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Eyal Shani’s fast-casual Times Square restaurant is going kosher
(New York Jewish Week) — The Times Square location of Miznon, the fast-casual restaurant chain from Israeli celebrity chef Eyal Shani, is going kosher.
The pita-focused eatery, which is located at 1410 Broadway at 39th Street, opened two and a half months ago and is one of Shani’s four Miznon restaurants in Manhattan. It has been serving a kosher-style menu nearly since the start, according to Mika Ziv, CEO of Good People Group, Shani’s global hospitality brand — this location has no dairy products on the menu and the meat they serve is certified glatt kosher.
But on Sunday, January 21, the kitchen will be thoroughly cleaned and prepared according to kosher guidelines, and a certificate of kashrut from Rabbi Aaron Mehlman of National Kosher Supervision is expected to be issued that week.
The Miznon location will be Shani’s second kosher establishment in New York City — the first, Malka, opened on the Upper West Side in November 2023.
The decision to turn a second Shani restaurant in New York into a kosher eatery was both an ideological and pragmatic one, Ziv told the New York Jewish Week. “We always knew there was a need and desire for people to eat our food — we didn’t understand fully to what extent,” she said. “Now that we opened Malka, there has been such a beautiful welcoming to New York. We have been getting people asking about lunch, about delivery, about catering. Malka is doing amazing. We are getting so much love which is so exciting to us.”
“There are no compromises because it is kosher,” she added. “It is a happy place in this very unhappy time.”
Israeli chef Eyal Shani at Malka, his kosher restaurant in Tel Aviv. (Ariel Efron)
That sentiment is shared by many kosher-keeping foodies in New York, including Jerry Richter, a high school history teacher from West Hempstead, Long Island, who came to Manhattan Sunday night to have an early dinner at Malka. There, his server told Richter, his wife and their two friends that Shani was expanding his kosher footprint in Manhattan by converting the Times Square Miznon into a restaurant under rabbinic supervision.
Richter said their table was thrilled by the news. “To be able to access the Miznon menu, being kosher, that’s great!” he said. “Everyone is excited.”
Richter announced the news to the popular Facebook group Great Kosher Restaurant Foodies, which boasts 101,000 members, and the response was overwhelming: “Finally!” wrote one respondent. “Wow!!!” posted another.
According to Elan Kornblum, publisher of Great Kosher Restaurants Media Group, Richter’s post has been viewed 24,000 times in less than two days.
“It’s a big change to Times Square to have something like this,” Kornblum said. Other kosher restaurants in Times Square include Le Marais, a French steakhouse and AO Bowl, an organic, gluten-free, Japanese restaurant.
Shani himself does not keep kosher, but five years ago he opened Malka in Tel Aviv — which, at the time, was the only kosher restaurant in his portfolio. He told the New York Jewish Week last year that he first opened a kosher establishment because he saw that kosher consumers were “craving” his food but they couldn’t eat it because it was not kosher.
“These people are part of my nation,” Shani said. “Part of my people. How can I make food without letting half of my people eat it? That is the main reason I opened Malka.”
At the moment, in addition to Malka on the Upper West Side, Shani operates two kosher-certified restaurants in Israel. In Paris, three Miznon locations use all-kosher ingredients but they are not certified kosher.
Shani’s team decided to turn the Times Square Miznon outpost into a kosher restaurant because of its central location, close to the Diamond District, the Theater District and the Garment Center — all areas that are frequented by observant Jews. Ziv said that they had discussed making the restaurant certified kosher from the get-go but opted to test the waters with Malka first.
Ziv said she hopes customers who have been eating at the Times Square location will continue to do so. Since the location has been serving glatt kosher meat from the start, prices for the food under rabbinic supervision should not be affected dramatically: “We will have a tiny adjustment, just a slight price increase,” she said.
Upgrading the inclusivity of the restaurant by adding kosher certification has taken on an added importance since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, Ziv added.
“Everyone became more open and connected to being more accommodating and close to our roots,” she said. “Just as we always make sure there are vegan options, and we make such a big effort to accommodate so many others, it is not complicated to approach kosher restaurants, especially since our restaurants outside of Israel are places where Israelis and Jews can come together.”
“It makes sense to offer a kosher option,” she added.
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The post Eyal Shani’s fast-casual Times Square restaurant is going kosher appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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