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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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Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie team up to strip US-Israel military tech cooperation from defense bill
(JTA) — In one of the latest examples of political extremes converging over Israel, Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie joined forces this week to challenge a provision expanding U.S.-Israel defense cooperation.
Khanna, a progressive California Democrat, and Massie, a Kentucky Republican, both said over the weekend that they would seek to remove a provision from the House’s annual defense bill that would expand U.S.-Israeli defense technology cooperation.
“If the provision in the NDAA to integrate/synchronize the U.S. and Israeli militaries (section 224) makes it out of committee, I’ll offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor,” Massie, who lost his bid for reelection last month against a President Donald Trump-endorsed primary opponent, wrote in a post on X. “We are a sovereign country…”
The section of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2027 that Khanna and Massie have taken aim at would require the Secretary of Defense to designate an “executive agent responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, including bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation.”
The cross-ideological alliance marked the latest instance of the progressive Democrat and libertarian Republican finding common cause on Israel-related foreign policy, after the pair previously teamed up to oppose U.S. involvement in Israel’s war in Iran last year.
The pledge by Massie, a leading anti-Israel Republican in Congress, was quickly joined by Khanna, who has been staunchly critical of Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza and recently opposed American funding for Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
“And I will be offering an amendment in the committee itself to strip section 224 out, @RepThomasMassie,” Khanna wrote in a post on X. “Trump can’t kill the Massie/Khanna partnership no matter how much he posts on Truth Social.”
Khanna lamented Massie’s primary loss on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month, telling the outlet that he had been “taken out” because of the pair’s collaboration on opposing the war in Iran and the Epstein Transparency Act.
“Thomas is a real friend. He’s a good man, and he was taken out for two reasons,” Khanna said. “One, he had the courage to go after some very powerful people in working with me to get the Epstein Transparency Act passed. As he mentioned, that’s historic bipartisan legislation that finally got justice for the survivors, and he had people spend millions of dollars, and had the President of the United States after him. And second, he worked with me to stop this war in Iran.”
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Hasan Piker blames Israel after UK bars him from entry, citing ‘potential risk’
(JTA) — Leading British Jewish groups are applauding the UK government’s decision to bar the influential anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker as well as his controversial uncle Cenk Uygur from entering the country.
The British interior ministry revoked Piker’s and Uygur’s travel authorizations on Monday, saying in a statement that “their presence in the UK may not be conducive to the public good.”
The ministry’s statement did not specify its concerns about the men but added that decisions to refuse or cancel ETAs are based “solely on an assessment of the potential risk an individual may pose to UK society.”
The revocations follow advocacy by Jewish groups against Piker’s planned appearance this week at the South by Southwest London festival, where he was due to speak on “How the American Left Learned to Speak the Internet.”
A number of Jewish groups urged the government to block Piker’s entry. The Community Security Trust said that he “has a record of promoting rhetoric that includes antisemitic themes, denial of well documented atrocities and apparent support for extremist groups.” Last week, a lawmaker from the Labour party, David Taylor, publicly called on the Home Office to revoke Piker’s visa.
Piker has also drawn sharp opposition from U.S. Jewish groups in recent months, as he has played an increasingly prominent role in advocating for progressive Democrats. His critics note that he has said he prefers Hamas to Israel and said “I don’t have an issue” with Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah are considered terrorist groups under UK law.
In social media posts, both Piker and Uygur blamed Israel for their being barred from entering the UK.
“I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel. Are we free anymore?” Uygur tweeted, in one of multiple posts making the claim. “This is oppression of Western citizens by our own governments on behalf of a different country!” He later said it was “an honor to have made Israel’s enemies list.”
Piker responded to his uncle’s post on X, saying, “The uk has revoked my visa as well. all at the behest of israel. the west is betraying ‘liberal values’ for a genocidal fascist foreign government. soon we will all become Israel.”
The revocations come as the British government is under extreme pressure to demonstrate strong opposition to antisemitism, following a string of attacks that have unsettled British Jews. In recent weeks, the government has allocated new resources for security in Jewish communities and canceled the travel authorization for Ye, the American musician with a history of antisemitic remarks and a recent single called “Heil Hitler.”
Multiple Jewish leaders said they were pleased that the government had moved to block Piker’s entry.
“The government is right to ban those who seek to spread hatred from entering the UK,” the Jewish Leadership Council’s director of public affairs, Russell Langer, said in a statement. He added, “When Jews are being stabbed on the streets of London and Manchester, we should not be importing more antisemitism into this country.”
The acting president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Adrian Cohen, applauded the decision in a statement. “Where there is clear risk of individuals breaking UK laws and stoking community tensions, by showing support for banned terrorist groups or inciting hatred, and where event organisers have failed to show responsibility, it is right that government step in,” he said.
And the CST said that while criticizing Israel can be legitimate, Piker had exceeded the bounds of acceptable discourse.
“There must be consequences when public figures cross into hate speech,” the group said in a statement. “Piker has a record that goes far beyond robust or controversial political speech, including rhetoric that contains antisemitic themes, the denial of well-documented atrocities and language that risks fuelling antisemitism.”
The interior ministry said anyone who has an ETA revoked can apply for a visa, which would afford them a reconsideration.
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New York’s Israel Day parade was a shanda — but not because of Mamdani
Mayor Zohran Mamdani made the right decision in skipping the city’s annual Israel Day Parade — because of the specific Israeli officials the parade honored.
American Jews have the right to celebrate Israel’s existence, if they find it to be a meaningful part of their personal Jewish identities. But Mamdani’s specific decision not to march in this specific parade, this year, alongside far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich, Amichai Chikli and Ofir Sofer, is defensible. Those painting that choice as a sign of antisemitism have a lot of explaining to do about whose company they choose to keep.
Chikli, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism — the man who is supposed to be the voice of diaspora Jews in Israel — has used his platform to spread hatred. He has described LGBTQ+ Pride events as “disgraceful vulgarity”; courted far-right European extremists like Tommy Robinson while parroting their Islamophobic statements; and called antisemitic dog whistles deployed against George Soros by the like of Elon Musk “anything but antisemitism” — while serving as the minister tasked with combating antisemitism.
His behavior has been so outrageous that in 2025, hostage families and Jewish community leaders across Europe signed letters calling him an “inappropriate representative,” citing his statements calling for the expulsion of people from Gaza and southern Lebanon, which they said amounted to support for ethnic cleansing.
Smotrich’s record of inflammatory statements is even more extensive. In 2023, he called for the Palestinian village of Hawara in the West Bank to be destroyed by the state, saying “I think the village of Hawara needs to be wiped out” shortly after a shocking settler attack there that some compared to a pogrom. The United States State Department decried those remarks as “repugnant” and “disgusting.”
Smotrich has since called for Gaza to be emptied of its Palestinian population, and has spearheaded the radical expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, advocating for annexation with the explicit intent of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. He himself says the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor has reportedly filed a secret arrest warrant application against him for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank.
At the Sunday parade, Smotrich approvingly told attendees that the event reminded him of the Jerusalem Flag March, an ultra-nationalist procession where participants this year chanted “Death to Arabs” and attacked Palestinian residents.
And Ofir Sofer, Israel’s immigration and absorption minister, has called for changes to Israel’s Law of Return, complaining that many new immigrants to Israel are not Jewish under Orthodox halachic standards. His vision of Israel includes no room for Reform Jews, secular Jews or partial-heritage Jews.
These are the people Mamdani was supposed to join in celebration?
Mamdani did not refuse to celebrate Jewish life. He refused to endorse these deeply problematic Israeli officials by appearing alongside them. That is not a slap in the face to Jewish New Yorkers. It is, if anything, a gesture of respect toward the many Jewish New Yorkers, including me, who find Chikli, Smotrich and Sofer an embarrassment and a threat to the diverse, pluralistic, egalitarian Judaism we actually practice.
Mamdani has stated clearly that he believes Israel has a right to exist, although not as a hierarchy that favors Jewish citizens over others. He has backed his administration’s Office to Combat Antisemitism and proposed expanded funding for hate crime prevention. He guaranteed a robust police presence at the Israel parade, spending weeks planning to ensure it proceeded, in his words, “seamlessly and peacefully” — as it did.
None of this fits the profile of an antisemite.
And those who criticized Mamdani’s refusal to participate are failing to grapple with an important truth: Mamdani’s politics, whatever one thinks of them, are not alien to American Jewish life. They are, instead, increasingly central to it.
A poll by the Jewish Voter Resource Center, released just this week, found that almost half of American Jews under 35 support a binational state: a single country in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, governed by all its inhabitants together. Among non-Orthodox Jews under 35, that figure reaches 51%.
This is not a fringe position on the left flank of the community. It is a near-majority position among the next generation of American Jews. Add to that the fact that a 2025 survey by Jewish Federations of North America — not a left-wing organization — found that only 37% of American Jews overall identify as Zionist at all, while among young Jews aged 18 to 34, the share identifying as anti-Zionist or non-Zionist has reached nearly a third.
As J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami put it: “The growing disaffection of younger Jewish Americans from Israel is a direct consequence of the policies of Bibi Netanyahu and the way the American Jewish establishment has demanded an ‘Israel right or wrong’ loyalty.”
When we ask whether Mamdani’s absence alienates Jewish New Yorkers, we need to ask: which Jewish New Yorkers? Did Mamdani marginalize himself from American Jewish life — or did the parade organizers, by welcoming these ministers, marginalize themselves from a large and growing portion of it?
The questions at the heart of this controversy — what Zionism means, whether anti-Zionism is compatible with Jewish solidarity, and how to honor Israeli independence while acknowledging Palestinian catastrophe — are genuine, difficult and deeply contested. I have colleagues I respect on multiple sides. I have family members who would disagree with everything I have written here.
But a parade is the worst possible venue for this conversation. A parade is not a symposium. It is not a town hall. It is a celebration, a statement of solidarity, an embodiment of a particular political position. Attending it is an endorsement of that position. And when the parade features ministers who demean Reform Jews, court European neo-fascists, advocate for the further reduction of Palestinian rights and liberties, and favor restricting who counts as Jewish enough to return to a Jewish state, the act of marching becomes an endorsement of those things, too.
We do need richer, more honest, more nuanced conversations about Zionism, anti-Zionism, Israel, and diaspora Jewish identity. Those conversations are happening, in synagogues, in classrooms and in the pages of Jewish publications like this one. They deserve serious venues and serious interlocutors.
Fifth Avenue on a Sunday afternoon, with Chikli, Bezalel and Sofer as honored guests, is not that venue.
Mamdani was right to decline to issue that endorsement. To the Jewish establishment that has called him an antisemite for it: I would ask you, with all due respect, to look again at who you invited to the party.
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