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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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Syrian Leader al-Sharaa Holds Talks With Erdogan on Surprise Istanbul Visit
Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s interim president, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, met during al-Sharaa’s first diplomatic trip since the fall of the al-Assad regime. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was holding talks with Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa in Istanbul on Saturday, local media reported. No further details were available.
This comes one day after the US administration of President Donald Trump issued orders that it said would effectively lift sanctions on Syria in order to help the country rebuild after a devastating civil war.
The Treasury Department issued a general license that authorizes transactions involving the interim Syrian government led by Al-Sharaa, as well as the central bank and state-owned enterprises.
The general license, known as GL25, “authorizes transactions prohibited by the Syrian Sanctions Regulations, effectively lifting sanctions on Syria,” the Treasury said in a statement.
Syria welcomed the sanctions waiver early on Saturday, which the Foreign Ministry called a “positive step in the right direction to alleviate the country’s humanitarian and economic suffering.”
Syria is keen on cooperating with other countries “on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs. It believes that dialogue and diplomacy are the best path to building balanced relations,” the ministry said in a statement.
The post Syrian Leader al-Sharaa Holds Talks With Erdogan on Surprise Istanbul Visit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘It Was Just An Accident’ by Iran’s Jafar Panahi Wins Cannes’ Top Prize
Director Jafar Panahi, Palme d’Or award winner for the film “Un simple accident” (It Was Just an Accident), reacts, during the closing ceremony of the 78th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 24, 2025. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Revenge thriller “It Was Just An Accident” by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who was last at the Cannes Film Festival in person more than 20 years ago, won the Palme d’Or top prize on Saturday.
Panahi, who has been arrested several times for his filmmaking and was under a travel ban until recently, last attended the festival in person in 2003, when “Crimson Gold” was screened in the Un Certain Regard category.
“Art mobilizes the creative energy of the most precious, most alive part of us. A force that transforms darkness into forgiveness, hope and new life,” said jury president Juliette Binoche when announcing the award.
“It Was Just An Accident” follows Vahid, played by Vahid Mobasseri, who kidnaps a man with a false leg who looks just like the one who tortured him in prison and ruined his life.
Vahid sets out to verify with other prison survivors that it is indeed their torturer – and then decide what to do with him.
An emotional Panahi, wearing sunglasses on stage, thanked his cast and film crew during his acceptance speech.
The Grand Prix, the second-highest prize after the Palme d’Or, was awarded to “Sentimental Value” from acclaimed director Joachim Trier.
The jury prize was split between the intergenerational family drama “Sound of Falling” from German director Mascha Schilinski and “Sirat,” about a father and son who head into the Moroccan desert, by French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe.
Brazil’s “The Secret Agent” won two awards, one for best actor for Wagner Moura, as well as best director for Kleber Mendonca Filho.
“I was having Champagne,” said Mendonca Filho after he ran up to the stage to collect his award after celebrating Moura, who previously made a name for himself in hit TV series “Narcos.”
Newcomer Nadia Melliti took home best actress for “The Little Sister,” a queer coming-of-age story centered around the daughter of Algerian immigrants in Paris.
Belgium’s Dardenne brothers, who have the rare honor of already having won two Palme d’Or prizes, took home the award for best screenplay for their film “Young Mothers.”
Twenty-two films in total were competing for the prize at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, with entries from well-known directors Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson and Ari Aster.
Saturday’s closing ceremony officially ends the glamour-filled festival that began on May 13.
The post ‘It Was Just An Accident’ by Iran’s Jafar Panahi Wins Cannes’ Top Prize first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard Enrollment of Foreign Students
US President Trump speaks to the media at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, Washington, DC, April 21, 2025. Photo: Andrew Leyden/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
A US judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students, a policy the Ivy League school called part of President Donald Trump’s broader effort to retaliate against it for refusing to “surrender its academic independence.”
The order provides temporary relief to thousands of international students who were faced with being forced to transfer under a policy that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university called a “blatant violation” of the US Constitution and other federal laws, and said would have an “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and more than 7,000 visa holders.
“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the 389-year-old school said in its lawsuit filed earlier on Friday in Boston federal court. Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in its current school year, equal to 27% of total enrollment.
The move was the latest escalation in a broader battle between Harvard and the White House, as Trump seeks to compel universities, law firms, news media, courts and other institutions that value independence from partisan politics to align with his agenda. Trump and fellow Republicans have long accused elite universities of left-wing bias.
Harvard has pushed back hard against Trump, having previously sued to restore nearly $3 billion in federal grants that had been frozen or canceled. In recent weeks, the administration has proposed ending Harvard’s tax-exempt status and hiking taxes on its endowment, and opened an investigation into whether it violated civil rights laws.
Leo Gerden, a Swedish student set to graduate Harvard with an undergraduate degree in economics and government this month, called the judge’s ruling a “great first step” but said international students were bracing for a long legal fight that would keep them in limbo.
“There is no single decision by Trump or by Harvard or by a judge that is going to put an end to this tyranny of what Trump is doing,” Gerden said.
In its complaint, Harvard said the revocation would force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray, just a few days before graduation. It said the revocation was a punishment for Harvard’s “perceived viewpoint,” which it called a violation of the right to free speech as guaranteed by the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
The Trump administration may appeal US District Judge Allison Burroughs’ ruling. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump Administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy.”
Since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, his administration has accused several universities of indifference toward the welfare of Jewish students during widespread campus protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Harvard’s court challenges over the administration’s policies stand in contrast to its New York-based peer Columbia University’s concessions to similar pressure. Columbia agreed to reform disciplinary processes and review curricula for courses on the Middle East, after Trump pulled $400 million in funding over allegations the Ivy League school had not done enough to combat antisemitism.
In announcing on Thursday the termination of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effective starting in the 2025-2026 academic year, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, without providing evidence, accused the university of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
Harvard says a fifth of its foreign students in 2024 were from China. US lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns about the influence of the Chinese government on US college campuses, including efforts by Beijing-directed Chinese student associations to monitor political activities and stifle academic speech.
The university says it is committed to combating antisemitism and investigating credible allegations of civil rights violations.
HARVARD DEFENDS ‘REFUSAL TO SURRENDER’
In her brief order blocking the policy for two weeks, Burroughs said Harvard had shown it could be harmed before there was an opportunity to hear the case in full. The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, scheduled hearings for May 27 and May 29 to consider next steps in the case. Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s lawsuit over the grant funds.
Harvard University President Alan Garber said the administration was illegally seeking to assert control over the private university’s curriculum, faculty and student body.
“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence,” Garber wrote in a letter on Friday to the Harvard community.
The revocation could also weigh on Harvard’s finances. At many US universities, international students are more likely to pay full tuition, essentially subsidizing aid for other students.
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Harvard’s bonds, part of its $8.2 billion debt pile, have been falling since Trump first warned US universities in March of cuts to federal funding.
International students enrolled at Harvard include Cleo Carney, daughter of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Princess Elisabeth, first in line to the Belgian throne.
The post Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard Enrollment of Foreign Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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