Poopa Dweck is the pre-eminent authority on the food-ways and customs of the Jews of Aleppo, one of the largest and most flourishing communities of Sephardic Jews. Dweck comes from a long line of Syrian cooks, whose migrations have spanned the globe from the northeastern hill town of Aleppo in Ottoman Syria to Italy to the United States and South America.
She is best known as the author of the stunning cookbook Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of the Syrian Jews, featured in The New York Times Magazine, Year of Ideas in 2007, and as the winner of the National Jewish Book Award in 2007. Dweck is featured in the Sephardic Heritage Museum`s film, titled “The Syrian Jewish Community: Our Journey Through History,” which premiered at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in 2010. She was presented the Women of Honor Award by Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem at Sotheby’s in New York in 2011. In 2004, a stunning hardcover Hebrew-language edition of Aromas of Aleppo was published with great success. This is Dweck’s fourth work on the subject and the most comprehensive source for the cuisine and customs of Syrian Jews from Aleppo to date.