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Car talk: Jewish auto writers gather for a Passover seder at Katz’s Deli
(New York Jewish Week) — The idea of eating pastrami with matzah instead of rye bread may strike some as a sacrilege, but for members of the Jewish Auto Writers Society of America (JAWS), who will gather this week for a Passover seder at Katz’s Delicatessen, it’s become a tradition.
“Frankly, bread is a filler,” said Joel Feder, a senior producer for the web sites Motor Authority, The Car Connection and Green Car Reports. “You can eat more pastrami if you don’t waste space on the bread.”
Feder will lead the JAWS seder on Wednesday evening, the first night of Passover. About 30 automotive industry journalists and public relations professionals are expected to attend the gathering, which is held in a back room at the iconic Lower East Side deli. The annual event, which began in 2013, is timed for the press day at the massive New York International Auto Show at Javits Center, which opens to the public this year on Friday. A bus brings JAWS members and their guests to the deli on Houston Street.
The seder is JAWS’s big annual event, though there are efforts underway to gather in Los Angeles at the Genghis Cohen Chinese restaurant in the Fairfax section of the city during the Los Angeles Auto Show in November. The seder is sponsored by Volvo and Nissan and, yes, it has been duly noted that Passover takes place in the Hebrew month of Nisan.
“If a rabbi ever walked in, I think he’d have a heart attack,” joked the seder’s founder, Russel Datz, the national media relations manager for Volvo Car USA.
But not necessarily: Though the gathering is decidedly informal, and the food is not kosher, the JAWS seder features all the accouterments you’d expect at a seder: a seder plate, matzah, wine and a festive meal that, in addition to pastrami, includes brisket, corned beef, tzimmes and matzah ball soup.
What’s more, the group uses a haggadah written by an Orthodox rabbi. “The World’s Shortest Kosher Hagaddah” by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein of the Pico Shul in Los Angeles fulfills all the halachic (Jewish legal) requirements of the Passover seder, and it takes just 10 minutes to get from the blessing on the first cup of wine to the concluding “Next year in Jerusalem!”
The haggadah was found on the internet by Dan Passe, who worked for Nissan for 17 years and left recently to take a job as global head, communications and marketing, for the Nikola Motor Company, an electric truck manufacturer.
Passe has embraced the speedy seder concept for years and readily concedes it is an act of rebellion. “I grew up going to my grandparents in Bayside, Queens, who did a three-hour long seder where you thought you were going to pass out before you got to eat,” he said. “This haggadah, if you want to call it that, is such a great way of making [the holiday] really clear and making it very snackable, if you will.”
Bookstein, who created the 10-minute seder in 2010 for the Jewish rapper known as Kosha Dillz, was delighted that the car guys and women would be, um, speeding through his haggadah. “That’s awesome. I’m originally from Detroit so I have a soft spot for the automobile writers,” he told the New York Jewish Week.
According to its Facebook page, JAWS has 110 members. Datz started the group in 2013 as a way for Jewish industry people to gather as a community during the New York auto show, which is almost always held during the week in which Passover falls.
Feder, who hails from Plymouth, Minnesota, said he is getting grief from his mother for not being home for the holiday this year. (He’ll catch a flight Thursday morning and land in Minneapolis in time to make it to the second seder.) As this year’s seder leader, Feder is filling in for Datz and Passe, who aren’t coming to the New York auto show this year because of family commitments.
Russel Datz, right, leads the annual JAWS seder at Katz’s Deli in Manhattan in 2022. (Kevin Albinder)
In addition to the traditional wine cup left for the prophet Elijah, there will be two unoccupied seats for Datz and Passe, said Evelyn Kanter, president of the International Motor Press Association and a regular at the JAWS seder since its first year. (When Datz was informed of the empty seat gesture, he quipped: ”Is she lighting yahrzeit candles as well?”)
Kanter called the deli gathering “a beloved tradition. It’s a family of people in the automotive business who are all homeless [during the auto show].”
An Upper West Sider, Kanter grew up in Inwood, back when the nearby neighborhood of Washington Heights was known as Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson because of its large German Jewish immigrant population. After stints as an investigative consumer reporter for New York radio and TV stations, Kanter became known as the ecoXplorer, writing about travel and the environment, in addition to cars.
This year, Kanter’s daughter is in Los Angeles and her son in New York is working the night of the first seder. So, in addition to the JAWS seder, she’ll attend a virtual seder on the second night. “I’ll have dinner with my son early next week and we’ll have a delayed Passover,” Kanter said.
According to Passe, half of the seder’s participants at the deli are not Jewish. “They ask to attend because they’ve never been to a seder before,” he said. “We have people who return year after year after year who are not Jewish because they love the ceremony.”
Jenni Newman, the Chicago-based editor-in-chief of cars.com, was invited by two Jewish colleagues at her company and attended JAWS seders in 2019 and 2022. She’s planning to go to her third this week. (There were no seders during the pandemic.) Although Newman describes herself as “super active” in the Lutheran Church growing up, she considers it a gift to experience other peoples’ religions and cultures. “I really enjoyed going through the ritual with everyone and having people sitting next to me explain things,” she said. “I was kind of overcome emotionally just being part of it.”
Last year Newman “found” the afikomen, though it wasn’t much of a hunt: At the JAWS seder, the hidden piece of matzah is taped underneath a random seat. The person who finds the afikomen gets their choice of a high-end Nissan or Volvo to drive for a week after the auto show.
But the real prize goes to local JAWS members, Passe noted. “If you are local and you attend, you go home with the biggest doggy bag you can possibly imagine,” he said.
Kanter, the recipient of said doggy bags, concurs. “Leftovers at Katz’s are simply too good to waste,” she said.
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Iran Promises ‘Crushing’ Attacks Against the US and Israel
Symbolic mock-ups of Iranian missiles are displayed on a street, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 22, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – Iran has issued a stark warning of “crushing” retaliatory attacks against the United States and Israel following threats from US President Donald Trump to escalate military operations in the coming weeks.
In a statement aired on Iranian state television, the Khatam al-Anbiya operational command said, “this war will continue until your humiliation, your disgrace, your permanent and certain regret, and your surrender,” framing the conflict as a long-term confrontation and invoking “trust in Almighty God.”
Iranian officials further warned that future operations would be “more crushing, broader, and more destructive,” signaling the potential expansion of the conflict across multiple fronts amid ongoing missile and drone exchanges in the region.
The escalation comes after Trump publicly suggested intensifying strikes on Iran, saying operations would continue until “the job is finished” and claiming significant military gains against Iranian strategic capabilities. As tensions rise, both sides appear to be hardening their positions, increasing fears of a wider regional confrontation.
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Trump Speech Unleashes More Pain on US Consumers with $5 Gasoline, Record Diesel in Sight
US President Donald Trump arrives to award the medal of honor to Master Sgt. Roderick ‘Roddie’ W. Edmonds, Staff Sgt. Michael H. Ollis, and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry P. Richardson during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 March 2026.
US President Donald Trump’s address to the nation on Wednesday, in which he vowed more aggressive strikes on Iran, has put consumers on course for record fuel prices at the pumps just ahead of the country’s peak summer travel season, market experts said.
Americans expected Trump’s speech to outline a plan to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as Iran’s blockade of the global oil conduit has sent oil and fuel prices skyrocketing, pinching consumers’ wallets. But instead, Trump vowed to bomb Iran back into the “Stone Ages” and said the strait would just open “naturally” when the war ends.
The comments sent US crude oil prices surging more than 10 percent on Thursday, and US average retail gasoline prices are now set to climb to between $4.25 and $4.45 a gallon by next week after crossing $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 at the start of this week, said Patrick De Haan.
The pain could worsen. If there is no viable plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the US average price of gasoline will likely cross $5 a gallon and hit record levels within a month, De Haan said.
Wholesale markets had begun moving higher on Thursday, with midmorning increases of 17 cents a gallon in the Great Lakes, Great Plains, Northeast and West Coast markets, and a 19-cent-a gallon hike in the Gulf Coast, said Tom Kloza, chief energy adviser to Gulf Oil on social media.
Meanwhile, diesel prices, less visible to consumers but arguably more impactful as they are directly tied to the cost of making and moving goods, could hit a record high within two weeks, De Haan said.
The national average retail diesel price is set to climb from $5.47 a gallon on Thursday to between $5.80 and over $6 a gallon within the next two weeks, De Haan said. The record US average retail price was $5.83 a gallon in 2022.
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Britain Says 40 Countries Discuss Reopening Strait of Hormuz After Iran Blockade
A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken June 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
About 40 countries are discussing joint action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to stop Iran holding “the global economy hostage,” Britain said on Thursday, after US President Donald Trump said securing the waterway was for others to resolve.
British foreign minister Yvette Cooper said Iran’s “recklessness” in blockading the waterway was “hitting our global economic security” as she chaired the virtual meeting, which included France, Germany, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and India.
“We have seen Iran hijack an international shipping route to hold the global economy hostage,” Cooper said in opening remarks broadcast to the media before the rest of the meeting took place behind closed doors.
The United States did not attend the talks, one official said. The discussions, involving representatives of some 40 countries, took place after Trump said on Wednesday evening that the Strait could open “naturally” and it was the responsibility of countries that rely on the waterway to ensure it was open.
FOCUS ON DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARY OPTIONS
Iran has effectively shut down the key waterway, which carries about a fifth of the world’s total oil consumption, in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes which began in late February. Reopening it has become a priority for governments around the world as energy prices soar.
European countries initially refused Trump’s demand to send their navies to the area because of fears about being dragged into the conflict.
But concerns about the impact of the rising cost of energy on the global economy have prompted them to try to form a coalition to see how they can defend their own interests.
European diplomats said putting the coalition together was at an early stage, with Britain and France leading.
Officials said the discussions on Thursday would focus on which countries were prepared to participate.
France’s Armed Forces spokesperson Guillaume Vernet told a news conference on Thursday that the process would be multi-phased and could not happen until hostilities had calmed or ended.
A key focus of the talks would be how to ensure ship-owners could feel confident enough for vessels to resume traveling through the area and to bring down insurance premiums.
There would also eventually need to be coordination with Iran to ensure that there will be security guarantees for ships, Vernet said, something that is unlikely for now.
Talks had also started on what military assets could be provided, he said.
“We will need to assemble a sufficient number of vessels and have coordination capabilities in the air, at sea, as well as the ability to share intelligence,” he said.
Britain said it would host a meeting of military planners for talks next week.
Trump said on Wednesday evening that other countries that use the Strait of Hormuz should “build up some delayed courage” and “just grab it.”
“Just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves,” he said.
But France’s President Emmanuel Macron speaking in South Korea on Thursday said seizing the Strait militarily was an “unrealistic” option.
“It would take an indefinite amount of time, and it would expose all those who venture through this Strait to coastal risks from the Revolutionary Guards, as well as ballistic missiles,” he said.