The Asif Gallery’s aim is to broaden the local culinary conversation. Rotating exhibitions explore the intersection of food and society, fashion, history, and more. For our third exhibition, we are exploring the wheats and breads of 17th century Jerusalem. Join us for a tour of Asif and the gallery in Tel Aviv — and enjoy the digital exhibition below.
A City, Wheat, Bread
Jerusalem in the 17th century was a small city, far removed from the political and economic center of the Ottoman Empire; it was known for its religious status as the third most important city in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. The city, whose territory was confined by stone walls was home to fewer than 10,000 residents, most of them Muslim, with a minority of Christians and Jews. Throughout the Land of Israel, the residents of the various religions, communities, and classes subsisted primarily on locally produced merchandise and ingredients.
CURATOR’S NOTE
For thousands of years, grains and bread were the staple foods of those living in the Land of Israel. Making bread, one of the first processed foods produced by humans, required the cooperative efforts of many people — those who cultivated, harvested, and ground the grain, and those who kneaded and baked the dough. The story of bread is the story of human society in the Middle East. Flour mills, communal ovens, and neighborhood bakeries occupied a central place in community life and served as vibrant cultural centers.
Lists of types of grain, flour, and bread from the 17th century in the records of the sharia court (Muslim court), allow us to reconstruct of the types of baked goods produced in the area 400 years ago. The various types of foods in these lists were prepared and consumed by Muslims, Jews, and Christians who lived in Ottoman Jerusalem in the pre-industrial age, when people either produced their own food or purchased it locally. Some of the baked goods have survived to this day under the same names, while others disappeared over the years or underwent changes in name, form, and flavor. A glance into the past allows us to investigate how traditional Middle Eastern foods have been transformed, and enriches our knowledge of their modern incarnations. Some of the recipes for baked goods that appear in the exhibit were reconstructed from the originals, while others served as the inspiration for modern delicacies created by contemporary bakers and chefs.
The various types of breads and baked goods displayed in the exhibit were baked from flour ground in a traditional manner from different local wheat landrace lines, a result of cooperation with researchers and scientists seeking to restore them to commercial use and consumption. In the State of Israel only about 10 percent of the wheat we consume is grown here, and all commercial wheat, both imported and local, comes from a few modern lines, which have replaced unique varieties throughout the world. Investigating the culinary qualities of the local landrace lines is part of the effort to restore the flavors and cultural heritage that have been almost irretrievably lost.
The Land of Israel is traditionally considered to be a part of the world where bread is baked flat — as a result of local baking techniques, scarce firewood to keep historic ovens lit, and the varieties of wheat grown here, mainly durum, which differs from varieties grown in regions farther north.
Most of the breads in the 17th-century records are flat breads, either unleavened or leavened with natural yeasts. The attempt to learn their hidden qualities is also part of the effort to draw inspiration from local traditions that can help preserve the environment and human health.
Ronit Vered
The various types of breads and baked goods displayed in the exhibit were baked from flour ground in a traditional manner from different local wheat landrace lines.
FRESH FROM THE OVEN
Borek Bisaman (Borek bi-Samn)
This is a small, filled pastry, made from a sheet, or layers of sheets, of oiled dough. The word börek comes from Turkish. Originally, it was baked on a saj (a curved surface placed over a campfire), and the pastries were laid one on top of the other, and greased with animal or vegetable fat. These pastries are considered to be the heritage of the migrant Turkish tribes, also mentioned in Arab cookbooks of the Middle Ages. This tradition underwent refinement in the palace kitchens of the sultans. The popularity of this family of pastries in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans testifies to the Ottoman influence on the region’s cuisine. The borek pastries were formed in various shapes and filled with a range of sweet and savory fillings.
Jewish Sabbath Bread (Challah)
The term challah appears in the Bible, but the form of the biblical challah is not clear. It's reasonable to assume that it was a flat round bread, which was the typical style of loaves made with local durum wheat. To distinguish it from the weekday breads, it was often baked from expensive ingredients like white flour, semolina, oil and eggs, or given a unique form. Sometimes, the crust was decorated with ribbons of dough. Weaving the dough into braids, the common style today, was also done to distinguish the holy bread from weekday loaves.
Baker Uri Scheft, a longtime challah researcher, baked round challahs with local heirloom flour. The display, with 12 challahs, was inspired by the custom that took root in the Land of Israel in the 16th century to place the challahs on the home Sabbath table in a manner that recalled the ceremonial display in the Jerusalem Temple.
Alardi (Alkhubz Alardi)
A flat and relatively thick bread that is allowed to rise before it is baked in an oven sunk into the ground, this bread's name is derived from the word “ard,” meaning ground or bottom in Arabic. Customarily, it's stuck to the walls of the oven, similar to the baking technique for lavash and other flat breads from Central Asia. The Sharia court records show that sometimes an underground taboon was used, other times ovens were covered in bricks to preserve the heat over time.
Russell Sacks, a baker in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market used the oven at a nearby Bukharian bakery for some of his attempts to recreate the flavor and shape of 17th-century bread.
Aljerk (Aljerk)
This filled bread takes its name from the word “zherk” in Arabic, meaning ring. Similarly to challah dough, this one is enriched with eggs and, in the modern age, with milk as well. The most common filling is dried dates, though cheese and herbs can also be used. The churek, sold today in Turkey and Iraq, is from the same family of pastries. This filled pastry is still sold from carts in the market of Jerusalem’s Old City. Today, it’s called maruk, and often has a yellowish hue, which comes from the use of turmeric in the dough.
Pastry chefs Michal Bouton and Ana Shapiro, who have begun integrating local techniques and ingredients into the European baking tradition that is widespread in Israel, have created a modern recipe inspired by the traditional bread.
Sesame Ka’ak (Kaak bi-Simsim)
This is not the round ka’ak (bagel) that is known today in Israel and throughout the world as a Jerusalem ka’ak. These ones are harder, small and round, and more similar to cookies. Medieval Arabic cookbooks feature recipes for ka’ak that were made using various techniques. They were seasoned with a variety of spices and seeds, including mastic, cinnamon, musk, camphor, fenugreek, roasted anise, nigella, coriander seeds, and sesame. It is reasonable to assume that it was these ka’ak that were commonly found in markets and eaten by most of the city’s residents. Barazek, karshala, and ka’ach sha’i (or “tea ka’ak”) are some of the names of crisp pastries made today.
Chef and baker Erez Komarovsky created a modern sourdough recipe inspired by the crisp, seasoned ka’ak of the Middle Ages. In the production process he used local ingredients — such as baladi sesame, sesame oil, semolina from landrace varieties, and cane sugar — that were once produced in the region but today are generally imported.
Gatayef (Qatayef)
These crepes are typically filled with various nuts and almonds, folded into a crescent shape, fried in sesame or olive oil, and served dipped in honey or simple syrup. The first documented recipe for qatayef appears in a cookbook published in the Abbasid Caliphate’s court in the 10th century. The historic recipe is similar to the recipes popular today, though sourdough has been replaced with modern industrial yeasts.
Neatly arranged mounds of qatayef have become one of the major symbols of the month of Ramadan because of their crescent shape. In the Middle East they were once prepared solely for the holy month, but today are sold in the markets year-round. During Ramadan, the crepes are often purchased from a professional baker, then filled and fried in home kitchens.
Kmaj (Kmaj)
It seems that the word “kmaj” in the 17th century referred to a bread with a shape resembling a contemporary pita. The term comes from Persian: kūmāj. Creating a bread with a pocket requires a short baking time in a very hot oven. In the early modern period and in pre-modern ovens, it was hard to achieve the desired result. Yet, the mention of the kamj among the baked goods sold daily on the streets of Jerusalem in the 17th century indicates that the technique was known.
Modern technology has made pocket breads — known today primarily as pita — the most common bread in modern Israel. The invention of the modern pita, small and uniformly sized, apparently derives from the demand by street food vendors in the 1970s. The historic kamj was larger than what is known today in industrial baking as the “100-gram pita,” which is typically filled with various local street foods such as falafel and shawarma. In neighboring countries — including Syria, Lebanon and Jordan — these foods are mostly served in flat breads that are rolled. In contemporary Palestinian Arabic, it is still common to refer to the industrially manufactured pocket breads as kamj, while the term pita is generally used to describe the filled 100-gram pitas.
Baker Amr Msalha, a pioneer of the modern boutique Palestinian bakeries, examined how the kamj was made in the pre-modern ovens.
Knafeh (Knafeh)
Pan cakes are the most ancient sweets in history, with variations in almost every human culture and geographic region. Until the 13th century, the terms “knafeh” in Arabic and “kadaif" in Turkish referred to pan cakes made from a batter of flour and natural yeasts (sourdough); most were filled with nuts, rolled, or folded into a crescent shape, and dipped in a sweet syrup. A description of these spongy crepes appears in “The Thousand and One Nights." Then as now, people tended to buy them from professional vendors rather than preparing them at home. The qatayef, one of the most common sweets during the Ramadan period, is a contemporary twin of that tradition.
Between the 13th and 15th centuries, a change took place: those terms — knafeh and kadaif — came to describe thin strips of dough, or noodles prepared from the same batter, that were ultimately used to prepare similar pan cakes, which were sprinkled with perfumed syrup and decorated with nuts. The spoon used to pour a circle of batter onto the hot cooking surface was replaced by a perforated ladle (and some say it was preceded by a coconut shell). Eventually that gave way to special metal pots with tubes on the bottom designed to slowly dribble the batter, until finally bakers began using modern equipment to form the fine kadaif noodles. Alongside the popular knafeh, made with fine hairs of kadaif, preparation techniques for other types of knafeh have been preserved.
Lebanese-born confectioner and baker Farah Raslan has investigated various methods for preparing the noodles of pastry by hand. She baked the knafeh over the embers of an open campfire.
Holy Christian Bread
Partaking of holy bread, symbolizing the flesh of Jesus and his sacrifice, is one of the seven sacraments — a central Catholic rite. The holy bread is distributed to believers during the ceremony of the Mass and the Eucharist, alongside wine which represents the blood of Jesus. The controversy over the character of the bread — raised bread or a thin matza — was one of the causes of the historic split between the Western and Eastern churches. In the Western Catholic church, which considered Jesus’ last meal to have been a Passover Seder, believers are given small, thin matza. In the Eastern Orthodox church, in contrast, flat raised breads are given. The images stamped on the holy bread before baking — with a bread stamp made of stone, clay, wood or, in modern days, plastic — strengthen its symbolic significance.
Layla and Ibrahim Shiban used to bake the holy bread in their native village of Rameh in the Galilee. The clay stamp they use is estimated to be over 100 years old and was given to the family by the village priest. The central column represents the Son of God, the large triangle to His left represents Mary, and the small triangles on His right represent the nine ranks of angels next to God’s throne in heaven. The Shiban family would season the perfumed bread with mastic. It is believed that the mastic resin was part of the sacrifices that the three biblical magi offered on the night of Jesus’ birth.
Mawi (Alkhubz Almawi)
The name of this bread is derived from the Arabic word “ma,” meaning water, and it indicates the relatively large quantity of water in the recipe for the thin dough. With its spongy appearance and texture, mawi recalls the Yemenite lachuch and the Ethiopian injera. It belongs to the pancake-like family of breads (skillet flatbreads) common throughout the Middle East. In ancient recipes, a fermented batter of water and flour was used; in modern recipes, still popular in the region, white flour is used, sometimes with the addition of semolina, yeast, and sugar. Mawi is still prepared locally, including in some of the bakeries in the Old City for Ramadan.
This modern rendition, created by baker Safa Boshnak, was inspired by the traditional bread.
Samuni (Alkhubz Alsamuni)
In 17th-century Egypt, this bread was known as “samuli.” In the Sasanian dialect (the language of the last pre-Islamic Persian empire), the words “mašmūl” and “šumūl” both meant “bread.” In its shape, this bread resembles a modern roll. In the Persian Gulf region, various types of modern rolls and baguettes are still called “samuni.”
The modern recipe, created by baker Safa Boshnak, was inspired by the traditional bread.
Bread Baked in a Taboon (Alkhubz Altabuni)
Alkhubz altabuni is kind of a large pita bread, made solely of flour, water and a little salt and is used to enfold or dip into other foods. Like all flatbreads, this taboon bread is baked relatively rapidly (unlike raised breads, which require a longer baking time). The taboon, a vertical oven shaped like a dome or cone, became popular in the Land of Israel because of the shortage of flammable material; it can be lit with materials other than wood, such olive waste or manure. In some taboons, the bread is baked over an open fire, but in the ones most popular in this region, which are made of clay and straw, the exterior walls are covered with the hot ashes of the burning material and heated from outside.
The baker Hagay Ben Yehuda, a third-generation baker who grows rare landrace varieties of wheat, grinds it himself in an artisanal mill, and bakes small batches of sourdough bread in a stone oven. The breads he creates incorporate ancient local varieties of durum wheat and are based on European baking techniques. For the exhibit, Ben Yehuda experimented with baking flat bread from local durum wheat in a traditional taboon made from clay and straw, hand-built by the women of the Palestinian village of Susiah in the Palestinian Territories.
Hasawi (Alkhubz alhasawi)
This bread is baked on stones; “hasaah” in Arabic means stone or a river pebble. The recipe is identical to that for the basic taboon bread, but the river pebbles, scattered on the floor of the taboon or oven, leave their stamp on the flat bread giving it a pocked look. They help to distribute the oven’s heat and preserve it in a region where fuel is scarce. People who did not have an oven or taboon would bake bread in embers from a campfire or on top of river pebbles heated in the campfire.
Hussam (Nasser) al Tahan (“the miller” in Arabic) grows wheat using traditional methods on his family’s land in the Beit Netofa valley. He then grinds the wheat into freekeh, bulgur, and flour and bakes traditional breads in a bakery next to the mill. The floors of the two wood ovens that he built himself, with the help of expert oven builders from the Palestinian Territories, are lined with river pebbles. His bread is similar to the hasawi mentioned in the 17th-century records.
MEET THE BAKERS
Uri Scheft's baking career began in a baking school in Copenhagen and with internships in Europe where he worked with international bread experts. Back in Israel, he continued to work as a baker, further developing his knowledge and experience. In 2002 he founded Lehamim bakery, where he makes a personal statement as a baker with a selection of breads that helped introduce European baking tradition to the Israeli public and the streets of Tel Aviv.
Following many years of researching the challah, Sheft chose to bake round challahs, using flours from local heritage wheat varieties.
Michal Bouton (Amita Bakery, Tel-Aviv Jaffa)
An accomplished pastry chef, Michal Bouton has shaped the dessert menus at several leading restaurants in Israel. Her combinations of tradition and innovation blur the boundaries between sweet and savory, cooking and baking.
A year and a half ago, Bouton and fellow pastry chef Ana Shapiro opened Amita, where they integrate local ingredients and techniques into the European baking tradition prevalent in Israel.For the exhibition, they created a modern recipe inspired by aljerk, a traditional stuffed bread made from a challah-like dough.
Ana Shapiro (Amita Bakery, Tel-Aviv Jaffa)
Ana Shapiro began her culinary career as a cook, but a growing interest in the world of baking led her to a career as a leading pastry chef in Israel. In her baking, she likes to play with textures and flavors, creating unexpected desserts that are meticulously prepared, strikingly beautiful. A year and a half ago, Shapiro opened Amita with fellow pastry chef Michal Bouton. At their bakery in Yaffo, they integrate local ingredients and techniques into the European baking tradition prevalent in Israel.
For the exhibition, they created a modern recipe inspired by aljerk, a traditional stuffed bread made from a challah-like dough.
Safa’a Bushnak(Homebaker in Kafr Manda)
A music teacher by profession, Bushnak first entered the world of baking 13 years ago, when her husband asked her to make manakish (a flatbread topped with za’atar). She wasn't happy with the result and couldn’t stop thinking about it, so she quickly returned to the recipe until she produced what she was looking for. She’s baked every day since, deepening her knowledge through books, vidoes, baking workshops, and experimenting with a variety of flours. Today, she leads baking workshops on sourdough and pastry.
Bushnak was given hourani flour and 33M flour from our heritage flour collection. She used them to recreate two recipes: one for mawi bread, a skillet flatbread resembling a pancake, and the other for samuni, or samuli bread, which resembles a roll or a baguette.
Chef, baker and co-owner of Erez and Hanan catering business, Erez Komarovsky is one of Israel's top culinary figures. Komarovsky was one of the firsts to introduce the unique flavor of sourdough breads to the general Israeli public, who quickly fell in love with it. The author of several cookbooks, he is head of the Galilean Cooking School in Matat, and participates in various culinary enterprises and projects.
For the exhibition, he created a modern sourdough recipe, inspired by the crusty, seasoned bagels of the Middle Ages. He used ingredients such as baladi sesame, sesame oil, heritage semolina, and cane sugar — all of which were produced locally in the past, and today are mostly imported.
Farah Raslan (Knafeh Ka’ak, Agamon Hula)
Pastry chef Farah Raslan was born and raised in the El Adeisa village in Lebanon, immigrating to Israel at the age of 18. Her love of cooking began when she was a young girl, but she dedicated herself to biotechnology studies, hoping to become a cancer scientist. A random encounter led to her participation in the Israeli version of "MasterChef," where her talent immediately stood out, and took her to the show's finale. This experience made her delve deeper into the traditional culinary knowledge her family brought from Lebanon. Raslan uses her background in chemistry to better understand and improve ingredients and cooking processes. Today, a combination of entrepreneurship coupled with knowledge of food-tech, traditional ingredients, and recipes enables her to express her love for food, cooking and science.
Raslan prepared a traditional knafeh, exploring different methods for the pastry noodles used in the dish. She baked the knafeh on traditional fire sources, including the embers of an open fire.
Hagay Ben Yehuda (Hagay’s Bread, Kibbutz Einat)
Hagay Ben Yehuda, a fifth-generation baker, grows rare heritage wheat varieties, mills the grains himself and bakes a limited quantity of sourdough breads in a stone oven. Using European techniques, he combines local durum varieties and ancient wheat varieties. His work is motivated by a drive to remain as close as possible to nature.
For the exhibition, Ben Yehudah experimented with baking flatbreads from local durum varieties in an oven built from clay and straw by women from the village of Susya in the Palestinian Territories.
Russell Zacks (Russell’s Bakery, Jerusalem)
Russell Zacks is the owner of the eponymous boutique bakery Russell’s in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehudah market. After making Aliyah from South Africa, he enrolled in a baking and pastry course, and later worked in bakeries in Italy, Sweden, and England. Today, he puts that experience and knowledge together at his bakery.
For the exhibition, Zacks baked alardi, a thick flatbread. The dough is leavened and baked in an oven dug into the ground.Hussam Nasser (Tabun Baladi, Arraba)
Hussam Nasser, also known as al-Tahan, Arabic for the miller, uses traditional methods to grow wheat on his family's land in the Beit Netofa Valley. He grinds the wheat into freekeh, bulgur and flour, and uses it to bake traditional breads in the bakery adjacent to the mill.
Nasser made a taboon bread, similar to the traditional hasawi bread, in a wood stove he built; the stove's bottom is laid with pebbles, which leave an impression on the bread.
FROM THE MUSLIM COURT'S ARCHIVES
The archives of the sharia court (sijil) in Jerusalem from the Ottoman period hold records that date to the 16th century. The court was headed by the qāḍī (judge), who was responsible for the day-to-day administration of the city. Tens of thousands of proceedings were preserved in the court’s volumes. They include court rulings and records of hearings on everyday issues – marriages and divorces, property and inheritances, commerce and food, and more — that shed light on the material culture of the people of that time.
The central place of bread in the diet of the city’s residents is attested by its frequent mention in the court records, primarily in the records of the price supervisor for the markets. The issues of quality, weight, and price of bread were also cited in complaints brought against bakers and breadsellers. There are many references in these records to bread baking accessories, including areva and mish’eret – ceramic bowls used for kneading and fermenting dough.
The Muslim court supervised the prices of various foods sold in the city’s markets. The Ottoman state insisted on fixed prices, periodically publicized by the qāḍī, whose assistants were required to ensure that the public in fact kept to them. The following documents, selected from among the thousands of proceedings recorded in the 17th century, are examples of supervisory records regarding prices of grain, flour, bread, and other baked goods.
From the archives of the Muslim court
Landrace Lines of the Land of Israel
Wheat is a versatile plant that adapts itself to a wide range of conditions and climates. For thousands of years, wheat has spread to various locations and adjusted to each. Every village and region had its own line of wheat that featured a cultural, economic, and culinary tradition which grew up around it.
The unique landrace lines of the Land of Israel disappeared in the second half of the twentieth century, following the Green Revolution (the transition to modern lines of grain and industrial agricultural processing methods) and the geopolitical shifts in the Middle East. All wheat we currently grow and consume originates in modern lines and the reduction in genetic diversity makes this crop, so vital to humanity, vulnerable to diseases, pests, and climate change. The extinct local lines have worldwide significance, given that the Land of Israel is located in one of wheat’s centers of origin, which was also a seat of the wild grain’s domestication.
The “Land of Wheat” project, initiated in 2015 by the Israel Plant Gene Bank, is engaged in the preservation and restoration of traditional lines of grain. The Educational Grain Garden on Asif Roof – in cooperation with the project and the Gene Bank – was planted in December 2021 and includes wild grains, ancient grains, landrace lines, and modern lines.
The Land of Wheat project, initiated in 2015 by the Israel Plant Gene Bank, is engaged in the preservation and restoration of traditional lines of grain.
Bread Stamps
In the 17th century, few Jerusalem residents had home ovens. Private ovens were more common in rural villages, but the crowded conditions in the big cities, combined with the high price of fuel in a sparsely forested country, dictated the use of large communal ovens. In the premodern era, people baked bread two or three times a week. They would prepare the dough at home and send the loaves to the neighborhood public oven, where they would pay a few coins or leave a portion of the baked products in exchange for use of the oven. The residents could also purchase ready-made bread at the neighborhood bakeries. For hundreds of years, these bakeries served as vibrant centers of community life.
A bread stamp – a form made of stone, clay, metal, or wood bearing a visual image or inscription – was pressed into the bread before baking. Its use helped residents distinguish among various loaves in the public oven. Bread stamps also served to enhance ideological and religious messages, such as the Christian holy bread; in other cases, the stamp advertised the name and skill of the baker.
The modern bread stamps displayed in the exhibition are inspired by traditional ones as well as ancient stamps discovered in local archeological excavations. They were created in cooperation with students from the Advanced Ceramic Design course in the Industrial Design Department at Shenkar, under the direction of Ravit Lazer and Avi Ben Shoshan.
A bread stamp — a form made of stone, clay, metal, or wood bearing a visual image or inscription — was pressed into the bread before baking. Its use helped residents distinguish among various loaves in the public oven.
Blessing of the Harvest
In many parts of the world, farmers would weave stalks of grain into stylized braids with ceremonial-ritual significance. These braids, hung in houses and barns, symbolized thanksgiving for the blessings of the land and talismans for a good harvest and abundance in future years. In the Levant, the talismans of braided grain were known as “Blessing of the Harvest” (birkat alhasida). The most common form was called “musht” (“comb” in Arabic), in which the heads of grain point towards the ground, with the intention that their strength returns to the ground to make it fertile. The art of braiding the “Blessings of the Harvest,” which was a local custom for thousands of years, remains known to only a few in the modern era. When harvesting mechanically with a combine, unlike manually harvesting with a sickle, the stalks do not remain whole. Moreover, modern lines of wheat produce miniature stalks, which are too short to be braided.
These braids, hung in houses and barns, symbolized thanksgiving for the blessings of the land and talismans for a good harvest and abundance in future years.
Read More
Imagine you lived in the land of Israel about 400 years ago and you wanted to bake yourself a fragrant loaf of bread: Where would you get the flour? How much would it cost? How big would the Ottoman tax authorities’ bite be? And what would the loaf look like?
Israeli baker Hagay Ben Yehuda traveled to France to learn how to make what he thought was ‘classic’ bread, only to realize what he was looking for was back home. A journey into the fields helped him find his voice.
