The Hirshon Iraqi (Sumerian) Date and Walnut Kleicha Cookies – كليجة بالتمر والجوز

My glorious Citizenry! Today is the 7th night of Hanukkah – I have been debating long and hard to determine the most sagacious course in terms of which recipe to share for the Festival of Lights. I have posted several recipes for this holiday, including My take on a Christmas pudding for Hanukkah as well as the classic latkes. For this year, I went WAY BACK for My take on kleicha cookies, the most ancient recipe coming down to us from the very FIRST Middle East civilization: the one where Jews originated from – Sumer!

Most Jewish holidays tend to follow the same storyline (no joke): “they tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat!” – Hanukkah is the so-called Festival of Lights and is no different (read the story of Hanukkah here). Jews have been called “a light unto the Nations” – the fact that we have survived nearly 6,000 years is proof that our light can never be extinguished, despite millennia of anti-semitism and prejudice. Given the current situation in the Middle East, it is important to remember what Jews have been through.

So, today’s recipe for Kleicha showcases the idea of “light” on a metaphorical level instead of the literal one going back to the miraculous oil that never ran out in giving us light for 8 full days. So, buckle up because this is a true deep dive into ancient history and comparative religious study before we get to the recipe at hand! There are hidden reasonings behind My selection of this cookie for the Hanukkah recipe of 2023 – all will be explained shortly, never fear!

Kleicha, also known as Kolucheh (Persian: کلوچه; Arabic: كليچة; Syriac: ܟܠܝܟ̰ܐ; Turkish: kiliçe) is a type of ancient Middle Eastern cookie. The modern name derives from Middle Persian and translate to ’small, round bun’, but the cookie is actually the descendant of Sumerian altar offerings of sweet cakes known as qullupu. Indeed, there is a close relationship between Jews and Sumerians – as it turns out, we actually originated from there and thus the tie-in for today’s sweet discourse!

In the Bible, the Sumerian city-state of Ur is mentioned as the home of Abram, or Abraham, who became the first Hebrew patriarch and later the spiritual father of all those who would have faith in the Lord (Genesis 17:5; Acts 3:25; Romans 4:12, 16).

The Bible tells us that Abram was a descendent of Shem (Genesis 11:10–26), so he was a Semite living in Sumer, or southern Mesopotamia, when the Lord spoke to him and told him to leave his family and the land of his fathers and go to a new land (Genesis 12:1). By faith (Hebrews 11:8–9), Abram took his wife, Sarai; his nephew Lot; and all their possessions, and they left their land and traveled to Canaan. Many scholars see the Bible’s references to “Shinar” in Genesis 10:10 and 11:2 to mean Sumer.

Going now into an historical summary and veering away from the biblical: the Sumerians were an ancient people that occupied Sumer, that is, the southern region of Mesopotamia, which is now southern Iraq. It is unclear when the first settlers of the region arrived, but they were a non-Semitic people that historians believe may have come out of the Samarra culture in northern Mesopotamia or Assyria.

The Sumerians established many city-states in southern Mesopotamia, and their culture thrived there until around 1700 BC when Babylonia subdued the Sumerians and took control of the region during the reign of Hammurabi, the last Sumerian king.

The Sumerians are credited with creating one of the first forms of writing, cuneiform, which is made of a series of wedge-shaped marks carved into clay with a stylus. The famous Epic of Gilgamesh was written in cuneiform and took archeologists a long time to decipher. Once it was translated, they found the Epic of Gilgamesh to be a heroic story about a Sumerian king. The epic also contains a fascinating account of a great flood with many similarities to the Genesis account – read all about it here.

The Sumerians were also the builders of the city-state of Ur and the Ziggurat of Ur, an impressive structure built in the worship of the Sumerian moon deity, Nanna. Archeology suggests that the Sumerians were powerful warriors, skilled at agriculture, architecture, and literature.

The Sumerians farmed the fertile land by the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, and historians have even classified the Sumerians as “proto-Euphrateans.” The Tigris and the Euphrates are two of four rivers mentioned in Genesis 2:14 that flowed from the Garden of Eden.

Today, these rivers still have a common source, in the mountains of Turkey, from which they flow through Syria and Iraq. That area later became known as the “Fertile Crescent” and the “cradle of civilization” because agriculture flourished there and the peoples of that region developed glass, the wheel, and irrigation techniques.

From a more historic perspective:

Sumer is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. Like nearby Elam, it is one of the cradles of civilization, along with Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Erligang culture of the Yellow River valley, Caral-Supe, and Mesoamerica.

Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, a surplus which enabled them to form urban settlements. The world’s earliest known texts come from the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between c. 3350 – c. 2500 BC, following a period of proto-writing c. 4000 – c. 2500 BC.

The term “Sumer” (Akkadian: , romanized: šumeru) comes from the Akkadian name for the “Sumerians”, the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia. In their inscriptions, the Sumerians called their land “Kengir”, the “Country of the noble lords” (Sumerian: , romanized: k-en-gi(-r), lit. ”country” + “lords” + “noble”), and their language “Emegir” (Sumerian: , romanized: eme-g̃ir or eme-gi15).

The origin of the Sumerians is not known, but the people of Sumer referred to themselves as “Black-Headed Ones” or “Black-Headed People” (Sumerian: , romanized: sag̃-gíg, lit. ”head” + “black”, or , sag̃-gíg-ga, phonetically /saŋ ɡi ɡa/, lit. “head” + “black” + relative marker). For example, the Sumerian king Shulgi described himself as “the king of the four quarters, the pastor of the black-headed people”.

The Akkadians also called the Sumerians “black-headed people”, or ṣalmat-qaqqadi, in the Semitic Akkadian language. The Akkadians, the East Semitic-speaking people who later conquered the Sumerian city-states, gave Sumer its main historical name, but the phonological development of the term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew שִׁנְעָר Šinʿar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar(a), all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could be western variants of Sumer.

Getting now to the cookie (before it crumbles!) – this info on kleicha was noted on indroyc.com:

These traditional Iraqi cookies are a staple in many households and are often served during special occasions such as Eid or weddings. It is loved by all Iraqi groups, including Muslims, Christians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Kurds. These cookies are called “kileche” in Assyrian, while they are known as “kleicha” in Arabic.

Kleicha cookies are a type of spiced pastry that is typically made with a combination of flour, sugar, butter, and spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The dough is rolled out and filled with a sweet mixture of dates, walnuts, or other fillings before being baked to perfection.

Kleicha comes in several traditional shapes and fillings. The most popular are the ones filled with dates (kleichat tamur). There are also sweet discs (khfefiyyat), as well as half moons filled with nuts, sugar and/or desiccated coconut (kleichat joz). They are usually flavoured with cardamom and sometimes rose water, and glazed with egg wash, which may sometimes be scented and coloured with saffron.

Saudi Arabia and Iraq people make kleicha for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha and also for their celebrations, weddings or special ceremonies and they are stuffed with many different fillings like dates, pistachios, walnuts, coconuts, dried figs, sesame seeds or Turkish delight. Assyrians bake kilecheh on Eeda Gura, Easter, and Eeda Sura, Christmas, on which they are usually stuffed with dates and served with tea.

Kleicha are FAR older than the Islamic period – they descend from a Sumerian altar offering of sweet cakes known in Sumerian as Qullupu or (in Sumerian cuneiform):

As noted in an excellent article from storymaps.arcgis.com:

The origins of kleicha can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia, where the ancient Sumerians would prepare this cookie to celebrate the New Year and Ishtar, one of the more prominent goddesses in ancient Sumerian mythology, (Nasrallah, 6). Spring represented rebirth and renewal, which coincided with Ishtar’s power of fertility.

To honor the goddess, ancient Sumerians would bake qullupu, the kleicha’s ancestor. These cookies were shaped to resemble a full or crescent moon that symbolized the arrival of Spring, which was often marked by the first full moon in late March or early April, (Nasrallah, 6).

The cultural significance of kleicha, the first full moon, and the arrival of Spring influenced the cultural traditions of the world’s prominent monotheistic religions. The Old Testament of the Bible referred to the goddess of Ishtar as Ashtoreth or Esther.

Ancient Jewish communities in Iraq would prepare qullupu for Purim, a holiday that “[celebrated the time when the Jewish Queen Esther saved her fellow Jews in Persia from extermination,”(Nasrallah, 5). Like the celebration of the New Year, Purim often occurs during the Spring around the sighting of the first full moon.

The ancient Christians prepared the cookies to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which also occurred around the first full moon in April or late March. Additionally, earlier Muslim communities based some of their religious holidays, which featured kleicha, around the appearance of full moons.

In contemporary times, Iraqi followers of the Christain, Jewish, and Muslim faiths still prepare the kleicha for their religious holidays. Muslims often bake this date cookie for Id al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of Ramadhan, and ‘Id al-Adhha, a feast that honors the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca, (Bambling).

For both events, families frequently consume the cookie throughout the day. It is also common for Muslim families to make extra kleicha to share with friends and neighbors during these holidays.

When there was a well-established Jewish community in Iraq, Iraqi Jewish communities would bake kleicha for Purim, (Bambling). However, the Jewish version of the kleicha differs from the Christians and Muslim versions, because the Jewish version is shaped into a round disk that gets pressed in wooden molds.

Chaldeans, Assyrians, and other Christian groups in Iraq prepare kleicha for Christmas and Easter. My grandma would listen to these hymns as she rolled, stuffed, and baked the kleicha in preparation for Easter.

“She made cookies with dates that were spiraled for Easter. If you’re raised Catholic you don’t eat three days before so we couldn’t touch the kleicha. After midnight mass we’d stuff ourselves with [those cookies].” – Frank Charron, my uncle.

As you have just read, the other reason behind My choosing kleicha for the 2023 Hanukkah recipe is that it unites Jews, Muslims and Christians in Iraq – and My hope is that it will serve as a potent reminder of the need for peace between ALL the Abrahamic religions moving into 2024 and beyond! The spiral filling of kleicha reminds Me of the circuitous path Jews wandered for the last 6,000 years trying to be free and live in peace – a path all of us walk (regardless of religion), at some point in our lives.

As a descendant of an ancient Sumerian recipe, Kleicha uses a spiced dough to emphasize the specialness of the sacred offering to the Gods (back when they were known as qullupu) and I have maintained that tradition in My version of the recipe. There are typically two versions of the filling inside the rolled-up cookie – dates or spiced walnuts. Since TFD hates to deprive Himself, I have combined BOTH kinds of fillings with the addition of My preferred spicing in both the dough and the walnut/date mixture.

I have tried to stick to spices that the Sumerians used (based on both historical research and archæological excavations) – and trust Me, this IS indeed authentic! First off, I call for a mixture of cake flour for a softer cookie and some Emmer flour, an ancient grain raised by the Sumerians and rich in nutrients lost in today’s modern wheat descendants. You can easily purchase My preferred brands of cake flour and emmer flour from their respective links.

To spice the flour, you will need saffron, wild cumin seeds, fennel pollen, nigella seeds and green cardamom seeds – you can get them all from their links. The dates I prefer to use are known as deglet noor, or “fingers of light” in Arabic – you can buy them from here. You’ll also need rose petals to flavor the filling to My satisfaction – this is an excellent brand. Oil is used in this dough, and the only one to use is the most ancient – white sesame oil (do NOT substitute toasted Asian sesame oil!) – buy it here.

My Citizens – Happy Hanukkah to you and yours and I hope you enjoy this delicious and beautiful cookie that is one of the oldest recipes still made in the world today! Jews hold ourselves to a higher standard in our thoughts, actions, and deeds and we hope to remain a light unto the world as we protect ourselves from the murdering terrorists who rape and kill innocent children.

Battle on – the Generalissimo

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