Stuffed grape leaves, often known as dolma, are seen on traditional tables in the Middle East, the Levant, and on the eastern side of the Mediterranean. They can be filled with everything from ground meat to grains. This vegetarian version, shared by Mali Even-Hen, is prepared in the Kurdish Jewish tradition with Persian influences (her mother was born in Iran), and has been passed down for generations. Here, lemony rice and tender herbs are wrapped in brine-packed grape leaves.  

“This is a festive dish that is prepared for special events and Shavuot,” Mali notes. The process is labor-intensive, but the recipe makes a large batch, which is ideal for feeding crowds during a holiday. “Because so much work is involved in rolling the leaves, one by one,” explains Mali, those who understand the labor involved in the dish only appreciate it more. “In our family and also among friends people really look forward to this dish — [it] disappears in an instant.” 

This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection in "Recipes from the Momentum Community," created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

When Riki Shai’s parents migrated to Israel from Mumbai, they brought their love of Indian flavors and colors, much of which made its way into their recipes. Batata vada, a vegetarian fritter, is a popular street food in the state of Maharashtra, though it’s found in other parts of India as well. In Riki’s family, the potato-based, chickpea flour batter-coated fritters made appearances at childhood Shabbat meals, as well as myriad other happy occasions. 

“Making these takes some time but [they are] absolutely worth it,” Riki shared. The original recipe came from her grandmother, and Riki has made some of her own adaptations through the years to arrive at the recipe below. “Vadas are best enjoyed when they are served hot with a spicy green chutney or dry garlic chutney. We also love to have them along with masala chai as an evening snack.” When Riki makes the batata vada, she feels connected to both her Indian and Jewish heritage: “I invite everyone to come and taste and enjoy batata vada and all the Indian dishes that do good to body and soul.”

Read more about Riki’s family in “These Fried Potato Snacks Uphold an Israeli Family’s Indian Roots." This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection at "Recipes from the Momentum Community", created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

When Yael Elfassy thinks of breaking the Yom Kippur fast, she thinks of harira. This hearty Moroccan soup has been a staple on her mother’s side of the family since they lived in Fez. Yael grew up watching her mother make it, who in turn grew up watching her mother make it. Each generation’s version is a bit different, as it’s typically made by intuition, as well as visual and flavor cues, as opposed to strict measurements. So, consider this recipe more of a guideline than a rulebook.  

The hearty soup, which can be made with chicken broth or totally vegetarian, gets its heft from chickpeas and lentils. You can start with dried chickpeas if you like, but rinsed ones from a can will do just fine if you’re in a hurry. Don’t skip the dry lentils though: they cook right in the simmering soup in just about 20 minutes. 

While harira is wonderful on any cold evening, Yael typically saves it for Yom Kippur break fast. “This recipe to me signifies the start of the new year,” she says. “There is no Yom Kippur without harira.”

This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection at "Recipes from the Momentum Community", created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

For as long as Hilla Segev can remember, she’s eaten this fragrant Yemenite soup for Shabbat. Known in Israel as marak temani (Hebrew for Yemenite soup), it’s typically made with either chicken or beef, lots of vegetables, and a heady spice blend called hawaij. 

When Hilla was young, her family would go to her grandparents’ house on Friday nights to share the Shabbat meal, which started with dishes like a salad of cucumbers, tomato, lettuce, onion, and parsley; fried cauliflower with lemon; and a roasted meat dish Hilla knows as “shawi.” The soup was served as an entree along with lachuch, a Yemenite flatbread, and hilbe, a fenugreek-based paste.

Though her grandmother never wrote down the recipe for her soup, Hilla watched her make it every week. And, when she started cooking for herself as an adult, she made the soup over and over, mimicking what her grandmother did in the kitchen, until it tasted familiar. 

The soup gets its most prominent flavor and golden hue from hawaij, (also spelled hawayej and hawayij, among transliterations) a bold spice mix of turmeric, cumin, black pepper, coriander, and cloves. In certain markets, it’s common to see both pre-mixed “soup hawaij” as well as “sweet hawaij,” which contains cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon, and ginger. If the packaging doesn’t specify which style it is, inquire about the ingredients list, as the two blends are quite different in flavor.

This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection at "Recipes from the Momentum Community", created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

Kubbeh, also known as kibbeh, is a style of dumpling that typically features ground meat wrapped in semolina, bulgar, or rice. Popular in communities across the Levant, kubbeh can be fried in oil, baked, or poached in soup like it is in this recipe from Pnina Shasha. In her Iraqi family, a beef and onion mixture is tucked into a semolina dough and then simmered in a ruby-hued beet broth. 

Her grandmother served the dish every Friday for lunch. Today, Pnina continues to make the soup, but not quite as often since kubbeh requires a good amount of time. Over the years, her family’s found a trick to help: once the kubbeh are formed, the dumplings can be frozen for months. “My mom spends hours making hundreds of dumplings and puts them in the freezer, so that they will be ready,” Pnina shares. 

Though her grandma’s kubbeh recipe was never formally written down, Pnina learned to make it from her mother and grandmother. To write the recipe below, she made the dish again with her mother, ensuring she recorded each step. 

This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection at "Recipes from the Momentum Community", created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

In Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, and Libyan families, it’s common to prepare a spicy fish recipe for the start of Shabbat. This one comes from Anna Masica’s family and has been made in her Moroccan family for generations. “As my mom used to say, this is a dish that has all the nutrients in it,” Anna told us. She always helped her late mother make the recipe and eventually Anna wrote it down for her own kids when they were old enough to cook for themselves. 

Starting as a simple vegetable saute, the mixture is seasoned with paprika, cumin, and turmeric. If you prefer a less spicy version, remove the seeds from the jalapeño before slicing it or skip it entirely and use half a green bell pepper instead. Once the sauce comes together, it’s poured over the fish — Anna uses salmon, but a flaky white fish would also work — then it’s baked until just cooked and served warm. 

Every time Anna makes this dish, she feels it brings her closer to her mother, and helps keep her memory alive. 

This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection at "Recipes from the Momentum Community", created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

During the Holocaust, Ilona Kellner, known as Ica, was imprisoned at Auschwitz and Hessisch Lichtenau, a munitions factory that was a subcamp of Buchenwald. Like all prisoners, she faced deep hunger, but at night, the women in her barracks would talk about recipes with one another. The act of resistance sustained them. 

From August 1944 to the spring of 1945 when Ica was liberated, she wrote down more than 600 recipes, often noting the name of the person who shared the recipe with her. This one came from a woman named Piri who was killed by an SS officer only days before Ica and the surviving women were liberated.

Ica kept her legacy alive by making these buns for her daughter Eva Moreimi, who continues the tradition, baking them every year for Shavuot. The technique used in this recipe is similar to those for cinnamon rolls: a yeasted dough is rolled out into a large rectangle, spread with a buttery filling, rolled up like a jelly-roll, sliced into buns, and baked in one pan. Darázsfészek is made with a walnut filling, but Eva notes it can be made without nuts by simply omitting them and swapping in a splash of vanilla extract. 

This recipe was shared by Eva Moreimi. Read more about her family in "The Woman Who Hid 600 Recipes from SS Officers." 

This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection at "Recipes from the Momentum Community", created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

The day and night leading up to Rosh Hashanah were always busy with culinary preparations when Shamira Malekar was growing up in Bombay. A relative sought out the head of a goat that would be served with the hopes that the family would be the head, not the tail in the year to come. And, on some years, a family member would prepare mutton biryani. 

Shamira remembers one of her tasks was helping stir chik-cha halwa, a sweet made with coconut and wheat starch, or crystals as Shamira calls them. Women in her family gathered in the kitchen to make it together, starting by soaking the wheat and grinding fresh coconut to make milk. Then they stirred the creamy mixture as it cooked for hours, adding saffron to lend it a golden hue and dried fruit for sweetness. When it was ready, they packed up pieces of halwa along with treats from local markets to share with relatives and friends. 

Her mother Ruby, who is 75, remembers the same tradition of cooking halwa with her own mother and aunty when she was little and the family celebrated the holiday in her grandfather’s village Shrivardhan. 

It’s a signature of the Bene Israel, India’s largest Jewish community, which according to their traditions descends from one of the lost 10 tribes of Israel who were shipwrecked off the coast of India. Each family’s halwa is slightly different, explains Shamira, but the custom of enjoying it on the holiday is widespread. 

Today, she splits her time between Surrey in England and New Jersey. When she visits India, she picks up a bag of chik-cha so she can make the halwa for Rosh Hashanah wherever she is. Since it is hard to source in the U.S., Shamira recommends substituting cornstarch, which is easy to find and takes less time to cook. 

We recommend following Shamira’s lead and boxing up portions of halwa for friends and loved ones this holiday season. 

Note: Saffron can be quite expensive, and is often sold in very small quantities. We found that as little as ⅛ teaspoon adds a lovely golden color and subtly sweet floral flavor to the halwa, but if you’d prefer a more pronounced color and flavor, add up to ½ teaspoon.

This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection at "Recipes from the Momentum Community", created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

Sivan Kobi’s father was famous in their family’s Los Angeles community for his sufganiyot, jelly-filled doughnuts traditionally made for Hanukkah. Every year before the holiday, Sivan shares her variation on the recipe on her Instagram account Sivan’s Kitchen. She’s tried air-frying and baking the doughnuts, but nothing compares to frying, she says. When it comes to filling, jelly is the most traditional, but Sivan’s also experimented with custard and chocolate, both of which have become popular in more recent years. 

Read more about Sivan’s family in “Keeping the Memory of a Father’s L.A. Bakery Alive, One Sufganiya at a Time." This recipe comes from a collaboration between Momentum and the Jewish Food Society. Find more recipes from this collection at "Recipes from the Momentum Community", created with the help of Rebecca Firsker and Ame Gilbert. 

Find more Hanukkah recipes in our holiday collection.