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Celebrity Israeli chef Eyal Shani opens his first kosher restaurant in NYC
(New York Jewish Week) — Celebrity Israeli Chef Eyal Shani arrived in New York City early on Monday morning, two days before the launch of Malka — his 41st restaurant and his first certified kosher eatery outside of Israel.
For several weeks, he had deliberated as to whether he should fly in for the grand opening on Wednesday night. “It is the first time in my life that I don’t have the will to travel, to get out of Israel, because of the situation in Israel now,” Shani told the New York Jewish Week.
Shani has been working almost nonstop since the war in Israel began on Oct. 7. He immediately closed all 12 of his restaurants in Tel Aviv and converted their kitchens into what he calls “food factories,” where volunteers cooked 4,000 meals each day which were then delivered to the soldiers on the front line. Even children were involved: some came to restaurants and painted pictures that were included in the packages for the soldiers.
But last week, Shani shut down the food factories and re-opened several of his Tel Aviv restaurants. “We understood that we need a place for our clients to be in, to talk, to argue with each other,” Shani said. “We have to bring back our workers. That is the reason why we opened in Israel.”
It’s been an incredibly busy time for the high-profile chef. In addition to his activism, the day-to-day pressures of running a global restaurant empire and the incomprehensible stress of living through a brutal war, Shani has been busy earning accolades: Last week, Shani won his first-ever Michelin star for Shmoné, his seasonally-focused restaurant on West 8th Street in Greenwich Village.
“When I heard we won the Michelin star, I was happy, but not so much, because there is no place for happiness now,” said Shani, who added that he was “cooking for soldiers” when the star was awarded. “But when I saw my partners, my chefs, climb to the stage to get the star, and I saw the flag of Israel on their jacket, I began to cry. That was my happiness. And that is my happiness to open a kosher restaurant, too.”
Shani’s goal with the New York outpost of Malka, which opens to the public on Sunday and is located at 161 West 72nd Street on the heavily Jewish Upper West Side, is to create a kosher restaurant that does not feel like most kosher restaurants. Case in point: At the moment, Shani is hard at work creating a signature dish for the restaurant, a Jewish-inflected ramen soup made with chicken.
“Chicken soup is the best soup in the world,” he said, echoing the sentiment of Jewish grandmothers everywhere. “I am going to develop an amazing ramen based on the chicken stock. I hope I will succeed in making the best ramen in New York.”
Shani himself does not keep kosher, but five years ago he opened Malka in Tel Aviv — which, at the time, was the only kosher restaurant in his portfolio. He did so, he said, because he saw that kosher consumers were “craving” his food but they couldn’t eat it because it was not kosher.
“These people are part of my nation,” Shani said. “Part of my people. How can I make food without letting half of my people eat it? That is the main reason I opened Malka.”
These days, in addition to the forthcoming Malka in Manhattan, Shani operates two kosher certified restaurants in Israel. In Paris, three locations of his fast-casual pita chain Miznon use all-kosher ingredients but they are not certified kosher.
Israeli chef Eyal Shani at Malka, his kosher restaurant in Tel Aviv. The celebrity chef is opening his first-ever kosher restaurant, also called Malka, on the Upper West Side in November 2023. (Ariel Efron)
In addition to ramen, New York Malka will have the thinly-pounded schnitzel stuffed with mashed potatoes that is a signature dish in his Tel Aviv Malka, as well as his popular beetroot carpaccio and Jerusalem mezze platter, featuring falafel and hummus made from Mexican chickpeas. Shani hopes that Malka’s seasonal menu showcasing the flavors of Israeli cuisine will be a draw for Jews and non-Jews alike.
“I had a dream one night that the food would be so good that even non-kosher people would go to the restaurant,” said Shani, “and kosher people would come to eat and at the end of the night they would dance together in the bar.”
Adeena Sussman, cookbook author and a keen observer of modern Israeli cuisine, agrees that Shani’s food is different from the food you would find at other kosher establishments.
“Eyal Shani restaurants are not meat-centric,” Sussman said. “It is interesting for the kosher crowd because kosher diners have typically been known to be very carnivorous.”
“Maybe he is helping gently nudge people towards a more plant-celebratory eating experience,” she added.
Shani, who cites his vegan grandfather as a major inspiration, told the New York Jewish Week that while meat and fish are certainly on Malka’s menu, more than half of the offerings will be plant-based.
“Olive oil is my main ingredient,” he said. “If olive oil disappeared from the world, I would quit and leave the profession. I would not be a chef.” This is especially true at a kosher establishment, where the mixing of milk and meat is prohibited. At his other New York restaurants, including the upscale HaSalon and Shmoné, the chefs use superb olive oils that come from Spain, Italy and Israel. He plans to do so at Malka, too.
The produce will also be premium quality. “All of the vegetables will be from upstate New York or California,” he said. But the tomatoes, he added — a central feature of Shani’s cuisine — will all be local. “Real tomatoes cannot travel,” he said.
Just as Shani was uncomfortable about leaving Israel during the war, many Jewish restaurant-goers seem to be conflicted about the morality of dining out and having fun while a war rages in Israel. Kosher restaurants in New York are suffering, according to Elan Kornblum, publisher of Great Kosher Restaurants Media Group. But despite consumers’ hesitation to enjoy life while the war with Hamas is ongoing, interest in Shani’s kosher eatery is high.
Kornblum posted Malka’s menu on his organization’s Facebook page, and it garnered more than 50,000 views in less than three weeks. The average number of views for his posts are about 5,000, he said. “If something gets 40,000-50,000 views, you know people are excited and are sharing,” he said. “It is big news.”
Shani understands the discord that some people feel about returning to life – and to restaurants. But he feels strongly that it is important to do so.
“There is no reason for anything if we are not going to build a normal life, a peaceful life, or if we are not going to try to bring quality and happiness and hope to people,” he said.
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The post Celebrity Israeli chef Eyal Shani opens his first kosher restaurant in NYC appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New Orleans Attack Puts Spotlight on Islamic State Comeback Bid
A member of the Emergency Response Division holds an Islamic State militants flag in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 10, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani/File Photo.
A US Army veteran who flew a black Islamic State flag on a truck that he rammed into New Year’s revelers in New Orleans shows how the extremist group still retains the ability to inspire violence despite suffering years of losses to a US-led military coalition.
At the height of its power from 2014-2017, the Islamic State “caliphate” imposed death and torture on communities in vast swathes of Iraq and Syria and enjoyed franchises across the Middle East.
Its then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in 2019 by US special forces in northwestern Syria, rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself “caliph” of all Muslims.
The caliphate collapsed in 2017 in Iraq, where it once had a base just a 30-minute drive from Baghdad, and in Syria in 2019, after a sustained military campaign by a US-led coalition.
Islamic State responded by scattering in autonomous cells, its leadership is clandestine and its overall size is hard to quantify. The U.N. estimates it at 10,000 in its heartlands.
The US-led coalition, including some 4,000 US troops in Syria and Iraq, has continued hammering the militants with airstrikes and raids that the US military says have seen hundreds of fighters and leaders killed and captured.
Yet Islamic State has managed some major operations while striving to rebuild and it continues to inspire lone wolf attacks such as the one in New Orleans which killed 14 people.
Those assaults include one by gunmen on a Russian music hall in March 2024 that killed at least 143 people, and two explosions targeting an official ceremony in the Iranian city of Kerman in January 2024 that killed nearly 100.
Despite the counterterrorism pressure, ISIS has regrouped, “repaired its media operations, and restarted external plotting,” Acting US Director for the National Counterterrorism Center Brett Holmgren warned in October.
Geopolitical factors have aided Islamic State. Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has caused widespread anger that jihadists use for recruitment. The risks to Syrian Kurds who are holding thousands of Islamic State prisoners could also create an opening for the group.
Islamic State has not claimed responsibility for the New Orleans attack or praised it on its social media sites, although its supporters have, US law enforcement agencies said.
A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been growing concern about Islamic State increasing its recruiting efforts and resurging in Syria.
Those worries were heightened after the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the potential for the militant group to fill the vacuum.
‘MOMENTS OF PROMISE’
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that Islamic State will try to use this period of uncertainty to re-establish capabilities in Syria, but said the United States is determined not to let that happen.
“History shows how quickly moments of promise can descend into conflict and violence,” he said.
A U.N. team that monitors Islamic State activities reported to the U.N. Security Council in July a “risk of resurgence” of the group in the Middle East and increased concerns about the ability of its Afghanistan-based affiliate, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), to mount attacks outside the country.
European governments viewed ISIS-K as “the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe,” it said.
“In addition to the executed attacks, the number of plots disrupted or being tracked through the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Levant, Asia, Europe, and potentially as far as North America is striking,” the team said.
Jim Jeffrey, former US ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition To Defeat Islamic State, said the group has long sought to motivate lone wolf attacks like the one in New Orleans.
Its threat, however, remains efforts by ISIS-K to launch major mass casualty attacks like those seen in Moscow and Iran, and in Europe in 2015 and 2016, he said.
ISIS also has continued to focus on Africa.
This week, it said 12 Islamic State militants using booby-trapped vehicles attacked a military base on Tuesday in Somalia’s northeastern region of Puntland, killing around 22 soldiers and wounding dozens more.
It called the assault “the blow of the year. A complex attack that is first of its kind.”
Security analysts say Islamic State in Somalia has grown in strength because of an influx of foreign fighters and more revenue from extorting local businesses, becoming the group’s “nerve centre” in Africa.
‘PATH TO RADICALIZATION’
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native and US Army veteran who once served in Afghanistan, acted alone in the New Orleans attack, the FBI said on Thursday.
Jabbar appeared to have made recordings in which he condemned music, drugs and alcohol, restrictions that echo Islamic State’s playbook.
Investigators were looking into Jabbar’s “path to radicalization,” uncertain how he transformed from military veteran, real-estate agent and one-time employee of the major tax and consulting firm Deloitte into someone who was “100 percent inspired by ISIS,” an acronym for Islamic State.
US intelligence and homeland security officials in recent months have warned local law enforcement about the potential for foreign extremist groups, such as ISIS, to target large public gatherings, specifically with vehicle-ramming attacks, according to intelligence bulletins reviewed by Reuters.
US Central Command said in a public statement in June that Islamic State was attempting to “reconstitute following several years of decreased capability.”
CENTCOM said it based its assessment on Islamic State claims of mounting 153 attacks in Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2024, a rate which would put the group “on pace to more than double the number of attacks” claimed the year before.
H.A. Hellyer, an expert in Middle East studies and senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, said it was unlikely Islamic State would gain considerable territory again.
He said ISIS and other non-state actors continue to pose a danger, but more due to their ability to unleash “random acts of violence” than by being a territorial entity.
“Not in Syria or Iraq, but there are other places in Africa that a limited amount of territorial control might be possible for a time,” Hellyer said, “but I don’t see that as likely, not as the precursor to a serious comeback.”
The post New Orleans Attack Puts Spotlight on Islamic State Comeback Bid first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Plans $8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel, US Official Says
US President Joe Biden speaks on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this White House handout image taken in the Oval Office in Washington, US, April 4, 2024. Photo: The White House/Handout via REUTERS
The administration of President Joe Biden has notified Congress of a proposed $8 billion arms sale to Israel, a US official said on Friday, with Washington maintaining support for its ally.
The deal would need approval from the House of Representatives and Senate committees and includes munitions for fighter jets and attack helicopters as well as artillery shells, Axios reported earlier. The package also includes small-diameter bombs and warheads, according to Axios.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Protesters have for months demanded an arms embargo against Israel, but US policy has largely remained unchanged. In August, the United States approved the sale of $20 billion in fighter jets and other military equipment to Israel.
The Biden administration says it is helping its ally defend against Iran-backed terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
The post US Plans $8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel, US Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Releases Proof-of-Life Video of Israeli Hostage Liri Albag
Illustrative. An undated picture of (from left) Liri Albag, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa, and Karina Ariev held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, that was made public by their families on July 16, 2024. Photo: Hostages and Missing Families Forum
i24 News – The Palestinian terrorists of Hamas on Saturday released a video showing signs of life from Israeli hostage Liri Albag.
Albag’s family requested media not to share the video or images from it, asking journalists to respect their privacy at this moment.
Albag, 20, is a surveillance soldier stationed at the Nahal Oz base, was abducted on October 7 by Palestinian jihadists.
The post Hamas Releases Proof-of-Life Video of Israeli Hostage Liri Albag first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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