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A new walking tour of NYC Israeli restaurants becomes an exercise in togetherness
(New York Jewish Week) — It was a damp, dreary Tuesday evening in Manhattan, but inside the Greenwich Village outpost of Caffe Aronne, the vibe was warm and friendly as a group of 10 people, nearly all of them women, shook off their umbrellas and introduced themselves to one another.
Most of us were strangers, but we became fast friends over the next few hours as we walked from one downtown Israeli restaurant to the next, sharing details of our lives with one another alongside plates of food. The 10 of us had assembled for the first-ever Delicious Cities tour in New York, a new domestic food tour initiative from Inbal Baum, the founder of Delicious Israel, a company that specializes in food tours of Israel.
Baum, who founded Delicious Israel in 2011, had made a lightning-quick business pivot to New York City-based tours after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists and the subsequent war in Gaza brought tourism in Israel to a standstill. “Besides the incredible trauma, incredible heartache, incredible pain of everything going on, as a tourism business, and as a tourism business owner, it’s another layer of trauma,” Baum told me.
“Interestingly, in the pandemic, the entire world was shut down,” she added, referring to a previous massive blow to her business. “Now it’s just Israel.”
But Baum quickly clarified her remark: Day-to-day life in Israel is not shut down, it’s just that the tourists have stopped coming. “Everything is open — well, not everything, but things are open,” she said. “We can do tours, our guides would be happy to show someone something positive and be part of the positivity that we love so much to share.”
She also thinks there is an appetite not only for Israeli food but for supporting Israelis, wherever they live. “The enthusiasm that I saw when we did a virtual cooking event with The Nosher and 250 people showed up to be together, and to share that moment together around food, was so inspirational and so powerful,” she said, referring to the Oct. 25 gathering as well as other online, food-focused gatherings she’s hosted since the war began. “I knew that that was the direction we had to go: how to bring people together in a way that speaks to what’s happening right now.” (The Nosher and the New York Jewish Week have the same parent company, 70 Faces Media.)
Baum — who said she considers herself American-Israeli when she’s in Israel and Israeli-American when she’s stateside — currently lives with her family in Park City, Utah but lived and worked as a lawyer in New York for six years. In October, she assembled a small team of Delicious Israel guides in New York City and began creating a strategy around tours. “We spent a day running — literally knocking on doors,” Baum said about how she got restaurants to participate. “In the doors that we knocked on where people answered, they were like, ‘We want to be a part of this, we want to support this.’”
Now working in the fickle business of Manhattan restaurants, Baum and her team are still figuring out the details: Since the test tour this reporter attended ahead of Thanksgiving, the itinerary has changed slightly, Baum said. But, for now, Delicious Cities is running an approximately three-hour Manhattan tour of West Village Israeli restaurants for $160 — with an optional addition of $40 for alcoholic beverages — on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. There are also tours being planned for Brooklyn and Philadelphia.
When asked why it was meaningful for her to support Israeli restaurants stateside, Baum said she’s always cared about the industry and added, “Now just happens to be a time where we are, unfortunately, having to explain our existence. And so, in my eyes, food has always been the way that we’re able to come together, provide support, provide love.”
That feeling of togetherness was palpable last month as our group — which included a few of Baum’s old friends, some Delicious Israel regulars and two New York Jewish Week journalists — toured Israeli eateries downtown. We began our time together with an icebreaker: Standing in a tight circle inside the tiny Caffe Aronne, participants took turns introducing themselves to the group and sharing a favorite food memory of Israel. Two people mentioned a kubeh selek, a beet soup with meat-filled dumplings, and one woman shared an entertaining story of consuming a few too many shots of arak on a trip to Israel at age 15.
At the time of our visit, Caffe Aronne had just been in the news for the outpouring of support it received from local Jews when employees allegedly quit the cafe’s Upper East Side branch in protest of the business’s pro-Israel stance. (The story, it turned out, was a bit more nuanced than it first seemed.) Barista Luis, who did not provide a last name, was employed at a different cafe on the day the story broke. He volunteered to pitch in, serving some 500-600 customers that day, he said, and he has stayed with the Israel-inspired cafe since.
“I like the vibe, the people,” he told us.
At Aronne, the tour participants had a choice between two special lattes: cardamom pistachio or almond rose. Neither of these drinks were on the compact menu, a reporter pointed out — and that’s by design, explained Baum, as many of the offerings presented on the tour are off-menu or specially curated for the group.
Tour guide Jordana Meyer gave us a quick rundown of the evening. Explaining that New York is a “chik-chak city” — a Hebrew phrase akin to “pronto” or “chop chop” — she said we would be keeping a brisk pace.
Getting to know one another is a key part of the Delicious Cities experience; here, guide Jordana Meyer shares with a tour group. (Shai Hansav, courtesy Delicious Israel)
Our next stop was Kubeh, Chef Melanie Shurka’s Sixth Avenue restaurant that’s dedicated to “lesser-known cuisines of the Middle East,” per its website — hand-rolled dumplings, or kubeh, in particular. As we sipped on a wickedly good, almost healthy-tasting cocktail called The Persian — with gin, Persian cucumber and zaatar — and snacked on hummus, muhammara and pita, Shurka told us a bit about her passion for the dumplings. “Kubeh, kibbeh, kabbah — they’re all the same,” she said, explaining that the word comes from the Arabic verb meaning “to roll, make something round.”
Shurka, whose father is Israeli and mother is a Jewish New Yorker, told us how she learned her techniques from Israeli grandmothers. “This is a special place,” she said of her six-year-old restaurant as she served the group both fried kubeh and kubeh in broth. “It’s my first baby. My second was born a year ago.”
Next, it was a short, drizzly walk to Einat Admony’s Balaboosta, where a bartender had laid out a spread that included whipped feta with silan (date syrup), hummus, fresh pita and the restaurant’s signature fried olives. Participants drank Israeli wine and milled about.
“This is Israeli and Jewish spirit and resilience at its finest,” said Eilon Gigi, who had worked for celebrity Israeli-American chef Michael Solomonov in Philadelphia for several years before joining the Delicious Israel team.
Admony — wearing a bright-orange cap emblazoned with the word “Yalla!” — greeted the group as well. Later, when a reporter asked her how her business was faring in a time of unrest and increased antisemitism throughout the city, the chef responded that Balaboosta has been “very busy.”
“Our community is stronger than hate — we are all doing fine,” Admony said of Israeli and Jewish restaurants in the city.
And yet, Admony said she unabashedly welcomes the extra business brought in by a Delicious Cities group. “It’s New York,” she said. “We always need business.”
Our fourth and final stop was for dessert at Port Sa’id, a restaurant from freshly Michelin-starred Israeli chef Eyal Shani that opened just north of Tribeca over the summer. Chef Victor Gothelf greeted us warmly and gave a short spiel about the restaurant, where dishes are “prepared today, made today, salads cut today.”
Then, in true Shani style, Gothelf glopped a mess of desserts — including Basque cheesecake, apple crumble and a vegan malabi — directly onto a table covered with butcher paper, then topped the whole thing with strawberry sauce, blackberries, powdered sugar and more. It was a visual feast, as well as an actual one, and Gothelf encouraged us to dig in and share. As he stepped away, he said to our group, in Hebrew, “Am yisrael chai” — the Jewish people live.
With its combination of “really good food — pure, not complicated — and really good music,” Port Sa’id aims to “bring people together,” Gothelf told me later in the evening.
“People are afraid,” he said when asked about the highly charged climate in the city, “but we won’t back down.”
Gothelf added that he jumped at the chance to add Port Sa’id as a part of the new Delicious Cities tour. “Especially because of the situation right now, I was so happy and eager to be a part of it,” he said.
As the evening drew to a close, tour participants gathered again in a tight circle, this time with our bellies full and glasses of wine in our hands. We took turns sharing a personal highlight of the experience — several people homed in on the the feelings of camaraderie within the group, saying that at a time of so much turmoil in Israel, it felt good to gather with other Jews in Israeli spaces and break bread. Business cards and hugs were exchanged and, solo or in pairs, participants departed the bustling restaurant and headed out into the dark, rainy New York night.
Looking ahead, Baum hopes to attract “anyone who is interested in good food, in supporting these restaurants and learning something new and doing something fun.”
“I’m a Jewish mom,” she explained. “I’ve been a Jewish mom way before I was a Jewish mom. I have an instinctual desire to feed people and to have them fed.”
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The post A new walking tour of NYC Israeli restaurants becomes an exercise in togetherness appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.