Kurdish Radish and Carrot Salad—and the Little-Known story of an Old-School Female Torah Scholar

July 2, 2018

Today I have a light, refreshing Kurdish radish and carrot salad for you—along with the fascinating story of a 17th-century female Torah scholar in Kurdistan.

Kurdish Jews

First, a little background on the Kurdish Jews: Jews have lived in Kurdistan since ancient times—there’s a legend that they’re descendants of the lost Ten Tribes from the time of the Assyrian exile—divided among what is now Iraq, Iran, and Turkey (with a few in Syria for good measure), with the majority in the Iraqi region. It’s estimated that at its peak, this Aramaic-speaking community numbered between 20,000 and 30,000, but with the establishment of the State of Israel, almost all Kurdish Jews emigrated, most of them leaving in 1950–51.

Asnat Barazani

While reading up on the history of the Kurdish Jews, I stumbled across a fascinating historical character whose story deserves to be spread much more widely: 17th-century female Torah scholar Asnat Baraznai.

I’d never heard of her before researching this post, but it turns out Barazani’s life story is pretty cool. The daughter of renowned scholar Rabbi Shmuel b. Netanel Ha-Levi of Kurdistan, who led a yeshiva in Mosul, in today’s Iraq, was raised as her father’s successor, since he had no sons.

Barazani married one of her father’s top students, Rabbi Jacob Mizrahi, and thanks to her supportive father ended up with a pretty sweet arrangement, by which her husband promised never to make her spend time on housework. Instead, she taught at the yeshiva, which passed to her husband after her father’s death. Some scholars even consider her to be the world’s first female rabbi!

Barazani outlived her husband, and on his death she became the head of the yeshiva. Under her leadership, the yeshiva continued producing outstanding scholars—including her own son, who eventually went to Baghdad, where he continued the dynasty of rabbinic scholars.

There are some pretty wild legends attributing all kinds of supernatural powers to Barazani, most of which have been found in amulets (another little-known piece of Jewish history, but alas one that will have to wait for another day). One has her magically limiting herself to two children, so she’d still have time and energy to devote to her studies and teaching, and another has her freezing an attempted rapist in his tracks by calling out holy names.

Not much of Barazani’s written work remains, but there are a few extant letters of hers, which make for pretty fascinating reading.

About the Recipe

But back to the food. This recipe for Kurdish radish and carrot salad is slightly adapted from Faye Levy’s 1000 Jewish Recipes, which I picked up after being bowled over by her fantastic sugar cookie hamantaschen recipe. This one is another winner, though it’s obviously not a fair comparison holding this humble salad up against a delicious cookie. On the upside, it’s about 100x easier and quicker to make than hamantaschen, and it’s the perfect thing for those summer heatwave days when you’re looking for light, no-cook sides.

Faye Levy recommends daikons as her radish of choice for this Kurdish radish and carrot salad, on account of its milder flavor; I used standard red radishes because I had a bunch from last week’s CSA delivery. They’re a little bit sharper, but not, I thought, excessively so here, especially with the mellowing effect of the sweet carrot.

With my little radishes, I opted not to peel them, and I’m glad I did, because between the red radish skin, orange carrots, and green scallions, this turned out to be a beautiful, colorful salad. Kurdish Jews traditionally serve it as an accompaniment to grilled meats, and I can imagine it would work great in that capacity; I mixed mine with some quinoa and brown lentils for a simple, healthy bowl.