How ‘Oil Bulbs’ Became Holland’s Hanukkah Treat
Image by Flickr
By Dave Goldiner December 14, 2016
Israel has sufganiyot — and Holland has “oil bulbs.”
For Jews and others in the Netherlands, the fried dough treats are as ubiquitous here as they are in the Holy Land, JTA reports.
Hundreds of food stalls hawk the delicacies known in Dutch as “oliebollen” every year from November to January.
“I often don’t bother to get real sufganiyot at a kosher shop,” said Tzippy Harmsen-Seffy, an Israel-born Dutch Jew from Amsterdam told the agency. “I just pick up a few oliebollen instead.”
Most Dutch people believe the donut-like treat is of Portuguese or Sephardic origins, even though that claim remains unproven.
Some Jews even insist they are superior to sufganiyot — and closer to the treat’s Sephardic origins.
“If you consider Israeli store-bought sufganiyot original, then oliebollen are better because they’re fresher and smaller,” said Gili Gurel.
Of course, they can’t compare to her grandmother’s homemade sufganiyot: “Everything is inferior.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
