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My mom’s hamantaschen recipe carries the memories that she is losing
(JTA) — My mother always loved to cook and bake, but I was never welcome in the kitchen. Not every night before dinner, not before Shabbat when she made challah every week, and not in the leadup to Hanukkah and Passover, when her latke and seder preparations were underway.
The big exception was just before Purim, when she would ceremoniously invite me into the kitchen to help her fill and pinch the triangle-shaped cookies that are a trademark of the holiday.
As an adult with young kids of my own, I get it, but as a child, it didn’t occur to me that my mother had already spent hours setting everything up. All I had to do was walk into the kitchen, take a round cup, place it on the rolled-out dough, peel away a circle, scoop jelly from a bowl that she had laid out for me, and pinch the corners of the cookie and put them on the tray. I felt like I was really baking hamantaschen.
The cookies of semi-mysterious origin are core to helping the eater celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim — a tale told of a villain, Haman, who wanted to destroy the Jewish people in the ancient kingdom of Persia. The cookie is the ultimate revenge: Its Yiddish name means “Haman’s ears,” so in the end it’s us, the Jews, who end up consuming our oppressor, and not the other way around.
My mother talked to me about this meaning — until she began to lose the ability to speak at all.
Two years ago, she was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a type of dementia where she struggles to recall words, has short-term memory loss and confuses dates and times. Eventually, she will lose her ability to speak or understand words.
As with so much in Jewish life, her decline is linked in my family’s memory to the Jewish calendar. We started to notice changes several years ago when she arrived in New York City for a celebration of Rosh Hashanah and could not put into words what she had brought with her. (It was her special apple cake, my favorite.) Then, she set the table with challah and candles, as she would to get ready for Shabbat — but it was Thursday. And it was when I started to prepare for Purim in 2021 that I realized it had been an entire year since my mother had sent me anything by text or email.
Kay Beser holding her daughter Erin in the late 1980s, left, and outside her kitchen. (Courtesy Erin Beser)
The last message I’d gotten was a document I needed for our first pandemic Purim, when my son was 3 and we’d only just started sheltering in place in our apartment. Titled “Mommy’s Hamantaschen Recipe,” the document allowed my mother and my son to bake together via FaceTime. Even though she was on the phone, my mother was laughing and present.
A year later, she could not be. But as a Jewish educator, I was tasked with the job of creating virtual programming for my community, to sustain us, to keep us together even though we were apart. Like many Jewish communities in that moment, we as a community decided to bake hamantaschen on Zoom together, everyone in their own home. I sent “Mommy’s Hamantaschen Recipe” to 500 households through the Jewish Community Project of Lower Manhattan.
This week, as I dug out the supplies to make hamantaschen with my own children in our new home outside Philadelphia, I opened the recipe file again. And I remembered: I had dropped the “Mommy’s” from the title — making the recipe my own.
My mom is still alive, thank goodness in relatively good health, and I’m thankful every day for that and for my dad, who is her full-time caregiver. I try to focus on the fact that she is still here, and not to dwell on the parts of her that are missing. And so as her absolutely delicious recipe gets used once more in countless Jewish homes this year, I am thinking about all of the children who are getting the experience that was a highlight of my childhood: forming hamantaschen that somehow never fall apart, using my mother’s recipe.
I know that when I tell my mother about her recipe’s reach, she will feel, if only for the briefest of moments, the pride and joy that I once felt taking up my post at the end of her hamantaschen assembly line. And I will take comfort, yet again, in the fact that the Jewish calendar creates opportunities to mark the passage of time in ways that can outlast any of us, making memories when we cannot make new ones of our own.
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Netanyahu Will Meet Trump on Dec. 29 to Discuss Second Phase of Gaza Plan, Spokesperson Says
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach to shake hands at a joint press conference in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Sept. 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump on Dec. 29 to discuss the next steps of the Gaza ceasefire, an Israeli government spokesperson said on Monday.
“The prime minister will meet with President Trump on Monday, Dec. 29. They will discuss the future steps and phases and the international stabilization force of the ceasefire plan,” Shosh Bedrosian said in an online briefing to reporters.
The prime minister’s office said on Dec. 1 that Trump had invited Netanyahu to the White House. Israeli media have since reported that the two leaders may meet in Florida.
The spokesperson’s comments came one day after Netanyahu said on Sunday that the second phase of a US plan to end the war in Gaza was close, but cautioned several key issues still needed to be resolved, including whether a multinational security force would be deployed.
Netanyahu, speaking to reporters alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Jerusalem, said that he would hold important discussions with Trump at the end of the month on how to ensure the plan‘s second phase was achieved.
Netanyahu said that he would discuss with Trump how to bring an end to Hamas rule in Gaza. A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is entering its second month, although both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violating the truce agreement.
Netanyahu said that it was important to ensure Hamas not only upholds the ceasefire but also follows through on “their commitment” to the plan to disarm and for Gaza to be demilitarized.
Israel retained control of 53% of Gaza under the first phase of Trump‘s plan, which involved the release of hostages held by terrorists in Gaza and of Palestinians, many convicted of terrorism, detained by Israel. The final hostage remains to be handed over are those of an Israeli police officer killed on Oct. 7, 2023, while fighting Hamas-led Gazan militants who had invaded Israel.
“We’ll get him out,” Netanyahu said.
Since the ceasefire started in October, the terrorist group has reestablished itself in the rest of Gaza.
GERMAN CHANCELLOR: PHASE TWO MUST COME NOW
According to the plan, Israel is to pull back further in the second phase as a transitional authority is established in Gaza and a multinational security force is deployed, Hamas is disarmed, and reconstruction begins.
A multinational coordination center has been established in Israel, but there are no deadlines in the plan and officials involved say that efforts to advance it have stalled.
“What will be the timeline? What are the forces that are coming in? Will we have international forces? If not, what are the alternatives? These are all topics that are being discussed,” Netanyahu said, describing them as central issues.
Merz said that Germany was willing to help rebuild Gaza but would wait for Netanyahu‘s meeting with Trump, and for clarity on what Washington was prepared to do, before Berlin decides what it would contribute but that phase two “must come now.”
Israel has repeatedly carried out air strikes since the ceasefire came into effect that it says are fending off attacks or destroying terrorist infrastructure.
NETANYAHU: WEST BANK ANNEXATION REMAINS A SUBJECT OF DISCUSSION
Netanyahu said that he would also discuss with Trump “opportunities for peace,” an apparent reference to US efforts for Israel to establish formal ties with Arab and Muslim states.
“We believe there’s a path to advance a broader peace with the Arab states, and a path also to establish a workable peace with our Palestinian neighbors,” Netanyahu said, asserting Israel would always insist on security control of the West Bank.
Trump has said he promised Muslim leaders that Israel would not annex the West Bank, where Netanyahu‘s government is backing the development of Jewish settlements.
The “question of political annexation” of the West Bank remains a subject of discussion, Netanyahu said.
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US Congress Moves Toward Repeal of Tough ‘Caesar’ Sanctions on Syria
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a Ministerial formation of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic, in Damascus, Syria, March 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
A set of tough US sanctions imposed on Syria under its former leader Bashar al-Assad could be lifted within weeks, after their repeal was included in a sweeping defense policy bill unveiled during the weekend and due for votes in Congress within days.
The Senate and House of Representatives included repeal of the so-called Caesar sanctions, a move seen as key to Syria‘s economic recovery, in a compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a sweeping annual defense policy bill that was unveiled late on Sunday.
The provision in the 3,000-page defense bill repeals the 2019 Caesar Act and requires regular reports from the White House certifying that Syria‘s government is fighting Islamic State terrorists, upholding religious and ethnic minority rights within the country and not taking unilateral, unprovoked military action against its neighbors, including Israel.
The NDAA is expected to pass by the end of this year and be signed into law by President Donald Trump, whose fellow Republicans hold majorities in both the House and Senate and lead the committees that wrote the bill.
Lifting the sanctions is considered a key to the success of Syria‘s new government. Several Saudi Arabian firms are planning billion-dollar investments in the country as part of Riyadh’s drive to support the country’s recovery. The US sanctions have been a significant obstacle to Syria‘s economic revival.
Trump announced plans to lift all sanctions on Syria during a meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in May, and his administration has suspended them temporarily. However, the Caesar sanctions, the most stringent restrictions, can only be removed permanently by an act of Congress.
The 2019 Caesar Act imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Syria targeting individuals, companies and institutions linked to Assad, who was the president of Syria from 2000 until his ouster in 2024 by rebel forces led by Sharaa.
Syrian central bank Governor AbdulKader Husrieh told Reuters last week that the country’s economy was growing faster than had been expected. He described the repeal of many US sanctions as “a miracle.”
The sanctions are named after a Syrian military photographer, code-named “Caesar,” who smuggled out thousands of gruesome photos documenting torture and war crimes by Assad’s government.
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EU Looking at Options for Boosting Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, Document Says
Lebanese army members stand on a military vehicle during a Lebanese army media tour, to review the army’s operations in the southern Litani sector, in Alma Al-Shaab, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
The European Union is studying options for strengthening Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces to help free up the Lebanese army to focus on disarming the terrorist group Hezbollah, according to a document seen by Reuters on Monday.
A 2024 truce between Lebanon and Israel remains fragile, with Israel carrying out regular strikes on Lebanese territory that it says are targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah’s efforts to rearm.
The document, produced by the EU’s diplomatic arm and circulated to the 27 member states, said it would pursue consultations with Lebanese authorities and that a scoping mission would take place in early 2026 on possible new assistance for the country’s Internal Security Forces.
EU efforts could “focus on advice, training and capacity-building,” the paper said, adding that the bloc would not take over the tasks of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), whose mandate is set to expire at the end of 2026, when it is expected to begin a year-long drawdown and withdrawal.
Instead, the EU “could contribute to the gradual transfer of internal security tasks” from the Lebanese Armed Forces to the Internal Security Forces, allowing the army to focus on its core defense tasks, the document said.
The UN secretary general is expected to produce a transition plan in June 2026 that will address risks stemming from UNIFIL’s departure.
EU, LEBANESE OFFICIALS TO MEET NEXT WEEK
The paper from the European External Action Service comes ahead of a planned meeting between senior EU and Lebanese officials in Brussels on Dec. 15.
“Through a combination of advice, training and possibly the provision of certain equipment, the overall objective would be to enable the Police and the Gendarmerie to fulfil their mandates in cities and rural areas across the country,” it said, adding the EU could also help Lebanon to better secure its land border with Syria.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy on Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, was in Beirut on Monday to propose a roadmap that aims to assess independently Hezbollah’s disarmament, diplomatic sources said.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said last week that Lebanon wanted to see a ceasefire monitoring mechanism play a more robust role in verifying Israel’s claims that Hezbollah is rearming as well as the work of the Lebanese army in dismantling the armed group’s infrastructure.
Asked whether that meant Lebanon would accept US and French troops on the ground as part of a verification mechanism, Salam said, “of course.”