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Donuts meet hamantaschen as Brooklyn’s Sesame bakery reimagines a Purim treat
(New York Jewish Week) – In the search for innovation, Jewish bakers have lately branched out into rectangular latkes, soft mandel bread and black and white cookies that are anything but.
The latest Franken-nosh? Ahead of Purim, Sesame, a popular Brooklyn bakery, sells a frosting-filled donut in the triangular shape of hamantaschen, the signature cookie of the holiday that marks the Jewish victory over the evil Haman. (Purim begins on the evening of March 7.)
The triangular donut is a twist on the uber-popular Hanukkah sufganiyot that Sesame is known for: fluffy yeast donuts chock-full of filling and laden with elaborate toppings. The hamantaschen donuts are available in a range of flavors from strawberry and blueberry jelly to pistachio and lemon custard.
The triangular donuts are available during Purim at Sesame, a popular Brooklyn bakery known for its sufganiyot during Hanukkah. (Julia Gergely)
The donuts taste like, well, donuts, not like their stiffer, crumbly, less sweet cousins hamantaschen, which are made from shortbread dough. Still, they were delicious by any standard. The bite was pillowy and the frosting wasn’t overpowering, letting the ample amount of filling steal the show. If you don’t like frosting, maybe eat around it.
The recipe is the same as the standard donuts that the bakery sells, a worker at the register said.
On a Thursday afternoon, the bakery was bustling, and neither workers nor customers had time to stop and talk. Chaim Zorger opened the Flatbush location in 2016 and a second location in Boro Park in 2019. The Sesame name was “ubiquitous in the fervent discussion around deluxe sufganiyot,” the Jewish Link reported in December 2022, saying the bakery was “known for outstanding, but not outrageous baked goods.”
Trays of donuts and hamenstaschen at Sesame’s Flatbush location, Feb. 23, 2023. (Julia Gergely)
In Hanukkahs past, Sesame has opened two-week pop-ups in the Five Towns in Long Island and Lakewood, New Jersey, suppled by staff who would be baking for 24 hours a day throughout the two weeks.
The triangular Purim donuts are priced between $2.75 and $4.75 depending on the flavor. (Sesame also sells regular hamantaschen.) At Dough, another kosher donut bakery with several locations around New York, a single donut will run you between $5.45 to $5.95.
It cost me $12.80 for the two donuts plus three hamantaschen, which, by the way, was totally an underestimate of how much I thought I would want.
The bakery also sells traditional hamentaschen for Purim, along with other pastries. (Julia Gergely)
Some online traditionalists disapproved. “It would be a sin to call these Hamantaschen,” wrote one user on Twitter. (For what it is worth, the cashier at Sesame just called them donuts.)
Another user, who a few months earlier had tweeted “I have long maintained that we should simply abandon hamantaschen all together and eat sufganiyot by both Chanukah and Purim,” was apparently delighted by the Purim donuts. “Finally, a store that agrees with me!” he wrote.
In the Facebook group “Great Kosher Restaurant Foodies,” one user tried to come up with names for the creation, asking, “Is this a hamanganiyot, or a suftaschen?”
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The post Donuts meet hamantaschen as Brooklyn’s Sesame bakery reimagines a Purim treat appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘The Art of the Yiddish Monologue’ and other mini-courses in Yiddish
במשך פֿונעם חודש יאַנואַר 2026 וועט ייִוואָ פֿירן די ווײַטערדיקע מיני־קורסן אויף ייִדיש:
• „די קונסט פֿונעם ייִדישן מאָנאָלאָג“, וווּ מע וועט לייענען און אַרומרעדן מאָנאָלאָגן פֿון שלום עליכם, י. לץ פּרץ, דער טונקעלער, ב. קאָוונער, משה נאַדיר, רחל ברכות און יצחק באַשעוויס. מע וועט אויל אַרומרעדן די געשיכטע פֿונעם מאָנאָלאָג אין ייִדישן טעאַטער (שיין בייקער)
• שעפֿעריש שרײַבן, וווּ מע וועט אויפֿן סמך פֿון ליטעראַטור־מוסטערן באַטראַכטן די וויכטיקע באַשטאַנדטיילן פֿון פּראָזע — שפּראַך, סטיל, דיאַלאָג, געשטאַלט און פּייסאַזש (באָריס סאַנדלער)
• יצחק־לייבוש פּרץ און זײַנע באַציִונגען מיט די נײַ־געבוירענע ייִדישע סאָציאַליסטישע קרײַזן אין משך פֿון די 1890ער יאָרן (עדי מהלאל)
• די גרויסע אַקטריסע אסתּר רחל קאַמינסקאַ, וווּ די סטודענטן וועלן לייענען אירע זכרונות אויף ייִדיש (מיכל יאַשינסקי)
• די לידער פֿון דוד האָפֿשטײן, וואָס איז מערקווירדיק צוליב זײַן צונױפֿפֿלעכט פֿון דײַטשישע, רוסישע און אוקראַיִנישע ליטעראַרישע טראַדיציעס מיט תּנכישע און מאָדערנע ייִדישע השפּעות (יודזשין אָרנשטיין)
• די ייִוואָ־גדולים אין זייערע אייגענע ווערטער, וווּ מע וועט לייענען די שריפֿטן פֿון א. טשעריקאָװער, מ. װײַנרײַך, י. לעשטשינסקי, י. מאַרק, ש. ניגער, נ. פּרילוצקי, ז. קלמנאָװיטש, ז. רייזען, י. שאַצקי און נ. שטיף (דוד בראַון)
The post ‘The Art of the Yiddish Monologue’ and other mini-courses in Yiddish appeared first on The Forward.
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Suspect at Large in Brown University Shooting that Killed at Least Two, Injured Eight
Police vehicles stand near the site of a mass shooting reported by authorities at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S., December 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Taylor Coester
Police in Rhode Island were searching for a suspect in a shooting at Brown University in Providence in which two people died and eight were critically wounded at the Ivy League school, officials said.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told a news conference that police were still searching for the shooter, who struck at Brown’s Barus & Holley engineering building, where exams were taking place at the time. Officials said police were looking for a male dressed in black and were scouring local video cameras in the area for footage to get a better description of the suspect.
Smiley said officials could not yet disclose details about the victims, including whether they were students. He lamented the shooting.
“We are a week and a half away from Christmas. And two people died today and another eight are in the hospital,” he said. “So please pray for those families.”
Brown is on College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island‘s state capital. The university has hundreds of buildings, including lecture halls, laboratories and dormitories.
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he had been briefed on the situation, which he called “terrible.”
“All we can do right now is pray for the victims and for those that were very badly hurt.”
Compared to many countries, mass shootings in schools, workplaces, and places of worship are more common in the US, which has some of the most permissive gun laws in the developed world. The Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as any incident in which four or more victims have been shot, has counted 389 of them this year in the US.
Last year the US had more than 500 mass shootings, according to the archive.
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Rights Groups Condemn Re-Arrest of Nobel Laureate Mohammadi in Iran
Taghi Ramahi, husband of Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate, who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, poses with an undated photo of himself and his wife, during an interview at his home in Paris, France, October 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
International human rights groups have condemned the re-arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi in Iran, with the Nobel committee calling on Iranian authorities to immediately clarify her whereabouts.
Mohammadi’s French lawyer, Chirine Ardakani, said on X that the human rights activist was arrested on Friday after denouncing the suspicious death of lawyer Khosrow Alikordi at his memorial ceremony in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
Mashhad prosecutor Hasan Hematifar told reporters on Saturday that Mohammadi was among 39 people arrested after the ceremony.
Hematifar said she and Alikordi’s brother had made provocative remarks at the event and encouraged those present “to chant ‘norm‑breaking’ slogans” and disturb the peace, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
The prosecutor said Mashhad’s chief of police and another officer received knife wounds when trying to manage the scene.
CALLS FOR RELEASE
The Norwegian Nobel Committee called on Iranian authorities “to immediately clarify Mohammadi’s whereabouts, ensure her safety and integrity, and to release her without conditions.”
The European Union also called for Mohammadi’s release. “The EU urges Iranian authorities to release Ms Mohammadi, taking also into account her fragile health condition, as well as all those unjustly arrested in the exercise of their freedom of expression,” an EU spokesperson said on Saturday.
A video purportedly showing Mohammadi, 53, without the mandatory veil, standing on a car with a microphone and chanting “Long Live Iran” in front of a crowd, has gone viral on social media.
Ardakani said Mohammadi was beaten before her arrest.
Reporters Without Borders said four journalists and other participants were also arrested at the memorial for human rights lawyer Alikordi, who was found dead in his office on December 5.
Authorities gave the cause of his death as a heart attack, but rights groups have called for an investigation into his death.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said the crowd also chanted “death to the dictator,” a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as: “We fight, we die, we accept no humiliation.”
Mohammadi, who received the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, has spent more than 10 years of her life in prison, most recently from November 2021 when she was charged with “propaganda against the state,” “acting against national security,” and membership of “illegal organizations.”
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, said on Saturday that the opposition’s campaign in Venezuela was akin to that taking place in Iran.
“In Oslo this week, the world honored the power of conscience. I said to the ‘citizens of the world’ that our struggle is a long march toward freedom. That march is not Venezuelan alone. It is Iranian, it is universal,” she said on X on Saturday.