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Jewish NYC restaurants win new fans — and lose others — through Israel fundraisers
(New York Jewish Week) — New York City-based restaurateurs Yuval Dekel and Ari Bokovza, friends since high school, have deep roots in Israel and a shared love of Jewish cuisine. Dekel owns Liebman’s, the last kosher deli in the Bronx, and Bokovza is the executive chef of Dagon on New York’s Upper West Side, a restaurant that features food from the Levant.
Like Jews around the world, the two friends were devastated when they learned of the deadly attacks by Hamas on southern Israel on Oct. 7. The pair quickly devised a plan to do what they do best: prepare delicious food and bring people together, this time in support of Israel.
On Wednesday, the two restaurants are joining forces to raise money for Yatar, an organization that provides tactical off-road equipment to help aid Israel’s border patrol. The four-course dinner, held at Dagon at Broadway and 91st street, composed of Ashkenazi and Sephardi foods from both establishments, is priced at $250 per person, all of which goes directly to Yatar.
“The reaction has been very positive,” Bokovza told the New York Jewish Week. “Every day the [number of] reservations are growing.”
Dekel and Bokovza are far from the only ones who are raising money and offering support for Israel at this fraught time. Thousands of other New Yorkers are contributing to an aid effort that is widely considered unparalleled in recent times; as of last Friday, UJA-Federation of New York had raised $105 million for an Israel Emergency Fund.
New York’s plethora of Jewish restaurants and famous foodies are getting in on the action, too. Immediately in the aftermath of the attack, Jewish celebrity chefs including Einat Admony and Jake Cohen joined forces with members of the Jewish Food Society at Chelsea Market on Oct. 11 for a “community hug and bake sale” that raised $27,000 for ASIF, an Israeli organization preparing meals for displaced families and hospital workers in Israel.
As the war between Hamas and Israel intensifies, numerous other restaurants across the city — from old-school classics like 2nd Avenue Deli to catering outfits to high-end dining destinations — are also raising funds to help Israel and its citizens. Among them is Mediterranean restaurant Barbounia, where Chef Amitzur Mor will host three sold-out seatings for a special menu and fundraiser to benefit Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces on Monday night. Other eateries, like Michael Solomonov’s Kfar and Laser Wolf, along with the kosher steakhouse Reserve Cut, are giving a percentage of their restaurants’ proceeds to support of a variety of Israeli humanitarian organizations.
“We are happy to stand with Israel and heartwarmed by the number of people joining us,” 2nd Avenue Deli co-owner Josh Lebewohl told the New York Jewish Week.
Since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the iconic deli’s Instagram feed has turned decidedly pro-Israel. On Oct. 13 — the day a former Hamas leader had called for global protests — the restaurant donated their proceeds to United Hatzalah, Israel’s volunteer emergency medical service. “They love jihad. We love chicken soup,” the deli posted on Instagram.
“We were touched by the outpouring of support we received,” Lebewohl said, declining to share how much money was raised.
The week following the fundraiser, the deli’s Upper East Side location was defaced with antisemitic graffiti — but the owners remain determined to show their support for Israel. “We definitely lost some followers but overall we have gained [some],” Lebewohl told the New York Jewish Week about the deli’s social media following. ”Just the number of messages of people writing in support of us, in regard to the hate crime and, more importantly, in regards to standing with Israel, has been amazing.”
Dagon’s Bokovza, too, said his restaurant has received some social media backlash. “That stuff can only make you stronger, more determined, more motivated,” he said. “Everybody has big balls behind the keyboard.”
Over at Chef Eyal Shani’s Manhattan restaurants — which includes Miznon, Shmoné, Port Sa’id and HaSalon — the management has been looking for ways to support their U.S.-based employees, some of whom have loved ones who were murdered in the attack. In addition to donating food to a memorial dinner for a former employee, and hosting a lunch for staff to grieve together, Shani’s high-end Hell’s Kitchen eatery HaSalon will host a fundraising dinner on Wednesday priced at $450 per person.
The proceeds will go to humanitarian relief in Israel, including donations to American Friends of Rambam Hospital, Soroka Medical Center and Sheba Medical Center. This is in addition donating 10% of all sales at the Miznon locations in New York, as well as the 20,000 meals Shani’s restaurants in Israel have provided thus far to people in hospitals or to those who have been removed from their homes.
Their strong support of Israel comes with a price. “We have gotten negative reviews online from people who have never dined with us,” said Mika Ziv, CEO of Good People Group, Shani’s global hospitality brand. “People are calling our restaurant and screaming ‘Free Palestine!’ and hanging up. It is obviously not going to stop us from doing what is right but that is the situation.”
Rotem Itzhaky, general manager of the 12 Chairs Cafes in the West Village and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is not looking at negative posts online. “I am focusing on the positive and what we can do and how we can help,” she said.
On Tuesday, 12 Chairs will hold a dinner benefiting United Hatzalah at their Williamsburg location priced at $150 per person, hosted by influencers Batsheva Haart, Audrey Jongens and Meg Radice. As of Sunday, the restaurant has sold all of their 65 tickets to the event, which promises their signature Israeli food as well as an “open bar to help raise spirits and donations.”
Meanwhile, since the conflict began, the owners of kosher caterer Good Shabbos by ChiChi Eats have given their customers the option, when placing a food order, to make a donation to support feeding Israeli soldiers and supplying them with critical gear like warm jackets, knee pads and tactical equipment. Approximately 75% of their customers have made a donation, according to co-owner Rachel Fuchs.
“People were super excited last week and this week,” Fuchs said. “People are looking for a way to help. If we lost Instagram followers, we wouldn’t have noticed and I think we will be better without those people.”
Gadi Peleg, the owner of Breads, the New York City bakery chain with roots in Israel, was pleasantly surprised by the reaction to the plan that he and baker Ben Siman Tov, aka BenGingi on TikTok, devised following the Oct. 7 attack. BenGingi had contacted Peleg and suggested that on Friday, Oct. 13, Breads should sell heart-shaped challahs. The challahs — shaped by BenGingi and using Breads’ signature recipe — would sell for $36 and proceeds would go to support Magen David Adom, Israel’s national organization responsible for emergency pre-hospital medical care and blood services.
Intended to be a one-day event, the heart-shaped challahs were so popular the bakery has made and sold them every day since, raising more than $20,000 so far, according to Peleg. “We make hundreds of challahs a day,” he said. “Our bakeries open at 7 a.m. We are sold out by 8 a.m. Breads is a community — people come into the stores, and they are excited to see what we are doing and there are other people who feel like them.
“What happened in Israel was an act of pure evil,” he added. “What we are doing is an act of pure good.”
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The post Jewish NYC restaurants win new fans — and lose others — through Israel fundraisers appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, and Houthi media said three people were killed.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said in a statement.
The Israeli military said that in addition to striking the airport, it also hit military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said two people were killed in the strikes on the airport and one person was killed in the port hits, while 11 others were wounded in the attacks.
There was no comment from the Houthis, who have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attacks that Israel will continue its mission until it is complete: “We are determined to sever this terror arm of Iran’s axis.”
The prime minister has been strengthened at home by the Israeli military’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and by its destruction of most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were also reported by Al Masirah TV.
Tedros said he had been in Yemen to negotiate the release of detained UN staff detainees and to assess the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa … the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” he said in a statement.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues were safe.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the incident.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel‘s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel‘s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
The post Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew. Photo: Alchetron.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for casting doubt on a new report claiming that famine has gripped northern Gaza.
The controversial Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday slammed Lew for his “callous dismissal” of the recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report accusing Israel of inflicting famine on the Gaza Strip. The organization subsequently asserted that Israel had perpetrated an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan,’” CAIR said in a statement.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling, and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza,” the Washington, DC-based group continued.
On Monday, FEWS Net, a US-created provider of warning and analysis on food insecurity, released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in the area without sufficient access to food.
“Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians in the beleaguered enclave, the report stated.
Lew subsequently issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
Following Lew’s repudiation, FEWS NET quietly removed the report on Wednesday, sparking outrage among supporters of the pro-Palestinian cause.
“We ask FEWS NET not to submit to the bullying of genocide supporters and to again make its report available to the public,” CAIR said in its statement.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has been repeatedly accused of inflicting famine in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
This is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by FEWS Net that a famine had taken hold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
Meanwhile, CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the onset of the Gaza war last October.
CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the Oct. 7 atrocities. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage across southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
The post Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
The international Jewish civil rights organization legally representing more than 50 victims of the attack on Israeli soccer fans that took place in Amsterdam last month has joined many voices in lambasting a Dutch court for what they described as a mild punishment for the attackers.
“These sentences are an insult to the victims and a stain on the Dutch legal system,” The Lawfare Project’s founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “Allowing individuals who coordinated and celebrated acts of violence to walk away with minimal consequences diminishes the rule of law and undermines trust in the judicial process. If this is the response to such blatant antisemitism, what hope is there for deterring future offenders or safeguarding the Jewish community.”
On Tuesday, a district court in Amsterdam sentenced five men for their participation in the violent attacks in the Dutch city against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. The premeditated and coordinated violence took place on the night of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of Nov 8, before and after Maccabi Tel Aviv competed against the Dutch soccer team Ajax in a UEFA Europa League match. The five suspects were sentenced to up to 100 hours of community service and up to six months in prison.
The attackers were found guilty of public violence, which included kicking an individual lying on the ground, and inciting the violence by calling on members of a WhatsApp group chat to gather and attack Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. One man sentenced on Tuesday who had a “leading role” in the violence, according to prosecutors, was given the longest sentence — six months in prison.
“As someone who witnessed these trials firsthand, I am deeply disheartened by the leniency of these sentences,” added Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at The Lawfare Project. “The violent, coordinated attacks against Jews in Amsterdam are among the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe. These light sentences fail to reflect the gravity of these crimes and do little to deliver justice to the victims who are left traumatized and unheard. Even more troubling, they set a dangerous precedent, signaling to future offenders that such horrific acts of violence will not be met with serious consequences.”
The Lawfare Project said on Wednesday that it is representing over 50 victims of the Amsterdam attacks. It has also secured for their clients a local counsel — Peter Plasman, who is a partner at the Amsterdam-based law firm Kötter L’Homme Plasman — to represent them in the Netherlands. The Lawfare Project aims to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people around the world through legal action.
Others who have criticized the Dutch court for its sentencing of the five men on Tuesday included Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum; Tal-Or Cohen, the founder and CEO of CyberWell; and The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
The post Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.