Soul Food:

Girls Scout cookies and hamantaschen have at least two things in common. Both are tempting can’t-eat-just-one confections.

Both make the scene during the Christian, pre-Easter, Lenten fast. Which for many makes the tasty treats verboten.

Why Girl Scout cookies are sold at this time of year, I can’t tell you. Hamantaschen, though, accompany the Jewish festival of Purim and Purim intersects Lent.

This year, it begins at sundown tonight coinciding with Maundy Thursday, which along with Good Friday is one of the most solemn days on the Western Christian calendar.

For Christians whose Easter (or Pascha as they call it) is tied to the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar, Purim is arriving early in Lent.

No doubt, most Christians could live a lifetime and never encounter a hamantaschen given the relative invisibility of Purim to those who are not Jewish. And while they might never know what they missed, that would be a sin and a shame.

I had my first taste of the tender pastries without knowing their significance. They were a perk, along with matzo balls and kreplach and knish, of working my way through college as a waitress at a Jewish delicatessen and bakery.

The first time I bit into one of the golden triangles filled with jam, I was hooked. But no one told me the story of the pastry’s origins.

Some 20 years later I’d come across hamantaschen again at a Supersol market in Tel Aviv, where I lived in the late ’80s. There I would learn their story and how they got their name.

Purim celebrates the Biblical story of Esther, who foiled a plot by the wicked Haman to annihilate her people.

“Purim is a holiday that celebrates Jewish survival, in spite of numerous attempts of anti-Semites to destroy us,” Rabbi Stephen J. Einstein of Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Fountain Valley says.

In Tel Aviv, unlike here, Purim did not pass unseen. There were the ubiquitous hamantaschen of course, but like on our Halloween, there were also costumed partygoers in the streets and the parks and the plazas.

I remember watching with amusement and not a little anxiety as costumed children, tots to teens, milled thickly in Dizengoff Plaza. There were Esthers galore and Persian kings, giggling ballerinas and rakish pirates.

Scarcely a year before, my husband and I had almost rented an apartment at Dizengoff Center, where three weeks later three Molotov cocktails were thrown from its roof into a crowd below. What similar terror, I wondered then, could be about to scatter these merrymakers?

My fear would not be realized until 1996, when a suicide bomber shattered Purim festivities at the Dizengoff Mall. Each Purim since, I have read a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report of the incident.

Kobi Zaharon and Yovav Levi, both 13, out without their parents for the first time, never came home. Mital Wax, 27, lost a foot. Her parents found their 21-year-old Assaf at the morgue.

Fifteen-year-olds Bat-Chen Shahak and Hadas Dror, and 14-year-old Dana Gutman were also killed. Nili Zeltzer lived but was seriously injured and dispossessed of her three dear friends.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded at their funeral. “Please stay with me.” As I read the report, I try to imagine what this celebration of survival has become for Nili and the families of Kobi, Yovav, Bat-Chen, Hadas and Dana.

At Congregation B’nai Tzedek, as at Congregation Adat Israel in Huntington Beach, the Megilla — the Scroll of Esther — will be read at a service this evening. At each mention of Haman’s name those listening to the narrative will boo and shake noisemakers, known as graggers, to obscure his memory.

But are there enough graggers in the world to drown out the memory of a suicide bomber at the Dizengoff Mall?

The story of Esther is roughly 2,300 years old. It is set in Persia, modern-day Iran.

A press release from Congregation Adat Israel reflects, “Recently as Iran is threatening to annihilate Israel, the story of Purim seems to be repeating itself. May we see G-D’s miracles in our days.”

I asked Rabbi Aron David Berkowitz of Congregation Adat Israel and Rabbi Einstein to tell me how serious a threat they think Iran is to Israel. I didn’t hear back from Rabbi Berkowitz before my deadline for this column, but Rabbi Einstein told me this:

“Hitler outlined his plan of genocide, and the world just thought he was a nut. The current president of Iran claims the Holocaust never took place and has set out as a goal the destruction of Israel. I have no doubt that if he had the means to do so, he would actually attempt it.”

Nevertheless, Purim is a joyous time.

On Sunday, Congregation B’nai Tzedek held a carnival for kids with games, food and prizes. Adults celebrated on Saturday night at a party called Shushan@Shul.

At Congregation Adat Israel, Purim baskets — Schalach Manos — were taken to local hospitals and senior centers. The four commandments, or mitzvot, of Purim are to listen to the story of Esther, to give gifts to the poor and needy, to give gifts to friends and to share a festive Purim meal.

Tonight at Congregation B’nai Tzedek, after the reading of the Scroll of Esther, there will be a Purimspiel, a comic spoof of the story.

Congregation Adat Israel will enjoy live music and dancing, Persian-style treats and a video comedy.

Among the gifts exchanged with friends may be hamantaschen, the three-sided, buttery pastries filled with jam. In Tel Aviv, I was told they are named for the three-cornered hat worn by the villain Haman. Or, others said, they are named for Haman’s ears, which were cut from his head after he was hung from the gallows. Take your pick, since “taschen” simply means pocket — the pocket made in the center of the pastry to hold jam.

If you want to try a hamantaschen, call Katella Deli in Los Alamitos and ask whether they have any left. Or I can send you a recipe for making your own.

MICHÈLE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She can be reached at michele@soulfoodfiles.com.