Why is this night different? Seder, Iraqi-style

I recently told a friend that I wasn’t looking forward to Pesach, a festival I consider to be a culinary desert. “But you can eat rice!” she replied. While a bowl of basmati is hardly the equivalent of a slice of sourdough, I admit that being Sephardi-Mizrahi on Pesach is a boon.

But why, I wonder, does every Jew seem to know that Sephardim-Mizrahim can eat rice on Pesach, when there is so little awareness of our other Pesach customs and traditions? An Iraqi Seder, for example, is distinctive in numerous ways – least of all because we eat rice.

The tunes

One of the main differences in an Iraqi Seder is the tunes. It’s impossible to describe these Iraqi melodies; they need to be heard to be experienced. So, I’m thrilled that Rabbi George Mordecai of Sydney’s Emanuel Synagogue agreed to capture the sounds of his (and my) Baghdadi heritage. Listen to him singing the Iraqi tune to Ma Nishtana.

The Seder plate

In my Jewish day school years, I was taught that charoset was made from grated apple, cinnamon, nuts and wine (and each of the many demonstration Seders I attended featured this version of charoset). The Iraqi Seder plate, however, contains halek – a thick, rich, delicious date syrup, mixed with crushed walnuts.

I have heard halek referred to as ‘Sephardi charoset’, but Sephardi-Mizrahi families simply refer to it as ‘halek’. (And at least in my family, our haggadot have telltale brown stains from where halek has dripped while eating the Hillel sandwich; a sure sign that dinner will soon be served.)

In the 1970s and ‘80s, halek couldn’t be bought commercially in Australia, so my father made his own date syrup. First, he’d soak the dates overnight in hot water. Then he’d squeeze the softened dates by hand over a muslin cloth and into a pot. Lastly, he’d boil the date juice for two or three hours until it thickened, being careful not to burn it. It took so much time and effort that he always made a few years’ supply at a time.

This video by Sarah Sassoon, an Australian-born writer of Iraqi-Jewish origin who now lives in Israel, captures the steps involved in making halek from scratch. As you’ll see, it’s a labour of love.

In later years, my father stopped making halek and would instead arrange for relatives and friends travelling to Sydney from Israel to bring back jars of silan (date syrup), to which he’d add crushed walnuts. (Dr Myer Samra, an anthropologist with expertise in Iraqi-Jewish culture, explains that silan is a Judeo-Arabic word which has been adopted by Israelis.)

I asked around but couldn’t find anyone in Sydney’s Sephardi-Mizrahi community who still makes halek by hand. I’m not surprised: although date syrup in a jar isn’t as good as the handmade version, it’s now easy – and much less labour-intensive – to buy silan imported from Israel to make halek.

The Plagues

At my husband’s family’s Ashkenazi Seder, everyone dips their pinky finger into their cup of wine and onto their plate as they read each of the ten plagues. Everyone, that is, but me.

Customs vary between families of Iraqi origin. But as a general rule, the plagues – or “the curses”, as my parents call them – are regarded as a contagion which must be strictly avoided. Indeed, in my family, there is always a pause before the plagues are recited, when my mother covers all the food on the table with a cloth to prevent the food being ‘contaminated’ by the plagues. With this mindset, no one’s pinky finger (or any body part) ever touches the wine in an Iraqi Seder.

Instead, when the plagues are read, only the Seder leader tips out the wine, and he (yes, it’s usually a ‘he’) pours it into a separate container such as a paper cup, which will later be disposed of. (My father tells me that when he was growing up in Bombay, his father poured the plagues into an earthenware pot and later threw out the entire pot!)

As a child, disposing of the plagues was one of my Seder night highlights. My brother and I, glad for a break from the seemingly endless reading of the haggadah, would take the plague-filled paper cup outside to get rid of the tainted wine. We’d stand on the street in the dark, deciding which of our neighbours’ nature strips would be the victim of the ‘cursed’ wine. Apparently, this is not just an Iraqi custom. Moriah College educator Michael Sassoon told me that “the Egyptian custom is to pour the plagues right outside the local antisemite's residence in order to curse them. They swear it works!”

The Haggadah

The Iraqi haggadah is significantly different as it includes many songs that aren’t part of the Ashkenazi tradition. So, as I’ve learned from experience, an Ashkenazi haggadah is of limited use during an Iraqi Seder.

Iraqi haggadot also contain Judeo-Arabic; the traditional language of Iraqi Jews. The Haggadah below has the Hebrew at top, then English on the left and Judeo-Arabic on the right. .

I have strong memories of my paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather singing certain parts of the Seder in Judeo-Arabic. Here's Rabbi George Mordecai singing and Ha Lachma Anya, first in Hebrew (where you’ll hear the pronunciation Hey Lachma Anya) and then in Judeo Arabic.

Re-enacting the Exodus

Keeping small children engaged during a long Seder can be challenging. Perhaps this is the reason behind the Iraqi-Jewish tradition of getting the youngest child at the Seder to role-play a wandering Israelite.

After singing Hey Lachma, the afikomen is wrapped in a cloth and tied across the shoulder of the youngest child (or all the young children), as if they’d left Egypt with matzah tied to their back and are headed to Jerusalem. (My father recalls that in Bombay, the child would be given a walking stick as a prop to enhance the improvisation.)

The child then leaves the room, knocks on the door, re-enters and is asked questions by the adults. Originally, these questions were asked in Judeo-Arabic; most families have now switched to English.
Adults: “Who are you?”
Child: “A poor traveller, an Israelite.”
Adults: “Where have you come from?”
Child: “From Egypt.” (or in Hebrew: “Mi-mitzrayim.”)
Adults: “And where are you going?”
Child: “To the Promised Land, to Eretz Yisrael.”

The dramatisation – which, says Dr Myer Samra, was also practiced by Syrian Jews and Ladino-speaking Jews from the Balkan – leads straight into the child singing Ma Nishtana.

Other Iraqi Seder customs

Iraqi Jews generally use celery leaves rather than parsley as karpas, the green vegetable. And we dip it into lemon juice, not salt water.

For maror (bitter herbs), the Iraqi custom is to use cos lettuce, not horseradish. And we eat the egg after Ma Nishtana, which is much earlier than in an Ashkenazi Seder.

You may also have heard of some Sephardim-Mizrahim who have the custom of hitting each other with chives/leeks/shallots during Dayenu, to represent the whipping of the Jewish slaves by the Egyptians. This is not an Iraqi custom but a Persian one.

But we can always take on other Jewish customs, if we so choose. Most of the people I spoke to while researching this article admitted that although their families have Iraqi heritage, their Australian Seders are a hybrid. My generation, most of whom were born or grew up in Australia, have absorbed Ashkenazi culture. So, often, we sing two versions of Ma Nishtana: the Iraqi tune, and the Ashkenazi one.

Different Sephardi-Mizrahi communities have also adopted each other’s customs. One friend’s family, originally from Persia, follows the Iraqi tradition of having all the children pretend to be Israelites on their way to Egypt. Another friend, of Iraqi origin, has taken on the fun of shallot-hitting. And last year in Sydney, there was a communal Moroccan-Jewish Mimouna celebration to mark the end of Pesach.

There’s so much richness and diversity in Jewish culture and tradition. And there’s so much more to being Sephardi-Mizrahi on Pesach than eating rice.