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Adir Michaeli, maestro of the babka, bakes his way into the heart of Manhattan
(New York Jewish Week) — In a city where love of babka borders on a religion, Adir Michaeli, founder of Michaeli Bakery, is the (you’ll pardon the expression) high priest of the confection.
You may not know his name, but if you love good babka, you probably know his product. Michaeli, 39, was once the pastry department manager and head pastry chef of Lechamim Bakery in Tel Aviv; there, Michaeli told the New York Jewish Week, he spent two years perfecting the babka recipe. When Lechamim founder Uri Scheft wanted to expand to the United States, he tapped Michaeli to help open Lechamim’s American cousin, Breads Bakery, in New York. Since opening in 2013, Breads has since become the gold standard for babka in New York.
After three years with Breads — which has since expanded to five locations in the city — Michaeli left the company to start his own business, which he said was a dream of his. Now, after a fitful start due to COVID, Michaeli Bakery has developed its own devoted following at two locations in Manhattan.
“People love these pastries,” said Michaeli, referring to New Yorkers’ embrace of the babka, rugelach and bourekas for which Breads, and now Michaeli, has become known.
Of course, it’s not like New Yorkers were suffering from a lack of babka prior to either bakery’s arrival. Lots of bakeries, notably Green’s Bakery of Brooklyn, had been making and selling the gooey, yeasted cake for decades. Local New York comedian Jerry Seinfeld even devoted an episode of his eponymous show to the sweet treat back in 1994.
But Breads brought a babka to New York unlike anything that New Yorkers had ever tasted before. It was made with a laminated dough, similar to croissants, and it was at once light, fluffy and rich, layered with butter, stuffed with Nutella and chocolate chunks, and glazed with a simple syrup. A couple of months after Breads opened on East 16th St. near Union Square in 2013, New York magazine food writers Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite anointed Breads’ babka as the best in the city.
“The business went boom!” Michaeli told the New York Jewish Week. Almost overnight, Breads went from a virtually unknown purveyor of Israeli pastries to an essential stop on the tourist food trail.
“Everyone starts to come and take pictures with the babka,” said Michaeli. During their first Rosh Hashanah, not long after the New York magazine article appeared, Michaeli said the bakery sold 3,000 loaves of babka in a single day.
(Co-founder Scheft left Breads in 2021 and now runs Bakey, a Boston bakery. As for Breads’ current ownership, a spokesperson said that Michaeli “had nothing to do with the creation of Breads Bakery’s Babka.”)
After leaving Breads, Michaeli considered opening up a bakery in Tel Aviv and briefly returned there, but, assessing the competition, he soon realized that his future was in New York.
“There was only one Israeli bakery in New York — more [of them] should come,” he said.
Living on the Upper West Side while working on his business plan and meeting with potential investors, Michaeli did some baking for Anat Sror, an Israeli-born caterer and owner of Cafe Petisco, a now-closed restaurant on the Lower East Side.
Sror knew that Michaeli wanted to start his own bakery, and though she had never invested in anybody before, she decided to back Michaeli. “He’s very talented, very passionate, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do,” said Sror. “He had a great business plan. Plus, we had worked together so I knew exactly what he is capable of. I felt it was a good risk to take.”
Sror helped Michaeli find a storefront not too far from Cafe Petisco. They both agreed it was not an ideal location, but it was within their budget. “We trusted that once people try his stuff and get to know the bakery, things will be easier,” Sror said.
Michaeli Bakery opened on Division St. on the Lower East Side in May 2019. Conceived as an “Israeli patisserie,” it sold pastries, cookies, cakes, cream cakes, cheesecakes, sandwiches and, on Fridays, challah.
Less than a year later, however, just as the bakery was developing a name for itself, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the city to its knees. As New Yorkers stayed home or left the city altogether, Sror shut her restaurant and catering concern. Meanwhile, Michaeli streamlined his bakery’s offerings, focusing on babka, rugelach and bourekas, dropping the sandwiches and cakes on his original menu.
During the long months of the pandemic, Michaeli said he worked round the clock, keeping the business open seven days a week and working as the establishment’s baker, barista and manager. On the bright side? “It gave me the flexibility to build the business over time,” he said.
His efforts paid off: Less than three years later, in March 2022, Michaeli and Sror opened a second location on East 90th St. and First Ave. “The decision to open on the Upper East Side was because customers kept saying it was too far to come to the Lower East Side,” said Sror.
Sensing “the vibe” uptown, according to Michaeli, he decided to make the bakery kosher. “My integrity is that if I’m kosher, I’m kosher,” he said, referring to his decision to have kosher supervision for both bakeries, and to close them on Saturdays and early on Fridays. “Uptown Sunday is super busy, we need the reset of Saturday. “
“My vision is that I do the best that I can,” he added. “Everyone on the team is the same. Every day should be 100%. There is no 99%. This is the DNA of the place.”
One loyal customer, art consultant Andrea Meislin, raves about the “chocolate-y, gooey and decadent” babka at Michaeli, what Meislin describes as “babka to die for.” In addition to the chocolate babka, Michaeli makes a vegan chocolate babka, cheese and cherry babka and halvah babka. His Galil bourekas, made with goat cheese, onion and za’atar, are very popular, too.
These days, the biggest challenge Michaeli faces, he said, is dealing with the enormous demand the holidays bring. “For Hanukkah, I sent the manager out to the line on the street, to say that we are sorry. We can’t catch up with demand,” said Michaeli. “We told customers [on line] to go away. It was horrible. It is a problem I am trying to solve.”
Moving forward, Sror is optimistic that the bakery will expand: “It will either be another location, perhaps on the Upper West Side, or we are thinking about making a bigger location to be able to produce a bit more,” she said. Sror hopes Michaeli will be able to expand his menu, perhaps by adding his classic, light Israeli cheesecakes, what Michaeli calls “Grandma Cheesecake.”
When asked what differentiates Michaeli’s baked goods from Breads’ or other bakeries’, the baker refused to compare, stating that he just aims to do the best he can, all the time. “If someone says this is better than this or that, I really don’t care,” says Michaeli. “There is no competition. This is what we do.”
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The post Adir Michaeli, maestro of the babka, bakes his way into the heart of Manhattan appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The Jewish secret to affordable eyewear that isn’t so secret anymore
The business cards on the counter at Minzer’s Optical proclaim “45 years of 15-minute service.” If your wait drags on for longer than 15 minutes, you can pick up one of the prayer books that line a shelf beneath the counter. But there’s no need to pray that your eyeglasses won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Minzer’s is known for its low prices, so customers who are feeling charitable might slip a few shekels into one of the pushkes, the tin tzedakah boxes, on the counter.
Once known solely within Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, today a majority of Minzer’s customers are not Haredi Jews, let alone members of the tribe. According to Mordechai Minzer, who started the business when he was just 19, this is entirely the result of word of mouth. And Minzer’s has held on in an age where Internet competitors such as Zenni have come close to matching its prices but can’t offer its speedy, in-person customer service.
“There’s an old saying that if you want something fast, good, and cheap, pick any two out of the three. Minzer’s amazingly manages to do all three,” Cheryl Krauss, a Brooklyn jewelry maker who has been a customer for close to 20 years, told me.
Up a flight of stairs in a two-story building on a block of attached homes, customers peruse shelves and carousels displaying frames that run the length of the store, amid the drone of computerized edging machines that grind lenses. Customers stand across the counter from employees who peer through a pupilometer, a device which measures the distance from the center of one pupil to the center of the other, a critical measurement needed to make accurate lenses.
Mordechai Minzer, 64, was trained as an optician in Manhattan at the Bramson ORT Institute of Technology, which began in 1942 as a series of workshops for World War II refugees and is part of a global educational network driven by Jewish values. Early in his career, he worked at a Cohen’s Fashion Optical store in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. Minzner said he stopped working for them because they wanted him to work on Shabbos. In 1981, a few years after the country western hit “Take This Job and Shove It” hit the airwaves, Minzer quit his job. It’s unlikely Minzer, the son of a Bobover Hasid, heard the song on the radio, but he sure did know the words to the chorus.
“I worked very hard there at Cohen’s and they schmatte-ed me,” he said, using the Yiddish word for “rag” as a verb.
So, Minzer started his own business by setting up a lab in the basement of his family home in Borough Park, making eyeglasses for wholesale customers. He also made glasses on the side for friends and students at his yeshiva.
“My customers told other people about it and before I knew it, it exploded. I charged a quarter of the price that Cohen’s charged for the same stuff and I did the glasses on the spot,” he said.
Shulem Deen, author of the memoir All Who Go Do Not Return, remembers going to Minzer’s when he was growing up in Borough Park where his family was part of the Krasna Hasidic community. Deen said he was about 11 when word of the new optician spread.
“Suddenly there’s this new place everybody was talking about and the prices for glasses were ridiculous,” he recalled. “I remember that every time I went there to the basement, the place was packed.”
Deen, a keen observer of the Haredi Jewish world he left behind, said that because Jewish boys focus on the tiny text during Talmud study, it’s no wonder that so many of them need spectacles.
Back then, Minzer’s served frum Jews exclusively. But, over the years, Mordechai Minzer said, many of his observant Jewish customers went elsewhere because they had gotten “spoiled.”
“They want certain very expensive frame styles like Lindberg and I don’t want to carry $500 frames here,” he said. “I don’t want to get involved with that. They still come here, but they’re only 30% of my clientele.”
Nevertheless, Minzer’s ties to Haredi Brooklyn remain strong. He owns two sefer torahs, one of which was written to honor his parents. The scrolls are lent to yeshivas in New Jersey that don’t own sefer torahs. Every year he goes to the yeshivas to inspect them.
“Whenever I go to check up on my sefer torahs, polish the silver a bit, this and that, they always ask me to make them glasses,” Minzer said.
This has been a routine for more than 20 years. He goes a few weeks before Purim, and brings a box of inexpensive frames and optical instruments. He then proceeds to make more than a hundred pairs of free glasses for the boys.
“I like to see the kids smiling,” he told me.
Zenni and other online eyewear retailers have taken a toll on his business in recent years, Minzer said, adding that one of the big advantages he has is that customers who come to the store can try on the frames and see how they look before deciding whether to buy them. And in an era when fewer and fewer opticians still have a lab on the premises, Minzer’s can often make customers new glasses while they wait, and even dip them into sunglass tints on the spot.
One Jewish customer told me she felt uncomfortable as a non-Orthodox single woman walking into Minzer’s wearing pants but added, “that may be me projecting.” Another Jewish woman, whose husband advised her to dress modestly before her first visit, scoffed at the advice after seeing other customers wearing tank tops and shorts.
A Manhattan painter who had never been to Minzer’s recently paid less than $300 to have lenses made for her complex progressives prescription. The previous pair she had purchased at another store cost between $700 and $800. Pamela Hecht was reluctant to make the 40-minute subway ride from her loft in Manhattan to Borough Park but decided to make the schlep after learning what her new lenses would cost.
“It’s a long trip out there on the train but I will do it again because my lenses cost so much less than what I have been paying,” she told me. “I was very dubious that the quality was going to be sufficient. How could the price be so low without cutting corners? But the quality is very good. I’m very satisfied.”
The post The Jewish secret to affordable eyewear that isn’t so secret anymore appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s First Ambassador to Somaliland Acclaims Deepening Partnership, Broader Strategic Outreach in Africa
Israeli diplomat Michael Lotem in Kenya, July 2025. Photo: Screenshot
The relationship between Israel and Somaliland has rapidly evolved into a strategic partnership spanning security, energy, infrastructure, and economic cooperation, according to the Jewish state’s first ambassador to the self-declared republic, who noted the strengthening of ties was part of a broader outreach effort by Jerusalem across Africa.
“They are looking to deepen cooperation in nearly every field — from energy and infrastructure to technology, education, and communications — and their desire to work with Israel is stronger than ever,” Michael Lotem said of Somaliland in an interview with Israeli news outlet N12 published on Friday.
“Security discussions are naturally part of the relationship, but our political dialogue extends far beyond that into many different areas,” he added.
In December, Israel became the first country to officially recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state.
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement.
Unlike most states in its region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability.
Last month, Israel appointed Lotem as its first ambassador to Somaliland, after the two governments formally established full diplomatic relations.
Lotem, who was serving as a non-resident economic ambassador to Africa at the time of his appointment, will now shift to work as a non-resident ambassador to Somaliland. He previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Seychelles, a position he concluded in August.
In his interview, Lotem described the growing bilateral relationship as part of Israel’s broader diplomatic and strategic push across Africa, saying the partnership also sends a wider message of legitimacy and engagement to Muslim-majority countries throughout the region.
“Over the past several years, Israel has invested significant diplomatic effort in strengthening its presence across Africa, an initiative that Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has strongly prioritized, and the results are already becoming visible very quickly,” the diplomat said.
He also pointed to what he described as major untapped potential for economic cooperation, particularly regarding Somaliland’s vast natural resources and minerals sector — including oil, gas, coal, iron, and gold.
“They are extremely interested in partnering with Israel across the entire minerals industry supply chain,” Lotem said, adding that there are also strong prospects for cooperation in energy, medicine, agriculture, education, water management, and communications.
“We hope more countries will come to recognize the strategic value and importance of this relationship,” he continued.
Although no other UN-recognized country has formally recognized Somaliland (Taiwan did so in 2020), several — including the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, and Kenya — have maintained liaison offices, allowing them to engage diplomatically and conduct trade and consular activities without full formal recognition.
According to experts, the growing Israel-Somaliland partnership could be a “game changer” for the Jewish state, boosting the country’s ability to counter the Iran-backed, Yemen-based Houthi terrorist group while offering strategic and geographic advantages amid shifting regional power dynamics.
“Somaliland’s significance lies in its geostrategic location and in its willingness — as a stable, moderate, and reliable state in a volatile region — to work closely with Western countries,” argued a report by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a prominent Israeli think tank.
“Somaliland’s territory could serve as a forward base for multiple missions: intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and their armament efforts; logistical support for Yemen’s legitimate government in its war against them; and a platform for direct operations against the Houthis,” it continued.
Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi has previously said that the republic would join the Abraham Accords, calling it a step toward regional and global peace and affirming his government’s commitment to building partnerships, boosting mutual prosperity, and promoting stability across the Middle East and Africa.
The strategic partnership comes at a time when Israeli and US officials have warned of rising Islamist terrorist threats across Sub-Saharan Africa, placing the region at the forefront of global concern over jihadist activity.
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‘We Are One Community’: New York University Condemns Swastika Flag Raised Near Campus
Swastika flag raised over New York University this week. Photo: Screenshot
New York University (NYU) on Thursday condemned the raising of a flag containing the swastika near its campus in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, an incident which comes amid a spate of antisemitic hate crimes across the municipality.
“Campus safety responded immediately to remove it, and we are working closely with the NYPD to identify whoever is responsible,” NYU said in a statement after news of the act went viral on social media. “We are one community. We protect each other. And we will not let hate and division find a foothold on our campus.”
Designed to counterfeit NYU’s official purple and white standard, the offensive display featured two swastikas flanking the Star of David in a blue and white color palette representing the state of Israel. Historically, similar illustrations and symbols signal belief in antisemitic conspiracies of Jewish power and control, and in recent years anti-Zionists at NYU have castigated the university’s academic partnerships with Israel, as well as its efforts to combat antisemitism.
Anti-Zionists active in the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization have alluded to antisemitic conspiracies to criticize Israel’s alliances before. Just last month, SJP’s Duke University chapter posted on social media a political cartoon in which “Zionism” is personified as pig hoisting a Star of David while its arm interlocks with another pig, labeled “US Imperialism,” hoisting the Torch of Liberty.
Historically, depicting Jews as pigs has been done to reduce them to the status of animals and mock the fact that dietary restrictions forbid Jews to eat pork.
The perpetrators of the NYU incident remain at large. The incident comes amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes across New York City.
Jews have been targeted in the majority of all hate crimes committed in New York City this year, continuing a troubling trend of rising antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Over the past couple weeks, there have been multiple incidents of rampant swastika graffiti across the borough of Queens, highlighting the extent of the antisemitism crisis in the city home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
Meanwhile, mobs of anti-Zionist activists have descended on multiple synagogues over the same period to protest Israeli real estate events.
In addressing the swastika flag incident on Thursday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been accused of doing too little to combat the rise in antisemitism, appeared to acknowledge the Jewish community’s concerns about the intentions of his administration.
“This hateful antisemitic act was meant to spread fear among and intimidate Jewish New Yorkers. It has no place in our city,” he said. “Our administration is committed to fighting antisemitism in all its forms and protecting the safety of Jewish New Yorkers. The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating this despicable act, and I am confident those responsible will be held accountable.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.