Middle Eastern and North African Jewish Cuisine

Elementary School (Grades K-5)

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Students taste and trace the dishes of Jewish communities from Morocco to Iran and discover how geography, religious practice, and migration carried family recipes to Israel and the world.

Overview

For more than two thousand years, Jewish communities lived across the Middle East and North Africa, from Morocco and Tunisia to Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. Their kitchens shared ingredients with their Muslim and Christian neighbors and were shaped by Jewish practice: kashrut, Shabbat stews that cook overnight, and special foods for every holiday. When most of these Jews left or were forced from their home countries in the twentieth century, they carried their recipes to Israel and around the world, where dishes like shakshuka, sabich, jachnun, and couscous are now everyday favorites. Students explore what shapes the food people eat, read about Jewish kitchens of six regions, learn from real families’ food stories, and prepare or taste a dish together.

Essential Questions

  1. What shapes the foods a community eats?
  2. How did Jews of the Middle East and North Africa shape the food of Israel and the world?
  3. How do recipes carry family memory from one place and generation to the next?

Students will be able to

  • Identify factors that shape a community’s food, including geography, climate, trade, religious practice, and migration.
  • Describe characteristic dishes and flavors of at least three Jewish communities of the region.
  • Explain how migration carried these dishes to Israel and around the world.
  • Prepare or taste a dish and evaluate it.
  • Connect their own family food traditions to the theme of memory and migration.

Curriculum Connections

  • Social Studies (C3): D2.Geo.6.6-8, D2.Geo.8.6-8
  • ELA: RI.6.1, SL.6.1
  • Health and Family and Consumer Sciences: food safety, following a recipe, cultural influences on food
  • Jewish Studies (Jewish settings): kashrut, Shabbat, holiday foods, Sephardic and Mizrahi heritage

Materials

  • Projector, or printed copies of the Jewish Food Society stories
  • Food, using one of three options: no cook hummus, hot shakshuka or bourekas (all in Appendix C), or a store bought tasting plate of pita, hummus, olives, dates, feta, and pickles
  • Gloves, plates, and serving utensils
  • Optional: music from the Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewish Music lesson
  • Appendix A: A Taste of Home and Appendix B: Food Journey Worksheet (one each per student); Appendix C: Classroom Recipes

At a Glance

Grade and setting: Grades 6 to 8, public, independent, and Jewish schools
Time: Two 45 minute class periods (cooking optional)
Source: Adapted from Journey to the Mizrah

Food safety and inclusion

Check for allergies and dietary needs (sesame, eggs, wheat, dairy, nuts; kosher, halal, and vegetarian diets) and get family permission before students taste anything. Tasting is always optional. Follow your school’s food handling rules and cook eggs until firm.

Downloads

  • Lesson Plan  Full lesson with teacher background, vocabulary, assessment, and differentiation (PDF)
  • Appendix A  A Taste of Home: Jewish kitchens of six regions (PDF)
  • Appendix B  Food Journey Worksheet: flavor map, food story, tasting journal, and family reflection (PDF)
  • Appendix C  Classroom Recipe

Session 1, Introduction: Why Do We Eat What We Eat? (10 minutes)

  1. Main questions. Write the essential questions on the board.
  2. Quick write. Students list what they ate for dinner the last two nights and compare with a partner. Why did you eat those foods? Gather answers on the board.
  3. Sort. Group the answers into geography and climate, trade, religion, and family and migration. Today students will see all of these at work in the kitchens of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.

Session 1: A Taste of Home (35 minutes)

  1. Jigsaw reading (20 min). Each group reads one region card in Appendix A (Morocco; Tunisia and Libya; Egypt and Syria; Iraq; Yemen; Iran) plus “Common Threads,” fills in its row of the Flavor Map on Appendix B, and teaches the class.
  2. Food stories (15 min). Each group reads one family’s story from the Jewish Food Society and completes the Food Story notes on Appendix B:

Session 2: Cook and Taste (30 minutes)

  1. Prepare. One group prepares a recipe from Appendix C or sets out the tasting plate while the other finishes Appendix B; then switch.
  2. Taste. Eat together while playing Sephardic or Middle Eastern Jewish music. Students complete the Tasting Journal on Appendix B.