ruler to sign a peace treaty with
Israel, told BBC television that
he was becoming "a little impa-
tient and a little concerned" with
the pace of the peace process.
Jordan's prime minister, Ab-
del Karim Kabariti, was more ex-
plicit. "We wanted so much to
believe in Netanyahu," he
lamented to the Tel Aviv daily
Ma'ariv. "We gave him the ben-
efit of the doubt. But as time
ri passes, we are very frustrated.
You hear positive things from
Mr. Netanyahu, but on the
ground the results are negative.
"When we met him before the
elections, he was adamant that
only the Likud could attain
peace. So we thought he had
everything planned in his head,
that he had a well-formulated
strategy. But now we are asking
ourselves whether he has any
strategy at all."
And in Cairo, President Mu-
barak has been even cooler, re-
fusing to meet Mr. Netanyahu,
pointedly telling Israeli ques-
tioners that he cannot force
Egyptian businessmen to trade
with the Jewish state, with which
a peace treaty was signed 17
years ago, or to order the Egypt-
ian media to stop being nasty to
its leaders. ❑
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i
The Sufgania Wars
11 III
Traditional Chanukah jelly doughnuts
are threatened by competition.
LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
N
rj
o matter how sophisticated
Israel gets, no matter how
many exotic types of cuisine
Israelis have become fa-
miliar with, during Chanukah
they dutifully eat sufganiot — per-
haps the least exotic, least so-
phisticated food there is.
The sufgania, or jelly donut, is
as ubiquitous over Chanukah in
Israel as matzah is during
Passover. Sufganiot, the plural,
have no religious significance, but
virtually all Israelis — secular and
religious — eat the things, just as
virtually all Israelis light candles
every night of the holiday. They
are part of the country's civil reli-
gion.
And sufganiot are not steeped
in tradition. In fact, they became
the rage just before the late-1980s,
an era when the country was ba-
sically a backwater for consumers.
So what is a sufgania? It's soft,
sweet, greasy and crude —just a
blob of deep-fried dough, glazed
and covered with powdered sug-
ar, with a clot of jam — straw-
berry being the classic flavor —
squirted into the middle. They
start arriving in corner grocery
stores a couple of weeks before
Chanukah. And to be honest, an
Israeli sufgania needs to be on the
stale side.
As part of the holiday ritual,
the prime minister will almost
certainly be filmed for the televi-
sion news eating a sufgania; it
comes with the job. ATV crew will
visit a bakery and show the suf-
ganiot floating in oil, then being
injected with jam, and the re-
porter will sign off by biting one.
Hotel chefs will compete in a suf-
gania bake-off.
The variety of sufganiot has
widened a bit over the years; to-
day some bakeries sell them with
a few different flavored fillings
and toppings. They usually cost
around a dollar — being grossly
overpriced, they are all the more
Israeli.
Ya'acov Weiss, working in the
Soya bakery on King George
Street — the city's bakery row —
since his father opened it in 1965,
said the sufgania tradition was
brought to Israel from eastern Eu-
rope.
"Sure I like them," he said.
`They're sweet, and they fill you
up."
However, there is a new threat
to the sufgania. Ifs called Dunkin'
Donuts. The American franchise
opened branches in Tel Aviv and
Ra'anana a few months ago. In
line at the Tel Aviv shop, Ronald
Elitzur, 27, said he doesn't like the
taste of sufganiot, but eats them
anyway at Chanukah.
"It's a tradition," he said. "You
can appreciate the taste of a suf-
gania more if you're eating it while
Will the modern
Dunkin' Donuts
usurp the semi-
modern Chanukah
sufganiyot?
you're lighting the menorah. The
sufgania is for eight days a year.
The rest of the year, I'll take
Dunkin' Donuts."
Mordy Schlesinger, manager
of the branch, says Dunkin'
Donuts and sufganiot can coexist
commercially during Chanukah.
"People will eat them both," he
said, adding that while he much
prefers his own product, he, too,
eats sufganiot for the sake of tra-
dition "But," he adds, "I buy them
only at a couple of places where
I know they make them fresh
every day. I want to suffer as lit-
tle as possible." ❑
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