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How a small challah-baking business is building Jewish community in Astoria, Queens
(New York Jewish Week) — Cody Butler was 25 years old when he first tasted challah, the braided bread traditionally eaten by Jews on the Sabbath. As an Irish Catholic growing up in Astoria, Queens, he had had his fair share of bagels. But challah? Never.
Six years later, Butler is now an Orthodox Jew who bakes challah for himself and the Western Queens community under the name Bread of Idleness. Each week, he bakes between 10 and 15 loaves that he sells to Astorians who have pre-ordered a challah or two; on Thursday evenings, he sits on his stoop and personally hands off the lovingly packaged loaves. Many of his customers see Butler’s challah as a key ingredient in helping to build a Jewish community in the diverse neighborhood.
“It was a way for me to get into Shabbat,” Butler told the New York Jewish Week, explaining how he got his start as a challah baker. “The process of making challah extends Shabbat another day for me.”
But increased spirituality wasn’t his only motivator. “We don’t have good challah here in Astoria,” Butler said. “I wanted to have something special.”
Butler, 31, became a lover of challah — and Judaism — following a long spiritual search. After attending Catholic school through high school, he enrolled in CUNY’s Hunter College where he initially majored in philosophy before switching to classical philology. Through his studies, he was introduced to the writings of Jewish thinkers like Maimonides, Martin Buber, Simone Weil and Emmanuel Levinas. He also read Torah with traditional commentary and discovered that he loved “the system of thought,” as he told the New York Jewish Week.
One night, while walking the streets of Astoria, in a state of despair over his growing feelings of alienation from Catholicism, he passed the open doors of a Conservative synagogue, the Astoria Center of Israel. He ventured in, and he was warmly greeted by Rabbi Jonathan Pearl, the congregation’s rabbi at the time. Pearl told Butler that Shabbat services were about to begin downstairs, followed by dinner, and he invited Butler to stay.
Butler said he loved the prayers and the music. As he sat there, “I felt my wounds beginning to knit themselves shut,” he said. At the dinner that followed, Butler had that first bite of challah and immediately liked it. “For me, at that point, all challah was good challah,” he said.
The following morning, Butler returned to the synagogue for the Saturday morning Shacharit service. He kept coming back, week after week and, said Butler, it “pretty rapidly became the centerpiece of my week.” He became a regular at Astoria Center of Israel.
As the pandemic took root in the spring of 2020, Butler continued to pray and to study, albeit alone at home. During the long months of social distancing, he explored Orthodox Judaism and discovered he was drawn to a commitment of a religiously observant Jewish life.
Like many stuck-at-home folks across the globe, Butler also decided to try his hand at baking — not sourdough bread, but challah. “My early attempts were disastrous,” Butler said. “The dough wouldn’t rise, or it rose so much the braiding disappeared, or the challah was pale or burnt,” he said. “But I worked through it one problem at a time.”
By trial and error, he found a recipe — a vegan one, at that — that worked, and he learned to braid challah by watching videos online.
Meanwhile, in August 2022, Rabbi Pearl left the Astoria Center of Israel to found a new pluralistic, unaffiliated Jewish community, Ashreynu, with his daughter, Ayelet Pearl, and Stephanie Luxenberg. “Ashreynu was created out of a desire to grow an energized, intra-connected Jewish community in Astoria,“ Luxenberg and Ayelet Pearl told Queens Scene in December 2022. “It came out of a longstanding goal of Rabbi Pearl, to create his own pluralistic, musical, Jewish community, and to offer a new model for how community can thrive, supporting clergy, creativity, and growth.”
For Butler, having Pearl as his spiritual leader was a huge draw for him to join the nascent community. Once Ashreynu began holding Shabbat services, Butler became a regular. “I attended their first service and every one since,” he said. He would bring his challahs to services and to the homes of people he met there.
“Cody started bringing challah to shul for kiddush, and everyone was excited,” Luxenberg told the New York Jewish Week. “He tried out different flavors. For Purim he did a sprinkle challah and the kids loved it. We didn’t know what to expect each week.”
At Luxenberg’s and Ayelet Pearl’s urging, Butler began selling his challah to community members. The enterprise, they said, would help “strengthen the feeling of the neighborhood.”
In April, Butler began baking and selling challah under the name Bread of Idleness. “It comes from the words of ‘Eshet Chayil,’ [Woman of Valor] the poem we read on Friday nights,” Butler said. “The idea is you get to be idle — you pick up the homemade challah — because someone else is making it. But then, of course, textually it connects to sitting around the Shabbat table with family and friends.”
Butler isn’t afraid to experiment with his bread. In May, in honor of local Queens Jewish icons Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Butler made a “Scarborough Fair” challah, flavored with — you guessed it — parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. And in June, to celebrate New York’s most iconic carbohydrate, the bagel, he made an everything bagel-flavored challah. (In addition to Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel seasoning, Butler incorporates barley malt syrup into the dough, which is “the secret essential ingredient for that bagel taste,” he said.)
Anastasia Nevin, a 38-year old dietician, yoga teacher and mother of two small children, is a regular customer. ”The challah gives us more connection to the Ashreynu community,” Nevin told the New York Jewish Week, adding that she often runs into people she knows at pickup. “There is something nice about eating something that is not store bought but made with love by someone you know.”
Butler sells the challah for $12 each, although members of Ashreynu get the preferential rate of $10. As a bonus, he also makes babka from the challah dough, in flavors ranging from chocolate hazelnut to peach and sweet cheese or savory babka stuffed with caramelized onions and sundried tomatoes.
His bread has a growing number of fans in Astoria. Butler said that, in recent weeks, his customers have extended beyond the Ashreynu community. “I get people who I hadn’t seen at any of the shuls in the area,” he said. “Yet they are getting challah which makes me so happy because I know that they are getting a little piece of Shabbat for themselves.”
Astoria is home to Ashreynu, Astoria Center of Israel and Congregation Sons of Israel, a small Modern Orthodox congregation.
And yet, “Astoria feels a little bit like a Jewish desert,” Ayelet Pearl said. “Some things that we take for granted in living in New York, like being able to get a challah on Friday or a pomegranate before Rosh Hashanah, don’t exist. Getting challah isn’t an option [here] outside of what Cody is doing.”
Thanks to Butler’s challah, the neighborhood now feels “more Jewish,” she added. In fact, Pearl and Luxemberg, who were named to the New York Jewish Week’s “36 to Watch” list this year, named “when we ran into all our friends picking up challah from Bread of Idleness” as their “best experience” as Jewish New Yorkers.
“This is all about giving people a little bit of Shabbat that they might not otherwise have,” Butler said. “It is a taste of home. It is building community. I have parents who come with their children.”
Butler has converted to Judaism twice. His first, a Conservative conversion, was overseen by Rabbi Pearl. His second, which he completed this past May, was an Orthodox one presided over by Rabbi Adam Mintz. the rabbi of Kehilat Rayim Ahuvim, a Modern Orthodox community he founded on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
For now, Butler is keeping his “day job” as a Latin teacher at a charter school in Brooklyn. But he has already begun scouting out commercial ovens in the area to rent, once he can no longer satisfy demand for the challahs which he bakes at home. “I would love to provide challah to more people,” he said.
He is also considering creating a “Shabbat in a Box,” which would include challah, candles and spices as a way to bring Shabbat into more people’s homes. “For me, as a convert, I was amazed by the feeling of Shabbat and its palpable holiness, energy and community,” he said. “I knew I couldn’t live without it. “
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The post How a small challah-baking business is building Jewish community in Astoria, Queens appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Is Justin Trudeau’s Resignation Good News for Israel?
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York, US, Sept. 21, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
Canada, once a symbol of justice and democracy, has lost its moral standing. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the nation has not only distanced itself from Israel, but also compromised its own integrity. This is more than a mere policy shift — it is a fundamental collapse of democratic values, leaving Canada’s global reputation in question.
Canada’s support for Israel has always been inconsistent. Unlike other Western nations that swiftly recognized Israel in 1948, Canada abstained from the first attempt at Israel’s admission into the United Nations, contributing to its denial. Canada only granted full recognition after Israel successfully joined in 1949. This pattern of uncertainty continued over the decades, with frequent mixed signals and wavering commitments.
During critical moments, such as the First Intifada, Canada remained indecisive. While then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney defended Israel, External Affairs Minister Joe Clark condemned its actions, accusing Israel of using excessive force. This back-and-forth approach became a trademark of Canadian foreign policy: some support, lots of criticism, little consistency.
Some former Canadian leaders, like Stephen Harper, broke the cycle and demonstrated strong support for Israel. These instances, however, were rare. Under Trudeau, the relationship deteriorated further, shifting from lukewarm support to outright antagonism.
The Canada-Israel relationship arguably hit its lowest point following the horrific Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023.
Instead of offering unwavering support for Israel, Trudeau’s government condemned Hamas’ attacks but also urged Israel to exercise restraint. While recognizing Israel’s right to self-defense, his administration expressed concern over civilian casualties and questioned aspects of its military response.
To make matters worse, Canada supported a United Nations resolution calling for a ceasefire without explicitly condemning Hamas.
For Israelis, this was more than a diplomatic failure — it was a betrayal. Trudeau’s response sent a clear message: Israel, as well as Jewish lives, were secondary to political expediency and the benefit of others.
Trudeau’s approach was not accidental; it reflected a strategic effort to balance competing political pressures in Canada and abroad.
Internationally, he sought to position Canada as a mediator in the Middle East, even at the risk of straining its relationship with Israel. Domestically, his stance aimed to increase Canadian support, particularly of those Canadians critical of Israel’s actions.
This approach has consequences. Canada-Israel trade, while still significant, has shown little growth in recent years. Security and defense cooperation have not advanced as they once did, while Israel has increasingly prioritized strategic partnerships with nations like India.
In Canada, antisemitism has surged, and Trudeau’s government has done little to counter it. Since October 7th, hate crimes against Jews have skyrocketed by 670%. Synagogues, schools, and community centers have been targeted. Though Jews make up just 1.4% of Canada’s population, they are the targets of 70% of religious hate crimes.
The ultimate insult came when Canada signaled support for the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) move to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The ICC selectively prosecutes Israel — but disregards human rights abuses in totalitarian regions like Iran and North Korea. The ICC’s actions reveal a blatant double standard, and by aligning with this hypocrisy, Trudeau positioned Canada on the wrong side of history.
Trudeau’s abandonment of Israel is part of a broader global shift, prioritizing political convenience over long-term alliances, a trend seen by leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron. This dangerous trend weakens the West at a time when authoritarian powers like China and Russia are expanding their influence in the Middle East.
Rebuilding trust will not be easy. Canada requires more than a policy adjustment; it needs a fundamental shift in leadership. The next prime minister must prioritize genuine partnerships based on shared values rather than political gain. Until then, the damage to Canada’s reputation remains.
With Trudeau stepping down, Canada has a rare opportunity to reset its foreign policy. The question now is whether the next leader will seize this chance, or allow the damage to deepen. Time will tell, but the stakes could not be higher.
The writer is a high school student from Great Neck, New York, passionate about advocacy and government. Through his writing and activism, he engages others in meaningful conversations about US politics, international relations, and Israel’s significance as both a homeland for the Jewish people and a key ally of the United States.
The post Is Justin Trudeau’s Resignation Good News for Israel? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The Future of Syria Is Uncertain; Here’s What Israel Should Be Doing (PART ONE)
Saudi Arabia’s Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman meets Syria’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 2, 2025. Photo: Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS
The main lesson of the surprise attack on the Assad regime by the rebels in Syria begins with an overall view of the strategic logic that drives the Middle East region. The lesson that many in the West refuse to accept is that the region is a perpetually unstable ecosystem.
An ecosystem is sensitive to any small change. The conceptual opposite of an ecosystem is a sophisticated railway system. In the railways, operational stability is planned and managed according to a linear engineering design. In an ecosystem, conversely, stability is the result of systemic equilibrium and is always both temporary and sensitive to changes.
Western culture, which aspires to establish a reality of sustainable stability in the region, finds it difficult to accept that the Middle East — which contains clans, tribes, and radical terrorist organizations — is a system that operates according to the dynamics of an ecological system.
The achievements of the Israeli war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Hamas in the Gaza Strip created new conditions that marked an opportunity for the Sunni rebels in Syria. They took their chance and attacked the Assad army and the Iranian Shiite militias, toppling the Assad regime in less than two weeks.
The constant search by many Middle East actors for new fighting opportunities lies in their fundamental perception of all situations of calm, even prolonged periods of apparent peace, as temporary.
The Turks dream of returning to the expanses of the Ottoman Empire. Aleppo once played a central economic and symbolic role in connection with the cities of the Harran Valley in Turkey, including the city of Shelly-Orfa. After Napoleon’s retreat from Egypt and the Land of Israel, Muhammad Ali, the ruler of Egypt, sought to extend his control from Israel to Aleppo. In the years 1839-1841, the Second Egyptian-Ottoman War took place in the region. With the help of a British expeditionary force, the Ottomans defeated the Egyptian army and pushed it from the Aleppo region to the outskirts of Sinai. Greater Syria, which extended to the Land of Israel, returned to Ottoman control. Turkey aspires to restore this regional order. From their perspective, the struggle began in Aleppo with the pursuit of Damascus, which contains important Sunni mosques.
There is much more involved here than a longing for the past. The past in this region drives religious and national struggles. I learned this during a visit to the Iranian pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. Opposite the visitors’ entrance, a map of the Persian Empire from the time of Darius was displayed across the entire wall. This was a kind of declaration that Iran aspires to return to that glorious past.
This kind of thinking is the driving force in the region — even for borders that have gained international validity, such as the Sykes-Picot borders. In the Middle East, nothing outweighs religious and national dreams. Those dreams never fade; they rather await the right opportunity.
For Americans who continue to seek a stable and sustainable regional order, it is worth suggesting that they treat the Middle East as if it were prone to hurricanes that erupt from the oceans and strike the region from a system of forces beyond human control.
This is not to say that no capabilities exist with which to restrain and delay conflicts in the regional chaos that characterizes the Middle East. But even arrangements that seem to promise a degree of stability and calm must be sensitive to the possibility of unexpected factors arising within the system.
Tactical note
The rebel offensive in Syria also teaches an important tactical lesson about the characteristics of the new war. As on October 7, we saw the outbreak of rapid battle movement involving civilian vehicles, including motorcycles, SUVs and vans, in mobile and agile groups.
No one who promises a demilitarized Palestinian state will be able to stop the Palestinians from purchasing motorcycles and SUVs. Israelis should give thought to the image of a raiding party on motorcycles and jeeps breaking into Israel by surprise from Tulkarem-Qalqilya to cut through the coastal strip. They must understand that the IDF, with all its strength, cannot guarantee overwhelming superiority in any possible context.
The IDF’s operations in Syria
Even the best intelligence experts had difficulty predicting the tsunami of the rebel assault that so swiftly toppled the Syrian government and its army.
There is a great lesson here in recognizing the limitations of human knowledge. We cannot pretend to know or be able to control events that occur suddenly and unpredictably. Precisely for this reason, the speedy organization by the Israeli leadership and the IDF of a proper response to the Syrian rebel surprise deserves special appreciation.
The IDF’s rapid operational response to developments in Syria was guided by three objectives:
- To strengthen the defense effort on the Golan Heights. It is worth noting that preparations for strengthening and expanding Israel’s defense systems in the Golan — through proactive operations east of the border fence — began in the Golan Division, with the support of the Northern Command, several months ago. These preparations enabled a rapid response to expand Israel’s defensive hold on vital areas in the buffer zone defined in the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement between Israel and Syria. The IDF also took control of the peaks of the Hermon Range in a location that allows for influence deep inside Syria and southern Lebanon.
- To destroy the numerous weapons left behind by the Syrian army in Syria. In an unprecedented attack by the Israeli Air Force and Navy, weapons systems were destroyed that, had they remained operational, could have been used against the State of Israel. This effort was carried out with rapid momentum and precise management.
- To project power in the face of the chaos and make clear that the State of Israel has a security-strategic interest in the developing trends in Syria and will not be content to passively look on. Prime Minister Netanyahu wisely emphasized that Israel will try not to interfere in the institutionalization of the new order being organized in Syria. However, Israel has an interest in influencing developments in southern Syria in the Yarmouk Basin, where, until recently, Shiite militias took part in efforts to smuggle weapons to the Palestinian Authority and towards the Kingdom of Jordan. Looking north from the Hermon area, Israel has a primary interest in preserving Hezbollah’s isolation in Lebanon and preventing any possibility of reinforcements or new weapons arriving via Syria.
The first two objectives have been achieved in an astonishing manner. The third is complex and will require dynamic monitoring combined with an international effort emphasizing Israeli interests.
The situation in Syria continues to be unprecedented in its uncertainty.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for 42 years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post The Future of Syria Is Uncertain; Here’s What Israel Should Be Doing (PART ONE) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Authority: Munich Massacre of Israeli Athletes was a ‘Quality Operation’
An image of one of the Palestinian terrorists who took part in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Forty-six years after the death of Ali Hassan Salameh, who planned the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to tout Salameh as a hero.
The official PA news agency, WAFA, praised Salameh, who was the commander of operations of the Black September terror organization, saying his “name was associated with many quality operations” — a reference to the Olympics Massacre:
Headline: “46 years since the death as a Martyr of leader Ali Hassan Salameh”
“On Jan. 22, 1979, the Israeli Mossad (Israeli Secret Intelligence Service) assassinated leader Ali Hassan Salameh ‘The Red Prince’, who was the founder of the PLO leadership security force (later Force 17) [parentheses in source]
… As soon as he moved to Beirut, he was assigned to oversee the special operations against the Israeli occupation worldwide. His name was associated with many quality operations.” [emphasis added]
[WAFA, official PA news agency, Jan. 22, 2025]
A week earlier, the PA and Fatah marked the 34th anniversary of the assassination of two other terror leaders: Salah Khalaf “Abu Iyad,” who was the head of Black September, and “fighter Fakhri Al-Omari ‘Abu Muhammad,’” a co-founder of Black September and “one of the close associates of Abu Iyad in the united [PA] Security Forces.”
The official PA daily praised the terrorists as follows:
With their deaths as Martyrs, the PLO, the Palestinian revolution, and Fatah lost [two] of their most committed and skilled leaders, whose record is filled with sacrifice and struggle against the Israeli occupation…”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 15, 2025]
Fatah vowed … to continue the struggle and the resistance to the occupation [i.e., Israel] and its aggressive machinery, and to protect our people’s achievements that were painted with the blood of the Martyrs until defeating the occupation and achieving our people’s freedom and independence.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 15, 2025]
Black September was a secret branch of Fatah, and today’s Fatah didn’t miss the opportunity to join in glorifying terrorist mastermind Salameh.
Fatah marked Salameh’s “death as a Martyr” by posting the image above with the following text:
Text: “46 years since the death as a Martyr of commander Ali Hassan Salameh”
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, Jan. 22, 2025]
The PA and Fatah’s infatuation with Salameh and fellow terrorist murderers from Black September is not new. For decades, Palestinian Media Watch has exposed the glorification of the Munich Olympics attack and its perpetrators and planners.
In fact, this past summer, the PA chose to name its largest summer camp, which hosted 150 children aged 7-13, after terrorist Salah Khalaf, “Abu Iyad.”
On the 50th anniversary of the massacre, Palestinian Media Watch exposed that what has become a dark stain on the Olympics and has settled in the collective global memory as an illustration of the horrors of terrorism, is actually a symbol of glory and honor for the PA.
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
The post Palestinian Authority: Munich Massacre of Israeli Athletes was a ‘Quality Operation’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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