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The ‘iconic’ Jewish foods that make New York New York
(New York Jewish Week) — In 2004, June Hersh and her family sold the Bronx-based lighting business that her father founded almost 50 years earlier. Hersh, along with her mother, sister and their husbands, all worked there. The day of the sale, her sister, Andrea Greene, turned to Hersh and said: “We did well! Now, let’s do good.”
Greene, a breast cancer survivor, became a volunteer for the Israel Cancer Research Fund. Hersh, who was 48 at the time, asked herself what her “good” would be — she loved to cook, and she loved to write.
A couple of years later, she approached David Marwell, then the director of The Museum of Jewish Heritage–A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, offering to write a cookbook to benefit the museum. In it, she would tell the stories and recreate the recipes of museum members who were Holocaust survivors. The book, “Recipes Remembered, A Celebration of Survival” was published in 2011. To date, 25,000 copies of the book have been sold to benefit the museum as well as other Jewish organizations.
Since then, Hersh has written several other books with a philanthropic component, including “The Kosher Carnivore: The Ultimate Meat and Poultry Cookbook,” which benefited Mazon, a Jewish nonprofit working to combat hunger, and “Still Here: Inspiration from Survivors and Liberators of the Holocaust” with proceeds donated to Selfhelp, a social services agency aiding Holocaust survivors and the elderly in the New York metropolitan area.
This month, her fifth book, “Iconic New York Jewish Food,” was published, benefitting Met Council, a New York-based Jewish charity serving more than 315,000 needy people each year. As Met Council CEO David Greenfield writes in the book’s foreword, the organization operates “the largest emergency food system in America, focused on helping individuals and families who maintain kosher diets, as well as other religiously informed dietary practices.”
Hersh said was moved by Met Council’s inclusivity. “I don’t think Jewish organizations ever help only Jewish people,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “They always have a broad reach, and I am proud of that.”
In “Iconic New York Jewish Foods,” Hersh writes about Jewish foods that have, over time, become New York foods: bagels, egg creams, cheesecake, hot dogs and much more. The book combines humor (one chapter is titled: “Doesn’t That Look Appetizing: The Birth of a New York Phenomenon”), history (the evolution of the hot dog bun, for example) and recipes (like “Mash Up Hash Up Latkes,” potato pancakes made with corned beef and pastrami).
Hersh spoke with the New York Jewish Week about her book, what makes a Jewish food iconic, and what’s special about New York City.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
New York Jewish Week: What inspired you to write a book about iconic New York Jewish foods?
June Hersh: In the world of food, I have two passions. One is to tell the history of food. What is its lineage? How did it come to be? Who first ate it? Why is it important? My second passion is preserving the food memory of the Jewish people. I don’t think anything binds us together like food. It is the connective thread in the Jewish story.
What makes a food Jewish?
Most Jewish food is not easy to define. For Ruth Kohn, a Jewish refugee from Germany, arroz con pollo became a Jewish food that she made in her new home in Sosua, Dominican Republic. If you are looking for Jewish food, throw a dart on a map. Wherever it lands, you will find someone making Jewish food. It might not be the Jewish food we identify with, but it is Jewish food. It is informed by something in one’s heritage and culture — where the makers of it left or where they landed.
My grandmother was from the island of Rhodes. Her family came from Spain, and she spoke Ladino. Her food was informed by the Spanish techniques of her family and the Greek influences of the country where they landed after their expulsion from Spain.
Given your Sephardic background, why is the focus of the book on Ashkenazi foods?
Ashkenazi, Eastern European food is what informed the Jewish foodways of New York. The only iconic Sephardic food [in New York] is Turkish taffy which was introduced here by Herman Herer from Austria and Albert Bonomo, from Turkey.
What makes a Jewish food iconic?
A Jewish food becomes iconic when it is prevalent on menus, and not just in Jewish restaurants. Iconic food is something that has become part of everyone’s food culture.
An example would be New York cheesecake, a food you see on mainstream menus. Cheesecake, according to Alan Rosen, a third-generation proprietor of Junior’s, a Brooklyn restaurant known for it, is one of the most ordered desserts in any restaurant anywhere. And cheesecake didn’t exist in the same form in which it exists now until you had Jewish immigrants.
People eat hot dogs on rolls all the time. You didn’t have hot dogs on rolls until you had Jewish immigrants; that was born out of ingenuity, which is part of what I admire and respect and celebrate in Jewish food.
Can you give some examples of how Jewish food is embraced in NYC at large?
One of the best New York City bagel shops, Absolute Bagels, is run by a Thai baker. One of the best examples of old-school brisket comes from David’s Brisket House, owned by non-Jewish Yemenites. The beauty of the Jewish food of New York is how it is embraced by so many cultures who then give their spin and interpretation.
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Dublin to Rename Chaim Herzog Park in a Move Slammed as Attempt to Erase Jewish History
Anti-Israel demonstrators stand outside the Israeli embassy after Ireland has announced it will recognize a Palestinian state, in Dublin, Ireland, May 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Molly Darlington
i24 News – Citing the Gaza war, Dublin city council voted to rename a park honoring Israel’s sixth president, the Irish-born Chaim Herzog, in further manifestation of anti-Israel sentiment in the country.
While a new name is yet to be chosen, reports cite efforts by pro-Palestinian activists to change it to the “Free Palestine Park.”
Former Irish justice minister Alan Shatter harshly criticized the vote, charging that “Dublin City Council has now gone full on Nazi & a committee of the Council has determined it should erase Jewish/Irish history. Herzog Park in Rathgar is named after Chaim Herzog, Israel’s 6th President, brought up in Dublin by his father, Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, a friend of Eamon De Valera, who was Chief Rabbi of Ireland & Israel’s first Chief Rabbi… Some councillors want the Park renamed ‘Free Palestine Park.”
The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland issued a statement regarding the renaming of Herzog Park.
“It sends a hurtful and isolating message to a small minority community that has contributed to Ireland for centuries. We call on Dublin City Councillors to reject this motion. The removal of the Herzog name from this park would be widely understood as an attempt to erase our Irish Jewish history.”
A virtuoso diplomat and an intellectual giant, Herzog had served in a variety of roles throughout his storied career, including a memorable stint as the ambassador to the United Nations, where in 1975 he delivered a speech condemning the Soviet-engineered resolution to brand Zionism as a form of racism. The address is now regarded as a classic, along with the oration from the same session by the US Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar slammed the decision, saying that Ireland’s “antisemitic and anti-Israel obsession is sickening.”
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Qatar’s Al Thani to Visit Beirut Wednesday to Meet with Lebanon’s Leaders
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani makes statements to the media with then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Doha, Qatar, Oct. 13, 2023. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani will visit Beirut on Wednesday to meet with Lebanon’s leaders, Al-Jadeed reported Saturday.
The visit comes “as part of an effort inseparable from the efforts by Egypt in coordination with Arab countries, foremost among them Saudi Arabia.”
The trip coincides with a sensitive period for the country, ravaged by war and deep economic crisis.
Lebanon is under growing pressure from both Israel and the United States to more swiftly disarm Hezbollah and other Islamist groups across the country, with Israel increasingly inclined to stop the Shiite militia from rearming and rebuilding its infrastructure.
Hezbollah was left devastated in the aftermath of a nine-day war last year, that saw Israel take out its command structure and lay waste to a significant proportion of its missile arsenal.
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Pope Removes Shoes But Doesn’t Pray on Visit to Istanbul’s Blue Mosque
Pope Leo XIV visits the Sultanahmet Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, during his first apostolic journey, in Istanbul, Turkey, November 29, 2025. REUTERS/Kemal Aslan
Pope Leo visited Istanbul’s Blue Mosque on Saturday, removing his shoes in a sign of respect but not appearing to pray in his first visit as leader of the Catholic Church to a Muslim place of worship during his four-day visit to Turkey.
The first US pope bowed slightly before entering the mosque and was led on a tour of the expansive complex, able to hold 10,000 worshipers, by its imam and the mufti of Istanbul.
Leo, walking in white socks, smiled during the 20-minute visit and joked with one of his guides, the mosque’s lead muezzin – the official who leads the daily calls to prayer.
The Vatican appeared surprised that Leo had not stopped to pray during the visit and that he had not been welcomed to the mosque by the head of Turkey’s state-run religious organization, known as the diyanet, as had been planned.
About three hours after the visit, the Vatican released a press statement saying both the prayer and the welcome had occurred, although they had not. The Vatican press office said the release had been sent in error.
LEO’S FIRST TRIP AS POPE BEING CLOSELY WATCHED
Askin Musa Tunca, the muezzin, told journalists after the mosque visit that he asked Leo during the tour if he wished to pray for a moment, but the pope said he preferred to just visit the mosque.
The Vatican said in a statement immediately after the visit that Leo undertook the tour “in a spirit of reflection and listening, with deep respect for the place and for the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”
While Leo did not appear to pray during the tour, he did joke with Tunca. As the group was leaving the building, the pope noticed he was being guided out a door that is usually an entryway, where a sign says: “No exit.”
“It says no exit,” Leo said, smiling. Tunca responded: “You don’t have to go out, you can stay here.”
The pope is visiting Turkey until Sunday on his first overseas trip as pontiff, which also includes a visit to Lebanon.
Leo, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, is being closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and interacts for the first time with people outside mainly Catholic Italy.
The Blue Mosque is officially named for Sultan Ahmed I, leader of the Ottoman Empire from 1603 to 1617, who oversaw its construction. It is decorated with thousands of blue ceramic tiles, the basis of its popular name.
NO VISIT TO HAGIA SOPHIA
The 17th-century structure is located across from the Hagia Sophia, a former Byzantine-era cathedral that Leo did not visit, in a break from past papal trips to Turkey. The Hagia Sophia, one of Christianity’s most important places of worship for about a millennium, was made a mosque for 500 years after the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
It was converted to a museum by Turkey’s secular republic more than 70 years ago but turned back into a mosque by President Tayyip Erdogan in 2020.
The Vatican has not commented on Leo’s decision not to visit the Hagia Sophia. The late Pope Francis, who visited the structure during a 2014 trip to Turkey, said in 2020 that he was “very pained” that it had been made a mosque again.
Leo chose mainly Muslim Turkey as his first overseas destination to mark the 1,700th anniversary of a landmark early Church council there that produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world’s Christians today.
At a ceremony on Friday to commemorate the Church council with Christian leaders from across the Middle East, the pope condemned violence in the name of religion and urged Christians to overcome centuries of heated divisions.
Speaking to senior clerics from countries including Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Israel, Leo called it a scandal that the world’s 2.6 billion Christians were not more united.
Leo repeated his condemnation of religious violence on Saturday at a Mass with Catholics at Istanbul’s Volkswagen Arena, attended by about 4,000 people.
He also met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who is based in Istanbul and is the spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.
In a joint declaration, the two leaders lamented the number of bloody conflicts around the world and pleaded for civil and political leaders to pursue peace.