April 4, 2012
My family’s Karaite-style Passover
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A lamb was always slaughtered, barbecued and a portion eaten for the Passover seder, with the rest donated to the poor who could not afford to buy meat for the occasion.
“The lamb was fresh there; they [would] slaughter it and cook it [in] the same few days,” my mother said. “It’s got a smell that’s unbelievable — out of this world — like kebab. We ate lamb once or twice a year.”
Amy Gazzar prepares Karaite Matzah. Photos by Mediha Fejzagic DiMartino
Acting Rabbi Joe Pessah of Karaite Jews of America recalled that in Cairo’s Karaite quarter, some would dip their hands in the slaughtered lamb’s blood and mark it on the doorposts of their homes.
The quarter also had its own Passover bakery, which would open once a year to make and sell homemade matzah that was, according to my parents, round, tasty and about “the size of a large pizza.”
Since my mother’s father was an amateur cantor, he used to go from house to house reciting the haggadah for other Karaite families. By the time he had returned home, around 11 p.m., it was so late that he had to wake up his seven children to perform his own seder.
Amy Gazzar prepares Karaite Matzah. Photos by Mediha Fejzagic DiMartino
“I loved the singing of Passover, the haggadah itself; I get goose bumps when I sing it and hear it,” my mother said. “It’s always nice to remember the old days. You always have fond memories, your family [being] together, all singing together, cleaning the house together.” The Karaite seder makes special mention of the protagonist Moses, who is referred to in the Bible as a redeemer and deliverer of the Israelites, in the recounting of the Exodus, Pessah said.
In addition to avoiding grains that can ferment with water and become chametz, Karaites also avoid certain other things that involve fermentation, such as wine, cheese, vinegar, chocolate and yogurt.
Dried beans are also prohibited, but some Karaites do eat rice. Instead of wine for the seder, my mother soaks seedless, purple raisins in water and squeezes the juice from them using cheesecloth or a food processor. It seems the cold, sweet concoction, which has to be drunk the same day, shoots straight into my veins, giving me an instant sugar rush.
Amy Gazzar prepares Karaite Matzah. Photos by Mediha Fejzagic DiMartino
My mother also makes her own flavorful, square matzah at home using unbleached flour (with no additives), water, salt, vegetable oil and often coriander that packs a punch — being careful that preparation time does not exceed 18 minutes, to prevent it from rising. (My father’s cousin, Remy Pessah of Mountain View, uses kosher-for-Passover matzah or cake meal instead of flour to ensure the wheat was harvested before the rainy season so that no fermentation has taken place.)
For maror, my mother whips up a tangy bitter-herbs salad that includes endive, anise, butter lettuce, lemon and salt. Compote made of dried figs, apricots, raisins and dates, which thrived in Egypt’s Mediterranean climate, is also a common Passover staple. The holiday’s pastries range from a fluffy sponge cake topped with homemade quince, apricot or coconut marmalade to light almond cookies dubbed “lozetto” that I find a tempting rival to the weighty store-bought macaroons.
The Karaite Passover is commemorated for seven rather than eight days, unless it starts on a Friday evening, as it will this year, in which case it is commemorated for eight.
Amy Gazzar prepares Karaite Matzah. Photos by Mediha Fejzagic DiMartino
While I was growing up in Barstow, we often celebrated Passover with members of our congregation “the American way,” with a rabbinic haggadah that included the Four Questions and the usual Passover songs, such as “Dayenu.”
However, in recent years, my parents have used the more concise all-Hebrew Karaite haggadah they used in Egypt and that their ancestors likely used generations ago. My parents’ mother tongue is Arabic, but because they rarely spoke Arabic to my sister and me growing up, we normally speak English when we’re all together for holidays, with some Arabic phrases mixed in. (My father, Albert, jokes that the Arabic comes out more “when we’re upset.”)
My father grew up in a secular, well-integrated Karaite household in Cairo, but the irony of having a Passover seder in Egypt was not lost on him, even at a young age. That was well before his father, a jeweler with a passion for poker, was imprisoned by Egyptian authorities in 1956 for being Jewish, and again in the mid-1960s.
Amy Gazzar prepares Karaite Matzah. Photos by Mediha Fejzagic DiMartino
“We were saying [during the Seder], ‘When are we going to go out?’ ” my father recalled. “It was in a joking way. It was very ironic. … One time, Papoo [his father] wasn’t very happy because I said that. He felt that Egypt was his country at this time.”
But that feeling, once shared by many Jews in Egypt, was also destined to change.
Dad was 26 years old when he left Cairo for the United States, via France, in 1961. Egyptian authorities told him then that he could never again return as an Egyptian citizen. Coming to America made the most sense in his mind, as his older sister, Claire, had been living here with her husband for several years, and he had no relatives in Israel.
My mother, at 21, and her oldest brother, Roger, were the first of the seven siblings in their family to leave the country, in February 1967. My mother had dreamed of leaving since she was a girl, she said, when she and her siblings were teased for being Jewish. Although my mother had several cousins who had gone to Israel, she and her family heard life was difficult there, so they joined relatives in New York instead. Four months after leaving Cairo, the Six-Day War between several Arab countries and Israel broke out. My mother’s youngest brother, Victor, and her two sisters’ husbands were among the Jews rounded up by Egyptian authorities and imprisoned for up to three nerve-racking years.
