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When/where did the idea of Hamantashen come from?

I have heard:

  • Haman's hat
  • Haman's Ears

But neither of those make any sense...

Popular Isn't Right
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Naftali
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  • Near-duplicate: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/69452 – msh210 Mar 17 '16 at 17:15
  • @msh210notreally near but it looks like an actual duplicate. – Naftali Mar 17 '16 at 17:16
  • http://seforim.blogspot.co.il/2008/03/origins-of-hamentashen-in-jewish.html – Chaim Mar 16 '18 at 00:54
  • Another idea -- Haman's dice. This is fascinating: https://web.archive.org/web/20140314133528/http://www.jewishindependent.ca/archives/april11/archives11april08-02.html – SAH Apr 10 '18 at 20:38
  • Notwithstanding the popularity of other interpretations, I could swear this^ is the actual significance of hamentaschen. (Well, depending on how long they have been around.) This is Jewish humor exactly! It makes me want to eat more. – SAH Apr 10 '18 at 20:45

1 Answers1

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Secular linguists (I believe this is attributed to William Safire) have suggested the most likely possibility that the original was "mon - tashen", i.e. "poppyseed pockets." (Mon being Yiddish for poppy seeds.) Then at some point someone had them on Purim and made some stretch from montashen to homontashen.

Eventually modern Hebrew needed some name for the treat and called them Haman's ears.

Shalom
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  • I heard about some connection between Purim and (poppy) seeds, so it was not by coincidence that someone had them on Purim. – Adám Aug 01 '13 at 21:02