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Hebrew school enrollment across US down by nearly half since 2006, report says
(JTA) — Living in Brooklyn, surrounded by synagogues and Jewish schools, Rachel Weinstein White and her husband hoped to find a place where their children could receive a Jewish education for a few hours each week.
But they knew they didn’t want to enroll at a traditional Hebrew school associated with a local synagogue. For one thing, White wasn’t interested at the time in participating in prayer services, the main offering of most congregations. Plus, her husband is Black and not Jewish, and they were not sure how well he or their children would be welcomed.
So about eight years ago, she started her own program together with a few families, setting up a cooperative and hiring a teacher in an early version of the “learning pods” that would become a pandemic fad.
“It was just this incredible, magical year,” White said. “So many people started hearing about our little class and asked to join that it became necessary to create a second class. … It just kind of grew organically from there.”
Today the school, Fig Tree, enrolls about 350 children across three locations and plans are underway to expand further. In hour-long classes on Sundays and weekday afternoons, children learn about Jewish holidays and history, engage in art and creative play, explore their local Jewish communities and learn basic Hebrew, in a program that culminates in a b’nai mitzvah year. It overlaps significantly with traditional Hebrew schools, but outside the usual setting — a synagogue classroom — that has become a cultural shorthand among American Jews for rote, uninspiring Jewish education.
That dynamic may be why Fig Tree is an outlier in a stark trend revealed in a new report: Enrollment in supplemental Jewish schools — those that students attend in addition to regular schooling in public or secular private schools — is down by nearly half over the last 15 years.
Even as the estimated number of Jewish children in the United States rose by 17% between 2000 and 2020, enrollment in Hebrew schools fell by at least 45% between 2006 and 2020, according to the report by the Jewish Education Project, a nonprofit that promotes educational innovation and supports Jewish educators in a wide array of settings.
The report identifies pockets of growth, mostly in the small number of programs like Fig Tree that operate outside of or adjacent to synagogues, and in schools operated by the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement. But overall, according to the report, just 141,000 children attend supplemental Jewish schools in the United States and Canada, down from more than 230,000 in 2006 and 280,000 in 1987.
Some of the decline in Hebrew school enrollment is countered by increasing enrollment in Jewish day schools, where students study Jewish topics for at least part of every day. The number of U.S. children attending Jewish day schools has risen by roughly the same amount, 90,000, that Hebrew school enrollment has fallen since 2006, according to the report, though a significant portion of the increase stems from population growth in Orthodox communities, where the vast majority of students attend day schools.
Miriam Heller Stern, a professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who was tapped to help design the study, said the results suggest that, as with many aspects of religious life today, Hebrew school enrollment cannot be counted on as an act of obligation or tradition.
“There’s this idea that parents send their kids to Hebrew school because they went to Hebrew school and that’s a rite of passage in North America, but that may be a myth,” she said. “People don’t want to push their kids to have to do the same thing they did, necessarily, anymore.”
The report speculates about what has fueled the enrollment decline — from demographic changes to shifts in how American Jews think about countering antisemitism to increased access to Jewish learning online — and also about what has allowed some schools to thrive. It notes that all of the supplemental schools that responded to its census said their schools help children feel connected to the Jewish people.
“We believe that many factors have led to the decline in enrollment of students in supplemental schools in the last decade,” said David Bryfman, the Jewish Education Project’s CEO. “However, it’s also a myth that all supplemental schools don’t work.”
The group is planning a series of online sessions with some of the dozens of researchers and practitioners involved in the report, with one goal the sharing of success stories identified by the survey. Of the six identified in the report, a common theme is urging experiential, community-based learning. Some of the promising models explicitly position themselves as infusing Jewish content into child care, filling a pressing need for American families.
Still, it may be hard to counter the demographic realities of contemporary American Jews: Just a third of U.S. Jews in a 2020 survey said someone in their household was a member of a synagogue. That was the case even for the majority of non-Orthodox Jews who said they identified with a particular denomination, a marker of traditional engagement.
The waning of synagogue affiliation is borne out in the Jewish Education Project’s report, which found that more than 700 supplemental schools shuttered between 2006 and 2020 — most outright, though as many as 200 have survived in a new form after merging.
Temple Solel, a small Reform congregation in Fort Mill, South Carolina, shut down its Hebrew school in recent years. The volunteer-run program had up to eight students at a time, according to Russ Cobe, a lay leader.
“We sort of hit a point where we weren’t able to sustain it,” Cobe said. “We only had a couple of people teaching and students from a wide range of ages and they wouldn’t show up every week. Also, our wheelhouse seems to be retirement age and above. We don’t have a lot of young families.”
Hebrew school mergers offer one possible approach to countering the enrollment decline. Two synagogues, one Reform and one Conservative, located half a mile apart in Oak Park, Michigan, established a joint school about seven years ago and called it Yachad, which means “together” in Hebrew.
“One day a week we meet at the Conservative congregation and one day a week we meet at the Reform congregation, so we are keeping our kids involved in both,” said Gail Greenberg, Yachad’s director. “My goal is to make it at the highest common denominator. For example, all of our food is kosher so anyone who wants to eat here can.”
The arrangement appears to be working. Last year, about 90 students were enrolled, and this year, enrollment is at 128, including 26 new kindergarteners, with even larger numbers expected in the future.
Another set of programs has grown dramatically in recent years: those affiliated with the Chabad movement, which tend to operate even when small and cost less than synagogue programs. Since 2006, the study says Chabad’s market share in terms of enrollment has grown from 4% to 10%, and in terms of the number of schools from 13% to 21%.
Those figures might represent an undercount, according to Zalman Loewenthal, director of CKids, the Chabad network of children’s programs. While the study says there are some 300 Chabad programs in the United States, Loewenthal said he is aware of at least 500 and perhaps as many as 600 — a number driven up in the last decade amid a push by Chabad to launch more Hebrew schools. His count is based on the number of customers purchasing the curriculum offered by his organization, which is also new in the last decade and in his view has contributed to improved quality among Chabad Hebrew schools.
In general, non-traditional approaches to Jewish education may be attractive at a time when American families have packed schedules and competing needs, according to Stern.
“People want to be able to have bite-sized pieces just like you sign up for a six-weeks art class, they might want a six-weeks Jewish class,” she said. “In this atmosphere, some communities are finding ways to be more modular and more flexible, and meet people’s needs in different ways.”
Stern also said, referring to six programs highlighted in the study as success stories, that the future calls for programs to offer an “immersive” experience, meaning that children become part of a community.
“They are getting something beyond just knowledge,” Stern said. “They’re also getting connection and belonging, which provides the foundation for something bigger in their lives.”
Stern said she thought the report pointed to gaps in the way American Jewish communities allocate their resources.
“Supplementary education really was abandoned as a communal priority,” she said. “Individual communities had to find ways to fund it on their own. And I think that is part of why we’re seeing a decline.”
Bryfman said he’s optimistic, both about the power of supplemental schools and the potential for them to generate new support from Jewish donors.
The Jewish Education Project had sought outside funding to pay for its study and failed, he said. But now that the numbers are clear, he is beginning to see interest from philanthropies.
“I don’t want to count the dollars before they’re granted,” Bryfman said. “But the study is already beginning to have the desired effect of bringing more resources to the field.”
Fig Tree isn’t set up to benefit in a possible future of increased charitable investments in Jewish education. That’s because the school is set up as a business — an expression of confidence in its growth and to insulate itself from the vagaries of philanthropy.
“It’s a very unusual model for the Jewish education and I would argue a self-sustaining one,” White said. “We don’t have to rely on fundraising… and we’re not beholden to some of the other requirements that a nonprofit would necessitate, which allows us to be nimble.”
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Fire at Mississippi’s largest synagogue under federal investigation after arrest
A suspect is in custody as authorities investigate a weekend fire that damaged Mississippi’s largest synagogue, which has been attacked before.
The fire broke out around 3 a.m. Saturday at Beth Israel Congregation, the only synagogue in Jackson, the state capital. Investigators said the blaze originated in the synagogue’s library, burning it and the offices. Soot and smoke damaged the rest of the building, including the sanctuary.
Two of the synagogue’s Torahs, kept in the library, were burned in the fire; another five in the sanctuary were damaged. An additional Torah, rescued from the Holocaust, was behind a glass case and survived the fire.
“At this time, we do have a person in custody for the fire,” said Division Fire Chief Charles Felton, who is overseeing the investigation. The arrest was made at about 8 p.m. Saturday, he said.
Felton said the FBI is now involved and is expected to pursue federal charges, including determining whether the fire qualifies as a hate crime. Local authorities made the initial arrest before federal investigators stepped in, he said.
A reporter who was inside the building before federal authorities secured the scene described extensive damage. Allen Siegler, a reporter with Mississippi Today, said the interior was “very dark and ashen.”
“It was wet — puddles of ashes,” Siegler told the Forward.
Jackson Mayor John Horhn said the fire was an attack not only on the Jewish community, but on the city itself.
“Acts of antisemitism, racism, and religious hatred are attacks on Jackson as a whole and will be treated as acts of terror against residents’ safety and freedom to worship,” Horhn said in a statement. “Jackson stands with Beth Israel and the Jewish community, and we’ll do everything we can to support them and hold accountable anyone who tries to spread fear and hate here.”
A congregation shaped by fire — and defiance
Beth Israel Congregation, which counts around 150 member families, has anchored Jewish life in Jackson since the Civil War, its history closely tracking both the growth of the city and the persistence of a small but visible Jewish community in Mississippi’s capital.
Founded in the early 1860s, the congregation built Mississippi’s first synagogue — a modest structure on South State Street that doubled as a schoolhouse. It burned in an 1874 fire, a common fate of 19th century wooden buildings, though the cause of the fire is not recorded. The congregation built a new brick structure on the same site, dedicated in 1875.
As Jewish families moved within Jackson, Beth Israel moved with them, relocating first to Woodrow Wilson Avenue and, in the 1960s, to its current home in northeast Jackson.
By the mid-20th century, Beth Israel had become the largest Jewish congregation in the state and a familiar civic presence in a predominantly Christian city — a visibility that brought both belonging and risk.
In September 1967, Ku Klux Klan members bombed the synagogue just weeks after the building was dedicated, damaging the rabbi’s office and library. The home of Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, a vocal supporter of the civil rights movement who had helped the Freedom Riders, was also bombed shortly afterward. No one was injured, and the congregation held High Holiday services in the building that same year.
Rabbi Valerie Cohen, who led Beth Israel from 2003 to 2014 and is now at Temple Emanuel Sinai in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the echoes between past and present were impossible to miss.
“The majority of the damage is in the same place as the bombing,” said Cohen, 54.
The fire felt especially disorienting, she said, because she had been inside the building just days earlier.
“That made this moment sad and surreal and awful,” Cohen said. “I was just there last Shabbat, officiating at a wedding for one of my bar mitzvah students from there that is all grown up now. I participated in the Torah study on Saturday morning in the library, led by their current spiritual leader.”
Cohen described Beth Israel as “very resilient throughout the years” and “very integral” to the Jackson community, noting that many non-Jewish residents know the synagogue through its longtime preschool and annual bazaar.
Despite the damage, congregants say Jewish life in Jackson will continue.
Tamar Sharp, 67, a member of Beth Israel since 2006, is scheduled to celebrate her adult bat mitzvah this coming Shabbat — even if it must be held in a borrowed space with a borrowed Torah.
“Absolutely,” Sharp said. “The show must go on.”
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An arsonist torched a Mississippi synagogue. It feels hauntingly familiar.
A Mississippi synagogue has just been destroyed by hateful actors – and it is not the first time.
I am talking about what happened Saturday morning. An arsonist set fire to the historic Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi. By the time the flames were extinguished, much of the building was destroyed and rendered unusable.
According to reporting by Mississippi Insider, the fire tore through parts of the building, damaging sacred objects, prayer books, and decades of communal memory. Firefighters were able to prevent a total collapse, but the synagogue — founded in 1860 and one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the state — will not be able to function as a house of worship for the foreseeable future.
I am experiencing historical déjà vu. On September 18, 1967, white supremacists bombed Beth Israel in retaliation for the civil rights activism of its rabbi, Perry Nussbaum. Rabbi Nussbaum was a visible ally of Black leaders in Jackson, including Medgar Evers, and his moral courage made him a target. Shortly thereafter, they bombed Rabbi Nussbaum’s home as well. He survived. The building was rebuilt.
Those attacks followed a grim and unmistakable American tradition. For several years, I served The Temple in Atlanta, and congregants still spoke in hushed tones about where they were on the morning of October 12, 1958, when The Temple was bombed by white supremacists angered by Rabbi Jacob Rothschild’s outspoken support for civil rights. That bombing is often remembered as the most infamous attack on a religious building in American history, but what many forget is that it did not stand alone. In the year leading up to it, synagogues in Miami, Nashville, Birmingham, and Jacksonville were also bombed.
Synagogues have succumbed to flames throughout Jewish history. On Kristallnacht, November 9–10, 1938, the Nazis and their collaborators burned or destroyed more than 1,400 synagogues across Germany and Austria. That night was not a spontaneous riot; it was a dress rehearsal for annihilation. And the line of fire stretches further back still, to the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and before that to the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE.
Beth Israel is not just a building. It is a witness. It is a repository of Jewish persistence in a place where Jews have lived as a tiny minority for generations, carving out space for faith, community, and civic engagement in the Deep South. To see it burned is to feel a familiar Jewish nausea, the sickening recognition that this story has been told before — far too many times.
Beth Israel in Jackson burned on Shabbat, coinciding with the Torah portion of Shemot, as we read in the book of Exodus about the burning bush — a bush that burns but is not consumed by flames. Such is Jewish history.
An American tradition?
What disturbs me most is not only the act itself, but its familiarity.
I mentioned my time in Atlanta. I also served as a rabbi in Columbus, Georgia. When I look back on my career, I realize that I have spent no fewer than twenty years serving Jewish communities in the South — and yes, I include South Florida in that number.
During those years, I learned a profound respect for Jews in small Southern communities who tenaciously maintain their synagogues in the face of demographic shrinkage, economic pressure, and cultural isolation. When those synagogues close, as too many do, the community must make sure that there are homes for their Torah scrolls and ritual objects. This is sacred labor, often carried out quietly and without recognition.
Most Americans do not realize that a surprisingly large percentage of Reform synagogues in this country look far more like Beth Israel in Jackson than like the caricature of the large, affluent suburban congregation. The heart of Reform Judaism beats in small, struggling, historic communities. That is why the fire in Jackson sears the Jewish soul. It could be any synagogue. And in my darkest fears, I believe there will be more.
Right about now, some of you are saying, “Well, what did you expect? Look at what has happened in Gaza, and the Palestinians, and Netanyahu…”
If you are saying this, your foolishness betrays you. No one vandalizes Russian Orthodox churches in America because of Vladimir Putin. No one boycotts Chinese restaurants because of China’s persecution of the Uyghurs. And no one should ever suggest that victims of violent bigotry are responsible for the hatred directed at them. We would never say this about any other group. We must not say it about Jews.
The raw truth is what historian Pamela Nadell names so clearly in her indispensable new book, Antisemitism: An American Tradition.
Pamela does not only name and record the incidents of antisemitism that have occurred over the years. She shows that antisemitism is, in fact, an American tradition. It has always been with us, sometimes polite, sometimes lethal, often lying dormant like an autoimmune disease, flaring up when fear, desperation, and social change demand a scapegoat.
An issue for all faiths
Not only because of what has happened, but because of what I fear will follow — not only imitation, but silence. As I write these words, I do not know whether this arson will merit national attention, whether it will appear in The New York Times or vanish into the vast archive of shrugged-off hate. I hope my fears are wrong.
I also wonder who will speak. Will our most trusted chroniclers of American moral life take notice? I admire historian Heather Cox Richardson deeply, and I hope she will address antisemitism with the same moral clarity she brings to other threats to democracy. Because it cannot be that even in the warmest of hearts there is a cold spot for the Jews.
I often think of an artifact I have seen at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. It is a Torah ark ripped from the wall of a synagogue in Essen, Germany, hurled into the street. Carved into it are the words, “Know before whom you stand.” But those words were deliberately chiseled away by a vandal, as if to declare that there is no one before whom we stand, no God whose presence must be reckoned with — because we are destroying the place where that God so often comes to dwell.
That is why I am turning now to my readers who are not Jewish. I am calling on Christian pastors, Muslim imams, and religious leaders of every tradition to denounce what happened in Jackson this coming weekend. Because just as we rightly said when Black churches were burned, any attack on a house of worship is not only an attack on one community. It is an assault on the very idea that holiness has a place in public life.
And that, ultimately, is an attack on God.
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Can Breads Bakery workers really demand that the Israeli owners cut ties with Israel? Labor experts weigh in.
(New York Jewish Week) — The news that workers at Breads Bakery, an Israeli chain in New York City, were demanding “an end to this company’s support of the genocide happening in Palestine” as part of a union push has triggered concerns among those worried about surging anti-Israel sentiment in the United States.
“This is going to spread,” Deborah Lipstadt, the former United States special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, wrote on X Thursday. “This is not spontaneous, This is part of an effort to marginalize Jews and Israel.”
But is an Israel boycott as a union demand even possible to achieve? Do workers have rights when it comes to protecting their beliefs about Israel? What role are unions playing in anti-Israel advocacy? And what might happen next at Breads?
To answer these questions, we reached out to two labor scholars — Harry C. Katz, the director of the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution at Cornell University, and Samuel Estreicher, an attorney and scholar on labor and employment law and arbitration law at New York University. We also visited a rally by Breads’ supporters on the Upper West Side on Friday afternoon.
Here’s what we learned.
Is it common for workers to press for political concessions as part of their unionization efforts?
The Breaking Breads workers are doing something unusual, Katz said. He said he was not aware of other examples of employees making demands related to Israel as part of a unionization effort.
“There are unions who have taken out political stances, but the stances are ‘we oppose the Netanyahu government,’ or ‘we oppose the invasion of Gaza,’ ‘we are sympathetic to BDS,’” he said. “They’re allowed to take that stance, but they have not done what you’re asking about.”
Of course, unions can and do use their might to advance political agendas. But that often happens in the advocacy space, with unions reminding decision-makers that they represent a powerful voting bloc, not in bargaining within individual units.
The insertion of Israel demands in a unionization announcement reflects an anti-Israel swing within swaths of organized labor in the United States and beyond.
In December 2023, United Auto Workers, the union that Breaking Breads has filed under, became the largest union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. It was a sharp departure for the union, which had previously been staunchly supportive of Israel.
In March 2025, UAW came to the defense of two members at Columbia University who had been involved in pro-Palestinian protests there, including Grant Miner, who headed a union chapter representing 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students employed at the school before being expelled.
The “assault on First Amendment rights being jointly committed by the federal government and Columbia University are an attack on all workers who dare to protest, speak out, or exercise their freedom of association under the US Constitution,” UAW said in a statement at the time.
UAW national and the local group representing Breaking Breads, as the union is calling itself, both did not respond to a request for comment.
What are the chances of the Breads workers getting what they want when it comes to Israel?
Slim to none, Katz and Estreicher both said.
For one thing, it’s far from assured that Breaking Breads will even succeed in being recognized as a bargaining union. The employees announced that “over 30%” of Breads’ workers had signed onto the unionized effort, the minimum required under federal labor law — and far less than most unions announce themselves with.
The threshold allows the workers to petition the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election. In an election, more than half of workers who participate must support the formation of the union for one to be created.
“Thirty percent is an extremely low level of support through the signing of authorization cards,” Katz said. “For them to say, ‘Oh, they have a bit over 30%,’ that suggests they’re going to have an extremely difficult time if this goes to an election.”
Then, even if the union does meet the legal threshold for recognition, Breads is under no legal obligation to engage on issues related to Israel.
“Workers don’t have a right to tell management what management wants to do with its own funds, or personal beliefs and political views regarding Israel,” Katz said. “The law requires bargaining in good faith about wages and other employment conditions. That’s the requirement.”
The workers are alleging a range of unfair employment practices, including low wages, irregular schedules and unsafe working conditions. If their union is recognized, Breads will have to negotiate a contract addressing those issues — and will have to comply or risk a strike.
But on the off chance that questions about Israel somehow make it to the bargaining table, “management can refuse to discuss it,” Katz said.
Breads has indicated that it does not believe political issues are appropriate fodder for negotiation.
“We’ve always been a workplace where people of all backgrounds and viewpoints can come together around a shared purpose, the joy found at a bakery,” it said in a statement responding to the announcement of Breaking Breads. “We find it troubling that divisive political issues are being introduced into our workplace.”
Estreicher put it simply: “They can say whatever they want,” he said about the workers. But Israel-related issues would never be considered a “mandatory subject of bargaining” like wages and working conditions, and workers could be fired if they strike over the issues.
Since there isn’t actually a union yet, can Breads just fire the workers making the anti-Israel demands now?
Some of Breads’ supporters have called for the company to fire the workers who are agitating against its ties to Israel.
“I don’t understand why the owners [don’t] simply fire the so-called unionizing staff. New York is an at-will employer. They’re creating a hostile work environment,” one commenter wrote on an Instagram post by pro-Israel influence Lizzy Savetsky decrying the workers’ demand. “There’s the door, ungrateful employees. Feel free to take a loaf with you on the way out.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTRF-49kXBW/?hl=en
But firing workers who joined Breaking Breads would be a problem, Katz said, even though they don’t formally have a union yet.
“Management often gets away, due to the weakness in the enforcement of our labor laws, … with the firing of union sympathizers and activists,” Katz said. “But that is technically illegal. It’s illegal for management to fire people because of their views towards the union or their activism within the union.”
Do workers have a protected right to refuse to work on a specific job that offends their beliefs, including about Israel?
One of Breaking Breads’ objections was to catering events that it said involved groups with ties to Israel or to producing custom loaves decorated with Israeli flags.
The question is not the same as the one that recently occupied the Supreme Court, when it ruled on cases about small-business providers — including a wedding cake maker — who declined to serve same-sex clients, citing religious beliefs.
Those cases were about whether the government could compel a business to create custom content that violates the owner’s beliefs — and the court ruled it could not. But workers do not have the same protections individually, nor do they have the right to impose their beliefs on their employer.
“It’s the employer’s business, not their business. That’s my position. I think that’s the legal position,” Estreicher said. “People have all kinds of views with different things. Anyway, an employer should be able to make clear that he makes the decision on who the customers are, and they can’t interfere with that.”
Workers would likely also have a difficult time seeking redress against their employer for serving specific customers against their beliefs, Katz said.
Contract violation claims go to third parties known as arbitrators, who rule whether management ran afoul of its contract with the union and what penalty, if any, should be applied.
As an example, Katz said, “A Palestinian employee says in this case: ‘I’m baking cookies that get eaten or sold at an event that supports Israel.’ I can’t imagine an arbitrator would say you have a right to refuse that kind of work.”
Estreicher said one Israel-related claim by Breaking Breads could be appropriate grounds for redress, if true. The workers said Breads had told workers they could not speak Arabic on the job — a demand that may run afoul of employment law.
“If they’re in public contact jobs, I think they can [have that rule], but there are legal issues about if they’re not in public contact jobs,” Estreicher said. “If they’re in the kitchen, having a prohibition would be problematic.”
What happens next at Breads?
When it comes to the unionization effort, it could be several weeks before there are clear developments. Employers can choose to recognize unions voluntarily, but if they do not, the National Labor Relations Board typically makes a decision about whether it will support an election within about 45 days. Elections are then held several weeks to months after that.
For now, the popular bakery appears to be reaping positive dividends from its workers’ dissatisfaction. Fans of the bakery and pro-Israel activists have asked the New York City Jewish community to buy their products, and even offered to work for Breads for free.
A few hundred showed up at a Friday gathering to buy a coffee or a snack and hang out at the Upper West Side location, called for by pro-Israel activist Shai Davidai.
“We are dealing with an ideological war, and that ideological war says that if you are a Zionist, if you believe that Israel has a right to exist, if you’re a proud Jew, then you don’t deserve to live here,” Davidai said.
Davidai stressed that the event was all about showing strength in numbers.
“We want to show here a Jewish, Zionist business, that we have their back, and they won’t be cowered by a loud and nasty minority that wants to ruin things for everybody,” Davidai said.
“This isn’t just about buying products,” he added. “So first thing, [almost] everyone who’s buying a product is wearing a sticker that says, ‘Zionist,’ right? So the cashier, the employees, the business owner, and everyone on the street sees that we are coming out as Zionists. We’re not hiding anymore.”
By about 12:10 p.m., the fast-moving line at Breads’ Upper West Side location had begun to wrap around the block. Parents had brought babies, and people of all ages waited in line, as new customers arriving at the scene ended their FaceTime calls — some in Hebrew, some in English — by describing the scene to the person on the other end of the line. Some customers came alone and met new faces while waiting in line; others came with friends.
“Today, they are not just trying to bite the hand that feeds them, they’re trying to gnaw it off,” said Judy, a longtime Upper West Side resident who declined to share her last name, about the workers. “That’s what I was thinking all last night. It’s preposterous. It’s ludicrous. It’s beyond reproach.”
Colleagues Marc Rodriguez and Max Lippman waited in the middle of the line, and, like many, were hoping to land one of Breads’ award-winning babkas.
Rodriguez, who is not Jewish or Israeli but whose wife is both and whose children are Jewish, said he felt obligated to support the store, which he is a fan of and had been to in Israel. He brought a small Israeli flag, and wore one of the “Zionist” stickers that Davidai had handed out.
“I want to support the store, support the owners, and I want to remind the workers over here who is supporting this store, and who is patronizing the store,” Rodriguez said. “I think it’s a nice, respectful way to show support. We’re not shouting, we’re here. We’re all smiling, happy, talking. And also, I’m so excited for carbs.”
Lippman, who is from the Upper West Side, heard about the call to head to Breads on social media.
“In general I’m pro-union,” he said. “But once part of that is saying that they’re anti-Zionist, that seems unnecessary. It’s an Israeli-owned bakery. We’re here to show our support. It seems unnecessary when forming a union to state your beliefs on Israel. It doesn’t matter who the owners are,” Lippman added. “We’re just here to support the bakery and the babka makes that easy.”
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