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A Brooklyn Jewish foodie wants to make haroset a year-round treat
(New York Jewish Week) — For many, the highlight of the Passover seder is haroset — the nutty, fruity, sweet and crunchy paste spread on matzah and meant to symbolize the mortar slung by enslaved Israelites.
Such was the case for Michael Rubel. His mother’s haroset — made with “chopped apples, Manischewitz, raisins and lots of cinnamon,” as he describes it — was something he looked forward to all year. It was delicious, rare and one of the few distinctly uncommon Jewish foods he remembered from growing up in Kansas City, Kansas.
In fact, Rubel, 26, wondered why such a treat would be confined to Passover. “I can’t tell you how many Jews have said to me, ‘Yes, I’ve always asked why we only eat this once a year,’” Rubel told the New York Jewish Week. “It feels almost universal.”
So the Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn resident, decided to do something about this sad state of affairs: Last week he launched the food brand Schmutz, which makes a haroset that is meant to be eaten all year round.
Rubel launched his brand online and at a party at East Williamburg’s Tchotchke Gallery on April 1. Within 48 hours, that first drop — which consisted of a traditional Ashkenazi apple and walnut haroset, as well as a fig and pistachio haroset inspired by a 15th-century Italian recipe — sold out. According to Schmutz’s Instagram, they sold 249 pounds of the stuff, or around 500 jars.
Schmutz haroset is not kosher for Passover; as for the brand’s name, which means “dirt or unpleasant substance” in Yiddish, Rubel says it is meant to be ironic — haroset may be delicious but it “is not a pretty food,” he concedes.
Michael Rubel, 26, mingles with guests who came to the “Schmutz” launch event at Tchotchke Gallery on April 1, 2023. (Jeffrey Rubel)
The nine-ounce jars retail for $18, which Rubel acknowledges is expensive. “It’s small-batch crafted and definitely a specialty product,” he said, “but I’m excited to make this product even more accessible going forward.”
Rubel believes that haroset can evolve into something like a jam or a condiment, a shelf-stable food that’s readily available in restaurants, synagogue gift shops and specialty food stores. The opportunities are endless — as the brand’s website says, “schwirl it in oatmeal and schpread it on cheese and schmear it on toast and schlep it to a picnic and schling it on leftovers and schpoon it from a jar.”
Though Rubel works a day job in product development at a software startup, he had previously worked in restaurant kitchens and in product development for a snack company. This, he said, gave him insight into both the production side and the business side of developing a new snack food.
Then again, haroset is more than a delicious snack or topping, according to Rubel: It also epitomizes the Jewish food experience, providing a unique opportunity to highlight the diversity of Jewish cultures. Each unique haroset recipe, he said, serves as a window into different Jewish experiences all around the world.
“One Passover during Covid, I fell down a rabbit hole of global haroset recipes, and fell so deeply in love with this food as a prism into the diaspora. It’s emblematic of a central Jewish tradition; we carry some shared instructions around the world and do different things with it,” he told the New York Jewish Week. “You’ve got a history of French folks making haroset with chestnuts, Italian communities using pine nuts. There’s tropical cherries in Suriname; dates in places like Iraq and India; peanuts, bananas, rose petals, pear and more elsewhere. Even within those communities, you see it done very differently, with different tastes, textures and beyond.”
So far, Rubel has created two flavors of the jarred haroset — fig and pistachio and apple and walnut. He hopes to include more in the future. (Landon Cooper)
Rubel wants Schmutz haroset to be part of the movement exposing Jews and non-Jews to the diversity of Jewish food. Though the first drop consisted of just two varieties, he promises more are around the corner for later this spring. “I love Ashkenazi foods so deeply, and yet, Jewish food is more than that,” Rubel said. “It feels especially important in this moment, when Jews are getting a lot of public attention, to share the depth of global Jewish cuisine, and to show that there’s no one type of Jew.”
Liz Alpern, a co-owner of Gefilteria — a brand, launched in 2012, that took another Passover staple, gefilte fish, mainstream — told the New York Jewish Week via email that she is “excited about Schmutz because it’s offering the wider world the opportunity to enjoy one of the most beloved foods from the Jewish canon.”
“Michael is thoughtful and knowledgeable about the countless global variations on charoset and he’s introduced me to many flavors I hadn’t heard of before,” Alpern added. (Gefilteria helped sponsor and cater Schmutz’s launch party last weekend.)
Having lived in New York for four years now, Rubel said he is realizing just how much Jewish food is available here — and how little is available elsewhere. That’s something he aspires to change. “I’m excited to bring a new Jewish energy not just to the kosher aisle but beyond it,” he said.
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The post A Brooklyn Jewish foodie wants to make haroset a year-round treat appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Remains of last Israeli soldier missing from First Lebanon War’s Sultan Yacoub battle found
(JTA) — The remains of Yehuda Katz, the last Israeli soldier still missing from the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yacoub during the First Lebanon War, have been recovered after 44 years, the Israeli military said Tuesday, bringing to a close one of the country’s longest-running missing soldier cases.
Katz, a 22-year-old tank gunner and yeshiva student who disappeared just 10 days before he was due to complete his military service, was one of three soldiers whose fate was unknown for decades after Israeli forces became trapped by Syrian troops in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on June 11, 1982.
Twenty Israeli soldiers were killed and dozens more were wounded in the battle, with six initially listed as missing. Three were later returned or confirmed dead, leaving Katz, Zachary Baumel and Zvi Feldman as the only soldiers whose fate were unknown. The remains of Baumel and Feldman were recovered in separate operations in 2019 and 2025.
Katz’s remains were located during a special overnight operation carried out by the IDF in cooperation with Mossad and based on intelligence obtained in recent months. They were returned to Israel and military representatives informed Katz’s family of the discovery Tuesday morning.
For the soldiers who survived Sultan Yacoub, the news ended a wait that had followed them for much of their lives.
Avi Rath, who fought alongside Katz, said the unresolved fate of his comrade had stayed with him for decades. “The look on the family’s faces stays with you your entire life, a look that says, ‘You didn’t finish the job,’” Rath said in an interview on Tuesday with KAN public radio’s “Kalman Liberman” program. “Thank God, this closes a circle and resolves some of the uncertainty, but there is also great pain. It weighs on our conscience.”
Katz had studied in the Hesder program at Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh, combining Torah study with military service. According to the yeshiva, he slept barely four hours a night while immersed in his studies. He had planned to become a rabbi and teach at a yeshiva after completing his military service.
On the night before the battle, Katz gathered fellow soldiers around him and taught them Maimonides’ laws governing the conduct of Jewish soldiers in battle, the yeshiva said on its website. He then led them in singing Psalm 23, including the verse about walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Remains of last Israeli soldier missing from First Lebanon War’s Sultan Yacoub battle found appeared first on The Forward.
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What Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon has said about Israel and Gaza
Angie Nixon is not the first progressive and outspoken critic of Israel to win a major-party nomination for statewide office. But her upset victory in Florida’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate makes her the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America to do so.
The milestone comes after a string of victories for DSA-backed insurgents in local and congressional races from New York and New Jersey to Pennsylvania and Colorado since 2025, with criticism of Israel and the war in Gaza being central issues in many of their campaigns.
Nixon did not make Israel the centerpiece of her Senate campaign, which focused heavily on affordability, health care and other economic issues. But on Israel and Gaza, her record puts her broadly in line with the DSA’s approach.
Appearing on Morning Joe the morning after her victory, Nixon called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a war criminal who needs to answer to his crimes” and said she opposed sending Israel U.S. money or weapons “at this moment.”
Nixon will face Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody in November. Moody, who was appointed to the Senate after Marco Rubio became secretary of state, is considered a favorite in a state that shifted toward Republicans in recent elections. A University of North Florida poll released in July showed Moody leading Nixon 50% to 42%.
A state representative from Jacksonville, Nixon said after her victory that her formal ties to the DSA are new. In an interview with The Contrarian on Wednesday, she said she had “just recently joined the DSA because I was asked.”
The affiliation connects Nixon to a national organization that has made Palestinian advocacy a major part of its political identity. The DSA describes Palestinian liberation as an “essential part” of its broader socialist struggle. Its national co-chair, Megan Romer, recently said the group’s goal is “a free Palestine with a capital in Jerusalem,” which she acknowledged could be understood as support for a one-state solution.
The organization has at times enforced that position aggressively even with its own elected officials. In 2021, DSA members debated expelling then-U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a one-term New York Democrat, after he traveled to Israel with J Street, the liberal pro-Israel advocacy group, met with then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and voted for funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system. The national organization ultimately decided against expelling him, while publicly criticizing his actions.
What Nixon has said on Israel and the Palestinians
Long before her upset Senate victory and DSA affiliation, Nixon had become one of the most outspoken critics of Israel in the Florida Legislature.
In November 2023, weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the subsequent war in Gaza, Nixon introduced a resolution calling on the Biden administration to push for “an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.”
The resolution sparked a heated and highly emotional debate in the Florida House, according to the Florida Phoenix. Nixon was largely isolated, with Republicans and members of her own party speaking against the measure and turning their backs on her. Nixon cried as she defended the resolution.
“Many of my colleagues have stated that folks are fearful of another massacre occurring to the Jewish people,” Nixon said. “Well, guess what? A massacre is occurring now.”
The Florida House ultimately rejected it 104-2.
In May 2024, Nixon joined pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of North Florida, telling students she was “in awe” of their generation. She later said she wanted the protesters to know that elected officials supported them and that they were “on the right side of history.”
In the campaign for Senate, her official foreign-policy platform called for ending unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel, which she said had “fueled a genocide in Palestine.” She advocated for ending U.S. support for Israeli settlements and creating a path to Palestinian self-determination through the United Nations Security Council.
Jewish Insider reported that Rick Stark, chair of the Florida Democratic Jewish Caucus, said that during a Zoom meeting with the group, Nixon did not give a clear answer when asked whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. He also said Nixon was unfamiliar with the meaning of the slogan “from the river to the sea,” but told participants that Palestinian friends had said it was not a call for Israel’s destruction.
Last month, Nixon said in an interview with WMNF Radio that she would have voted for a House amendment to end the $3.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel. The amendment, introduced by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a fierce critic of Israel who lost his Republican primary in May, received support from 103 of 212 House Democrats.
In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program Wednesday, the hosts asked Nixon what she would tell Jewish voters concerned about her position on the conflict. “We need to make sure that we’re putting Americans first before we go ahead and start sending money or military aid to any country outside of the U.S.,” Nixon said.
Pressed specifically on whether that meant cutting off all military aid to Israel, Nixon said: “At this time, I believe what’s happening over in Israel and in Palestine is not good for Israelis or Palestinians. And I do not support sending any money or any weapons to Israel at this moment.”
The post What Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon has said about Israel and Gaza appeared first on The Forward.
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Manhattan Central Synagogue attacker faces federal hate crime charges
(JTA) — The man accused of disrupting Shabbat services at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue last week now faces federal hate crimes charges in addition to the state ones leveled against him immediately after the attack.
“These charges serve as notice that the Department of Justice will intervene to protect the public in the face of antisemitic and racially motivated attacks,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement on Tuesday.
Larry Montes, 46, of the Bronx, New York, was charged with two counts of committing hate crimes, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, and one count of damage to religious property resulting in bodily injury, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
During the attack last Friday at the Reform synagogue in Manhattan, Montes, who was sitting near the front of the sanctuary, allegedly stood up nine minutes into the service and began shouting, “You know who the f–ck I am.”
Montes then approached the stage of the synagogue and knocked over two ceremonial silver candle sticks, causing them to be damaged, according to the complaint filed by an FBI agent investigating the case.
As the synagogue’s head of security attempted to remove Montes from the sanctuary, he then said “F–ck you people” and “I don’t f–ck with you people” before punching a 63-year-old congregant in the face and knocking her to the ground.
While Montes was handcuffed and arrested in the lobby of the synagogue, he then allegedly told a security guard “F–ck you [n-word]” and headbutted him near his left eye socket.
During his subsequent interview with NYPD officers following his arrest, he allegedly told officers, “F–ck the Jews. … It’s racial” and “I will never affiliate with no filthy f–cking synagogues, either here or in fucking Israel.” Montes allegedly told officers that he had felt disrespected at the service, so he “got up, start[ed] some sh–t, [and] smacked somebody around.”
When asked by NYPD officers why he felt disrespected at the service, Montes allegedly replied, “it’s all a racial thing” and that it was “all religious motivated.” Montes also stated during his post-arrest interview that he identified as Jewish, according to the complaint. Montes’ aunt previously told the New York Post that he was “mentally traumatized because of his desire to belong to that religion [Judaism].”
Montes has been in custody since his arrest immediately after Friday’s attack. He was arraigned that same night and is due in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday.
The federal charges come as the attack has sparked widespread condemnation from New York leaders, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and spurred a Jewish security watchdog group to call on the NYPD to place more officers in hotspots for potential hate crimes.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Manhattan Central Synagogue attacker faces federal hate crime charges appeared first on The Forward.
