“It once happened in Rome on the eve of the great fast [Yom Kippur]…
…that a certain tailor went to buy a fish, and it fell out that he and the governor’s servant began bargaining for it. […] until it reached twelve dinars, at which price the tailor bought it.
At dinner the governor demanded of the servant, ‘Why have you not served fish?’
‘I will tell you the truth, sir,’ he replied. ‘A certain Jew did thus to me […]
He had him summoned and said to him, ‘A Jewish tailor can eat a fish at twelve dinars!’
‘Sir,’ replied he, ‘we have one day when all our sins of the year are forgiven, and we honor it greatly.’” (Midrash Rabbah, written between 300-500 AD, translated by Harry Freedman and Maurice Simon, Soncino Press, 1939.)
It may seem odd to write a food story about Yom Kippur, one of the rare days in which Jews refrain from eating. But as the sages have said, the mitzvah of eating well on the Ninth of Tishrei (the day before Yom Kippur) is almost as important as fasting on the tenth, even if you’re a simple tailor using your last dinars to buy a nice piece of fish. Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law written in 1563, was very clear about the importance of a good meal before fasting: “one who eats and drinks on the ninth [of Tishrei] receives a great reward as if he fasted (on the ninth and the tenth,) because of God’s command that we fast (on those two days.)”
Some, like 16th century Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed, even argued for eating “the equivalent of two days’ food,” before fasting on Yom Kippur. And indeed, in many communities around the Jewish diaspora it is customary to eat a large lunch and then a large seuda mafseket, the separation meal, just before the fast begins.
Eating starts in the morning on the day before the Yom Kippur. In some Chabad and Hasidic synagogues the gabbai (Rabbi’s assistant) will hand out slices of honey cake (lekach in Yiddish) to congregants. According Chabad tradition, it is important to ask for the cake, since if God has decreed that one would need to beg for a handout from others this year, the begging can be done symbolically on the eve of the holiday.
Moroccan and Libyan Jews used to bring sweets to the synagogue on the day before the fast as well. In Morocco, members of the Jewish community would fry sfenj, flat doughnuts, outside the synagogue and hand them out to the worshipers, according to the (Israeli) Moroccan Jewry Heritage website. In some provincial towns in Libya, Jews would bring their bowls of food to the synagogue and east together after the morning prayer, wishing each other a happy new year, according to North Africa folklorist Raphael Ben Simchon.
In other Jewish communities, preparation for Yom Kippur meals started with the ceremony of kapparot
(“atonement” in Hebrew.) In this millennia old ritual that spread around the Jewish diaspora (except for Yemen) a live chicken is swirled over the head of each family member (a rooster for the males, hen for the females) symbolically passing his or her sins to the poor animal. The prayer accompanying this ceremony wishes for the chicken to go to death while the person will be signed in the book of life. The poor chicken is indeed then slaughtered according to Jewish law, and while some communities would donate the chicken to the poor, in many other the chicken would be used for the holiday meal. Persian Jews traditionally make a stuffed chicken dish with rice and spices (morgh tu-deli) to serve for seuda mafseket, Moroccan Jews served the chicken with couscous, and Ashkenazi Jews, naturally, made chicken soup.
“At night, the people of the village [Cycow in Poland] would wave fluttering chickens above their heads for the atonement ceremony called kapparot, and right after the ceremony people marched in droves to the slaughterhouse,” Shmil Holand described the ritual in his book Schmaltz (Modan, 2011, Hebrew.) A few hours later, the village was filled with the aroma of chicken soup, which was then served before the fast.
My mother, Erela Arnon, An Ashkenazi too, remembers a similar scene from Tel Aviv in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, a time of austerity in the young states of Israel. “We used to go with my mother to the market on Basel street, where she chose the best rooster and hen for our family. We brought it home to do the ceremony with my dad, then walked back to the market to have the chickens slaughtered by the butcher, and plunk their feather by a specialist,” she recalled. When they had no money for chicken, they’d use a carp instead.
At home, my grandmother would make chicken soup, which she’d serve with kreplach, another Yom Kippur Ashkenazi staple.
Kreplach are triangular shaped dumpling
similar to pierogi, stuffed with meat and served in chicken soup. My grandmother used to make the stuffing out of chicken liver mixed with a little ground beef. Kreplach are served, traditionally, whenever the Jewish calendar requires “beating”, since the filling of the kreplach is “beaten” (or ground, which is the same word in Yiddish. In fact, the kapparot ceremony is called “shluggen kappores” in Yiddish, shluggen meaning beating or hitting.) This happens three times a year: On Yom Kippur, when Jews beat their chest to atone for their sins (figuratively speaking;) during Sukkot, when the leaves of the willow are beaten; and on Purim, when Jews recollect how Haman was beaten. My grandmother added a fourth occasion for making kreplach – when the meat you cooked turned out bad…
Yemeni Jews eat two meals on the day before the fast.
“My mother used to treat me with delicious ftout served with samneh and hilweh,” said Galit Bineth, who lives in Tel Aviv. Ftout is the Yemeni dish made from the traditional salouf flat bread which is ripped into small pieces, cooked in clarified butter (samneh in Arabic) and seasoned with fenugreek seeds (hilbeh.) “My mother would go to her relative to make the samneh with her,” she added, noting that the relative’s outdoor kitchen turned out beneficial for cooking with fenugreek, a delicious, yet strongly aromatic spice. “They started by toasting the fenugreek on a skillet, then they’d add the butter and clarify it. The thick and flat salouf was bought at a Yemeni bakery. Then she’d cook a little milk with sugar and with the seasoned samneh, and add the salouf pieces in until they were soaked with the liquid.” Many Yemeni cooks also add eggs into the pot and cook it a little longer. Bineth still considers this one of her favorite dishes.
The ftout was served for the earlier meal of the day. The main meal of separation included a starchy side, such as potato or noodles, then a meat-based soup, such as the kar’an leg of lamb and bone soup, served with salouf. David Moshe, an Israeli-Yemeni jeweler and cookbook author told me that the meal ended with dates and white coffee. White coffee is a lightly roasted coffee that keeps its light yellowish shade. “My family comes from Bayhan (a city in western Yemen,)” Moshe said. “It was located on the spice route, and so their coffee was rich with spices, similar to Indian chai.” In his beautiful book, Disappearing Flavors of the South (Yemen) (Aldaud, 2015, in Hebrew,) Moshe writes that the Bayhani white coffee is seasoned with plenty of ginger, cardamon, clove and cinnamon, and sometimes even toasted sesame or toasted partially cooked wheat berries.
For Ashkenazi Jews, it was always all about the kugel
A year-round Ashkenazi favorite, kugel is filling enough for starting or ending the fast. 18th century Rabbi Jacob Isaac Horowitz taught that “just as one’s respective mitzvot and transgressions are weighed in our final judgment in heavenly courts, so too are weighed all the kugel one ate in honor of the Shabbat.” (Holy Kugel: The Sanctification of Ashkenazic Ethnic Foods in Hasidim, by Allan Nadler). That should apply to Yom Kippur too…
Another symbolic food is found in Carol Ungar’s book Jewish Soul Food – Traditional Fare and What it Means (Brandeis University Press, 2015,) 18th century Ukrainian Jews started the tradition of baking a bird-shaped challah (feigel challah in Yiddish) for the seuda mafseket. Behind it stood the promise in the book of Isaiah that just as a bird can fly loose from its captors, so will God rescue the Jews from their foes.
Breaking the fast
Even with all this food, twenty five hours of fasting will make anyone feel hungry again. Dietitians, and most Jewish grandmothers, advise to break the fast slowly. Start with a lightly sweetened drink and a piece of sweet pasty. Rest a little. Only then have the full meal.
Each Jewish community in the diaspora had its own way of keeping this practice.
It may be a cup of tea and lekach in a Polish home; Persian Jews make a quick faludeh drink out of grated apples, rose water and a bit of sugar, all covered with water and ice. Greek Jews would sometimes break the fast with ayran, a yogurt drink.
According to Moshe most Yemeni Jews would break the fast with a warm yogurt soup called zom. Traditionally, zom was served inside a flour and farina porridge called asid. The zom is poured into a well in the center of the the thick porridge.
Iraqi Jewish families would break the fast with a homemade almond or melon seed drink (pepitada,) served next to baba b’tamar, a date-filled cookie; pumpkin seed pepitada is also served in Sephardi homes, usually alongside bulo, small rolls stuffed with raisins and nuts and seasoned with fennel seed. Libyan bulo is made with yeast, while Tunisian Jews prefer baking powder.
According to Edda Servi Michelin’s book, The Classic cuisine of the Italian Jews (Everst House, 1981,) Jews in her little town of Pitigliano would serve il bollo to break the fast, next to some sweet vermouth. Her version of il bollo uses yeast and olive oil. Other Italians serve a an almond cake called bocce di dama.
My friend Delphine Gamburg, a Paris-born Israeli, remembers how as a young girl, her Algerian-born aunt would give her a boulou in a small bag to take to synagogue at the end of Yom Kippur. Gamburg kept the boulou deep in her coat pocket, and as the Shofar was blown, marking the end of Yom Kippur, the little hungry girl would take the first bite right there in the synagogue, savoring the sweetness of this simple treat. The sense of happiness and relief she still remembers well.
