The Hirshon Israeli Charif Hot Sauce of Jewish Identity – חָרִיף

My beloved Citizens of TFD Nation – all apologies from the Duke of Depression, the Dauphin of Despair and the Despot of Despondency – it’s been a very rough few weeks here as I recuperate mentally from the months of non-stop world travel that has worn down My very soul. However, the pending release of the hostages in Israel has brought me joy and pride in how Israelis of all nationalities and backgrounds have converged around them with justifiably heated words about their horrific treatment. Heated words means a heated recipe is in order – so for today, a hot sauce of Israel known as Charif delivers the goods!

There is a huge amount of misinformation on the Web about how Israelis are “white colonizers” – a gross inaccuracy as I shall now demonstrate the ethnic diversity of the Jews residing in the Holy Land!

As noted in this erudite and excerpted article from theconversation.com:

Some 16 million people worldwide identify as Jewish – and more than 7 million of them live in Israel.

The country is home to more than 2 million people who are not Jewish, as well – primarily Arab Israelis, who make up 20% to 25% of the population, and more than 100,000 foreign workers. Most Arab Israeli citizens are Muslim, but small minorities adhere to various Christian denominations, as well as the Druze religion.

Even within Israel’s Jewish population, however, there is dizzying diversity. As a historian of Jewish identity, I believe that understanding that diversity is key to understanding Israelis’ behavior amid the current war in Gaza, as well as the country’s long-term resilience.

Jews are not a “race,” but constitute a people or nation. Traditionally, Jewish texts often refer to the Jewish people as “Israel.”

DNA studies and archaeological evidence show that the Jewish people originated in the Middle East. Owing to Jews’ historical dispersion around the world however, Jews also belong to several Jewish ethnic groups, all of which are represented in the modern state of Israel.

The largest Jewish ethnic group in Israel, about 40% to 45% of the country’s total population, is called Mizrahi, which means “Eastern” in Hebrew. Mizrahi Jews’ ancestors hailed from Jewish communities in the Middle East, including Israel itself.

The word Mizrahi often describes Jews from North Africa, too. However, these Maghrebi Jews descend from different groups than other Mizrahi Jews. Some North African Jews’ ancestors came from local communities. Others migrated there from the Iberian Peninsula after Spain expelled its Jewish population in 1492.

The expulsion of these Sephardic communities, as Iberian Jews are called, scattered Sephardi culture throughout areas such as Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, Italy and Morocco. Thus, many Jews whose families came to these regions are genealogically and culturally Sephardi. Yet, Sephardi Jews also include people whose Jewish ancestors adopted the traditions of Iberian Jews.

The Israeli government’s record-keeping tends to lump Sephardi Jews under the Mizrahi category as well.

The second-largest ethnic Jewish group in Israel, about 32% of the population, is Ashkenazi. Ashkenazi Jews trace their ancestry to central Europe, most often via Eastern Europe.

Alongside these two dominant groups – Mizrahi and Ashkenazi – are Jews from unique communities that do not fit neatly into the two major subdivisions, yet sometimes find themselves included under the Mizrahi umbrella.

These include the Bene Israel of India; several groups of Kavkazi, or Caucasus Jews, referring to their origins in the Caucasus region of Central Asia; and Bukharan Jews of Uzbekistan. Other unique groups include Italian Jews and Ethiopian Jews.

Modern times have witnessed sweeping migrations of Jews across the diaspora – and also migration to modern Israel.

For example, many Jews migrated from Europe and the Ottoman Empire to the Americas before and after the world wars: not only to the United States, but Latin America, especially Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

Since the state of Israel’s founding in 1948, migration has flowed the other way as well. Today in Israel there are approximately 200,000 Jews from English-speaking countries and some 100,000 from Latin American countries.

Since the final years of of the Soviet Union, about 1 million people with Jewish roots have immigrated to Israel from Russia and the former Soviet bloc countries. They and their children now make up about 15% to 18% of the Israeli population.

So – as you have read, the majority of Jews in Israel between the Middle Eastern Mizrahi, the North African Mizrahi and Ethiopian are quite pointedly NOT “white colonizers” at all!

Another article on myjewishlearning.com breaks down the Jewish demographic groups even further:

For most Americans, traditional Jewish culture summons up images of Passover seders with steaming bowls of matzah ball soup, black-hatted, pale-skinned Hasidic men, and Yiddish-speaking bubbes (grandmothers) and zeydes (grandfathers). In reality, these snapshots represent only one Jewish ethnic group — Ashkenazi — of many.

Shared Jewish history, rituals, laws, and values unify an international Jewish community. However, the divergent histories of Jewish communities and their contacts with other cultural influences distinguish Jewish ethnic groups from one another, giving each a unique way of being Jewish. In addition, thanks to intermarriage, conversion and interracial adoption growing numbers of American Jews are of color and have Latino, Asian or African-American ancestry.

Worldwide, Jews from distinct geographic regions vary greatly in their diet, language, dress, and folk customs. Most pre-modern Diaspora communities are categorized into four major ethnic groups (in Hebrew, sometimes called eidot, “communities”):

• Ashkenazim, the Jews of Germany and Northern France (in Hebrew, Ashkenaz)
• Sephardim, the Jews of Iberia (in Hebrew, Sepharad) and the Spanish diaspora
• Mizrahi, or Oriental Jews
• Ethiopian Jews

Ashkenazi Jews

The Jewish ethnic identity most readily recognized by North Americans — the culture of matzah balls, black-hatted Hasidim, and Yiddish — originated in medieval Germany. Although strictly speaking, “Ashkenazim” refers to Jews of Germany, the term has come to refer more broadly to Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. Jews first reached the interior of Europe by following trade routes along waterways during the eighth and ninth centuries.

Eventually, the vast majority of Ashkenazim relocated to the Polish Commonwealth (today’s Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, and Belarus), where princes welcomed their skilled and educated workforce. The small preexistent Polish Jewish community’s customs were displaced by the Ashkenazic prayer order, customs, and Yiddish language.

Jewish life and learning thrived in northeastern Europe. The yeshiva culture of Poland, Russia, and Lithuania produced a constant stream of new talmudic scholarship. In 18th-century Germany, the Haskalah movement advocated for modernization, introducing the modern denominations and institutions of secular Jewish culture.

Although the first American Jews were Sephardic , today Ashkenazim are the most populous ethnic group in North America. The modern religious denominations developed in Ashkenazic countries, and therefore most North American synagogues use the Ashkenazic liturgy.

Sephardic Jews

Many historical documents recount a large population of Jews in Spain during the early years of the Common Era. Their cultural distinctiveness is characterized in Roman writings as a “corrupting” influence. Later, with the arrival of Christianity, Jewish legal authorities became worried about assimilation and maintaining Jewish identity. Despite these concerns, by the seventh century Sephardim had flourished, beginning a time known as the “Golden Age of Spain.”

During this period, Sephardic Jews reached the highest echelons of secular government and the military. Many Jews gained renown in non-Jewish circles as poets, scholars, and physicians. New forms of Hebrew poetry arose, and talmudic and halakhic (Jewish law) study took on great sophistication.

Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language, unified Jews throughout the peninsula in daily life, ritual, and song. Ladino, a blend of medieval Spanish with significant loan words from Hebrew, Arabic, and Portuguese, had both a formal, literary dialect, and numerous daily, spoken dialects which evolved during the immigrations of Sephardic Jews to new lands.

The Sephardic Golden Age ended when Christian princes consolidated their kingdoms and reestablished Christian rule throughout Spain and Portugal. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled all Jews from Spain; soon after, a similar law exiled Jews from Portugal. Sephardic Jews immigrated to Amsterdam, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Others established new communities in the Americas or converted publicly to Christianity, sometimes secretly maintaining a Jewish life. These converts (known in Ladino as conversos and in Hebrew as anusim, forced converts) often maintained their Judaism in secret. In the 21st century, there are still people in both Europe and the Americas who are discovering and reclaiming their Jewish ancestry.

Wherever Sephardic Jews traveled, they brought with them their unique ritual customs, language, arts, and architecture. Sephardic synagogues often retain the influence of Islam in their architecture by favoring geometric, calligraphic, and floral decorative motifs. Although they may align with the Ashkenazic religious denominations (usually Orthodoxy), the denominational identity of Sephardic synagogues is, in most cases, less strong than their ethnic identity.

At home, Ladino songs convey family traditions at the Shabbat table, although Ladino is rapidly disappearing from daily use. Sephardic Jews often maintain unique holiday customs, such as a seder for Rosh Hashanah that includes a series of special foods eaten as omens for a good new year and the eating of rice and legumes (kitniyot) on Passover.

Mizrahi Jews

Although often confused with Sephardic Jews (because they share many religious customs), Mizrahi Jews have a separate heritage. Mizrahi (in Hebrew, “Eastern” or “Oriental”) Jews come from Middle Eastern ancestry. Their earliest communities date from Late Antiquity, and the oldest and largest of these communities were in modern Iraq (Babylonia), Iran (Persia), and Yemen.

Today, most Mizrahi Jews live either in Israel or the United States. In their new homes, Mizrahi Jews are more likely than other Jews to maintain particularly strong ties with others from their family’s nation of origin. Thus, it is not uncommon to find a specifically Persian or Bukharan synagogue. Likewise, Mizrahi Jews are not united by a single Jewish language; each subgroup spoke its own tongue.

The unique Mizrahi culture has penetrated Israeli mainstream society in recent years. Yemenite music entered the pop scene with Ofra Haza, who blended traditional instruments, rhythms, and lyrics with modern flair. Yemenite silversmiths create sacred objects used by Jews of all backgrounds. “Mizrahi” restaurants — where large platters of skewered meat and breads and bowl upon bowl of salads and condiments are shared by a group — have become fashionable gathering places in Israel.

Despite these trends, Jewish ethnic barriers remain strong. In Israel, Ashkenazic Jews still dominate leadership roles in public institutions. For much of Israel’s history, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews were disproportionately underrepresented in the government. Yet now, they make up more than half of the population.

Ethiopian Jews

A Jewish community in Ethiopia — the Beta Israel (House of Israel) — has existed for at least 15 centuries. Because of low literacy levels, a tendency to rely on oral traditions and nomadic lifestyles among most Ethiopians prior to the 20th century, historic material about this community is scant and unreliable. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews emigrated to Israel, leaving behind a very small community.

Israelis of all ethnic backgrounds are united in many things – and divided on many things as well – the old proverb of “two Jews, three opinions” holds very true in the state of Israel! However, one thing all Israelis of every ethnic background or religious observance ARE united on is the gloriously spicy condiment known as charif! Charif graces most Israeli Shabbat tables and charif is also de rigeur with falafel and many other street foods!

Charif means “sharp” in Hebrew, and this blend is one of the most popular hot sauces in Israel today. Charif also means “intelligent and insightful” – two words frequently used in description of your own beloved Generalissimo. A great sage is said to possess “charifut”, spiciness – and as the Sage of Spice, I shall now deliver unto you the ULTIMATE charif recipe, one incorporating ingredients from every cuisine of Jewish ethnicity to reflect the blended nature of Israeli society!

It is of course important to point out that the classic hot sauce we think of today uses both tomatoes and chili peppers as a base – both of which are NOT native to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, most of North America, Oceania or Asia!  The provenance of most every hot sauce is at best a few hundred years old (and in cases like Tabasco, only 100 years!) – but realize that the ORIGINAL hot sauce was first created around 7000 BC in the Mesoamerican region (commonly referred to now as Mexico and near the cities of Zacatecas and Aguascalientes).

Aztec Indians would combine chili peppers and water and use it on everything from food to medicine. All peppers were homegrown and part of everyday life for the Aztecs. It was not until the Spaniards reached the North and South American continents that hot sauce and chilis became a global sensation. Upon their return to Spain, Spaniards started developing chili-based concoctions – and the Portuguese did the same from South American colonies like Brazil.

The rest, as they say, is history as each region in Europe and beyond started cultivating their own unique brand of chili pepper. Portugal was especially instrumental in bringing chilis to the Far East for utilization and development in their cuisine and culture. Tomatoes on the other hand are native to the mountainous regions of Peru and Bolivia and were also spread to the rest of the world by the Spanish and Portuguese! Charif draws on these roots as well.

One of the most popular hot sauces throughout Israel and the Middle East, charif is typically made from tomatoes, vinegar, oil, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, salt, cayenne and jalapeño peppers – but I am The Food Dictator and nothing that I touch remains intact, but is instead transformed into finespun culinary gold that is blessed by the Deity and elevated to the Empyrean heights by My transformative genius!

I strove in this charif recipe to achieve a level of spice and complexity overlaid with multiple layers of flavor and heat that dance on the tongue with the elegance of Argentine Tango and the fiery steps of Cuban Salsa (yes, that’s a pun!). I wanted to use ingredients from all four of the Jewish ethnicities in My charif and I have every confidence you will fall in love with My superlative creation!

There are several ingredients in My charif that make is both delicious and unique – you will need some Yemenite hawaij spice blend, which you can either make from My own unmatched recipe or buy a good version from Amazon here. I also call for the Georgian spice blend khmeli-sunneli that permeates virtually every Georgian (the country) recipe, Jewish or not. You can make My version from here or again, buy a good version from here.

Ethiopian berbere spice is a deliciously hot blend that once again, you can make from Mine own recipe here or you can buy as a pre-made excellent version from here. Za’atar is an herb related to thyme that is actually wild hyssop – be careful, as much of what is labelled as “za’atar” is actually a Jordanian spice blend that includes sesame seeds, sumac and more – be sure to get the pure herb from here.

Instead of salt, I prefer to use Knorr Aromat seasoning, which offers a welcome hit of umami as well as saltiness – you can buy the far-superior German version of it from here. Lastly, I use a bit of Moroccan preserved lemon in my recipe that is easily purchased from here – you should have no problem finding the other ingredients! Charif – in My version – has truly scaled the heights of Mount Sinai to commune with God on high, akin to Moses and embodying the culinary DNA of all Jews worldwide.

My Citizens – join with Me in welcoming the release of the hostages (and pray that ALL of them, dead or alive, are returned to their families without delay!) – I have no wish to inject politics into My blog, so please do NOT leave pro-Israeli or Pro-Palestinian comments on this post – just unify with Me in celebrating the release of men, women and children who did nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time and who were abducted, raped and tortured by monsters in human form with no moral authority to speak for the Palestinians.

Battle on – the Generalissimo

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