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A pastrami sandwich is a new star of Tokyo’s hip food scene
TOKYO (JTA) — Smoky flavor has always tasted like home for Jeremy Freeman. Growing up in New York City, smoked salmon was of course a staple, alongside his daily whitefish salad on a bialy from Russ & Daughters. His favorite pastrami came from the long-closed Gelitz’s deli around the corner from his childhood home, which sold the smoked meat in unusually thick slices.
After meeting his now-wife, Maiko, the couple moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, where Freeman had access to something new: a backyard. When he wasn’t selling vintage Jamaican records at his shop and when Maiko wasn’t manning her Japanese home-style food stall at Brooklyn’s Smorgasburg food market, they began to host barbecues. Freeman began experimenting with smoking his own meats.
In 2017, when the couple decided to move to Japan, Maiko’s home country, to raise their kids, Freeman got serious about his barbecue craft and decided to bring a taste of his favorite Jewish American comfort staples to Japan.
The Freemans opened Freeman Shokudo, located in Hitagaya — a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo’s otherwise bustling Shibuya business district — in 2021. It has flourished in the city’s competitive restaurant scene: on a recent week day, Freeman was antsy as a lunch rush flooded the restaurant just before closing for the afternoon at 3 p.m. Nearly every table filled once again just half an hour after it reopened for dinner at 6.
“The restaurant really revolves around my memory and flavors that I like that are reflective of New York City,” Freeman said before customers began to trickle in for dinner.
A view inside Freeman Shokudo shows a vinyl set-up and a beer fridge. (Jordyn Haime)
Freeman — who manned the kitchen alone on this reporter’s recent visit — uses a custom-built smoker made with Japanese oak. The customer base is about half Japanese and half foreigners. Its reputation among Jewish transplants has allowed Freeman to practice what has become a favorite monthly tradition of preparing a “true Nana-style brisket”: smoked leftover brisket ends braised with tomatoes, onions and garlic, served with heapings of sour cream and dill. “Whenever we have that, a lot of the Hebrews want to come out and partake,” Freeman said.
But Freeman Shokudo doesn’t limit itself to the Jewish classics. Also on the menu are some deeply unkosher choices: spare ribs, barbecue pork belly and smoked pork sausages. Gumbo served over rice has become popular, and a variety of fresh Middle Eastern salads balance out the rich meats.
The flavors being served up, though distinctly Jewish and American, are not entirely strange to the Japanese palette. Fatty smoked or grilled meats served alongside tangy, sour pickles are a combination of flavors and textures that are often replicated at Japanese barbecue joints.
A view of the pastrami sandwich at Freeman Shokudo. (Jordyn Haime)
While Freeman doesn’t consider his establishment a “fusion” restaurant, locally available staples often make useful stand-ins for Eastern European or American ingredients that are not available in Japan. Smoked saba — a Japanese blue mackerel — takes the place of American whitefish salad on bialys that are made on demand from a Japanese bakery in the neighborhood. Pickled plums are incorporated into the barbecue sauce, and daikon radishes are added to the saba salad and pickles.
While Freeman describes his restaurant as a home for American soul food, he sees the Jewish tradition of smoking meats and fish as essential to the true soul of the craft.
“My feeling is that America has always claimed to be like the home of barbecue. And it’s supposed to reflect this very American sensibility. But I think that’s total bullshit, basically,” he says. “Jews have always had a history of smoked fish, smoked meat, incorporating smoke into their flavors, and incorporating spices that were coming from Asia through the Silk Road. I think pastrami really reflects a combination of Eastern spices and Western smoking techniques. It’s kind of a perfect East-West combination.”
A view of a menu shows a mix of Japanese and Jewish-themed dishes. (Jordyn Haime)
Freeman grew up in a “deeply socialist, deeply areligious” family of Jewish immigrants from Belarus. His father was a “Trotskyite who had no time for religion whatsoever.” The celebration of Passover made an appearance once in a while throughout his childhood, but Freeman describes his family as “strong cultural Jews” bound together by the cultural glue of food.
As he got older and started a family, Freeman found himself immersing more in religion. He had a late-in-life bar mitzvah, and while he doesn’t consider his family to be “religious,” they celebrate Passover each year.
For Paul Golin, an Ashkenazi Jew who is bringing up two children with his Japanese wife and helps run the Jewpanese Facebook page, makes annual visits back to Tokyo, where he used to live. He noted that a branch of the San Francisco Jewish deli Wise Sons closed last year, a few years after opening in Tokyo, leaving a gap in the local Jewish food market that Freeman stepped in to fill.
“Freeman Shokudo is taking it to another level,” he said.
A view of Tokyo’s Shibuya district on July 16, 2020. Freeman Shokudo is located in Hitagaya, a neighborhood in Shibuya. (Philip Fong/AFP via Getty Images)
Golin enjoyed his recent visit to the restaurant not only through the food, but also through the mix of New York nostalgia and nods to Japanese culture — from a menorah on display in the middle of a small water spring to the Freeman-branded onsen head towels available for sale. Golin felt reminded of long ago vodka-fueled nights at Sammy’s Roumanian in Manhattan.
“It was just a great connective moment to have in Tokyo,” he said.
The pastrami sandwich has become the shop’s most well-known offering. The “small” size of the Freeman pastrami sando cost 2,400 yen ($17.54), more expensive than a typical meal in Japan — but the meat effortlessly falls apart when bitten into. And unlike the enormous sandwiches served at many New York delis, it is far from an overwhelming amount of food.
A view of the restaurant’s exterior. (Jordyn Haime)
“We make food that makes people feel good. It comes from a very loving place. And I think that speaks across all sorts of different tastes and cultures. That’s what we’re trying to do, is to make food that’s human and real,” Freeman said.
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The post A pastrami sandwich is a new star of Tokyo’s hip food scene appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Says ‘Extremely Cautious’ on Success of Nuclear Talks with US
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Iran and the United States have agreed to continue nuclear talks next week, both sides said on Saturday, though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi voiced “extreme cautious” about the success of the negotiations to resolve a decades-long standoff.
US President Donald Trump has signaled confidence in clinching a new pact with the Islamic Republic that would block Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb.
Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held a third round of the talks in Muscat through Omani mediators for around six hours, a week after a second round in Rome that both sides described as constructive.
“The negotiations are extremely serious and technical… there are still differences, both on major issues and on details,” Araqchi told Iranian state TV.
“There is seriousness and determination on both sides… However, our optimism about success of the talks remains extremely cautious.”
A senior US administration official described the talks as positive and productive, adding that both sides agreed to meet again in Europe “soon.”
“There is still much to do, but further progress was made on getting to a deal,” the official added.
Earlier Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi had said talks would continue next week, with another “high-level meeting” provisionally scheduled for May 3. Araqchi said Oman would announce the venue.
Ahead of the lead negotiators’ meeting, expert-level indirect talks took place in Muscat to design a framework for a potential nuclear deal.
“The presence of experts was beneficial … we will return to our capitals for further reviews to see how disagreements can be reduced,” Araqchi said.
An Iranian official, briefed about the talks, told Reuters earlier that the expert-level negotiations were “difficult, complicated and serious.”
The only aim of these talks, Araqchi said, was “to build confidence about the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.”
Trump, in an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said “I think we’re going to make a deal with Iran,” but he repeated a threat of military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.
Shortly after Araqchi and Witkoff began their latest indirect talks on Saturday, Iranian state media reported a massive explosion at the country’s Shahid Rajaee port near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, killing at least four people and injuring hundreds.
MAXIMUM PRESSURE
While both Tehran and Washington have said they are set on pursuing diplomacy, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
Since 2019, Iran has breached the pact’s nuclear curbs including “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week Iran would have to entirely stop enriching uranium under a deal, and import any enriched uranium it needed to fuel its sole functioning atomic energy plant, Bushehr.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment program or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks.
Moreover, European states have suggested to US negotiators that a comprehensive deal should include limits preventing Iran from acquiring or finalizing the capacity to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile, several European diplomats said.
Tehran insists its defense capabilities like its missile program are not negotiable.
An Iranian official with knowledge of the talks said on Friday that Tehran sees its missile program as a bigger obstacle in the talks.
The post Iran Says ‘Extremely Cautious’ on Success of Nuclear Talks with US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Leader Abbas Names Likely Successor in Bid to Reassure World Powers
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named close confidant Hussein al-Sheikh as his deputy and likely successor on Saturday, the Palestine Liberation Organization said, a step widely seen as needed to assuage international doubts over Palestinian leadership.
Abbas, 89, has headed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) since the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat in 2004 but he had for years resisted internal reforms including the naming of a successor.
Sheikh, born in 1960, is a veteran of Fatah, the main PLO faction which was founded by Arafat and is now headed by Abbas. He is widely viewed as a pragmatist with very close ties to Israel.
He was named PLO vice president after the organization’s executive committee approved his nomination by Abbas, the PLO said in a statement.
Reform of the PA, which exercises limited autonomy in the West Bank, has been a priority for the United States and Gulf monarchies hoping the body can play a central role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Pressure to reform has intensified since the start of the war in Gaza, where the PLO’s main Palestinian rival Hamas has battled Israel for more than 18 months, leaving the tiny, crowded territory in ruins.
The United States has promoted the idea of a reformed PA governing in Gaza after the war. Gulf monarchies, which are seen as the most likely source of funding for reconstruction in Gaza after the war, also want major reforms of the body.
CALL FOR HAMAS TO DISARM
Israel’s declared goal in Gaza is the destruction of Hamas but it has also ruled out giving the PA any role in government there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
Hamas, which follows a militant Islamist ideology, has controlled Gaza since 2007 when it defeated the PA in a brief civil war after winning an election the previous year. It also has a large presence in the West Bank.
At a meeting of the PLO’s Central Council on Wednesday and Thursday that approved the position of vice president without naming an appointee, Abbas made his clearest ever call for Hamas to completely disarm and hand its weapons – and responsibility for governing in Gaza – to the PA.
Widespread corruption, lack of progress towards an independent state and increasing Israeli military incursions in the West Bank have undermined the PA’s popularity among many Palestinians.
The body has been controlled by Fatah since it was formed in the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993 and it last held parliamentary elections in 2005.
Sheikh, who was imprisoned by Israel for his activities opposing the occupation during the period 1978-89, has worked as the PA’s main contact liaising with the Israeli government under Abbas and been his envoy on visits to world powers.
The post Palestinian Leader Abbas Names Likely Successor in Bid to Reassure World Powers first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – The third round of talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program has concluded on Saturday, US media reported.
The two sides are understood to have discussed the US lifting of sanctions on Iran, with focuses on technical and key topics including uranium enrichment.
On April 12, the US and Iran held indirect talks in Muscat, marking the first official negotiation between the two sides since the US unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The second round of indirect talks took place in Rome, Italy, on April 19.
All parties, including Oman, stated that the first two rounds of talks were friendly and constructive, but Iranian media pointed out that the first two rounds were mainly framework negotiations and had not yet touched upon the core issues of disagreement.
According to media reports, one of the key issues in the expert-level negotiations will be whether Washington will allow Iran to continue uranium enrichment within the framework of its nuclear program. In response, Araghchi made it clear that Iran’s right to uranium enrichment is non-negotiable.
The US, Israel and other Western actors including the United Nation’s nuclear agency reject Iranian claims that its uranium enrichment is strictly civilian in its goals.
The post 3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman first appeared on Algemeiner.com.