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Adir Michaeli, maestro of the babka, bakes his way into the heart of Manhattan
(New York Jewish Week) — In a city where love of babka borders on a religion, Adir Michaeli, founder of Michaeli Bakery, is the (you’ll pardon the expression) high priest of the confection.
You may not know his name, but if you love good babka, you probably know his product. Michaeli, 39, was once the pastry department manager and head pastry chef of Lechamim Bakery in Tel Aviv; there, Michaeli told the New York Jewish Week, he spent two years perfecting the babka recipe. When Lechamim founder Uri Scheft wanted to expand to the United States, he tapped Michaeli to help open Lechamim’s American cousin, Breads Bakery, in New York. Since opening in 2013, Breads has since become the gold standard for babka in New York.
After three years with Breads — which has since expanded to five locations in the city — Michaeli left the company to start his own business, which he said was a dream of his. Now, after a fitful start due to COVID, Michaeli Bakery has developed its own devoted following at two locations in Manhattan.
“People love these pastries,” said Michaeli, referring to New Yorkers’ embrace of the babka, rugelach and bourekas for which Breads, and now Michaeli, has become known.
Of course, it’s not like New Yorkers were suffering from a lack of babka prior to either bakery’s arrival. Lots of bakeries, notably Green’s Bakery of Brooklyn, had been making and selling the gooey, yeasted cake for decades. Local New York comedian Jerry Seinfeld even devoted an episode of his eponymous show to the sweet treat back in 1994.
But Breads brought a babka to New York unlike anything that New Yorkers had ever tasted before. It was made with a laminated dough, similar to croissants, and it was at once light, fluffy and rich, layered with butter, stuffed with Nutella and chocolate chunks, and glazed with a simple syrup. A couple of months after Breads opened on East 16th St. near Union Square in 2013, New York magazine food writers Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite anointed Breads’ babka as the best in the city.
“The business went boom!” Michaeli told the New York Jewish Week. Almost overnight, Breads went from a virtually unknown purveyor of Israeli pastries to an essential stop on the tourist food trail.
“Everyone starts to come and take pictures with the babka,” said Michaeli. During their first Rosh Hashanah, not long after the New York magazine article appeared, Michaeli said the bakery sold 3,000 loaves of babka in a single day.
(Co-founder Scheft left Breads in 2021 and now runs Bakey, a Boston bakery. As for Breads’ current ownership, a spokesperson said that Michaeli “had nothing to do with the creation of Breads Bakery’s Babka.”)
After leaving Breads, Michaeli considered opening up a bakery in Tel Aviv and briefly returned there, but, assessing the competition, he soon realized that his future was in New York.
“There was only one Israeli bakery in New York — more [of them] should come,” he said.
Living on the Upper West Side while working on his business plan and meeting with potential investors, Michaeli did some baking for Anat Sror, an Israeli-born caterer and owner of Cafe Petisco, a now-closed restaurant on the Lower East Side.
Sror knew that Michaeli wanted to start his own bakery, and though she had never invested in anybody before, she decided to back Michaeli. “He’s very talented, very passionate, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do,” said Sror. “He had a great business plan. Plus, we had worked together so I knew exactly what he is capable of. I felt it was a good risk to take.”
Sror helped Michaeli find a storefront not too far from Cafe Petisco. They both agreed it was not an ideal location, but it was within their budget. “We trusted that once people try his stuff and get to know the bakery, things will be easier,” Sror said.
Michaeli Bakery opened on Division St. on the Lower East Side in May 2019. Conceived as an “Israeli patisserie,” it sold pastries, cookies, cakes, cream cakes, cheesecakes, sandwiches and, on Fridays, challah.
Less than a year later, however, just as the bakery was developing a name for itself, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the city to its knees. As New Yorkers stayed home or left the city altogether, Sror shut her restaurant and catering concern. Meanwhile, Michaeli streamlined his bakery’s offerings, focusing on babka, rugelach and bourekas, dropping the sandwiches and cakes on his original menu.
During the long months of the pandemic, Michaeli said he worked round the clock, keeping the business open seven days a week and working as the establishment’s baker, barista and manager. On the bright side? “It gave me the flexibility to build the business over time,” he said.
His efforts paid off: Less than three years later, in March 2022, Michaeli and Sror opened a second location on East 90th St. and First Ave. “The decision to open on the Upper East Side was because customers kept saying it was too far to come to the Lower East Side,” said Sror.
Sensing “the vibe” uptown, according to Michaeli, he decided to make the bakery kosher. “My integrity is that if I’m kosher, I’m kosher,” he said, referring to his decision to have kosher supervision for both bakeries, and to close them on Saturdays and early on Fridays. “Uptown Sunday is super busy, we need the reset of Saturday. “
“My vision is that I do the best that I can,” he added. “Everyone on the team is the same. Every day should be 100%. There is no 99%. This is the DNA of the place.”
One loyal customer, art consultant Andrea Meislin, raves about the “chocolate-y, gooey and decadent” babka at Michaeli, what Meislin describes as “babka to die for.” In addition to the chocolate babka, Michaeli makes a vegan chocolate babka, cheese and cherry babka and halvah babka. His Galil bourekas, made with goat cheese, onion and za’atar, are very popular, too.
These days, the biggest challenge Michaeli faces, he said, is dealing with the enormous demand the holidays bring. “For Hanukkah, I sent the manager out to the line on the street, to say that we are sorry. We can’t catch up with demand,” said Michaeli. “We told customers [on line] to go away. It was horrible. It is a problem I am trying to solve.”
Moving forward, Sror is optimistic that the bakery will expand: “It will either be another location, perhaps on the Upper West Side, or we are thinking about making a bigger location to be able to produce a bit more,” she said. Sror hopes Michaeli will be able to expand his menu, perhaps by adding his classic, light Israeli cheesecakes, what Michaeli calls “Grandma Cheesecake.”
When asked what differentiates Michaeli’s baked goods from Breads’ or other bakeries’, the baker refused to compare, stating that he just aims to do the best he can, all the time. “If someone says this is better than this or that, I really don’t care,” says Michaeli. “There is no competition. This is what we do.”
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Spain Expands Anti-Israel Measures, Bans Golan, West Bank Products Amid Rising Tensions With Jerusalem
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks at a press conference in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, China, Sept. 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Xihao Jiang
The Spanish government has announced a ban on imports from hundreds of Israeli communities in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights — making Spain the second European Union country to implement such a policy as the latest move in its ongoing effort to boycott Israel.
According to a statement from Spain’s Ministry of Finance on Monday, the ban — set to take effect on Tuesday — is the result of a September decree “adopting urgent measures against genocide in Gaza and in support of the Palestinian population.”
The regulation “prohibits … the entry into Spain of products originating from Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Among all members of the EU, Spain is the second country to take such action, following Slovenia — one of the bloc’s smallest economies — which became the first EU member to ban Israeli products in August, and potentially to be joined by Ireland, where parliament is currently working on a similar measure.
As a major trade partner of Spain, Israel exports roughly $850 million in goods to the country each year — about half the value of Spanish exports to Israel — with products from the West Bank and the Golan making up only a small fraction of those shipments, according to the Israel Export Institute.
Spain’s newly implemented measure marks its latest attempts to curb Israel’s defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, as ties between the two countries continue to deteriorate amid ongoing tensions.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain has launched a fierce anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state on the international stage.
Even as Spain ramps up its anti-Israel campaign, authorities this week granted Airbus exceptional permission to produce aircraft and drones using Israeli technology at its Spanish plants — despite having banned military and dual-use products from the Jewish state just two months ago.
Approved last Tuesday by the cabinet and defended by several ministers this week, the exemption reflects the pressure from companies and domestic interests that some of Europe’s toughest critics of Israel’s recent war have faced as they attempt to impose trade sanctions.
In September, Spain passed a law to take “urgent measures to stop the genocide in Gaza,” banning trade in defense material and dual-use products from Israel, as well as imports and advertising of products originating from Israeli settlements.
On Tuesday, Spain’s consumer ministry ordered seven travel booking websites to take down 138 listings for holiday homes in Palestinian territories, warning they could face sanctions if they continue advertising Israeli-owned properties in those areas.
Earlier this year, the Spanish government also announced it would bar entry to individuals involved in what it called a “genocide against Palestinians,” block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace, and enforce an embargo on products from Israeli communities in the West Bank.
Spain has also canceled a €700 million ($825 million) deal for Israeli-designed rocket launchers, as the government conducts a broader review to systematically phase out Israeli weapons and technology from its armed forces.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has faced increasing backlash from his country’s political leaders and Jewish community, who accuse him of fueling antisemitic hostility.
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UN’s Francesca Albanese Lashes Out at ‘Pro-Genocide Minions’ After Georgetown University Severs Ties
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for Palestinian human rights, on Nov. 14, 2023. Photo: AAPIMAGE via Reuters Connect
A controversial United Nations official who has been criticized for using her role to promote anti-Israel bias and pro-Hamas propaganda denied on Monday that Georgetown University severed its relationship with her due to accusations that she is antisemitic, explaining that she was dropped due to the US government’s decision to sanction her.
“I had an affiliation with a US university. I used to lecture there. Everything has been cut down,” she said earlier this month at an event with ODI Global.
A university official confirmed to JNS on Friday that Georgetown severed ties with Albanese due to the imposition of sanctions, saying, “US institutions are prohibited by federal law from affiliating with individuals subject to US sanctions.”
In July, the Trump administration sanctioned Albanese, accusing her of “political and economic warfare” against the US and Israel. “Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the time.
Following news of Georgetown’s severing ties with Albanese, some media reports suggested the decision was based on her antisemitic comments. The UN official appeared to respond to such claims on the social media platform X.
“Georgetown’s decision to end my 10-year-old affiliation is yet another fallout of the sanctions the US imposed on me last July for exposing Israel’s genocide and the complicity of US businesses. Any other explanation is the usual laughable propaganda of the pro-genocide minions,” she posted on X.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state.
In August, she defended Hamas as a legitimate “political force” in Gaza that has built schools and hospitals while ruling the Palestinian enclave for nearly two decades, arguing that people should not think of the internationally designated terrorist group as armed “cut-throats” or “fighters.”
Months earlier, Albanese called on all medical professionals to cut ties with Israel, accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” — an accusation she made repeatedly since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
The UN recently launched a probe into Albanese’s conduct over allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations.
While speaking at a Washington, DC bookstore last October, Albanese also accused Israel of weaponizing the fallout of the Oct. 7 atrocities to justify the continued “colonization” of Gaza.
Albanese claimed last year that Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists at Israel. In 2023, US lawmakers called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.
In response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s calling Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”
Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.
Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.” In July 2024, she also called for Israel to be expelled from the UN.
Albanese even once confessed that she struggles with impartiality. In an interview with the Institute for Palestine Studies in which she discussed Palestinian refugees and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) she said, “I feared deep down perhaps I feared that embarking on research on a matter on which I deeply held personal views could compromise my objectivity.”
UN Watch cheered Albanese’s dismissal from Georgetown as a victory against rising antisemitism.
“We welcome Georgetown University’s decision,” UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said in a statement. “Academic institutions have a responsibility to uphold basic standards of integrity and human dignity. Removing an official who has repeatedly trafficked in antisemitic rhetoric and justified terrorism is a necessary step toward restoring those standards.”
Calling on the UN to join Georgetown in dismissing Albanese, he added, “This sends an important message. Positions of authority at the United Nations do not grant immunity from accountability, and universities should not serve as safe havens for those who abuse their platforms to promote hatred. The UN must follow Georgetown’s lead and remove Albanese.”
Albanese is not without allies at Georgetown. One of them, Middle East studies associate professor Nader Hashemi, said on X that Albanese’s status as a sanctioned person will change if and when the Democrats win the US presidency and that she will be hosted at Georgetown again.
“As soon as the sanctions are lifted on Francesca, we plan to host a [sic] her again at Georgetown University,” he wrote. “I’m certain her affiliation will also be restored. When she does return to campus, I suspect there is not a room large enough to accommodate all the people who want to meet her.”
Hatred for Israel, often fueled by the spread of misinformation about the Jewish state’s history and conduct in Gaza, is fueling violence against Jews in the US and elsewhere, according to experts who spoke with The Algemeiner earlier this year.
In June, an assailant firebombed a pro-Israel rally with Molotov cocktails and a “makeshift” flamethrower in Boulder, Colorado, killing one person and injuring 13 in what US authorities called a targeted terrorist attack. According to court documents, the man charged for the attack yelled “Free Palestine” during the violence and also told investigators that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”
The Colorado firebombing came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder also yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supported the criminal charges against the suspect stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Recent research has found that anti-Zionist faculty at universities have created a hostile climate for Jews and Israelis.
According to a recent survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), university faculty and staff have exacerbated the antisemitism crisis by politicizing the classroom, promoting anti-Israel bias, and even discriminating against Jewish colleagues.
The actions by faculty provided an academic pretext for the relentless wave of antisemitic incidents of discrimination and harassment which pro-Hamas activists have perpetrated against Jewish and Israeli members of campus communities since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to the survey, released in September.
The survey of “Jewish-identifying US-based faculty members” found that 73 percent of Jewish faculty witnessed their colleagues engaging in antisemitic activity, and a significant percentage named the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) group as the force driving it. Of those aware of an FSJP chapter on their campus, the vast majority of respondents reported that the chapter engaged in anti-Israel programming (77.2 percent), organized anti-Israel protests and demonstrations (79.4 percent), and endorsed anti-Israel divestment campaigns (84.8 percent).
Additionally, 50 percent of respondents said that anti-Zionist faculty have established de facto, or “shadow,” boycotts of Israel on campus even in the absence of formal declaration or recognition of one by the administration. Among those who reported the presence of such a boycott, 55 percent noted that departments avoid co-sponsoring events with Jewish or pro-Israel groups and 29.5 percent said this policy is also subtly enacted by sabotaging negotiations for partnerships with Israeli institutions. All the while, such faculty fostered an environment in which Jewish professors were “maligned, professionally isolated, and in severe cases, doxxed or harassed” as they assumed the right to determine for their Jewish colleagues what constitutes antisemitism.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Russian Teen Assaulted Over Israeli Flag Photo as Antisemitism Concerns Mount, Amid Calls for Jews to Leave Country
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, former chief rabbi of Moscow and current president of the Conference of European Rabbis, on June 24, 2024. Photo: IMAGO/epd via Reuters Connect
A 15-year-old student at a school in Russia was brutally assaulted by classmates after posting a photo featuring an Israeli flag on social media, Russian media reported, leaving him with a serious eye fracture from an incident that has drawn public outrage and is now under criminal investigation.
Earlier this month, a high school student in St. Petersburg, a major city in northwestern Russia, was physically attacked by two classmates after changing his social media profile photo to one featuring an Israeli flag, according to a report by local News Channel 78 on Sunday.
One of the attackers allegedly harassed the boy over his profile picture, demanding that he remove it and apologize.
After a verbal confrontation in which the attacker threatened the boy and hurled insults, including references to the Holocaust, he allegedly demanded that the victim meet him in the bathroom to continue the discussion.
When the two boys met there, the assailant reportedly demanded that he apologize on his knees. The victim refused but said he was willing to apologize without being humiliated.
The attacker then struck him repeatedly in the face while another boy blocked the bathroom exit.
The victim had to be hospitalized after suffering a fracture to the eye socket and underwent surgery under general anesthesia to remove bone fragments.
After spending more than a week in the hospital, he is now receiving outpatient care, and his family is coordinating with school administrators on a transition to home-based schooling as recommended by his doctors.
The boy’s mother reported the assault to the police, prompting local authorities to open a criminal investigation for assault and battery.
This incident came after Pinchas Goldschmidt, who served as Moscow’s chief rabbi from 1993 to 2022, recently urged Jews to leave Russia and consider immigrating to Israel, citing a growing hostile climate and rising antisemitic attacks targeting the local Jewish community.
“I have long urged Russia’s Jews to consider aliyah, the return to Israel. The post-Soviet renaissance was extraordinary, but illusions of permanence ignore history,” Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, wrote in an op-ed for The Jerusalem Post earlier this month.
“Now, more than ever, Russia’s Jews should heed the call to leave. Israel offers not just refuge but a homeland where Jewish life is sovereign, not contingent on geopolitical whims,” he continued.
Although the number of Jews leaving Russia has declined, the country still accounted for the largest number of immigrants to Israel in 2025, with roughly 8,300 arrivals, according to data released Monday by Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Ministry.
This figure marked a nearly 60 percent drop from 19,500 last year and a small fraction of the 74,000 who immigrated in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.