Half a world apart, Esther Kranz and her mother serve up the same Passover dinner each year. The cooking lessons between mother and daughter were conducted by telephone over the course of 20 years. Kranz is a Hebrew teacher who came to Boston in 1980 from Moshav Devora, near Haifa, one of 300 Israeli agricultural communities where families live independently but work together. Her mother still lives there. Her late father, Albert, worked in the community's greenhouses, where roses were grown for export.
Roses have a part in their Seder menu.
Ben-Abu, who was raised in Morocco, took a dish commonly flavored with rose flower watercq and instead used rose petals. The dish is haroset, which goes onto the Seder plate. Haroset is a paste that symbolizes the mortar and bricks in the Exodus story told at the Seder, recalling the work done by the Israelites in Egypt. Ben-Abu's haroset is made from chopped dates, pecans, and almonds simmered together, then rolled into balls and wrapped in rose petals. Ashkenazic Jews, descendants of Eastern European families, make an apple-nut paste.