MONSEY, NY— An intervention was staged this week for local Jewish teen Jacob Alterman after it became apparent that he prefers poppy seed hamantaschen even to flavors like chocolate chip, apricot jam, and cherry.
“It all started when he was 16 and our parents got divorced. He came home from a Rosh Chodesh Adar party with a bag of poppy seed Hamantaschen – at the time he said it was all they served that night; It seemed suspicious but I was naïve enough to believe it,” said Tamar Alterman, Jake’s older sister. “He would publicly berate people who consumed the objectively good flavors. It’s just so hard to watch someone you love go through something like this.”
It was Tamar and Jake’s best friend, Eitan Asklerud, that decided to hold the intervention: “it got to a point that if he was at a Purim party that served date, raspberry, and fig hamantaschen, but not poppy seed, he would have nervous breakdowns. The opium withdrawal was just too much. I decided we had to stage the intervention when he threatened to physically harm Rabbi Green after he only brought chocolate-filled to school.”
While studies have found that 22% of teenagers would be open to trying poppy seed filled hamantaschen in a social context, a troubling statistic in and of itself, only 7% of American Jewish teenagers are desperate enough to choose poppy seed over the non-disgusting fillings. Of the group who did make the unfortunate choice to go for poppy, 94% would end up trying heroin within 6 months. Thankfully, Jake’s friends intervened before his case became critical.
At press time, a reporter walked in on Eitan crushing up and snorting poppy seed hamantaschen in the bathroom.
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