When/where did the idea of Hamantashen come from?
I have heard:
- Haman's hat
- Haman's Ears
But neither of those make any sense...
Answer
Secular linguists (I believe this is attributed to William Safire) have suggested the most likely possibility that the original was "mon - tashen", i.e. "poppyseed pockets." (Mon being Yiddish for poppy seeds.) Then at some point someone had them on Purim and made some stretch from montashen to homontashen.
Eventually modern Hebrew needed some name for the treat and called them Haman's ears.
No comments:
Post a Comment