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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 Rejects US Nuclear Proposal, Says ‘Counteroffer’ Coming as Talks Stall Over Uranium Enrichment, Sanctions
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has denounced the latest nuclear proposal from the United States as “unprofessional and untechnical,” reaffirming the country’s right to enrich uranium and announcing plans to present a counteroffer in the coming days.
“After receiving the American proposal regarding the Iranian nuclear program, we are now preparing a counteroffer,” Ali Shamkhnai, political adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Shamkhani criticized the White House draft proposal as “not well thought out,” emphasizing its alleged failure to address sanction relief — a key demand for Tehran under any deal with Washington.
“There is no mention whatsoever of lifting sanctions in the latest American proposal, even though the issue of sanctions is a fundamental matter for Iran,” Shamkhnai said.
The Iranian official also warned that Tehran will not allow the US to dismantle its “peaceful nuclear program” or force uranium enrichment down to zero.
“Iran will never relinquish its natural rights,” Shamkhani said.
Washington’s draft proposal for a new nuclear deal was delivered by Omani officials — who have been mediating negotiations between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff — during last month’s talks in Rome.
On Wednesday, Khamenei dismissed such an offer, saying it “contradicts our nation’s belief in self-reliance” and runs counter to Iran’s key objectives.
“The proposal that the Americans have presented is 100 percent against our interests,” the Iranian leader said during a televised speech.
“The rude and arrogant leaders of America repeatedly demand that we should not have a nuclear program. Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” Khamenei continued.
After five rounds of talks, diplomatic efforts have yet to yield results as both adversaries clash over Iran’s demand to maintain its domestic uranium enrichment program — a condition the White House has firmly rejected.
In April, Tehran and Washington held their first official nuclear negotiation since the US withdrew from a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that had imposed temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief.
Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has sought to curtail Tehran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon that could spark a regional arms race and pose a threat to Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran seeks to have Western sanctions on its oil-dependent economy lifted, while maintaining its nuclear enrichment program — which the country insists is solely for civilian purposes.
As part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran — which aims to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon — Washington has been targeting Tehran’s oil industry with mounting sanctions.
Amid the ongoing diplomatic deadlock, Israel has declared it will never allow the Islamist regime to acquire nuclear weapons, as the country views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to uphold any agreement that prevents Tehran from enriching uranium.
“But in any case, Israel maintains the right to defend itself from a regime that is threatening to annihilate it,” Netanyahu said in a press conference last month, following reports that Jerusalem could strike Iranian nuclear sites if ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran fail.
The post Iran Rejects US Nuclear Proposal, Says ‘Counteroffer’ Coming as Talks Stall Over Uranium Enrichment, Sanctions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Day After Colorado Attack, Founder of Anti-Israel Group Chides Activists Who Are Insufficiently ‘Pro-Resistance’
Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of WithinOurLifetime (WOL), leading a pro-Hamas demonstration in New York City on Aug. 14, 2024. Photo: Michael Nigro via Reuters Connect
Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder of the radical anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime, chastised those within the pro-Palestinian movement who only support “resistance” in the abstract but not in practice following Sunday’s antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado.
“A lot of people who call themselves anti-Zionist or pro-resistance don’t actually understand what resistance is,” Kiswani posted on X/Twitter on Monday. “They support it in theory, but when it shows up in practice, they hesitate, distance themselves, or shift the conversation entirely.”
She continued, “And it makes it even harder for those of us who are principled to take public stances. We’re already marginalized, already painted as extreme or dangerous and that isolation only deepens when others in the movement won’t stand firm when it counts.”
Kiswani’s comments came the day after a man threw Molotov cocktails at a Boulder gathering where participants were rallying in support of the Israeli hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza — which resulted in 15 injuries, including some critically, in what US authorities called a targeted terrorist attack. Her tweets also came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. In both attacks, the perpetrator yelled “Free Palestine” as they targeted innocent civilians, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
After Kiswani’s social media posts sparked some backlash among pro-Israel users on X, she provided limited pushback on the idea that it was an expression of support for the prior day’s attack in Colorado.
“Zionists are freaking out in the QTs about this, insisting it’s about Colorado,” she wrote. “Newsflash: the world doesn’t revolve around you. Resistance hasn’t stopped in Gaza, look at what just happened in Jabalia [where three IDF soldiers were killed] for instance. The perpetual victimhood is getting old.”
However, Kiswani did not say her comment had no connection to the attack in Colorado, and she did not say that she opposed the firebombing.
Kiswani and her group, Within Our Lifetime (WOL), have been at the forefront of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas activism since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted 251 hostages during their invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a massacre that started the war in Gaza.
On Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the biggest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, WOL organized a protest to celebrate the prior day’s attack, which it described as an effort to “defend the heroic Palestinian resistance.” Kiswani notably refused to condemn Hamas and the Oct. 7 massacre following the atrocities.
Then, in Apil 2024, Kiswani refused to condemn the chant “Death to America” and organized a mass demonstration to block the “arteries of capitalism” by staging a blockade of commercial shipping ports across the world in protest of Western support for the Jewish state. That same month, she was banned from Columbia University’s campus in New York City after leading chants calling for an “intifada,” or violent uprising.
The following month, Kiswani led a demonstration in Brooklyn, New York in which she lambasted the local police department, claimed then-US President Joe Biden will soon die, and called for the destruction of Israel.
That proceeded the activist saying she does not want Zionists “anywhere” in the world while speaking in defense of a person who called for “Zionists” to leave a crowded subway car in New York City.
WOL, which planned a protest last year to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, was also behind demonstrations at the Nova Music Festival exhibit, which commemorated the more than 300 civilians slaughtered by Hamas while at a music festival.
The latter protest prompted widespread condemnation, including from Biden and even progressive members of the US Congress who are outspoken against Israel.
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for example, posted on social media that the “callousness, dehumanization, and targeting of Jews on display at last night’s protest outside the Nova Festival exhibit was atrocious antisemitism – plain and simple.”
The post Day After Colorado Attack, Founder of Anti-Israel Group Chides Activists Who Are Insufficiently ‘Pro-Resistance’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel’s Defense Exports Hit Record $15 Billion in 2024 Despite European Pressure, Calls for Arms Embargo
Israeli troops on the ground in Gaza. Photo: IDF via Reuters
Israel reached a new all-time high in defense exports in 2024, nearing $15 billion — the fourth consecutive year of record-breaking sales — despite mounting international criticism over the war in Gaza and growing pressure from European countries to suspend arms deals.
In a press release on Wednesday, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced that defense exports reached over $14.7 billion last year — a 13 percent increase from 2023 — with more than half of the deals valued at over $100 million.
According to the ministry, Israel’s military exports have more than doubled over the past five years, highlighting the industry’s rapid expansion and growing global demand.
“This tremendous achievement is a direct result of the successes of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and defense industries against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Ayatollah regime in Iran, and in additional arenas where we operate against Israel’s enemies,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
“The world sees Israeli strength and seeks to be a partner in it. We will continue strengthening the IDF and the Israeli economy through security innovation to ensure clear superiority against any threat – anywhere and anytime,” Katz continued.
In 2024, over half of the Jewish state’s defense contracts were with European countries — up from 35 percent the previous year — as many in the region have increased their defense spending following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Despite increasing pressure and widespread anti-Israel sentiment among European governments amid the current conflict in Gaza, this latest data seems to contradict recent calls by European leaders to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state over its defensive campaign in Gaza against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
On Wednesday, Germany reversed its earlier threat to halt arms deliveries to Israel, reaffirming its commitment to continue cooperation and maintain defense contracts with Jerusalem.
“Germany will continue to support the State of Israel, including with arms deliveries,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told lawmakers in parliament.
Last week, Berlin warned it would take unspecified measures against Israel if it continued its military campaign in Gaza, citing concerns that exported weapons were being used in violation of humanitarian law.
“Our full support for the right to exist and the security of the State of Israel must not be instrumentalized for the conflict and the warfare currently being waged in the Gaza Strip,” Wadephul said in a statement.
Germany would be “examining whether what is happening in the Gaza Strip is compatible with international humanitarian law,” he continued. “Further arms deliveries will be authorized based on the outcome of that review.”
Spain and Ireland are among the countries in Europe that have threatened or taken steps to limit arms deals with Israel, while others such as France have threatened unspecified harsh measures against the Jewish state.
According to the Israeli defense ministry’s report, since the outbreak of war on Oct. 7, 2023, after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, the operational successes and proven battlefield performance of Israeli systems have fueled strong international demand for Israel’s defense technology.
Last year, the export of missiles, rockets, and air defense systems reached a new high, making up 48 percent of the total deal volume — up from 36 percent in 2023.
Similarly, satellite and space systems exports surged, accounting for 8 percent of total deals in 2024 — quadrupling their share from 2 percent in 2023.
While Europe dominated Israel’s defense export market in 2024, significant portions also went to other regions. Asia and the Pacific made up 23 percent of total sales — slightly lower than in previous years, when the region approached 30 percent.
Exports to Abraham Accords countries fell to 12 percent, down from 23 percent in 2022, while North America remained stable at around 9 percent.
The post Israel’s Defense Exports Hit Record $15 Billion in 2024 Despite European Pressure, Calls for Arms Embargo first appeared on Algemeiner.com.