Who really invented Falafel? Jews or Arabs? the food debate goes on. Israeli researcher Prof. Shaul Stampfer did a research on what bagels and falafel mean to Jews. What he found out surprised him.
Prof. Shaul Stampfer is a professor of Soviet and East European Jewry at Hebrew University's Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies. In a story published in Haaretz, Stamper investigated and traced back the history of the famous 'traditional' food, and why it is considered as a Jewish dish.
Prof. Stampfer surprisingly found out that both bagels and falafel are actually modern inventions: There is no ancient record of it and the technology has not been there.
"I was very surprised because when I started working I thought that this was an old, old Middle Eastern food, when I started trying to track this down for the footnotes, it wasn't there," Stampfer told the publication.
His findings were contrary to his initial assumptions, and has enlightened claims that falafel is an Arab dish that was appropriated by Israeli Jews - "an act of cultural appropriation said to mirror other forms of Israeli violence against Palestinians". This is due to the assumption that falafel has a long history and mark in Arab culture and politics, and that Jewish immigrants in Middle East in its to erase its Arab or Palestinian roots started calling it an Israeli food.
As for Prof. Stampfer, the greatest significance of falafel is how the food helped Jewish immigrants adopt a national identity.
"The political problems that we have here are real problems" Prof. Stampfer said. He added that falafel or any dish thereof are not the issues, and that the real issues at hand are human rights."
Prof. Stampfer's essay,"The Secret Lives of Bagels and Falafels," is set to be published in January in "Jews and their Foodways - Studies in Contemporary Jewry," under the Oxford University Press label.
