פסח

We would…on Passover we would bring only…I mean, we would drink milk only. But not…we wouldn’t do anything else. We would not eat fish. Why? Because they would catch fish using a piece of bread (as bait). We would not eat chicken because a month or week beforehand, I don’t know, they would have to stop giving it wheat. Hametz. Chickpeas…on Passover, we would roast. We would buy…seeds, and figs and seeds and pistachios and almonds and whatever you want. (We would buy it) raw and roast it at home. The salt and sugar, all that would be in the kosher method. How did they make matza? The rabbi would go to an oven…in an oven that he cooked bread in. He would go and make it kosher. Meaning he would activate it for no reason so that they would be able to bring the dough for matza. And they would make it there directly […]. They would make a big ball of dough like the saj (griddle) of the Druze. As they do on the saj it comes out soft, but in the oven the matza comes out hard so that there would be no fermentation. Over a period of 3-4 days, he would make matza only so that the whole community would be able to buy matza. Then there would roasting too. In order for them to roast the pistachio and almond and such, they would go to the seller and over a period of 2-3 days he wouldn’t do the […]. But there were many who wouldn’t buy from the…and make it. Why? When it wasn’t Passover, one day people my family knew heard that the owner of the shop (was saying) “bring me that shahmeh. Bring it to me!”. Even the pistachio and almond would be glistening (from the fat)! And what is a shahmeh? It’s a lump of grease. It was glistening, and ya habibe (sarcastic celebration) about the kashrut (the owner was disregarding the Jewish dietary laws). Ya habibe! Everything, everything we would make at home. We would make kaak, maamoul…there was no oven.