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I’m a Jewish historian; my grandparents ran a deli. Maybe we’re in the same business.
(JTA) — Like so many other American Jews from the New York area, I have been eagerly awaiting “I’ll Have What She’s Having,” the new exhibit on the American Jewish deli now on view at the New-York Historical Society. After all, the deli was our family business.
I grew up on Long Island during the baby boom era, when large groups of Jews moved to the suburbs. New synagogues opened in almost every town, and Jewish bakeries, shops and schools proliferated around them.
My family had its pick of half a dozen kosher delis within 20 minutes of our home. We tried them all but came to especially enjoy Brodie’s Kosher Delicatessen, in the Mitchel Manor Shopping Plaza in East Meadow. Like Brodie’s, most of these delis were modest storefronts, with little ambience and a straightforward menu of traditional Eastern European Jewish food and deli meats. Nothing fancy, but it was kosher and delicious and enjoyed by the whole family.
Eating in any of these delis carried special meaning for us because the experience served as a connection to our extended family, who had a long and rich history in the delicatessen world.
After immigrating from Eastern Europe, my grandfather and his brother established themselves in the food business, eventually starting a kosher catering company. In order to continue supporting their growing families, my great-uncle Abe kept the catering business, and in 1929 my grandfather Morris opened Rubin’s Delicatessen. Located in Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, its first location boasted only five tables.
The deli truly was a family business. My grandmother kept the books, my grandfather’s sister Bessie ran the kitchen and my grandfather worked at the deli counter. Bessie made all the home-cooked food, including an unforgettable hearty vegetable soup, meat knishes, russel (fleishig, or meat-based, beet soup), pot roast, roast chicken, eingemacht (a kind of beet candy preserves), taiglach (a dough and honey sweet dessert for Rosh Hashanah), jelly roll and mandlen (soup nuts). During busy times, such as before Passover and Rosh Hashanah, my grandmother and other great aunts came in and worked together to bake 4-pound sponge cakes.
The clientele of Rubin’s was something of a “Who’s Who” of Boston Jewry. As in Jewish delis around the country, businesspeople conducted informal meetings there, rabbis stopped in for lunch during their busy days and customers stopped by to pick up essential provisions or to enjoy a quick bite.
As the years passed and my grandparents got older, discussions about the future of Rubin’s began. Instead of taking over the family business, my father and his brothers pursued career paths outside of the deli, becoming religious leaders and Jewish professionals. My grandparents were proud that their children had pursued white-collar professions. And, in many ways, those children carried on a family business: The spiritual sustenance they provided as rabbis and social workers was an extension of the physical sustenance the deli provided through chicken soup and pastrami sandwiches.
This sense of providing intellectual, emotional and religious nourishment to the Jewish people has continued in various forms through several generations of my family, including my own choices as a Jewish historian, educator and institution builder.
Rabbi Moshe Schwartz, the author’s son, in front of a sign for the deli founded by his great-grandfather in Brookline, Mass., which by the time it closed in 2016 was located down the street from its original location. (Courtesy of Shuly Rubin Schwartz)
When it finally came time for my grandfather to hang up his apron in June 1974, he had one stipulation when selling the business to his great-nephew: “the Seller has for many years conducted the aforesaid business as a kosher delicatessen and restaurant under the supervision of the Vaad of the Associated Synagogues and wishes to maintain the kosher status of said business so long as the business is conducted under the name of ‘Rubin’ on said premises or on any other premises to which it may be moved.”
After all those years, his final wish was to keep the “kosher” in his “kosher deli.”
Rubin’s changed hands a few more times but eventually closed its doors in the summer of 2016, a milestone noted in Boston Magazine.
For many of us, my family especially, the kosher deli experience wasn’t just about the food (although the food of course was delicious and satisfying). Visiting and eating at a Jewish deli became a safe space, a deep link to previous generations, a fun way to comply with Jewish dietary laws, and a place to feel both Jewish and American. Deli meals didn’t simply provide nourishment, they provided comfort — true comfort food — and a way to connect to some of our Jewish traditions.
“’I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli” tells the story of how Jewish immigrants like my grandparents helped create a new type of American restaurant and an important piece of American food culture. Reflecting on the many stories I heard about the business growing up, the too-numerous-to-count meals I ate when visiting my grandparents, and the memories of family, Jewish culture and delicious food, I know my visit to the New-York Historical Society will be both emotional and stimulating.
And I think I know what I’ll have for lunch after my visit.
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John Fetterman Says Saudi Arabia Should Join Abraham Accords in Exchange for F-35 Fighter Jets From US
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) gives an interview in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 18, 2024. Photo: Rod Lamkey / CNP/Sipa USA for NY Post via Reuters Connect
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) told The Algemeiner that Saudi Arabia should officially normalize relations with Israel in order to receive F-35 fighter jets from the United States.
In comments made on Wednesday, Fetterman signaled that he would support Saudi Arabia purchasing the premier American fighter jet in exchange for an agreement to join the Abraham Accords, a series of US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states. The senator argued that Riyadh agreeing to establish diplomatic relations with Israel could help usher in an era of peace and stability across the Middle East.
“I do think it would be a significant breakthrough if they joined the Abraham Accords for that,” Fetterman, a staunch supporter of Israel, said when asked by The Algemeiner for his thoughts on Saudi Arabia potentially receiving the F-35 fighter jet.
Saudi Arabia does not officially recognize the state of Israel, although in recent years the two countries have increasingly cooperated behind closed doors.
“I hope that some peace emerges, and now I think there’s a way forward that might not [involve] a Democratic president,” said Fetterman, a Democrat known to buck much of his own party on various policy issues. “But I’m going to fully support that.”
The senator added that he will “always follow Israel through their security.”
US President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met for talks in Washington, DC this week to deepen US-Saudi ties across a range of areas. While at the White House, bin Salman promised to increase his country’s US investment to $1 trillion from a $600 billion pledge he made when Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May.
The two men also reached deals on civil nuclear energy, critical minerals, and AI technology while agreeing to a sweeping defense cooperation pact. They discussed the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, with the kingdom reportedly looking to buy as many as 48 in what would be a multibillion-dollar deal.
Trump said earlier this week that he plans to greenlight the sale. According to the White House, he “approved a major defense sale package, including future F-35 deliveries, which strengthens the US defense industrial base and ensures Saudi Arabia continues to buy American.” However, no further details were provided about the number of jets or the timeframe for purchasing them.
If the sale goes through, it will be a policy shift for Washington, which primarily sells the F-35 to formal military allies, such as NATO members or Japan. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has the elite fighter jets, in accordance with longstanding bipartisan policy for US administrations and the Congress to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” in the region. Saudi Arabia’s acquiring them would at least somewhat change the military balance of power.
However, Israel has further enhanced its F-35s after purchase with superior features such as advanced weapons systems and electronic warfare equipment that the US has sought to incorporate. US officials have said the Saudi jets will not have these enhancements found in Israel’s F-35 fighters.
Despite the wave of deals, Saudi Arabia did not join the Abraham Accords, a key goal of the Trump administration. Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, said during his visit to Washington that Riyadh wanted official ties with Israel but that such a step would require actionable steps toward implementing a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
While speaking to The Algemeiner this week, Fetterman also lamented the anti-Israel sentiment emerging in Democratic politics, expressing concern that many of his party’s candidates for the 2026 midterm races are making opposition to the Jewish state a major pitch to voters.
“A lot of these races, it’s almost like [a] marquee anti-Israel kind of sentiment. I mean, that’s outrageous, and I’ve been disappointed by my party turning their back on that,” Fetterman said.
Many candidates in the 2026 Democratic primaries are running on explicitly anti-Israel platforms, especially far-left progressives. Longshot congressional hopefuls such as former New York state Rep. Michael Blake and left-wing podcaster Cameron Kasky, both of whom have launched campaigns in the Empire State, are attempting to differentiate themselves from other Democratic hopefuls by launching broadside attacks against Israel.
Breaking from traditional party orthodoxy, many insurgent Democratic primary challengers have condemned Israel for committing so-called “genocide” in Gaza and called for an immediate halt of all military aid to the Jewish state. This shift in support for Israel comes amid a nosedive in support for the Jewish state among Democratic voters. Several polls indicate that a supermajority of Democrats now sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis.
However, in the two years following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, Fetterman has emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of the Jewish state in the US Congress. The senator has repeatedly expressed disappointment and disillusionment with the Democratic Party’s increasingly hostile position on Israel, reaffirming his support of the Jewish state’s right to self-defense.
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Trump-MBS Dealmaking Shaped Gaza Vote at UN, Empowering Hamas, Israeli Analysts Warn
US President Donald Trump greets Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, during a dinner at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Nov. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Tom Brenner TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
This week’s UN Security Council resolution endorsing US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan was timed to appease Western and Arab governments and deliberately crafted to blur the question of Palestinian statehood in pursuit of broader regional interests, according to Israeli analysts, who warned the move risked empowering Hamas and endangering Israel’s security.
Einat Wilf, a former member of Israel’s parliament, known as the Knesset, said the UN resolution intended to remove the Palestinian question from the headlines but could lay the groundwork for “another Oct. 7,” referring to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, by repeating the same policy of ambiguity that allowed the Palestinian terrorist organization to regroup under previous ceasefire agreements.
Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), argued the vote was strategically timed to coincide with Trump’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Washington. The US president sought to pair international endorsement of his 20-point Gaza plan with Saudi commitments toward normalizing relations with Israel. Bin Salman, also known as MBS, told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he was open to joining the Abraham Accords, a series of US-brokered Arab-Israel normalization agreements, if credible progress toward Palestinian statehood could be demonstrated.
The Trump administration aimed to show that the “pathway to implementing Stage Two of the Gaza plan — which includes the International Stabilization Force and a framework for Palestinian statehood — is already in place,” Diker told The Algemeiner in a phone call. “The goal was to get international sanction through the UN so the White House could silence naysayers who claim the plan is a Trump-Israel conspiracy.”
A new poll conducted by the JCFA ahead of the Security Council vote found that 70% percent of Israelis opposed the creation of a Palestinian state under current conditions, with opposition rising to just under 80% among Jewish Israelis. Even when linked to Saudi normalization, the overwhelming majority (62%) remained opposed.
According to Diker, the UN resolution was largely declarative and would not bring the region closer to a Palestinian state. The real agenda rested with Saudi-US ties, with MBS telling Trump that Saudi investments in the United States would increase to nearly $1 trillion. Palestinian statehood figured mostly as lip service, and while Israel signed on, the Palestinian leadership in the form of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has proven incapable of governing its own public, with polling consistently showing Hamas as the preferred choice among Palestinians — both in Gaza and the West Bank.
“It’s an ironic development that the great Western powers pushing for a Palestinian state are essentially strengthening Hamas’s hand as the effective leadership of the Palestinian people following the Oct. 7 massacres,” he said.
Wilf, who recently announced her return to politics with her newly formed Oz party, argued that Washington’s goal is to push the Palestinian issue “off the headlines” long enough to advance its broader Middle East agenda.
“The Abraham Accords are no longer about normalizing relations with Israel,” she said in a briefing with reporters on Wednesday. “It’s basically American shorthand for bringing the Islamic and Arab world into the Western orbit in a more structured way and pulling them as much as possible away from China.”
Wilf warned that while Washington’s approach of “constructive ambiguity — the vague language now anchoring the resolution — may serve its short-term strategic goals for the conflict, it puts Israel at risk. By avoiding clear definitions of what a reformed Palestinian Authority or a de-radicalized Gaza would mean, she argued, the resolution leaves the same loopholes that allowed Hamas to rebuild in the past.
The deeper problem, Wilf argued, is a pervasive Palestinian ideology built on rejecting Jewish sovereignty. Until that changes, efforts toward statehood will remain hollow, a dynamic she summed up as “Schrödinger’s Palestine” — a state when it comes to attacking Israel in international forums but not a state when it comes to taking responsibility for its own actions.
Diker said the tension Wilf described has already become a “built-in collision” between Western diplomacy and Palestinian realities.
“The West is acting in a rather colonialist manner by refusing to note the democratic choice of the Palestinian people,” he said. “Oct. 7 was Hamas’s crowning achievement to ultimately uproot and replace the Fatah-led leadership of the Palestinian street.”
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Iran ‘Has No Choice’ but to Move Capital as Water Crisis Deepens, Says President
People shop water storage tanks following a drought crisis in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 10, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian affirmed on Thursday that the country “has no choice” but to relocate its capital, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain — even as the regime spends billions of dollars rebuilding its military and nuclear infrastructure and backing its terrorist proxies.
In a televised national address, the Iranian leader renewed his call to relocate the capital, asserting that the deepening crisis has “rendered the city uninhabitable.”
Pezeshkian said Iran’s water, land, and infrastructure systems are under such extreme pressure that relocating the capital is now unavoidable, adding that when the move was first proposed, the government lacked even a minimal budget to pursue it.
“The truth is, we have no choice left — relocating the capital is now a necessity,” he said during his speech.
With parts of the city sinking up to 30 centimeters a year and water supplies dwindling, Pezeshkian described Tehran’s current situation as a “catastrophe.”
He urged government ministries and public officials to coordinate their efforts to avert a grim future for the country.
“Protecting the environment is not a game,” the Iranian leader said.
“Ignoring it is signing our own destruction,” he continued, explaining that Tehran can no longer cope with population growth or the city’s expanding construction.
Among the solutions considered to tackle the crisis, one has been importing water from the Gulf of Oman. However, Pezeshkian noted that such an approach is extremely costly, with each cubic meter costing millions to deliver to Tehran.
Earlier this year, the Iranian regime announced it was considering relocating the capital to the Makran coast in the country’s south, a remote region overlooking the Gulf of Oman, in a bid to ease Tehran’s congestion and alleviate its water and energy shortages.
Advocates of this initiative emphasize its strategic benefits, including direct access to the Indian Ocean and significant economic potential through maritime trade, centered on the port of Chabahar, Iran’s crucial gateway to Central Asia.
However, critics argue that the region is still underdeveloped, fraught with security risks, and unprepared to function as a capital, warning that the move could cost tens of billions of dollars — an amount the country cannot bear amid economic turmoil, soaring inflation, and renewed United Nations sanctions.
Notably, the Iranian regime has focused its resources on bolstering its military and nuclear programs rather than addressing the country’s water crisis, a choice that has left citizens’ needs unmet while advancing its agenda against Israel.
The regime has also spent billions of dollars supporting its terrorist proxies across the region and operations abroad, with the Quds Force, Iran’s elite paramilitary unit, funneling funds to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, in defiance of international sanctions.
According to the US Treasury Department, Iran has provided more than $100 million per month to Hezbollah so far this year alone, with $1 billion representing only a portion of Tehran’s overall support for the terrorist group, using a “shadow financial system” to transfer funds to Lebanon.
Iran also provides weapons, training, logistical support, and political backing to the group along with other proxies, including Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, various militias in Iraq and Syria, and other Islamist entities.