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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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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.