New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Holiday brings cultures together
Syrian refugee chef makes traditional Hanukkah doughnuts
NEW HAVEN — Aminah, a Syrian refugee chef who in two years has learned more than passable English and started her own catering business, will join the local Jewish community on Sunday to celebrate
Hanukkah by demonstrating how to bake sufganiyot,
Hanukkah’s traditional jelly doughnuts.
The idea that she’s a Muslim baking for Jews emphasizes their difference, and that idea doesn’t sit well with her. If there’s anything she has learned since arriving in America on Nov. 8, 2016, it’s that everyone — “Jewish or Christian or Muslim or people who have no religion” — are much more alike than they are different.
Aminah, who prefers not to publicize her last name because her family back in Homs, Syria, could be endangered, was cosponsored by Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services and the Jewish Community Alliance for Refugee Resettlement, a group of five congregations, the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven.
She will make the sufganiyot with Congregation Or Shalom’s Hebrew school students Sunday morning in Orange and then at Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel in Westville that afternoon, just before Hanukkah, the eightday festival of lights, begins at sundown.
The doughnuts are similar to a pastry made for Ramadan. “Just for us, with honey, but for Jewish with jelly,” Aminah said. Her husband, Issa, adds it looks different, too.
JCARR has become more than a welcoming sponsor to Aminah and her family — her husband, and their children, Faisal, 10, Amal, 9, and Retaj, 4. The group, led by coordinator Jean Silk, has become her American family.
But the owner of Aminah’s
Authentic Middle Eastern Cuisine, who cooks for her business at CitySeed’s kitchen, is excited to learn new cuisines. “I am a chef,” she said. “I always try something new. I always like something different. Every country I learn more and more.”
Silk, a member of Temple Emanuel in Orange, said Aminah’s catering business is successful enough that “pretty much everything works through word of mouth. She gets calls from people [who] she doesn’t even know how they heard of her.”
For Gilah Benson-Tilsen, JCARR team leader at BEKI and daughter of Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen, it’s only natural that the two cultures would come together.
“I think the Jewish community in general finds the refugee crisis to be very important to us,” she said. “Most of us came here as refugees. My ancestors came here from Eastern Europe and their family and their friends that stayed behind were killed, so this is an important family history to us. … It’s very important to us to welcome people.”
“And beyond that, I just love Aminah’s food; it’s just amazing. So I keep coming back,” said Benson-Tilsen, a graduate student at the Yale School of Public Health.
“We are fortunate that American values validate cultural diversity,” Rabbi Tilsen said in an email. “To live according to our own ways is now part of the American ideal. By right as Americans, we can declare our Jewishness. By living fully as Jews, we get ‘extra credit’ for living the American way.”
Silk said JCARR, which also has sponsored a second Syrian family and one from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is more important than ever since the election of President Donald Trump, who stopped all immigration from Syria and has severely cut the number of refugees admitted to this country.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 22,491 refugees were admitted in fiscal 2018, which ended Sept. 30, below the limit of 45,000 the Trump administration had set. The ceiling for 2019 is 30,000, according to the center. Only 62 arrived in the last year from Syria, which is in the middle of a brutal civil war.
In 2017, when the cap was set at 110,000, the United States resettled only 33,000, according to the Pew Research Center. It was the first time the United States had resettled fewer refugees than the rest of the world combined.
Referring to Aminah, Issa and their children, she said, “They arrive on Election Day and we didn’t know when we met them at 5 p.m. anything about the election [results].” The next morning, Issa called her and said, “‘I brought my family here to be safe. Are we going to be safe here?’ That day the meaning of JCARR, the meaning of what we are doing took on some symbolic meaning that we didn’t anticipate.”
The Jewish group and the Syrian family have become more than friends. “We talk about everything,” Silk said. “We’re different but we’re all open people that are interested in our differences. They’re really becoming part of the community. They just work so hard in learning English, learning to drive.”
Issa said the JCARR members have helped in a host of ways. “It’s very good. We are in a different country, a different culture, a different religion,” he said. “In America, everything is different than our country. They teach us how to be in the community here. … How to make an appointment, how to go to a clinic, how to go to the hospital.”
He said True Wolff, a volunteer with Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden and a retired teacher of English language learners, had helped him with his language skills. “I told Jean I learn more from her than from the school,” Issa said. Her husband, Cliff Wolff, has helped teach driving.
Silk said one of the most difficult things for immigrants to learn is the many bureaucracies they must deal with, and members of JCARR have guided them along the way.
“They always want to do things right, especially with Aminah’s business — make it legal, abide by the laws,” she said.
“If you need anything, just call Jean,” Aminah said.
One of Aminah’s challenges has been having a kitchen to use for her catering business, since the landlady won’t allow cooking for a business in their Westville apartment. CitySeed has been generous, but its kitchen is located on Grand Avenue, on the other side of New Haven.
Aminah said that unlike some Muslim men, her husband, Issa, supports her in working outside the home. Out of work with a back injury, he helps with the business side of things, while she focuses on cooking. He’s also working on his GED.
“My husband, he gave me power. Some people don’t like the women to work. My husband gave me power and he’s behind me,” Aminah said. She said her dream is to open a restaurant.
This year, the family became familiar with a new American tradition. “This year, she cooked her first Thanksgiving herself,” Silk said. “She cooked her first turkey. When somebody is beginning to celebrate the holidays of the new culture, it’s a true sign of adaptation to the country.”
Aminah and Issa do practice their religion, as well. They are members of the New Haven Islamic Center on Bull Hill Lane in Orange.
“Everyone loves food and I think food becomes kind of a link to trust,” Silk said of the connection with the Syrian family. “It’s not just symbolic because we’re Jewish and they’re Muslim. To me it’s about the other. We see them as people, what they’re good at, what they’re interested in. They all have their stories.
“The world is in such a bad way, it gives me hope” to have a positive connection to people from another culture, Silk said. “We make the world better one family at a time.”
The JCARR congregations are Temple Emanuel, BEKI, Congregation Or Shalom, Congregation Mishkan Israel and Congregation B’nai Jacob in Woodbridge.
To contact Aminah to cater an event or a private party, call 203-850-1882 or email issahmod999@gmail.com. Menus can be seen at https://aminahscuisine.wixsite.com/ catering.