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Meet the Jewish teens whose social media experience is better than you think
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — At the SAR High School, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Riverdale, New York, teens participate in anti-harassment training every fall. Students listen carefully as faculty list the dangers of TikTok, the potential social isolation resulting from excessive social media use, and the negative implicit messaging — both Jewish and otherwise — that often pervades these platforms.
Yet for many Jewish teens and young adults, social media provides the opposite effect by furnishing them with a voice, community and alternate avenues for exploring identity.
Olivia Fertig, a student at the Orthodox Ramaz High School in Manhattan, acknowledges that social media might tempt her to one-up someone with a better post or photo, but she also feels connected to the people whose posts she comments on or likes. “Social media allows me to interact with other Jews and come across Jewish content which teaches me more about how other Jews live,” she said.
Despite the risks involved, 35% of teens use YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook “almost constantly.” Movies and podcasts from Jewish community leaders warn of the dangers of social media “overuse” and its ravaging effects on teen mental health and cognition. “Teen mental health is plummeting, and social media is a major contributing cause,” the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt told Congress in 2022, citing adolescent mood disorders, self-harm and suicide rates.
But for some observant Jewish teens, social media provides the connection for them to be their authentic selves and learn from others.
Ilana Gadish, a member of the Judaic faculty at SAR High School, highlights the benefits of social media. “When teens, especially Jewish teens, are struggling with personal issues — whether it’s Jewish identity, sexuality, gender identity, relationships or complicated relationships that might be possibly dangerous — social media has so many accounts out there that help teens and adults navigate spaces where people can feel connected to others that aren’t in their life going through the same thing as them,” she said, while acknowledging that social media shouldn’t be the only way young people connect.
For teen content creators like Tali, who asked that only her first name be used to protect her safety and her family from antisemitism, TikTok helps her explore Jewish identity without the constraints of her real-world Orthodox community. As a self-described “practicing, religious” teen, she creates mainly Jewish content with an overarching aim of exploring sensitive Jewish issues that might otherwise remain unspoken. Specifically, she focuses on the place of women in Orthodox Judaism and seeks to raise awareness of sexual assault in Orthodox Jewish communities.
In one video, she highlighted the case of a student who had been the victim of sexual abuse, whose identity was kept anonymous. The video provided explicit support for the victim and showed “her that she wasn’t alone.” The video, which has 30,000 views on TikTok, led to a partnership between Tali and Za’akah, an organization that fights child sex abuse in the Orthodox community.
“Learning about Judaism online gives you everyone’s perspective on it, not just your school’s or your community’s,” Tali said. TikTok introduced her to “topics that are considered taboo and generally not taught in school, like the laws of sex in Judaism etc.”
This openness may be perceived as dangerous by various community leaders but also as liberating by young social media users. “Social media gives me the freedom to express it [Judaism] however I want without restrictions from community or school etc.,” Tali said. “In certain circles you will be ostracized for voicing certain opinions.” On TikTok she is able to find a peer group that is accepting of her views.
TikTok also gives her the opportunity to learn about a diverse range of Jews, including Rabbi Seth Goldstein, a Reform rabbi whose popular TikTok videos explain Judaism through pop culture. His beliefs differ from her Modern Orthodox upbringing and allow her to gain a better understanding of his liberal denomination.
Some haredi Orthodox communities, including a number of Hasidic movements, have called for its members to disconnect from social media entirely. In the summer of 2022, two rallies organized by Orthodox rabbis specifically urged Jewish women and teens to rid themselves of these platforms, saying they encourage impure thoughts and gossip.
And some teens, even among the less insular Modern Orthodox, share this pessimistic view of social media. Jacob Prager, a sophomore at SAR High School, does not have a smartphone and does not use social media. “For the people who say that social media brings them happiness that can actually be dangerous because that’s the only way that you seek to find confirmation and love,” he said. He used to have an Instagram account for school but gave it up when he started getting addicted and didn’t have time to do things he enjoys, like crossword puzzles. “Now that I don’t use it as much I think my mental health is so much better and I’m able to do stuff that I really love,” he said.
Yet other teens say the good of social media outweighs the negative effects.
A recent study found that a majority of teens, like Tali, credit social media for “deepening connections” rather than fracturing them. Rachel SJ, an LGBTQ actor and content creator who asked to be referred to by their professional name, uses social media to make purposeful bonds with other Jewish creators on these platforms. “There’s something really wonderful about having a wider trans Jewish community, we’re able to share resources, get each other’s more niche jokes, and learn from each other,” they said.
Rather than suppressing Jewish and other identities, social media provides a unique set of tools for self-expression and authenticity for Rachel and other members of Jewish Tiktok.
As a nonbinary practicing Jew, Rachel also uses their account to make connections and interact with a much wider audience than would be possible on a local level. “I have made so many incredible connections through Jewish TikTok, it almost feels undervaluing to call them just ‘connections,’” Rachel said. “Many of them have become friends, confidants, and support.”
Rachel met @amaditalks, another Jewish creator who uses ze as a pronoun, through TikTok. “I really appreciate the compassion and humor ze brings to our conversations beyond content, but also about what’s going on in the world and our lives,” they said.
Rachel says these connections would not have been possible in any single community or real-world location. “Sure shared experiences/culture/belief/values etc brought us together but we don’t live in the same place, we very likely wouldn’t have ever met,” they said. “These community members are able to look to each other to talk through it, get input, respond, and stand up together.”
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The post Meet the Jewish teens whose social media experience is better than you think appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A play about racism in America was a hit in Warsaw in 1935
„מיסיסיפּי“ פֿון לײב מלאך האָט געבראַכט די אַמעריקאַנער ראַסע־פּראָבלעם אױף דער ייִדישער בינע אין פּױלן
סקאָטסבאָראָ, אַ שטעטל אין אַלאַבאַמע, איז אין די 1930ער יאָרן באַקאַנט געװאָרן איבער דער גאַנצער װעלט צוליב דעם געריכט־פּראָצעס איבער נײַן אַפֿריקאַנער־אַמעריקאַנער יונגע לײַט, װעלכע זײַנען פֿאַלש באַשולדיקט געװאָרן אין פֿאַרגװאַלדיקן צװײ יונגע װײַסע פֿרױען.
די געריכט־פּראָצעסן האָבן זיך געצויגן פֿון 1931 ביז 1937 און האָבן אַרויסגערופֿן אַ סך אױפֿמערק צוליב זײערע אױסגעשפּראָכן ראַסיסטישע פּניות. ייִדישע ליטעראַטן האָבן געװידמעט דעם דאָזיקן ענין אַ היפּשע צאָל אַרטיקלען, רעפּאָרטאַזשן און ליטעראַרישע װערק.
צװישן די קינסטלערישע אָפּקלאַנגען אױף דעם סקאָטסבאָראָ־ענין איז געװען די דראַמע פֿון לײב מלאך (אַריה לײב זאַלצמאַן, 1894־1936) „מיסיסיפּי“, װאָס דער באַרימטער פּױליש־ייִדישער רעזשיסאָר מיכאל װײַכערט האָט אױפֿגעפֿירט אינעם װאַרשעװער „יונג־טעאַטער“ אין 1935.
דער טעקסט פֿון דער פּיעסע איז פֿאַרעפֿנטלעכט געװאָרן נאָך מלאכס טױט אין לאָס־אַנדזשעלעס אין 1949. איצט איז „מיסיסיפּי“ אַרױס אין דער ענגלישער איבערזעצונג פֿון עלען פּערעצמאַן און אַליסע קװינט, אונטער דער רעדאַקציע פֿון אַליסע קװינט.
קװינטס גרונטיק געפֿאָרשטער הקדמה דערצײלט די געשיכטע פֿון דער דאָזיקער מערקװירקידער אױפֿפֿירונג.
„מיסיסיפּי“, האַלט קװינט, איז אינטערעסאַנט הײַנט ניט אַזױ װי אַ װערק פֿון קונסט נאָר װי אַ „װערק פֿון דער הומאַניסטישער עמפּאַטיע“ און די ערשטע פּיעסע װעגן אַמעריקאַנער ראַסיזם אױף דער פּױלישער (ניט נאָר ייִדישער) בינע.
אָבער װײַכערטס טעאַטראַלישע אױפֿפֿירונג איז טאַקע יאָ געװען אַ װיכטיקע טעאַטראַלע דערשײַנונג. די 1930ער יאָרן זײַנען געװען די בלי־תּקופֿה אין דער ייִדישער טעאַטער־געשיכטע, װען דער ייִדישער טעאַטער איז געװען אָפֿן צו אַנדערע קולטורן, דערקלערט קװינט. דעמאָלט האָט מען אױפֿגעפֿירט אױף ייִדיש דראַמאַטישע װערק פֿונעם אַמעריקאַנער דראַמאַטורג יודזשין אָ׳ניל, דעם פֿראַנצױזישן שרײַבער ראָמען ראָלאַן, דעם דײַטשישן מחבר פֿרידריך װאָלף און אַנדערע.
לכתּחילה איז װײַכערט ניט געװען זיכער, אַז דער ענין פֿון ראַסיזם אין אַמעריקע װעט געפֿינען אַן אָפּקלאַנג בײַם פּױליש־ייִדישן עולם. אָבער ער האָט געגלױבט, אַז זײַנע „פּראָגרעסיװע צושױער“ װעלן דערקענען אין די אַפֿריקאַנער־אַמעריקאַנער פּערסאָנאַזשן פּשוטע מענטשן און אַרבעטער גלײַך װי די פּױלישע ייִדן.
„מיסיסיפּי“ האָט װײַכערט אױפֿגעפֿירט אינעם סטיל פֿון אַװאַנגאַרד. די פּיעסע האָט העכער װי 30 פּערסאָנאַזשן, װאָס זײַנען געטײלט אין צװײ גרופּעס, שװאַרצע און װײַסע. די פּױליש־ייִדישע אַקטיאָרן האָבן געשפּילט אין „בלעקפֿײס“, מיט שװאַרץ־געשמירטע פּנימער.
הײַנט באַטראַכט מען אַזאַ שטיק װי אַ סימן פֿון ראַסיזם, אָבער עס װאָלט געװען ניט קאָרעקט צו משפּטן דעם ייִדישן טעאַטער אין פּױלן אין די 1930ער יאָרן לױט די איצטיקע השׂגות.
מען האָט געשפּילט דעם ספּעקטאַקל אױף דרײַ רונדע בינעס, געשטעלט אין דער מיט פֿונעם זאַל. די צוקוקער האָבן געדאַרפֿט פֿאָלגן דאָס ליכט, װאָס האָט באַשײַנט אײן בינע נאָך דער צװײטער, װוּ פֿאַרשײדענע גרופּעס אַקטיאָרן האָבן געשפּילט עפּיזאָדן פֿון דער דראַמע. דער עולם האָט זיך געפֿילט אין דער מיט פֿון די געשעענישן, װאָס האָבן זיך אַנטפּלעקט אַרום זײ.
די דאָזיקע בינע־אַראַנזשירונג האָט באַטאָנט דעם קאָנטראַסט צװישן דער „װײַסער“ און דער „שװאַרצער“ װעלט. אין אײן עפּיזאָד זעט מען װאָס ס׳קומט פֿאָר אױף דער באַן צװישן די אַפֿריקאַנער־אַמעריקאַנער און די װײַסע פֿרױען, דערנאָך װערט מען איבערגעטראָגן אין דער דירה פֿון די פֿרױען, װוּ זײ באַדינען זײערע װײַסע מאַנצבלישע „קליענטן“; װײַטער רוקט זיך די האַנדלונג אינעם געריכטזאַל, און אַזױ װײַטער. יעדער עפּיזאָד האָט אַן אײגענע דראַמאַטישע אינטריגע, װאָס האַלט די צוקוקערס געשפּאַנט.
מלאך איז געװען אַ געניטער זשורנאַליסט און האָט געשריבן רעפּאָרטאַזשן פֿון פֿאַרשײדענע לענדער פֿון אײראָפּע, אַמעריקע און פֿון ארץ־ישׂראל. ער האָט אָנגעזאַמלט מאַטעריאַלן װעגן דעם סקאָטסבאָראָ־ענין, װאָס איז צו יענער צײַט נאָך ניט געהאַט פֿאַרענדיקט געװאָרן.
מלאך האָט באַשלאָסן ניט צו שרײַבן קײן „דראַמאַטישן רעפּאָרטאַזש“ און האָט אױסגעטראַכט אײניקע פּרטים, װאָס האָבן אים דערלאָזט דערקלערן דעם אַמעריקאַנער פּאָליטישן און געזעלשאַפֿטלעכן קאָנטעקסט פֿאַרן פּױליש־ייִדישן עולם.
אין דעם שײכות קאָן מען זיך דערמאָנען אָן אַן אַנדער פּיעסע פֿון די 1930ער יאָרן אינעם זשאַנער פֿון געריכט־רעפּאָרטאַזש, אַלטער קאַציזנעס „שװאַרצבאַרד“. פֿאַר זײַן פּיעסע האָט קאַציזנע גענוצט מאַטעריאַלן פֿונעם פּאַריזער משפּט איבער שלום שוואַרצבאַרדן — דעם ייִדישן זייגערמאַכער, וועלכער האָט דערהרגעט דעם אוקראַיִנישן נאַציאָנאַליסט סימאָן פּעטלוראַ כּדי זיך נוקם צו זײַן פֿאַר די בלוטיקע פּאָגראָמען בעתן בירגערקריג אין אוקראַיִנע אין 1918־1919. דער פֿראַנצױזישער געריכט האָט אים דערקלערט פֿאַר אומשולדיק.
אין 1934 האָט די פּױלישע מאַכט פֿאַרװערט צו שפּילן „שװאַרצבאַנד“ אין װאַרשע װײַל מען האָט מורא געהאַט פֿאַר אוקראַיִנישע נאַציאָנאַליסטן אין פּױלן. אין דער געשפּאַנטער פּאָליטישער אַטמאָספֿער פֿון די 1930ער יאָרן האָט מען געדאַרפֿט זײַן אָפּגעהיט, און מלאך און װײַכערט האָבן אױסגעקליבן אַ „פּאַרעװען“ קעפּל, „מיסיסיפּי“. דאָס װאָרט סקאָטסבאָראָ איז צו יענער צײַט באַלאָדן געװאָרן מיט לינקע פּאָליטישע אַסאָציאַציעס.
סך־הכּל האָט מען געשפּילט „מיסיסיפּי“ בערך 200 מאָל אין פֿאַרשײדענע שטעט אין פּױלן. די ייִדישע פּרעסע פֿון כּלערלײ פּאָליטישע שאַטירונגען אױף ייִדיש און פּױליש האָט מיט התלהבֿות געלױבט דעם ספּעקטאַקל. דער קריטיקער משה קאַנפֿער האָט געשריבן, אַז „ייִדן און אַפֿריקאַנער־אַמעריקאַנער זעען אין זיך אַ קעגנזײַטיקע אָפּשפּיגלונג פֿון אײנעם אינעם צװײטן“.
די ענגלישע איבערזעצונג איז זײער פֿליסיק. די רײד פֿון די פּערסאָנאַזשן קלינגט װי די אַמעריקאַנער שמועסשפּראַך פֿון די 1930ער יאָרן, װאָס איז גוט באַקאַנט לױט די דראַמאַטישע װערק פֿון יענער צײַט. כּדי אָפּצוהיטן דעם צײַטגײַסט האָט די איבערזעצערין באַשלאָסן צו נוצן די װערטער װי „נעגראָ“ און אַפֿילו דאָס „נ־װאָרט“, װאָס זענען הײַנט װי באַלײדעװדיקע נעמען פֿאַר אַפֿריקאַנער־אַמעריקאַנער.
אַן אַנדער פּראָבלעם פֿאַר דער איבערזעצונג האָט צו טאָן מיט די ענגלישע װערטער, אַזעלכע װי „מיס“, „קאָנדאָקטאָר“, „באָי“, מיט װעלכע מלאך האָט באַפֿעפֿערט זײַן טעקסט כּדי צו שאַפֿן אַן אַמעריקאַנער קאָלאָריט. אין דער איבערזעצונג זײַנען די דאָזיקע װערטער באַצײכנט געװאָרן מיט שטערנדלעך.
דער ענין פֿון ראַסע און ראַסע־באַציִונגען איז אין די לעצטע פּאָר צענדליק יאָר געװאָרן אַ װיכטיקע טעמע אין ייִדיש־פֿאָרשונג. דאָס איז אַ ניצלעכער מעטאָדאָלאָגישער קוקװינקל, װאָס לאָזט פֿון דאָס נײַ באַטראַכטן די מאָדערנע ייִדיש־קולטור. אָבער ביז הײַנט האָט מען דער עיקר באַהאַנדלט דעם אַמעריקאַנער מאַטעריאַל.
די פּובליקאַציע פֿון „מיסיסיפּי“ איז אַ װיכטיקער בײַטראָג אין דער דאָזיקער בראַנזשע פֿון ייִדיש־פֿאָרשונג. זי באַװײַזט, אַז די פּראָבלעם פֿון ראַסיזם אין אַמעריקע האָט געהאַט אַן אָפּקלאַנג אױך בײַ ייִדן אין מיזרח־אײראָפּע.
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Nithya Raman, LA mayoral candidate who clashed with DSA on Israel, wins their endorsement
Ever since Councilmember Nithya Raman’s last-minute entry into the Los Angeles mayoral race, questions have loomed about her relationship with the Democratic Socialists of America — and whether her stance on Israel would chill the group’s support for her underdog campaign.
Raman, a dues-paying DSA member, had criticized the group for a statement the national organization made after Oct. 7. In 2024, she was censured by the LA chapter for courting a pro-Israel group in her campaign for re-election to city council.
But following weeks of debate in the local chapter, Raman won its official endorsement Wednesday, paving the way for the leftist group to organize for her campaign to unseat incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.
The endorsement, which reportedly came with the support of more than 60 percent of some 1,400 voting members, vindicated Raman’s breaking with the group on Israel and other issues. It also comes after the councilmember stated definitively that she believed the war in Gaza constituted a genocide — a basic litmus test inside the hardline anti-Zionist group.
Raman, 45, seemed to allude to the conflict in a statement thanking the organization.
“This endorsement means something because of what it represents: a coalition of people who don’t always agree on every question, but who agree that LA needs real change,” Raman wrote on Instagram, adding. “It’s not about everyone thinking alike. It’s about building power together toward the same goal.”
The contentious endorsement process around Raman, one of the group’s national success stories and its first member to win citywide office in Los Angeles — three more have since joined her on city council — underscored the fierce ideological commitments in the DSA. Yet its outcome may not be entirely in her favor, as mainstream Jewish groups have come to hold DSA and its candidates in contempt.
Raman has rarely fit neatly into the group’s political conventions. On Oct. 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 people were killed in Israel, the national DSA club publicly blamed Israel for incurring the Hamas-led attack. Raman — whose district included heavily Jewish neighborhoods like Hancock Park and Sherman Oaks — had quickly issued a statement standing with her Jewish and Israeli constituents. A few days later, she also disavowed the DSA response, calling it “unacceptably devoid of empathy.”
Her positions on the Middle East frustrated Israel’s supporters, too. In June 2024, she helped pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire and release of hostages, infuriating the local Jewish federation and other Jewish groups, which said she was selling out Israel’s ability to defend itself.
Nevertheless, she earned the backing of Democrats for Israel-Los Angeles in her run for re-election that year, with the president of the liberal Zionist group crediting her statement that Israel had a right to exist and her general engagement with Jewish constituents. Outraged, DSA’s members voted to censure her.
In the runup to June’s mayoral primary, Raman joined the livestream of leftist firebrand Hasan Piker, telling him she agreed that it was committing genocide in Gaza. But DSA did not endorse any candidate in the June 2026 primary — even as Raman was locked in a tight race with the conservative reality star Spencer Pratt for a spot in the November runoff. (Another DSA candidate, Rae Huang, placed a distant fifth.)
Asked whether she believed Israel was an apartheid state, Raman said, “Yeah, I think that they’re treating people unfairly, that they’re not treating people equally, and I’m critical of that.”
Israel is not the only wedge issue for Raman in DSA. She split with the group — and her democratic socialist peers on city council — on a local “mansion tax,” saying that it discouraged new multifamily housing construction. And she was one of only two councilmembers who railed against a controversial multibillion-dollar expansion of the LA convention center — even as the other DSA members, who have strong backing from the building trades unions, voted for it.
The debate within DSA was framed as ideological purity versus political pragmatism. Bass, a historically unpopular incumbent whose tenure included the most catastrophic wildfire the city had seen in decades, has governed as a centrist Democrat; though Raman is broadly aligned with DSA policy, some of the group’s members who opposed the endorsement wrote in a communist magazine this week that it should not be “rewarded based on ideological proximity.”
The DSA’s endorsement was the second major pickup for Raman in the last week; the powerful hospitality workers union, Unite Here Local 11, officially threw its support behind Raman Tuesday, though organized labor still largely backs Bass.
Now a new question emerges: whether the endorsement of a group with a few thousand members came too late. Peer-to-peer betting markets currently have Bass as a roughly 2-to-1 favorite.
Sean Wakasa, co-chair of the Los Angeles DSA chapter, told The New York Times the group was warming to the challenge.
“We have thousands of members who are ready to organize, talk to their neighbors, knock on doors and build power to shake up Los Angeles and build a brighter future,” Mr. Wakasa said.
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Why is this chef opening a kosher Israeli restaurant in LA right now?
How do you explain Malka, the new kosher Israeli restaurant in Beverly Hills?
I’m not talking about the food — I haven’t eaten there yet — I’m talking about the fact that it’s opening at all. Why would Eyal Shani — many of whose restaurants worldwide have faced protests, vandalism and physical attacks — dare to open another restaurant at this particularly fraught time?
“The whole situation is leading me to open more, more, more,” Shani told me when we met last week. “That is my reaction as a Jewish man. If they are trying to kill you, you should make a lot of children. And these are my children.”
We were sitting in the empty restaurant on the ground floor of the boutique SIXTY Hotel. Shani, who is 67, wore a T-shirt and dark khakis. With his stubbly beard and unruly gray hair, he could pass for an intense, very post-grad philosophy major. He put a plate of farmers market green grapes between us.
The night before, at a pre-opening event for journalists, influencers and, it seemed, models, the same space was packed. Piles of fresh raw vegetables — a Shani signature — filled the long bar counter along with perfect rectangles of toasted focaccia topped with either steak tartare or smoky eggplant caviar. The crowd swelled, the music blared, trays of mojitos and palomas disappeared. It was signature Shani — a frolic of nature, noise and Israeli food.
Now, the large, modern space — a rare high-end restaurant in Los Angeles’ ever-struggling kosher restaurant scene — was quiet. Shani leaned back into an earth-toned banquette and reflected for a moment on how those two words, “Israeli food,” have become so toxic, especially following Oct. 7.
Demonstrators accuse Israeli chefs of passing Palestinian food off as Israeli and of being complicit in their government’s actions. Shani’s business partner, Shahar Segal, did engage in marketing work with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the controversial U.S.-Israeli organization established to feed Gazans. But Israeli restaurants around the world with no such involvements have faced similar protests, as have Jewish-owned restaurants with no ties to Israel.
Malka’s opening follows the closure of Shani’s restaurants Miznon in Melbourne and Gila & Nancy in Berlin, both targeted by mobs chanting anti-Israel slogans.
The rioters in Melbourne entered MIznon, threw chairs, chanted “Death to the IDF!” and only stopped when the two owners of a nearby pizza place — both Lebanese — confronted them.
“In the end, they succeeded to kill the restaurant,” Shani said. “They almost killed our staff there.”
Shani happened to be at the restaurant in Berlin when dozens of protesters surrounded it, shouting, “Stop feeding genocide!”
He raced into the kitchen, put together some food platters and went outside to offer the demonstrators the opportunity to eat and talk.
“They didn’t want to eat,” he said. To them, he added, “Eating from an Israeli is like eating from Satan.”
Shani rejected the charge commonly leveled at Israeli chefs — that they have stolen Palestinian foods and recast them as Israeli.
“I always declare that I took a lot of inspiration from the Palestinians,” he said.
In 1989, Shani opened his first restaurant, Oceanus in Jerusalem. He was 29 and, he said, he knew nothing about food except that he loved bringing people together around it. He wanted to make something like the fresh focaccia an Italian Jewish neighbor once served him. The closest thing to it was the Arabic laffa Shani would buy from a closet-sized bakery in West Jerusalem.
“I had a cook, a Palestinian man from Hebron, a very talented man,” Shani said. “I loved him. He said, ‘Eyal, no problem, my grandmother makes it every day.’ He showed me.”
Shani brushed the finished bread with olive oil and showered it with fresh rosemary.
I told Shani that I ate at the now-closed Oceanus at the tim and to this day remember being served, when we sat down, fragrant sheets of his focaccia-laffa.
“It was a hybrid,” Shani said, “Palestinian, Italian and new Israeli. Each one is getting influenced by the other. You can’t do it with just one brain.”
Malka, a strictly kosher restaurant, presents a different kind of challenge to Shani, who is not an observant Jew. His Michelin-starred Manhattan restaurant Shmone offers, for instance, “A mountain of grilled calamari, okra, tomatoes and yogurt.”
But the chef who turned flour, yeast and water into a hybrid Palestinian-Israeli-Italian flatbread revels in facing constraints like kashrut.
“Each culture leads with its limitations,” he said. “These limitations are a blessing — they’re shaping your creation.”
The kosher stricture against cooking meat together with dairy products didn’t faze him.
“Take me off dairy, put a beautiful bottle of olive oil in front of me — what are the limitations?” he said. “And if there would be no olive oil anymore in the world, I would quit, I would not cook.”
Beyond the kitchen, Shani said he wanted to reach more Israelis with his food. About 70% of Israelis are strictly kosher or prefer it.
“So how can it be that we’re only cooking for the hipsters in Tel Aviv?” Shani said. “It’s unfair.”
The marketplace has rewarded Shani’s ability to combine local ingredients and techniques with creativity and showmanship. The chef has around 70 restaurants — neither he nor his publicist knew the exact number — including Malka’s in Tel Aviv, Miami and New York.
And the backlash isn’t close to stopping him. Shani just announced a new restaurant project in, yes, Melbourne.
“It doesn’t make me frightened,” he said. “It’s the way my personality reacts. I think it’s the instinct of survival. You just keep going.”
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