Ezra Scherpler ("Azura") passed away: "We lost a huge, humble and pleasant man" - voila! Food

The market is crying.

Azura (Photo: Omer Miron)

Ezra Scherpler, founder of the "Azura" restaurant in Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem, passed away today (Wednesday) at the age of 86.

Scherpler is considered one of the founding fathers of urban food, and during his lifetime, along with his wife and children, he fed hundreds of thousands of Israelis - initially a small meal in the market, later From the nearby Jaffa Street, then from the heart of the complex which gradually established itself as a culinary and social must-see.

Unifying and beloved.

Sharpler (Photo: Omer Miron)

Mandatory stop.

Azura (Photo: Omer Miron)

Shrapler immigrated from Turkey with his family and started working from a young age as a dishwasher in the market.

He learned the secrets of the kitchen and cooking from his surroundings, including from the legendary "Rahamo" restaurant, and then turned to open "Azura" in 1952.

The restaurant moved to its current location in the market about three decades later, and the demand and queues expanded it to the adjacent space, but all the geographical changes did not affect the food himself - a master of traditional family cooking, which started from the "Rice and Beans Morning Club", as the family defines it, continued with regular and lively parliaments, and is happy to meet new customers every day who preserve the tradition, and the taste.

Israeli institution

"House food" inside the market

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A culinary anchor.

Azura (Photo: Omer Miron)

Scherpler's and Azura's kitchen combined Kurdish-Iraqi-Turkish pot food and wicks, and for years also offered Kneidlach soup.

"A tradition is a tradition, and that's why I get up early every morning and light the fuse," said about a decade ago his son Alran, who helped a lot in the restaurant and is now behind Tel Aviv's "Even Ezra", "Dad wants a person to come at eight in the morning and have food. 'That's how it was. And so it will be. I came early every morning, you will come too,' he described."

According to him, "there are other places that make delicious food, but here things came together, and the place reminds people of home food."

"So it was and so it will be."

Azura (Photo: Omer Miron)

"The Mahane Yehuda market is saddened by its passing," chef Tali Friedman, chairman of the merchants' committee in the complex, paid tribute to him, "Sharpler and his dishes greatly influenced chefs in the market and beyond.

He was a significant culinary anchor and a source of pride for all market merchants, and for Jerusalemites in general, for decades."

According to her, "the big and wide heart of him and his family members, who manage the beloved Jerusalem institution with a high hand, stands out to this day in every dish served at Azura - Always in abundance, always with a great soul, always with joy.

We lost a huge, gentle and pleasant man who was a unifying and beloved factor, and now we will work to commemorate his name as befits a man who loved and connected with his heart's blood to the market of Mahane Yehuda. May his memory be blessed."

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• Azura

• Mahane Yehuda Market

• Jerusalem