Growing up, I understood my Jewish identity as a culture, education, and nationality. For a long time, the nationality part was the most insistent — I was an Israeli living in America, doing a lot of exploration about what that meant. Religion didn’t factor heavily into my household. We didn’t belong to a synagogue, and prayers were synonymous with holiday songs. Nor did I know that ethnicity was a reality of our tradition. Jewish is Jewish, right? As with many young kids, it didn’t occur to me that these roots went any deeper.
So I was caught off guard as a young teen when one April day a friend looked over my packed lunch with a stunned expression and asked, “You eat rice on Passover?” For I did (and still do). I had no idea that this wasn’t done by everyone. Along the way to finding the why behind this distinction, I came across another title to add to my identity list. No longer was I just Jewish Israeli American, I was now Sephardic as well.
The Hebrew term Sephardi literally means “a person who hails from Spain.” Am I from Spain? No. Like many Sephardi Jews, part of my family came from Spain many generations ago — most recently through Turkey. Along the way, they developed their own Hebrew-adjacent language (Ladino), invented delicious recipes, deemed certain spices necessary for survival (you will never see my kitchen without cumin, paprika, and turmeric), and settled into unique ways of observing and commemorating Judaism. But even after I understood that I was Sephardi, I assumed that the different sects of Judaism were like dialects of the same language. We have our distinctive qualities, but they are ultimately different strands in a single tapestry. Our overarching tie is to Judaism as a whole. While I have developed more nuance since I was a teenager, to this day if you ask me what I am, I say, “Jewish,” not “Sephardi.”
Sometimes, when viewing this beautiful tapestry, we can lose the trees for the forest view and certain important characteristics go unnoticed. For instance, I am not just Sephardic. Like many Jews today (especially those from Israel), my heritage is mixed. I have ancestors from Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East. While the Middle Eastern part of my background is a little less defined, I grew up eating matzah ball soup, deli (sandwiches) and bagels, and going occasionally to my maternal grandparents’ East Coast Conservative synagogue. While these and other elements of my life are akin to my Ashkenazi peers, we often perceive ourselves (or are perceived) through the culture that has been most prevalent in our lives. My Sephardic heritage has become more central as I’ve learned about it. It influenced what food I ate growing up, what I look like, and what type of household my grandparents, and then my parents, ran. There are some days when being Sephardic holds no sway over my daily life, and others when it is uniquely defining. Passover happens to be one of the latter.
While Passover is not considered our most important holiday (with that honor usually bestowed on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, or Shabbat), in the Western world it is one of the most highly celebrated. The Passover story has reached a gentile audience (thank you, Prince of Egypt) and its hefty dietary restrictions have affected most major supermarkets. (I have been seeing boxes of matzah and gefilte fish since December.) And while Passover has so much spiritual and historical significance, it is ultimately a holiday that is secularly defined by food — both what we do and don’t eat.
Almost all who observe Passover cut out leavened bread and instead eat matzah, a cracker made of just flour and water (and occasionally a pinch of salt). Many Jews also cut out all kitniyot. We Sephardic Jews famously don’t.
Kitniyot is the Hebrew word for legumes, but it has become a Jewish term used for all grains, vegetables, and seeds that Ashkenazi Jews traditionally refrain from eating during Passover. The history behind this custom, which you can read all about here, is fascinating. In short, kitniyot may look like or may be mixed with wheat grains. Ashkenazi Jews developed the tradition of cutting them all out to avoid a potential grain ruckus. Sephardic people didn’t seem to see this as a major problem. We care more about the appearance of what we’re eating. Does it look like bread? If the answer is yes, even if it’s made out of corn, we won’t eat it on Passover.
So, yes, I do eat rice on Passover, and beans and other legumes for that matter, as long as they aren’t shaped and served like a loaf. While I didn’t understand this as an important distinction when my friend in high school asked me about it in the lunchroom, my search for an answer inadvertently led me to learn and care quite deeply about the Sephardic aspect of my heritage.
Now, an important caveat — there is not one Sephardic tradition. There is plenty of internal variation and while some practices are more widespread than others, most of them are minhag (Jewish custom) not halacha (Jewish law). As a Turkish Sephardic Jew, I eat kitniyot and have dates in my charoset, but I didn’t grow up with the Greek tradition of pouring vinegar instead of wine for the 10 plagues or the Persian minhag of whacking people with green onions to remember the Jewish slaves whipped in Egypt.
This variety and nuance makes our Jewish culture so rich and exciting! We are a people, a religion, a spirituality, a set of ethnicities, and a series of traditions, all rolled into one – a cornucopia of subtleties. There is a never-ending abundance to discover. (To learn about more Sephardic Passover customs, check out this Haggadah.)
As I have become more intimately exposed to, and involved in, the various Jewish communities around me, I have seen that identity is both a heritage we are born into and an alignment we choose. Growing up, I didn’t know which of my family traditions were inherited or personal quirks. While it felt meaningful to partake in them, as I’ve experienced their collective significance, I have found a certain strength in choosing to continue my participation. Some traditions I do now are even new to me, ones I’ve adopted from my fiance’s family and friends or have found compelling as I’ve conducted my personal research. It turns out that there are always new titles and traditions to add to the list of who we are and what we do.
Regardless, my upcoming Passover tablemates may want to beware. I might bring green onions to the party this year!
At The Well uplifts many approaches to Jewish practice. Our community draws on ancient Jewish wisdom, sometimes adapting longstanding practices to more deeply support the well-being of women and nonbinary people. See this article’s sources below. We believe Torah (sacred teachings) are always unfolding to help answer the needs of the present moment.
Sources
Kitniyot: Not Quite Hametz, My Jewish Learning
Jewish Custom (Minhag) Versus Law (Halacha), My Jewish Learning
Gil Marks's Turkish Haroset, Tablet Magazine
So You're Celebrating With Sephardim... | A Passover Haggadah, Rebecca Davidson
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