Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 18, 2022

At Scottsdale's newest kosher restaurant, a sushi chefquietly workedbehind a counterstacked with a pile of triangular cookies. Thechef hadbeen at Fata Morgana since it opened in the back corner of a long strip mall off Scottsdale Road inJanuary. But the cookies were a new offering.

Co-owner Bar Timibegan ordering them a few weeks ago in preparation for the Jewish holiday Purim, which begins the evening of March 16 this year.

Stuffedwith apricot jelly or sweet fillings like chocolate,the triangle-shaped hamantashen are given as gifts during the holiday, which while not as big of a holiday as Yom Kippur or Passover,isstill widely celebrated by the Jewish community around the worldand across Israel, where Timi grew up.

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In his home city ofPetahTikva, a suburb that's about 15 minutes outside ofTel Aviv, the storesremain open duringPurim,a contrast to bigger holidays like Passover, when most close.People can go shopping and go about their day, he said. There arelots of parties where revelers dress up in costumes andclowns entertain the children.

In keeping with Talmudic tradition, Orthodox and Hassidic Jews will drink sizable amounts of alcohol, until they can't tell the villain in the Purim story apart from the hero.

"Its a very happy holiday," Timi said."Theres no rules with Purim."

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Purim is all aboutembracingthe hidden, explained Jeffrey Lipschultz, a local rabbi at Beth Emeth Congregation who just happened to be eating lunch at Fata Morgana that day. He frequents therestaurant for their falafel sandwiches, which are done in anIsraeli style and served inside pita bread.

"The purpose of Purim is to bring the real personality out," he said. "In the Book of Esther, Godis not mentioned once in the entire book. So you have to find the hidden aspect of God in Esther. So we find the hidden aspects of ourselves by putting on costumes."

During the holiday, Lipschultz himself will dress up like a clown to entertain the kids. But in keeping with his Conservative Jewish faith, he does not drink to celebrate the holiday. "I went to college for that," he joked. But for some Jewish sects, drinking is actually a mitzvah, or a good deed, he said.

The Purim story writtenin The Book of Esther, also known asThe Megillah,details how the Jewish leader Mordechai and his cousin Esther saved the Jews from a murderous plot by a Persian noble named Haman.

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One tradition suggests that revelers should drink until they "no longer distinguish between arur Haman, 'cursed is Haman,'and baruch Mordechai, 'blessed is Mordecai.'"

In Israel, many Jewish people will head to synagogue to hear theMegillah, and kids will shake noisemakers every time the villain Haman's name is mentioned. They will also eathamantashen cookies, which are triangle shaped to symbolize Haman's hat, or in some interpretations, his ears.

"Usually in Jewish holidays, its very serious," said the other co-owner David Babaganov. "Purim is very fun, its just fun."

This year, on Wednesday, March 16, Fata Morgana is staying open latetohost an after-hours Purim service wherea rabbi willreadfrom theMegillah. On March 15th at 4 p.m., a clown named Shani will be at the restaurantface-painting and entertaining the kids.

Friends Timi andBabaganov decided to open Fata Morgana to showcase Timi's homecooked Israeli food. Babaganov, who grew up in Alberta, Canada, is of Bukharian Jewishheritage and Timi's family have roots in Morocco.So at the restaurant,they highlight a range of flavors on the all-kosher menu andmany of the dishes feature thevibrant spice paletteof North Africaand the Middle East.

The sushi chef works under the guidance of a rabbi, who comes to the restaurant every day to bless the food. Fata Morgana is one of only a handful of kosher restaurants in Arizona, in addition to the Bukharian Uzbek restaurant Cafe Chenar as well asKitchen 18 in Scottsdale, which serves Chinese and Middle Eastern foods.

Timi, who keeps kosher, said it was very important for him to bring in a sushi chef, because heand his wife had nowhere to go for kosher sushi in Arizona. He explained that the difference wasin the seaweed, which needs to be organic to be classified as kosher. Also in keeping with kosher traditions, the chef does not use shrimp, crab or any dairy like cream cheese. They useimitationcrab andvegancream cheesein some rolls.

"What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?" Rabbi Lipschultz joked. "Make me one with everything. That's Israeli or Jewish food.We take all the cultures that weve been influenced by, and we make it our own."

Much of Fata Morgan's menu is North African and Middle Eastern dishes, like sabich, an egg and fried eggplant sandwich topped with amba, a savory mango chutney, which was popularized in Israel by Iraqi Jews. A lunch platter of chicken shawarma is served with a delectable assortment of flavorful sauces, like a tomato-basedcondiment called matboucha, which is a specialty of Moroccan Jews. They also serve chicken schnitzel, an Ashkenazi dish.

Available for a limited time, thehamantashen cookies come from a commercial kosher bakery calledReismans in Brooklyn. RabbiLipschultz's favorite is poppy seed, but theapricot version was a stunner, with a crumbly cookie crust that encased a lightly sweet filling.

Whether or not you visit Fata Morgana during the holidays, you'll enjoy a menu filled with diverse traditions in a welcoming dining room meant to feel like home to the many who frequent it.

"Jewish food is very unique," Lipschultz said. "Because we take a little bit of (all our) cultures with us."

Details: Fata Morgana,7116 E. Mercer Lane, Suite 103, Scottsdale.480-687-2243,fatamorganaaz.com.

Reach reporter Andi Berlinatamberlin@azcentral.com. Follow her on Facebook @andiberlin,Instagram @andiberlin or Twitter @andiberlin.

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A rabbi, a clown and a sushi chef walk into a restaurant. They're here to celebrate Purim - The Arizona Republic

Category: Ashkenazi
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