Mohn o’ Mohn! Nostalgia for a (poppy)seedy Purim celebration.

Growing up Jewish in Buffalo more than a half-century ago meant only one source of kosher baked goods for most members of the city’s small Jewish community– Kaufman’s Bakery.

It was a popular, long-established, family-owned business that trucked its delicious products, particularly the well-known “Kaufman’s Rye Bread” (I still fondly remember the catchy radio jingle) to neighborhood groceries and supermarkets, and its yummy-but-not-particularly-healthful cupcakes (the thick chocolate frosting was piled almost as deep as the baked dough underneath) to shuls’ bar- and bat-mitzvah parties and post-davening kiddushes.

And at Purim time, it meant one type of hamantasch filling: poppy seed.

Maybe the bakery offered other fillings, like prune, but feh! Who would want any type of hamantaschen except for those with the sweet, little black seeds bursting at the seams?

At any of the Jewish bakeries or grocery stores I subsequently patronized for several years, poppy seed was the predominant — if not the sole — filling for hamantaschen before Purim arrived. You needn’t specify what type of hamantasch you wanted.

Now I live in Queens. Try to get a poppy seed hamantasch here. Fahgettaboudit! I tried last year. It took calls to several kosher bakeries in my neighborhood till I found one – one! – that offered it.

It was OK, but couldn’t compare with Kaufman’s. (The Kaufman’s far-superior-to-the-New-York-brand-of-hamantaschen featured the filling baked inside the thin, soft, toasted exterior dough that enclosed the whole product, not the filling that’s plopped inside a space in the middle of the crumbly, not-baked-enough dough of New York hamantaschen. But that’s another story.)

Since moving to the New York area four decades ago, the last three spent in Queens, I often receive a shalach manot package from friends; a hamantasch or two are typically inside; rarely, poppy seed.

My experience in my neighborhood is not isolated. Friends elsewhere in the Greater New York area don’t know from poppy seed hamantaschen. The kosher bakeries that ship their products to grocery stores don’t seem to be making them much anymore either – however a few Jewish bakeries reported that they have not reduced the number of poppy seed hamantaschen they have made in recent years.

Leah Koenig, Jewish food maven, confirms that she has noticed “a shift away from the once-popular poppy seed hamantaschen.”

At one time, according to Jewish cultural historians, poppy seed hamantaschen were the only type available – “the classic hamantash was always filled with poppy seeds,” according to Chabad.org. Poppy seeds were, at least, by far, Jewish consumers’ most popular hamantashen filling choice.

It’s as old as … well, Purim.

Hamantaschen – known as oznei Haman (Haman’s ears) in Israel are supposedly symbolic of the triangle-shaped hat worn by Haman. (A new tradition in Israel: hamantaschen stuffed with meat, ala bourekas.)

According to the Jerusalem Post, “Almost all of the earliest references to hamantaschen in either historic or halachic texts mention poppy seeds. Even the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law itself, says that one should eat food made of poppy seeds. The explanation goes to the Talmud, which, in Megillah 13a, states that Queen Esther subsisted almost entirely on seeds “in order to keep kosher;” legend has it that she subsisted on poppy seeds during her three-day fast before approaching King Ahasuerus to plead for the Jews’ salvation. Likely, poppy seeds; poppy plants are plentiful in Iran/Persia.

So the Shulchan Aruch and Jewish lore support me.

For the longest time, hamantaschen meant poppy seeds. The pairing was ubiquitous. But the three-cornered pastry is a relatively recent addition to Jewish cultural cuisine. Such yeasted dough pastries filled with poppy seeds were common in Germany during the 18th century; Jews adopted them for Purim; and the custom spread.

Over the decades, Jewish immigrants from Europe – poppy seeds were a popular ingredient in Central and Eastern European recipes – brought their fondness for poppy seed hamantaschen to the States.

Everyone knew poppy seeds: mohn, in Yiddish. Hence, Mohntaschen, as the products were widely known. From Mahn, as poppy seeds are known in German.

Taste, of course, is subjective; but, objectively speaking, poppy seed is unquestionably the best.

Do a Google search for hamantaschen recipes, and such options as apricot, honey-nut and date-orange come up first. And cheese cake. Cheese cake? Unthinkable! Let cheese case stick to Shavuot!

“Chocolate is king,” an informal poll of Jerusalemites reported last year in the Jerusalem Post. “It was by far the most popular variant of hamantaschen at every bakery we could find.”

A 2020 “Best Hamantaschen Fillings, Ranked” article on the kosher.com website, which tallied the votes of “50+ women,” put “apricot jam or butter,” then “chocolate filling or spread,” and “strawberry, followed by raspberry,” ahead of poppy seed. Sacrilege! This filling, the article expounded, “evokes feelings of nostalgia.”

So poppy seed filling is a generational matter. Its time atop the hamantasch popularity poll has clearly passed. “People 49 and up” favor it, a Jerusalem baker told the Jerusalem Post.

“The quality and variety of hamantaschen have come a very long way,” Jewish foodie Shannon Sarna wrote on the myjewishlearning.com website. “You can find hamantaschen these days in every flavor imaginable: stuffed with hot dogs, dulce de leche, strawberry cheesecake and so on. There is no end to the creativity that bloggers, bakers and chefs have infused into these traditional Purim cookies.”

What happened? How did a Jewish tradition slip away? How did poppy seed fillings get replaced by – again, feh! – the likes of prune and raspberry and chocolate chips? (Putting the latter varieties of filling into a hamantasch is tantamount to using meatballs, instead of matzah balls, in chicken soup. How ­– pardon the expression ­­– goyish!)

The premise about the disappearing mohn hamantasch is ”spot on,” says Jenna Weissman Joselit, professor of Judaic Studies at George Washington University. “I’d add a generational change in the gustatory palate and in thresholds in taste. What was familiar, as well as appealing, to one generation doesn’t always ring true to another.”

Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, who claims a distaste for poppy seed products, says his “guess” is that “the decline of Yiddish [spoken by most Jews in this country] means that the association of ‘Mon’ (Yiddish) with Homon (Haman) is no longer recalled. Poppy today is linked to marijuana, which is an illicit substance.

“I recommend quality jam,” Sarna says.

Poppy seeds are “old school,” according to Chaya Rappoport, culinary manager of the Jewish Food Society. In other words, old-fashioned. Passe. Your grandfather’s – or probably, your grandmother’s – filling. The au currant style of hamantaschen doesn’t feature “every hot-right-now ingredient,” Rappoport wrote in 2022 in The Nosher.

She is a true believer. “I’ll come right out and say it,” she wrote – “The best hamantaschen are simple, classic and filled with poppy seed.”

Rappoport calls poppy seed hamantaschen “probably the oldest version to exist.” Citing their roots in medieval Germany, she says they “symbolized the money Haman offered from his pockets [Taschen are “pockets” in German] to Ahasuerus in exchange for permission to destroy the Jews.

“It worked in Hebrew, too,” Rappoport wrote. “The Hebrew word for ‘weaken’ is tash (תש) , and Hamantaschen became a celebration of the weakening of Haman, and a symbol of hope that God would weaken all adversaries of the Jews.”

The connection between hamantaschen, specifically the poppy seed variety, goes beyond food – it’s historical, theological and grammatical. When we bite into a hamantasch, we’re also getting a taste of Jewish tradition.

Something is missing from Yiddishkeit when we discard a Tasch filled with Mahn.

It’s spiritually a different ta’am. The non-mohn types simply sound treif, no matter how kosher, under-strict-supervision, the ingredients are, no matter how tasty they are.

I’m not equating the disappearance of poppy seed hamantaschen with the consumption of cheeseburgers, in terms of kashrut observance, or the substitution of mayonnaise for hot mustard on a pastrami sandwich, in terms of culinary tradition, but something has been lost.

The non-poppy seed options are a symbol of the ditch-tradition, what’s-‘now’-is-best, make-Shabbos-for-yourself ethos that has dominated much of Jewish life in Western culture over the last few decades.

I can’t complain – too much. The people who favor these disreputable hamantaschen fillings are still eating hamantaschen, and observing one of the holiday’s minhagim (and, hopefully, also listening to the Megillah, and contributing to charities for the poor). Better than they should be eating Easter eggs.

Why the change? Why has the stock of poppy seed hamantaschen fallen? Why their decreased market share?

A few answers suggest themselves.

On one hand, for some people, they’re not Jewish enough …

Maybe poppy seeds are associated with European non-Jewish (often-anti-Semitic) cultures, are too ethnic (i.e., “Old Country”) and are not “American” enough. Stuff made with them aren’t cool.

… or for other people they’re too Jewish.

Maybe they’re reminders of stifling, irrelevant Jewish pasts that many young people wish to escape or forget, like boring Hebrew schools or drag-on seders.

Or they’re too Ashkenazic, part of the dominant strain of Jewish life in this country against which many young Jews have rebelled. (Among Sephardim, the Purim pastry tradition was fried strips of dough called orejas de Haman (“Haman’s ears”) – they were absent from Persian Jewry — and Scandinavian Jews consumed gingerbread men in the shape of Haman.)

So poppy seed hamantaschen were not universal. As in the U.S., 2025.

“There’s no demand for it” – and less for hamantaschen in general, says Rabbi Yosef Wikler, longtime editor of Kashrus Magazine. The kosher consumers with whom he is acquainted are “more sophisticated” than in past years, and have a greater selection of acceptable food (particularly important for kosher consumers who only buy products under rabbinical supervision) from which to choose for Jewish holidays. Same for macaroons at Pesach, Rabbi Wikler says; once popular, they’ve been eclipsed by other kosher l’Pesach foods.

Poppyseed hamantaschen, he says, are considered “not as sweet” as other dessert items. “They’re bland.”

Part of the answer is demographic. The immigrant generation, the men and women who grew up with poppy seed hamantaschen, is mostly gone; their children, who grew up in mohn-infused households, apparently did not inherit their patents’ preference for that type of Purim delicacy, and certainly did not pass it on to their own children, who do not appreciate the seeds’ nutritional value and may have been scared away by reports that poppy seeds in one’s system may register positive for opium use on a blood test (the seeds are derived from the opium poppy.)

Besides, they get stuck in your teeth, unlike chocolate chips or raspberry jam.

Think DIY, “the increased desire by today’s Jewish cooks to experiment with their culinary traditions,” suggests Leah Koenig, author of seven cookbooks. For example, “the guava-filled hamantaschen enjoyed by Cuban Jews.

“In general,” she says, “hamantaschen are a particularly great canvas for experimentation since they have a trademark shape that presents as hamantaschen no matter what is inside.”

Also, Koenig adds, most Jews in the U.S. “most likely” had a poppy seed hamantasch made with canned poppy seed filling, which “often is filled with corn syrup, starches, and other lesser-quality ingredients that make it objectively less delicious than homemade poppy seed filling.”

Whatever the answer, poppy seeds’ day as the favored treat on the day of Purim is largely over.

Many members of the younger generation of Jews apparently never tasted, or heard of, a poppy seed hamantasch. An 20ish Orthodox woman who works in the New York area for a major Jewish organization told me recently that her favorite filling is cherry. Cherry! I got similar results from several friends with whom I discussed their Purim preferences.

Another question: so what? Does it matter that we’re eating fewer poppy seed hamantaschen? What does it mean for the Jewish community and for Jewish continuity?

That’s the wrong question, says Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL).

The switch from one predominant flavor of a pastry on a Jewish holiday is not a negative, not an indication of diminished respect for an established tradition, but an indication of the beginning of another tradition, says Rabbi Hirschfield, who adds that “I like poppy seed.”

Decades ago, fewer options – in hamantaschen fillings or in the ways to participate in Jewish acts or rituals – were available to the Jewish community, he says. “We had fewer choices.”

The greater number of choices, the greater vibrancy of Jewish life – and the greater possibility to observe Jewish tradition, albeit in a different, more individual way, the rabbi says.

“Every tradition started out as an innovation,” Rabbi Hirschfield says. As innovative as chocolate chip fillings. “The change of taste we are witnessing may be the start of a new tradition.”

In other words, Jews in a few decades may be as accustomed to chocolate chip hamantaschen as I am to ones with poppy seeds.

That’s the macro meaning. The micro significance: poppy seed hamantaschen are getting scarcer.

This year I’ll have to search again for a poppy seed hamantasch.

It’ll be harder for my landsmen in Buffalo.

Kaufman’s bakery shut its doors two decades ago. It’s as defunct as the poppy seed hamantaschen to which my hometown’s Jewish consumers looked forward each year.

The closing of Kaufman’s is a loss for Buffalo’s Jewish community – and for the out-of-work employees.

The disappearance of poppy seed hamantaschen is a loss to the Jewish community everywhere.