Israel darling Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be UN ambassador
-
Fast Forward In UK and Australia, lawmakers are trying to curb protests outside of synagogues
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.