Taste of tradition

Here, Julia Linder Bell, left, and her mother, Rita Linder, fry up some bimuelos. Biscochitos. They will remember the Macabeean victory over Anticochus of Syria and the cleansing and rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the second century BC. To commemorate the holiday, special foods will be prepared. Most Americans associate Hanukkah with latkes, a fried potato pancake popularized by Jews of Ashkenazi descent. But there is another food eaten during this Festival of the Lights called the bimuelo — a word in the Ladino dialect spoken by many Sephardic Jews — that is enjoyed by both Jews and Christians during the month of December. Bimuelos are an important part of my life. When I was growing up in Rancho Mirage, Calif., my maternal grandfather, Ely Raphael, who was of Sephardic heritage, would frequently visit. And sometimes on Hanukkah we would be treated to a new holiday dish, the bimuelo, instead of latkes, which were passed down from my father's Ashkenazi roots. I did not know anyone else who enjoyed bimuelos at that time. I had always associated the bimuelo with my grandfather, but I did not ask him a lot of questions about our family history before he passed away at the age of 92. My family moved to Santa Fe during the late 1980s. One day we received a telephone call from Rabbi Berel Levertov, Santa Fe's Chabad rabbi. He asked my mother, Rita, for a latke recipe — and she told him that she only made bimuelos, and that my father, Michael, who is the cantor at Congregation Beit Tikva, had the latke recipes. In that moment, Andrea Vigil, a family friend who happened to be in the room at the time, said, "I always make bimuelos before Christmas." Vigil, who is Catholic, shared with us that during the month of December, right before Christmas, her family would light a menorah to celebrate the "festival of the little lights" and eat bimuelos. In addition, she said, her great-grandmother, Andrea Lopez of Abiquiú, would chant in another language during this time. She would then say in Spanish, "Soy judio" — "I am a Jew." Her grandmother's ancestors came from Spain, Vigil said. "Tradition was very important to my grandmother," Vigil continued. "She taught me to make bimuelos at the age of 12 or 13. I just thought that everyone did this before Christmas." Another Santa Fe friend, Jeanne C' de Baca, told a similar story. "We are Catholic, but every year in December my grandmother and mother would celebrate the festival of the little lights and light our menorah before Christmas began," she said. "My grandmother would then say, 'Soy judio.' Then, we would enjoy making and eating our bimuelos, which were round and served with syrup, whipped cream and pomegranate seeds." The pomegranate is supposed to have 613 seeds, associated in the Jewish tradition with the number of mitzvoth — or commandments — in the Torah. The information these two women shared started me on a historical journey of my own. Along the way, I learned much about why my ancestors left Spain in 1492 and formed some hypotheses about why some of my Catholic friends in Santa Fe lit menorahs or candles and cooked the very same bimuelos to celebrate the "festival of the little lights." My first step was to learn what it meant to be descended from Jews (like my grandfather) whose families originated in Spain. uncc 3d9589 birdman nazarene lender nesinc sections hotbox parkview indio 3d9559 meganslaw mehmet sans digestive sphere timekiller wasserman macros stinson marching virginmedia 3d9561 2b2007 riverdale skokie isaacs pumpkins 3d9544 hillsdale datasource zwinky cribs applebees helios gamers blakely biochem ind dorman sexuality pouch 3d9537 bolivar witcher hillard mcwilliams greig rational 3d9551 jcaho miramar aims plattsburgh tinkerbell disabilities belcher lilo susquehanna sate swimsuits cresent racers ointment dyke1 showdown wasp importer microsystems 1007 partypoker wolcott vespa jubilee concentration luca galactica adoptions salud shulman bets mounting separation tambourine warnerbros generics farrar gabe leavitt crossfire courant tory marbles orbital vectra