For Shir Halpern, co-founder of Tel Aviv’s leading farmers’ market, the urge to do something positive and productive after October 7 was almost immediate. As a primary force behind Port Market, which since 2008 has gathered growers and purveyors at the city’s lively northern port every Friday for an outdoor showcase of produce, olive oil, cheeses, baked goods and other items, she instinctively knew how to triage within the artisan food world.

“The first need was labor,” said Halpern, who began by organizing volunteers—many of them longtime customers of her vendors—to help pick produce on farms bordering Gaza. “If our farmers couldn’t pick, they couldn’t sell.”

Within two weeks of the start of the war, Port Market had reopened, and Halpern has hosted a minimum of 10 vendors from both the northern and southern borders free of charge since, even allowing them to come during the week, when the market is typically closed, to sell their offerings.

“Beyond the sales that help them financially, our farmers really love the support they get from the community,” said Halpern, who has seen customers step behind the register to help ring up and bag sales as staffing remains an issue. “It’s amazing to see these people smiling.”

Halpern is also offering reduced rates to support struggling small businesses not necessarily from the North or South, many of them female-owned. Such regular markets sellers include Lehamim Bakery’s Rinat Tzadok, who sells homemade marzipan, candied citrus peels and sumptuous oatmeal bars; and Farah Raslan, who brings her family’s cheese- and pistachio-laden Lebanese desserts to the market.

“Through the darkness and tragedy of October 7, we are seeing some light at the market,” Halpern said. “There are small, comforting moments we’re seeing every week that allow us to be even a little bit optimistic.”

Israel has become a nation of volunteers. Starting on October 7, ordinary citizens rushed to assist their country in its time of need, with tens of thousands mobilizing within days—in some cases, hours—to help Israel in any way they could. For those in the food world, efforts often congregated around the kitchen.

For cookbook author and television personality Shaily Lipa, springing into service was a way to manage the worry she feels for her son, Itamar, a 20-year-old combat soldier who was called up October 8 and who has since mostly been in Gaza.

She began by mining her extensive network and social media platform (75,000-plus Instagram followers and counting) to connect those in need with everything from military equipment to diapers. “What’s the point of having contacts if you don’t use them?” said Lipa, the author of 13 cookbooks, including the upcoming Yassu, a compendium of Greek recipes due out this summer from Artisan Press.

At Asif culinary institute in Tel Aviv, Lipa hosted programs for women who had been displaced from their homes, one made up mostly of those from the southern kibbutzim of Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Netiv HaAsarah and Nir Oz. The second was comprised mostly of people from Kiryat Shemona and Netivot in the North. Each session combined a cooking class with a Talmud lesson from scholar Chaya Gilboa. Participants prepared dishes, including zucchini fritters and baked feta, while Gilboa took them through a Talmudic tract about viewing destruction as an opportunity for renewal.

Asif staff also launched the ongoing Open Kitchen initiative, where Tel Aviv-area residents host displaced people in their kitchens to prepare favorite comfort foods. So far, participants have cooked delicacies such as the Yemenite Shabbat bread Kubaneh, Persian beet soup, Tunisian kefta (chicken meatballs) and Moroccan fish stew.

Feeling at home in Israel—and having the ability to participate in relief efforts—can be challenging for new immigrants (olim) to Israel, who contend with cultural and language barriers. Many turned to Citrus & Salt, an English-language cooking school, to both give and receive solace and support.

“So many olim needed a place to feel a sense of togetherness,” said Aliya Fastman, who made aliyah in 2010 and started Citrus & Salt in 2016 with her sister, Sheindl Davis. “Almost overnight, we bonded into an ironclad community.”

The school, which paused its classes after October 7, has produced more than 30,000 kosher meals prepared by volunteers, the most popular featuring peanut noodles and coconut chicken curry. Now that demand for meals has decreased as some reservists return from the front and civil infrastructure is catching up with the needs of the displaced, Citrus & Salt is hosting Shabbat dinners and looking into offering mishloach manot for Purim and arranging a Passover seder. They also organize groups of volunteers to pick crops at farms faced with labor shortages.

“I very much believe you don’t have to be a solder to serve,” Fastman said.

Service was all Maya Darin, culinary director of Bishulim, Tel Aviv’s largest cooking school, had in mind after the Hamas attacks, when their professional-track courses screeched to a halt. She began by raiding the school’s pantry, then raising money from a variety of sources both locally and abroad to produce, through December, thousands of meals for soldiers and citizens displaced from their homes.

Hopefully, these Peanut Butter and Blueberry Hamantaschen, which Darin developed and photographed for this year’s Bishulim curriculum, will bring a ray of light to your Purim celebrations, as will Passover recipes from Lipa for a pomegranate-glazed salmon and an orange coconut cake.

Peanut Butter and Blueberry Hamantaschen
Makes 40 cookies
Recipe courtesy of Maya Darin

1 1/2 cups flour, plus more as needed
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons almond flour
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) cold butter, cut into cubes
1 egg beaten, plus 1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup blueberries

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment combine the flour, 1/2 cup almond flour, confectioners’ sugar and butter and mix at medium speed until the mixture resembles large crumbs, 20 to 30 seconds.
2. Reduce the speed to medium-low, add the egg yolk, water and vanilla, and mix until a unified dough forms, 20 to 30 seconds.
3. Divide the dough into two equal-sized pieces. Form each half into a 5-inch disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 20 minutes.
4. While the dough is chilling, combine the peanut butter and remaining 3 tablespoons almond flour in a bowl and mix until incorporated.
5. Preheat the oven to 350°. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. One at a time, unwrap the discs of chilled dough and, on a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll out to 1/8-inch thickness. Use a 3-inch-round cookie cutter to cut circles out of the dough (extra dough can be gathered, chilled slightly, then rerolled).
6. Use 2 spoons to scoop 2 teaspoons of the peanut butter filling in the center of each circle, then top with 3 blueberries. Brush the edges of the circles with the beaten egg and fold into hamantaschen, pinching at the ends. Chill the hamantaschen on the baking sheets for 20 minutes.
7. Bake until lightly golden, 8 to 10 minutes.

 

Salmon With Pomegranate, Garlic and Ginger
Serves 8 to 10
Recipe courtesy of Shaily Lipa

3-pound salmon fillet, skin on
1/3 cup pomegranate molasses
3 garlic cloves, minced
1-inch piece ginger, peeled and finely minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Take the salmon out of the refrigerator one hour before baking.
2. Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Arrange the salmon on the prepared baking sheet, skin side down.
3. In a small bowl, combine the pomegranate molasses, garlic and ginger. Brush the mixture all over the salmon and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Bake until the salmon is golden and cooked to medium, 25 to 30 minutes.

Coconut, Orange and Chocolate Chip Cake
Serves 8 to 10
Recipe courtesy of Shaily Lipa

1/2 cup vegetable or other neutral oil, plus more for greasing pan
5 eggs
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange (1 1/2 tablespoons zest, 1/2 cup juice)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups almond flour
1 1/2 cups dried coconut
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 10-inch round baking pan with oil.
2. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl until frothy, then whisk in the orange juice, zest, 1/2 cup oil and vanilla until incorporated.
3. Add the almond flour, coconut and sugar and mix until smooth, then fold in the chocolate chips until just incorporated.
4. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake until the center is set and a tester comes out with crumbs attached, about 35 minutes. Cool and serve. Cake keeps, refrigerated, for 4 days.

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Adeena Sussman is the author of Shabbat: Recipes and Rituals from My Kitchen to Yours and Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen. She lives in Tel Aviv.