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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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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.