Should I use persist() on the Session? The Hibernate Session interface also
features a persist() method. It has the same semantics as the persist()
operation of JPA. However, there’s an important difference between the
two operations with regard to flushing. During synchronization, a Hibernate
Session doesn’t cascade the persist() operation to associated entities
and collections, even if you mapped an association with this option.
It’s only cascaded to entities that are reachable when you call persist()!
Only save() (and update()) are cascaded at flush-time if you use the
Session API. In a JPA application, however, it’s the other way round:
Only persist() is cascaded at flush-time.