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Panettone, the Christmas cake, is having a moment — and a Jewish chef has carved off a big slice
(JTA) – Panettone, the fluffy, fruit-speckled archetypal Christmas cake, is this holiday season’s “it” dessert — and the creator of perhaps the most coveted version in the United States is an Israeli-American Jew.
The New York Times this week credited baker Roy Shvartzapel with spearheading “the American panettone revolution” through his business From Roy.
Shvartzapel has dedicated the bulk of his career to the airy Italian cakes, training under Iginio Massari, the undisputed master baker in Italy, and obsessing over each ingredient and step in the 40-hour production cycle. After a flurry of coverage in his company’s early days in 2016, and especially since being endorsed by Oprah Winfrey in 2018, Shvartzapel’s business has grown dramatically. Last year, he said he expected to sell nearly 300,000, at $75 a piece, both in stores and via mail order. This year, the price is $85, and preorders sold out by — without, Shvartzapel said on a podcast last year, any spending on marketing.
While Shvartzapel’s goal of turning panettone into a year-round treat means he has several non-traditional flavors in his repertoire, From Roy only offers a few at a time — and the company plans to keep it that way.
“There’s lots of pastry items that I love that I will never be making for my business,” Shvartzapel said on the podcast, with the chef Chris Cosentino. “I’m a big believer that less is more, generally speaking, in most things.”
Shvartzapel declined to comment to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this month, explaining through a publicist that he was too busy before Christmas to speak. But in public comments and social media posts made before this year’s panettone “gold rush,” as the New York Times put it, he has offered details about the intersection of his Jewish identity and his Christmas baking.
From Roy’s cherry, white chocolate and pistachio panettone with almond glaze and pearl sugar as seen in the company’s California kitchen, Oct. 20, 2016. (Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Born in Karmiel, Israel, where a statue modeled on his mother holding him as an infant stands in a park, Shvartzapel was raised in Houston and now lives in California’s Bay Area with his children and Israeli-born wife, who also helped launch From Roy. A devoted athlete as a teenager, he played collegiate basketball and spent time on Karmiel’s Maccabi team but realized he would never make the NBA.
“Like every good Jewish boy,” Shvartzapel told David Chang, the Momofuku chef, on a 2019 podcast interview, he considered becoming a lawyer before realizing that cooking played to his passions and strengths.
After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in 2004, Shvartzapel began looking for work in New York City. It was a cookbook by the Jewish baker Dorie Greenspan that indirectly led to his first job: He spotted a lemon tart in a new cafe that looked like one she had photographed by the master French chef Pierre Hermé, then talked his way into a job working there, at Bouley Bakery, under Hermé’s former executive chef. Ultimately, that led to him working in Paris, where he had the panettone that changed his life.
“The texture, the aroma, the chew,” he said in 2018. ”I tasted it and it was like one of those meditative lights-off moments. The crazy love affair began.”
Shvartzapel has spoken extensively about his intense work ethic, his struggles with depression and, of course, what sets his panettone apart from low-cost supermarket varieties. He has said less publicly about himself as a Jew. But last year, on Facebook, he wished his friends a happy Passover with a picture of a cheesy omelet and a side of chopped liver — both prepared with attention to the holiday’s prohibitions on leavened bread (such as panettone) but, together, not a kosher meal.
“Modern jew … I mean, gotta combine the dairy and the meat to make it particularly kosher for Passover,” he wrote, adding laughing emojis.
Although panettone is often mentioned in the same breath as its Jewish enriched-dough cousin, babka, its history is rooted in the Catholic Church. Legend has it that it was created by accident on a 15th-century Christmas Eve, and was served to Catholic students and even the pope by the 1500s, according to records from the time.
Still, it makes sense that America’s most prominent panettone maker is Jewish, according to Debbie Prinz, a food historian and author of the forthcoming book “On The Bread Trail,” which grew out of her exploration of Jewish celebration cakes.
“It’s not surprising that there’s this interchange, especially today, since the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews are even fewer than they used to be,” Prinz said.
But while Shvartzapel’s panettone path may be modern, historic patterns of cultural collision have often cut the other way, sending traditionally Jewish foods onto the Christmas table.
One notable example appears to be lebkuchen, a fruit-studded spice cookie popular in Germany. While the origins of the treat are not clear, one theory is that lebkuchen entered German cuisine through lekach, a honey cake eaten by Italian Jewish traders passing through during the Middle Ages, according to researchers at the Leo Baeck Institute, a German Jewish institution. (German Jews fleeing the Nazis imported contemporary lebkuchen recipes and, in several cases, became successful lebkuchen purveyors in New York.)
Meanwhile, in panettone’s home country of Italy, traditional Christmas menus include a host of dishes that are likely to have originated in Jewish kitchens: pezzetti fritti or mixed fried vegetables; bigoli, or buckwheat noodles, with onion and anchovies; spongata, a cake imported from Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition; and nociata, or nut bars.
Legendary panettone maker Iginio Massari poses in his bakery Pasticceria Veneto in Brescia, Italy, in June 2019. (Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)
Many of those foods were historically Jewish because they made use of ingredients such as eggplant that were considered distasteful by non-Jewish Italians, or of ingredients such as anchovies that Jews used because they were not permitted to access higher-quality fish.
“There are a number of recipes that we call Jewish that came out of the fact that the Italians were really nasty to Jews,” said Benedetta Jasmine Guetta, author of “Cooking all Guidia: A Celebration of the Jewish Food of Italy.”
“Most of the time, actually I’m going to say 100% of the time, people don’t know” that the dishes were originally Jewish, Guetta added. “This is a common problem and the reason why I wrote my book.”
But while Guetta’s focus is on the Jewish foods of Italy, in December, she often turns to that famous domed Christmas cake.
“I have definitely grown up eating a great deal of panettone. My parents checked the ingredients to make sure it didn’t contain pork fat,” she said. “It’s a yummy seasonal treat.”
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The post Panettone, the Christmas cake, is having a moment — and a Jewish chef has carved off a big slice appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Seder under sirens: Israelis mark Passover in the shadow of war with Iran
(JTA) — TEL AVIV — The day before Yael Ben Cnaan was set to take over ownership of Bishvil Flowers, a corner flower shop located in the upscale Lev Hair neighborhood, an Iranian cluster munition landed on the street outside.
The March 9 impact shattered the store’s windows and left shrapnel holes in the walls. The flowers inside, which Ben Cnaan was unable to access due to police closure of the street, were left to wilt. “In the meantime, the shop was not operating. There was no income, but the expenses continue: rent, payments and commitments I already took on when entering the business,” Ben Cnaan said.
All of this took place in the lead-up to the Passover holiday, which, according to Ben Cnaan, is the most important time of year for flower shops like hers.
“We depend on the revenue during these weeks to keep us alive,” she said in an interview at her shop.
Ben Cnaan was seemingly undeterred by the strike and wasted no time setting up a crowdfunding campaign and posting on Instagram that she would soon reopen with a limited number of orders available for pickup ahead of the holiday. “I don’t have a choice. If I don’t manage to sell bouquets, we would have to close.”
An online fundraiser has raised 45,000 shekels (about $14,000), according to Ben Cnaan, allowing her to cover repair costs in the short term. But the long-term survival of the shop, which has become a community staple over its 17 years, remains uncertain.
In the Instagram post announcing the limited resumption of sales, she urged community members to consider purchasing bouquets or making donations to help sustain the business. “It will likely not be enough,” Ben Cnaan added.
Nearly four weeks into Israel’s war with Iran, which has quickly escalated into a regional conflict, stories like Ben Cnaan’s are commonplace. Businesses are struggling due to widespread closures and damage from Iranian missiles, which have killed at least 18 Israelis since the start of the war on Feb. 28.
Now, Israelis are starting the Passover holiday under wartime, with the conflict casting a somber shadow on the celebrations. Iran launched the largest missile salvo since the start of the war as families sat down to their seders on Wednesday night.
Earlier in the morning, as Iran launched another barrage of missiles toward central Israel, one man was killed, and at least 11 others were injured.
The missiles punctured efforts to approximate normality in the hours leading into the holiday. Early Wednesday morning, Orthodox families gathered to burn chametz, or leavened grains prohibited during the holiday, before the deadline to sell or discard it, while more secular families walked their dogs just hours after multiple sirens sounded due to incoming missile attacks. Throughout the day, Israelis preparing their meals had to pause cooking and cleaning to run to their shelters multiple times.
With a ban on large public gatherings still in place, major public seders, such as those typically hosted by synagogues in Tel Aviv, had waiting lists hundreds of people long.
And hotels hosting Passover retreats saw widespread cancellations as travelers from abroad were unable to get to Israel, and as families changed their plans to stay closer to home.
The war has also prompted new reflections on the meaning of the holiday. “We know there were Passover celebrations in all kinds of surreal circumstances. My grandmother told stories about celebrating Passover during the Holocaust,” said Avital Rosenberger, head of the emergency unit at the Israeli branch of the Joint Distribution Committee. “It’s still our mission to remember, to maintain routine and to ask what freedom really means.”
The JDC has been on the front lines of assisting Israelis affected by the war, including residents of Beit Shemesh, Arad, and Dimona whose homes were destroyed by ballistic missile strikes.
Those involved in relief efforts fear the full scale of the damage will only become clear after the war ends.
“We are so deep in it, and I’m not sure we’re seeing the whole picture,” said Rosenberger. “Some of the damage, especially the mental and emotional toll, will only emerge at the end. We already understand what’s coming.”
The growing human toll is one dimension of the damage. Ben Cnaan’s example underscores the financial toll of the ongoing war, as well.
On the morning of Passover, while many other stores on Lincoln Street remained closed, Ben Cnaan was still at work taking orders and assembling bouquets for last-minute shoppers.
A concept and tattoo artist who lives in Tel Aviv, she has worked on films including “Beirut,” starring Jon Hamm, Ben Cnaan worked in the flower shop for years before taking ownership. Because her business sustained physical damage due to the war, she is eligible for state compensation to offset losses and fund limited repairs. But she still fears that she will need to close down if business does not pick up soon.
According to estimates from Israel’s Finance Ministry, the economy is losing at least 4.3 billion shekels per week due to the fighting. As gas prices continue to rise following disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, civilians, whether affected directly by missile strikes or rising costs, are bearing the burden of the war.
For Johnny, who is spending a year volunteering with the JDC on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra in the north, the toll of the war ahead of the holiday is becoming increasingly stark.
“They’re exhausted. They’re absolutely exhausted. And the thought of several more months like this could really break their spirit,” she said.
Johnny, who is Israeli but has lived most of her life in the United States, returned before the current round of fighting. She said it has been reassuring to be closer to her mother in the Galilee while volunteering on the kibbutz.
“At the same time, the community is incredibly supportive and empowering,” Johnny added. “I know they’ll be OK.”
She said she knows her seder plans with a host family in Rosh Hanikra may be interrupted by incoming missiles from Lebanon but remains in good spirits.
“We may have to head to the shelter,” she said. “But it’s certainly not the worst conditions for a seder our people have had to endure.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Seder under sirens: Israelis mark Passover in the shadow of war with Iran appeared first on The Forward.
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Antisemitic Incidents in Brazil Shot Up 149% Since 2022, New Figures Show
Demonstrators wear keffiyehs during an anti-Israel protest during the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas from Gaza, in front of the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper offices, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Oct. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli
Brazil has experienced a major surge in antisemitism following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to newly unveiled research.
The Israelite Confederation of Brazil (CONIB), the country’s main Jewish umbrella organization, on Monday released its annual report on antisemitism for 2025.
StandWithUs Brazil, the Holocaust Memorial of São Paulo, ECOA, and the Holocaust Museum of Curitiba all contributed to the report, which CONIB described as “the most comprehensive ever produced in the country.”
Analysts found 989 antisemitic incidents were registered in the country in 2025, representing a 149 percent explosion from the 397 documented acts of bigotry against Jews in 2022.
Brazil is currently home to an estimated 120,000 Jews, the second largest population in Latin America behind Argentina.
CONIB President Claudio Lottenberg introduced the report by sharing wisdom from his mother-in-law Esther Sztamfater, a Holocaust survivor.
“Esther survived the war as a refugee in the Polish forests for three years. Three years in hiding. Cold, hungry, afraid — and with a lucidity about human nature that I have never seen in any other human being,” Lottenberg said. “Over 25 years, we had hundreds of conversations. Sometimes long. Sometimes just a sentence. But always with the same underlying lesson: The horror doesn’t begin in the gas chambers. It begins before. It begins with the tolerated word, the repeated lie, the stigma that no one questions. And that’s why this report matters.”
Warning that the numbers in the report represent “a snapshot of an environment that’s forming,” Lottenberg described the developing picture as “one that Esther would recognize.” He said that “antisemitism, as Esther taught me, doesn’t announce its arrival. It settles in gradually. In the tolerance of lies. In the indulgence towards aggression. In the silent acceptance of intimidation. And when a minority needs to get used to fear to preserve its community life, the problem is no longer the minority’s. It is democracy’s. It is Brazil’s.”
CONIB’s Secretary Rony Vainzof added that “antisemitism in Brazil has not receded; it has become normalized. Unfortunately, this is the new normal.”
CONIB’s legal director Andrea Vainer emphasized that antisemitism in Brazil “constitutes a crime of racism. And the law that protects us in this regard is Law 7716 of 1989.” He added that Brazil “has a whole constitutional framework to punish racism in general.”
Under Law 7716, those convicted of racial discrimination in hiring can face prison sentences of as much as five years. Individuals who incite racism or other forms of ethnic and religious bigotry face a maximum of three years. However, Brazilians who choose to use mass media in promoting their hateful feelings could spend five years in jail and face a fine.
The report showed that antisemitic incidents peaked last year in June with 138 cases reported. The Brazilian states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul accounted for 40 percent of all outrages.
In looking at social media-related complaints, researchers found Instagram came in worst with 37.13 percent of online reports. In a survey of Jews conducted for the report, 81.5 percent of respondents named online hate speech as the threat that most worried them for the future.
The survey also showed that 46 percent of Jews had experienced antisemitism in their professional lives and 39.84 percent had concealed or considered concealing their Jewish identity for fear of moral or physical aggression.
Twenty-five percent of Jews surveyed said they experienced antisemitism in the workplace. A minority of Jews said they reported antisemitic incidents they witnessed, with only 32.58 percent saying they informed a Jewish organization or safety group.
The report also found gaps in Holocaust education in Brazil, with a general survey finding only 53 percent able to correctly define the Holocaust and 87.3 percent saying they have never participated in any Holocaust educational activities, including those in school.
Rising antisemitism came amid growing tensions between Israel and Brazil.
In August, Israel announced it was downgrading diplomatic relations with Brazil after Brasília rejected its proposed ambassador.
“[Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] has now revealed himself as an outspoken antisemite and Hamas supporter by pulling Brazil out of the IHRA, the international body established to fight antisemitism and hatred toward Israel, aligning the country with regimes such as Iran, which openly denies the Holocaust and threatens the existence of the Jewish state,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel posted on social media at the time.
Months earlier, Lula accused the Jewish state of committing genocide and intentionally targeted women and children during its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
CONIB denounced Lula for his claims, accusing him of promoting an “antisemitic libel.”
Lula previously compared Israel to Nazi Germany and the war in Gaza to the Holocaust — a comparison described as an example of anti-Jewish hate under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
In May 2024, Lula recalled Brazil’s ambassador from Israel.
In a panel discussion on Monday following the opening remarks presenting the report on antisemitism, CONIB’s Volunteer Director Paula Puppi discouraged people from feeling like they needed to argue on social media, stating that the platforms failed to foster healthy discussions.
“It’s a shallow, polarized environment where there’s no room for debate. And it’s not possible to be profound in a shallow environment,” Puppi said. “And that’s a mistake we make when we try to debate in that environment.”
Puppi urged attendees that “we need to learn how to deal with this environment. And that’s why this monitoring work that CONIB has been doing is so important.”
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Argentina Designates IRGC as Terror Group, Deepening Alignment with US, Israel Amid Iran War
Argentine President Javier Milei speaks at the 12th annual Algemeiner J100 Gala on March 9, 2026, in New York City.
Argentina has officially designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, the latest signal of Buenos Aires’ tightening alignment with the US and Israel as tensions across the Middle East continue to rise.
President Javier Milei’s decision, announced on Tuesday, will expand the country’s previous counterterrorism framework to allow sweeping financial sanctions and additional restrictions against Iran’s ruling regime.
The move builds on Argentina’s designation in January to proscribe specifically the IRGC’s Quds Force, the elite unit responsible for directing Tehran’s proxy militias and overseas terrorist operations.
In a statement from his office, Milei announced the latest designation and, citing findings by Argentina’s federal courts, accused some IRGC members of involvement in planning and executing the two deadliest terrorist attacks in the nation’s history.
Argentina has long believed the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah was responsible for both the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires that killed 22 people and wounded more than 200, and the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center that left 85 dead and over 300 injured.
“This government is determined to ensure that the Argentine Republic once again aligns itself with Western civilization, while firmly condemning and confronting those who seek to destroy it,” the statement read.
In 2019, marking the 25th anniversary of the AMIA atrocity, Argentina formally designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, intensifying its decades-long campaign to bring justice to the victims.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Tuesday praised Milei’s decision as a bold moral stand against Iran’s global terrorist network and a powerful signal of deepening strategic alignment between Jerusalem and Buenos Aires.
“This decision … places Argentina … at the forefront of the free world in the fight against the Iranian regime of terror and its proxies,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“With this decision, President Milei — one of the greatest leaders of our generation — has once again demonstrated moral clarity and an unwavering commitment to the values of freedom and the fight against its enemies,” he continued.
I thank the President of Argentina @JMilei for his decision, on the eve of Passover, the Festival of Freedom, to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.
This decision follows his designation of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations, and places… https://t.co/Y26ZXcimPI
— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 1, 2026
Iran lambasted Argentina’s decision, calling it a strategic mistake and violation of international law that will damage bilateral relations. The Iranian media outlet WANA (West Asia News Agency) reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that, through their blacklisting the IRGC, Argentine leaders have “positioned themselves as partners in committed crimes and stand on the wrong side of history, triggering international responsibility for the Argentine government.”
As the ongoing US–Israeli military campaign against Iran continued to dismantle senior leadership within the regime’s security apparatus, newly appointed IRGC chief Ahmad Vahidi took over the force earlier this month after his predecessor, Mohammad Pakpour, was killed in the strikes.
Vahidi faces charges from Argentine authorities over his alleged involvement in the 1994 AMIA bombing.
At that time, Vahidi commanded the Quds Force.
Since taking office over a year ago, Milei has been one of Israel’s most vocal supporters, strengthening bilateral relations to unprecedented levels and in the process breaking with decades of Argentine foreign policy tradition to firmly align with Jerusalem and Washington.
With the outbreak of the war against Iran in late February, Milei has repeatedly voiced strong support for the US-Israeli campaign and offered steadfast political backing even as the Islamist regime continues issuing threats against the country.
Less than a year after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Argentina became the first Latin American country to designate the Palestinian Islamist group as a terrorist organization.
Last year, Milei formally launched the Isaac Accords with the aim of strengthening political, economic, and cultural cooperation between the Jewish state and Latin American governments.
The Argentine leader also announced plans to relocate the country’s embassy to Jerusalem next spring, fulfilling a promise made last year, as the two allies continue to strengthen their bilateral ties.