RSS
New Yorkers are buzzing about local honey this Rosh Hashanah
(New York Jewish Week) — Five years ago, Gadi Peleg, the owner and founder of Breads Bakery — an Israeli-style bakery with roots in Tel Aviv and stores around Manhattan — began to sell New York City-harvested honey in his stores in the weeks before Rosh Hashanah. It was an instant hit.
All the products at Breads (other than soft drinks) are prepared in-house, and it made sense to Peleg that the honey be proprietary, too. So Peleg turned to Andrew Coté, a fourth-generation beekeeper and owner of Andrew’s Honey, who has more than 100 hives around the city.
“Honey from the city is cleaner than honey from the countryside,” Coté, who is Jewish, told the New York Jewish Week. “Very few to no pesticides are sprayed in Manhattan.”
Beekeeping became legal in New York City in 2010, at which time 42 bee owners were registered. According to the New York City Health Department, there are currently 121 beekeepers registered with the city. Tom Wilk, New York City director of the Empire State Honey Producers Associations, estimates that there are probably twice that amount. “People are afraid of letting the government know what they are doing,” he said.
Interest in beekeeping continues to grow, and there are classes on beekeeping throughout the city. Brooklyn Grange, a leading rooftop farming business, holds a Beekeeping 101 class at its Brooklyn Navy Yard location. In Astoria, Queens, Nick and Ashley Hoefly, will soon open the city’s only dedicated honey shop, The Honey House at Astor Apiaries where you can try honey, take classes in beekeeping, gardening and cooking.
September is a busy month for New York City’s beekeepers. Rosh Hashanah, and its custom to put honey on the holiday table, jacks up demand — and demand in a city with 1.6 million Jews is steep. What’s more, September is a big harvesting month and, for the last 13 years, the Queens Beekeepers Guild has hosted a honey festival on the second Saturday in September on the boardwalk in Rockaway Beach.
Coté, founder of the New York City Beekeepers Association and the author of a book about urban beekeeping, is perhaps the best known of the beekeepers spread across the five boroughs. He and Peleg first became acquainted at the Union Square Greenmarket, where Coté sells his wares. The four-day-a-week market is just down the block from Breads’ original Manhattan location on West 16th Street. It was a win-win situation for the two businessmen: The beekeeper gained an additional revenue stream while the baker acquired an exclusive source of honey from a producer who’s landed on “best” lists.
Of Coté’s dozens of hives, four of them are earmarked for Breads. They are located on the roof of a building at 19th Street and Broadway.
“When people hear the honey comes from hives a few blocks away, they react with disbelief,” said Samantha Mele, logistics manager at Breads Bakery. She is referred to as its “Queen Bee” — both because of her focus on details and her involvement in the honey project. “Longtime customers will pre-order since they know we sell out.”
“We first prioritize jarring the honey,” Peleg said. “People really enjoy it obviously with apples and on our challah bread.” He added that Breads sells “ many, many hundreds of jars” of the stuff each fall.
Breads also uses honey — local, if available after jarring, as well as honey sourced elsewhere — in a variety of Rosh Hashanah baked goods, including honey cake, medovik (a caramelized biscuit layer cake made with buckwheat honey), honey rugelach and safta cake (a honey, cinnamon and apple cake).
The amount of honey harvested from Breads’ four hives changes year to year, and the flavor — which depends on where the bees collected their pollen, and when the honey was harvested from the hives — varies, too.
“Generally the earlier honey [of the season] is lighter and the later honey is darker,” Coté said. “That’s because of what is in bloom at different times of the year. The early harvest [in New York] is full of pollen from linden trees.” Pollen from these European lindens, according to the Central Park Conservancy, makes a delicately flavored honey.
Beekeeping is a full-time job for some New Yorkers, like Coté, who grew up keeping bees in Quebec with a Catholic and Native American father and a Jewish mother. “My mother’s family was thrilled to have beekeepers in the family, since it meant a relatively endless supply of fresh pure honey, for all occasions, but most especially for Rosh Hashanah,” he said.
For other urban beekeepers, it’s “a hobby that pays its own way,” according to part-time beekeeper Menachem Husarsky of Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.
Husarsky began raising honey bees three years ago, at his wife’s request. She, along with their daughter, suffers from seasonal allergies, and many believe that ingesting locally sourced honey helps people build immunity to their pollen. (Alas, the medical community is divided on this.)
“Menachem took the idea and ran with it,” said Malka Husarsky, Menachem’s wife, who recalled her own mother eating local honey to help with her allergies.
Within a year, the family’s COVID-era hobby grew into a small business. In 2021, they began to sell their honey, The Birds and the Bees Brooklyn. Most of the sales are via Facebook, to the local communities of Ditmas Park and Kensington, but they also sell to their fellow Orthodox neighbors at their upstate home at Vacation Village in Monticello, New York.
So far, this year, the Husarskys have harvested 170 pounds of honey from four hives located in the modest side yard of their Brooklyn home. This season’s flavors are rare: “We have apple, cherry and peach trees on our property,” Husarsky said. “We have Meyer lemon and clementine trees in pots. A lot of our neighbors in the area grow mint and someone was growing hot peppers.”
By the end of this season, they expect to extract a total of 375 pounds of honey, which they sell for between $2 to $3 an ounce (the peach honey, which has a more limited supply, goes for $3 an ounce).
Sales, said Husarsky, “kick up in September around Rosh Hashanah,” and they usually sell out.
And at the Husarsky family’s celebration of Rosh Hashanah, “We intend, of course, to dip our apples in our honey,” said Menachem Husarsky. “We have apple trees on both our properties with apples ready for Rosh Hashanah.”
“We’re excited and blessed to spend the holiday with family,” Malka Husarsky added. “ It will be really special to have our family around the table, filled with items from Hashem and our urban farm.”
And there may be Jewish lessons to be learned from beekeeping, too. According to Rabbi Eitan Webb, director of the Chabad House at Princeton University: “Honey bees all work together in unity. They know that time is short and there is so much to do, and they run around as fast as they can, so they can create something good.”
“Bees make honey, but they also sting when they are threatened,” he added. The late Chabad rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, “suggests that, like bees, our primary role is to do mitzvahs, bringing sweetness to the world. Though we have the power to sting, we should reserve it for sparing use and only in defense of our treasure: Judaism.”
At Breads, the crew there has been preparing for Rosh Hashanah — which begins on the evening of Friday, Sept. 15 — since March. “We realize what a huge responsibility it is to ensure that people can celebrate the holiday,” Peleg said. “We take that responsibility very, very seriously.”
As for Coté, he and his family celebrate Rosh Hashanah by having — you guessed it — a honey-based feast. First, there is honey cake. “Our honey cake is always made with buckwheat honey for a much richer and more satisfying (in my opinion) honey cake,” Cote wrote to the New York Jewish Week.
Then, there is the honey and apple tasting. “Since I work at a farmers’ market, I always command a wide spread of different apples,” he said. “These are sliced and sorted and dipped in an almost equally diverse selection of honey.”
—
The post New Yorkers are buzzing about local honey this Rosh Hashanah appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire Deal ‘Tantamount to a Hezbollah Defeat,’ Says Leading War Studies Think Tank
Israeli tanks are being moved, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in the Golan Heights, Sept. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
The terms of the newly minted ceasefire agreement to halt fighting between Israel and Hezbollah amounts to a defeat for the Lebanese terrorist group, although the deal may be difficult to implement, according to two leading US think tanks.
The deal requires Israeli forces to gradually withdraw from southern Lebanon, where they have been operating since early October, over the next 60 days. Meanwhile, the Lebanese army will enter these areas and ensure that Hezbollah retreats north of the Litani River, located some 18 miles north of the border with Israel. The United States and France, who brokered the agreement, will oversee compliance with its terms.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in conjunction with the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project (CTP), explained the implications of the deal on Tuesday in their daily Iran Update, “which provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests.” Hezbollah, which wields significant political and military influence across Lebanon, is the chief proxy force of the Iranian regime.
In its analysis, ISW and CTP explained that the deal amounts to a Hezbollah defeat for two main reasons.
First, “Hezbollah has abandoned several previously-held ceasefire negotiation positions, reflecting the degree to which IDF [Israel Defense Forces] military operations have forced Hezbollah to abandon its war aims.”
Specifically, Hezbollah agreeing to a deal was previously contingent on a ceasefire in Gaza, but that changed after the past two months of Israeli military operations, during which the IDF has decimated much of Hezbollah’s leadership and weapons stockpiles through airstrikes while attempting to push the terrorist army away from its border with a ground offensive.
Additionally, the think tanks noted, “current Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem has also previously expressed opposition to any stipulations giving Israel freedom of action inside Lebanon,” but the deal reportedly allows Israel an ability to respond to Hezbollah if it violates the deal.
Second, the think tanks argued that the agreement was a defeat for Hezbollah because it allowed Israel to achieve its war aim of making it safe for its citizens to return to their homes in northern Israel.
“IDF operations in Lebanese border towns have eliminated the threat of an Oct. 7-style offensive attack by Hezbollah into northern Israel, and the Israeli air campaign has killed many commanders and destroyed much of Hezbollah’s munition stockpiles,” according to ISW and CTP.
Some 70,000 Israelis living in northern Israel have been forced to flee their homes over the past 14 months, amid unrelenting barrages of rockets, missiles, and drones fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah began its attacks last Oct. 8, one day after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel. The Jewish state had been exchanging fire with Hezbollah but intensified its military response over the past two months.
Northern Israelis told The Algemeiner this week that they were concerned the new ceasefire deal could open the door to future Hezbollah attacks, but at the same time the ceasefire will allow many of them the first opportunity to return home in a year.
ISW and CTP also noted in their analysis that Israel’s military operations have devastated Hezbollah’s leadership and infrastructure. According to estimates, at least 1,730 Hezbollah terrorists and upwards of 4,000 have been killed over the past year of fighting.
While the deal suggested a defeat of sorts for Hezbollah and the effectiveness of Israel’s military operations, ISW and CTP also argued that several aspects of the ceasefire will be difficult to implement.
“The decision to rely on the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and UN observers in Lebanon to respectively secure southern Lebanon and monitor compliance with the ceasefire agreement makes no serious changes to the same system outlined by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war,” they wrote.
Resolution 1701 called for the complete demilitarization of Hezbollah south of the Litani River and prohibited the presence of armed groups in Lebanon except for the official Lebanese army and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
This may be an issue because “neither the LAF nor the UN proved willing or able to prevent Hezbollah from reoccupying southern Lebanon and building new infrastructure. Some LAF sources, for example, have expressed a lack of will to enforce this ceasefire because they believe that any fighting with Hezbollah would risk triggering ‘civil war,’” the think tanks assessed.
Nevertheless, the LAF is going to deploy 5,000 troops to the country’s south in order to assume control of their own territory from Hezbollah.
However, the think tanks added, “LAF units have been in southern Lebanon since 2006, but have failed to prevent Hezbollah from using the area to attack Israel.”
The post Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire Deal ‘Tantamount to a Hezbollah Defeat,’ Says Leading War Studies Think Tank first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
What Nutmeg and the Torah Teach Us About Securing a Long-Term Future
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
Here’s a fact from history you may not know. In 1667, the Dutch and the British struck a trade deal that, in retrospect, seems so bizarre that it defies belief.
As part of the Treaty of Breda — a pact that ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War and aimed to solidify territorial claims between the two powers — the Dutch ceded control of Manhattan to the British.
Yes, that Manhattan — the self-proclaimed center of the universe (at least according to New Yorkers), home to Wall Street, Times Square, and those famously overpriced bagels.
And what did the Dutch get in return? Another island — tiny Run, part of the Banda Islands in Indonesia.
To put things in perspective, Run is minuscule compared to Manhattan — barely 3 square kilometers, or roughly half the size of Central Park. Today, it’s a forgotten dot on the map, with a population of less than 2,000 people and no significant industry beyond subsistence farming. But in the 17th century, Run was a prized gem worth its weight in gold — or rather, nutmeg gold.
Nutmeg was the Bitcoin of its day, an exotic spice that Europeans coveted so desperately they were willing to risk life and limb. Just by way of example, during the early spice wars, the Dutch massacred and enslaved the native Bandanese people to seize control of the lucrative nutmeg trade.
From our modern perspective, the deal seems ridiculous — Manhattan for a pinch of nutmeg? But in the context of the 17th century, it made perfect sense. Nutmeg was the crown jewel of global trade, and controlling its supply meant immense wealth and influence. For the Dutch, securing Run was a strategic move, giving them dominance in the spice trade, and, let’s be honest, plenty of bragging rights at fancy Dutch banquets.
But history has a funny way of reshaping perspectives. What seemed like a brilliant play in its time now looks like a colossal miscalculation — and the annals of history are filled with similar trades that, in hindsight, make us scratch our heads and wonder, what were they thinking?
Another contender for history’s Hall of Fame in ludicrous trades is the Louisiana Purchase. In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was strapped for cash and eager to fund his military campaigns, sold a vast swath of North America to the nascent United States for a mere $15 million. The sale included 828,000 square miles — that’s about four cents an acre — that would become 15 states, including the fertile Midwest and the resource-rich Rocky Mountains.
But to Napoleon, this was a strategic no-brainer. He even called the sale “a magnificent bargain,” boasting that it would “forever disarm” Britain by strengthening its rival across the Atlantic. At the time, the Louisiana Territory was seen as a vast, undeveloped expanse that was difficult to govern and defend. Napoleon viewed it as a logistical burden, especially with the looming threat of British naval power. By selling the territory, he aimed to bolster France’s finances and focus on European conflicts.
Napoleon wasn’t shy about mocking his enemies for their mistakes, once quipping, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” But in this case, it’s tempting to imagine him swallowing those words as the United States grew into a global superpower thanks, in no small part, to his so-called bargain.
While he may have considered Louisiana to be a logistical headache — too far away and too vulnerable to British attacks — the long-term implications of the deal were staggering. What Napoleon dismissed as a far-off backwater turned out to be the world’s breadbasket, not to mention the backbone of America’s westward expansion.
Like the Dutch and their nutmeg gamble, Napoleon made a trade that no doubt seemed brilliant at the time — but, with hindsight, turned into a world-class blunder. It’s the kind of decision that reminds us just how hard it is to see past the urgency of the moment and anticipate the full scope of consequences.
Which brings me to Esav. You’d think Esav, the firstborn son of Yitzchak and Rivka, would have his priorities straight. He was the guy — heir to a distinguished dynasty that stretched back to his grandfather Abraham, who single-handedly changed the course of human history.
But one fateful day, as recalled at the beginning of Parshat Toldot, Esav stumbles home from a hunting trip, exhausted and ravenous. The aroma of Yaakov’s lentil stew hits him like a truck. “Pour me some of that red stuff!” he demands, as if he’s never seen food before.
Yaakov, never one to pass up an opportunity, doesn’t miss a beat.
“Sure, but only in exchange for your birthright,” he counters casually, as if such transactions are as common as trading baseball cards. And just like that, Esav trades his birthright for a bowl of soup. No lawyers, no witnesses, not even a handshake — just an impulsive decision fueled by hunger and a staggering lack of foresight.
The Torah captures the absurdity of the moment: Esav claims to be “on the verge of death” and dismisses the birthright as worthless. Any future value — material or spiritual — is meaningless to him in that moment. All that matters is satisfying his immediate needs.
So, was it really such a terrible deal? Psychologists have a term for Esav’s behavior: hyperbolic discounting — a fancy term for our tendency to prioritize immediate rewards over bigger, long-term benefits.
It’s the same mental quirk that makes splurging on a gadget feel better than saving for retirement, or binge-watching a series more appealing than preparing for an exam. For Esav, the stew wasn’t just a meal — it was the instant solution to his discomfort, a quick fix that blinded him to the larger, long-term value of his birthright.
It’s the classic trade-off between now and later: the craving for immediate gratification often comes at the expense of something far more significant. Esav’s impulsive decision wasn’t just about hunger — it was about losing sight of the future in the heat of the moment.
Truthfully, it’s easy to criticize Esav for his shortsightedness, but how often do we fall into the same trap? We skip meaningful opportunities because they feel inconvenient or uncomfortable in the moment, opting for the metaphorical lentil stew instead of holding out for the birthright.
But the Torah doesn’t include this story just to make Esav look bad. It’s there to highlight the contrast between Esav and Yaakov — the choices that define them and, by extension, us.
Esav represents the immediate, the expedient, the here-and-now. Yaakov, our spiritual forebear, is the embodiment of foresight and patience. He sees the long game and keeps his eye on what truly matters: Abraham and Yitzchak’s legacy and the Jewish people’s spiritual destiny.
The message of Toldot is clear: the choices we make in moments of weakness have the power to shape our future — and the future of all who come after us. Esav’s impulsiveness relegated him to a footnote in history, like the nutmeg island of Run or France’s control over a vast portion of North America.
Meanwhile, Yaakov’s ability to think beyond the moment secured him a legacy that continues to inspire and guide us to this day — a timeless reminder that true greatness is not built in a moment of indulgence, but in the patience to see beyond it.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
The post What Nutmeg and the Torah Teach Us About Securing a Long-Term Future first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Violating US Law, Palestinian Authority Brags That It’s Responsible for ICC Arrest Warrants
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
US law prohibits the Palestinian Authority (PA) from receiving aid from the Economic Support Fund if it works with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Israel.
Nevertheless, the PA, which has been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of US aid in recent years through multiple channels, played a leading role in the ICC’s case against Israel, and is now bragging about it:
International law researcher Jihad Al-Harazin: “We are beginning to see the fruits of the political, legal, and diplomatic efforts that the Palestinian leadership has undertaken over many years.
Since Palestine joined the ICC, it has been submitting daily requests to the ICC Prosecutor … about everything happening on Palestinian soil … We had to join this court, and our membership did not come out of a vacuum rather from extensive diplomatic efforts, led particularly by President Mahmoud Abbas …
From this, a brilliant political vision emerged that would force the occupation’s leaders to be brought before the most important international body for justice, the ICC, so they would be held accountable for their crimes. This leads us to appreciate the foresight and wisdom of President Mahmoud Abbas’ vision when he decided to join the ICC. [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, From the Capitals, November 25, 2024]
Al-Harazin’s lauding of Mahmoud Abbas’ wisdom follows a PA official announcement that it welcomes the ICC decision, and will continue to work to help the ICC in the case:
The State of Palestine Thursday welcomed the ICC decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former ‘Defense’ Minister Yoav Gallant …
It affirmed that it would continue to engage with international justice institutions and courts until all criminals who committed and are still committing crimes against the Palestinian people are held accountable to ensure justice and fairness to Palestinians. [emphasis added]
[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, Nov. 21, 2024]
Both the official statement and Al-Harazin’s bragging follow an admission by another official that the PA is actively participating in the ICC case against Israel:
Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadura Fares: “We in the [PLO] Commission of Prisoners’ [Affairs] and the [PA-funded] Prisoners’ Club, are documenting all the crimes.
We are cooperating with the committee that was established by decision of [PA] President [Abbas], a professional committee led by [PA] Attorney General Akram Al-Khatib. It is documenting the appropriate testimonies according to the required criteria so that these testimonies will be accepted before the ICC … [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Nov. 14, 2024]
American law is very clear about prohibiting the PA from receiving anything from the Economic Support Fund if it helps the ICC.
The 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act states:
None of the funds appropriated under the heading “Economic Support Fund” in this Act may be made available for assistance for the Palestinian Authority, if after the date of enactment of this Act … the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.”
Palestinian Media Watch already exposed in May 2021 how Jamil Sajadiyeh, the director of the PA Attorney’s Office for International Legal Cooperation, described the intensive PA-ICC cooperation:
Head of the PA Attorney’s Office for International Legal Cooperation Jamil Sajadiyeh: “There are efforts that have been made with or planned through joint meetings with the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Around 80 meetings have been held between Palestine and the ICC, of course with the office of ICC General Prosecutor [Fatou Bensouda]. There are nearly 60 cases and letters that have been submitted, all of them telling about the Israeli violations. Monthly reports are being submitted to the ICC via the general prosecutor through the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs. .. Palestine has submitted all it can in order to carry out these investigations … according to the instructions of His Honor President [Abbas] and all the relevant parties.” [emphasis added]
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, May 25, 2021]
The PA has been gloating over its achievements at the ICC and taking credit throughout the process. In May, when the ICC prosecutor submitted the requests for the arrest warrants, a Fatah official declared:
Fatah Jenin Branch member Nasri Hamamreh: “The political and diplomatic efforts … reached their height upon the achievement of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision. We as the Palestinian people view this as an achievement that can be added to a series of accumulated achievements
… It is an achievement for the wise leader of the Palestinian people [Mahmoud Abbas] who thinks of every way possible to bolster the Palestinian people’s resilience and to push the Israeli occupation into a corner, and to expose it, to expose its true ugly face to all the nations of the world.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, May 21, 2024]
Tayseer Nasrallah, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council who also said earlier this year that the ICC decision was a fruit of PA labor, now exclaimed that Palestinians were “living in a state of euphoria and joy” over the decision:
Fatah Revolutionary Council member Tayseer Nasrallah: “A courageous decision was made by the International Criminal Court, and we welcome their taking this position. We also welcome the countries that immediately acceded [to the warrant], especially the member states of the International Criminal Court.
Indeed, we are now living in a state of euphoria and joy that the world has begun to see this entity as a terrorist, criminal, and spurned entity that is in a state of isolation, with everyone acting against it. Netanyahu, Gallant, and the entire criminal gang who are still committing genocide and starvation against our people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Lebanon cannot leave [the country].”
[Official PA TV, November 24, 2024]
The PA is in good company, as Hamas also welcomed the decision:
Hamas Movement Political Bureau member Izzat Al-Rishq said that regardless of whether there is a possibility of implementing the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision, the truth that was revealed is that international justice is on our side and is against the Zionist entity. In a press release, Al-Rishq said: ‘This growing awareness and the exposure of the true terrorist face of the occupying entity (i.e., Israel) serves the Palestinian interest, the future of our cause, and our goal – liberation that will necessarily come, Allah willing.’ [emphasis added]
[Palestinian Information Center website (Hamas), Nov. 21, 2024]
Since the PA has indeed been actively and vigorously supporting the ICC’s case against Israel, it has been making a mockery of American wishes and legislation. It will only have itself to blame if and when the US government abides by the letter and intent of American law, and cuts off funding.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article was originally published by PMW.
The post Violating US Law, Palestinian Authority Brags That It’s Responsible for ICC Arrest Warrants first appeared on Algemeiner.com.