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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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The post The ‘iconic’ Jewish foods that make New York New York appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas
Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan, said in an interview aired Sunday that the Israeli government is as “evil” as Hamas, sharpening his criticism of Israel in the closely-watched Democratic primary.
“Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil,” El-Sayed told CNN congressional reporter Manu Raja on the network’s Inside Politics program. “It’s not how evil is this one versus that one — Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both.”
El-Sayed, 41, is a physician and the son of Egyptian immigrants. He is seeking to channel the energy of the 2024 Uncommitted movement, which protested the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza. He is also hoping to build on the surprise success of the New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani in taking on the Democratic establishment.
He is locked in a dead heat with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens. The primary is set for Aug. 4.
Earlier this month, El-Sayed faced backlash for appearing alongside streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric — including saying that Hamas “is a thousand times better” than Israel. McMorrow, who is married to a Jewish man, and Stevens, who is closely aligned with AIPAC, have both criticized El-Sayed.
In the CNN interview, El-Sayed defended his decision to campaign with Piker, framing it as an effort to reach voters who feel alienated from traditional politics. “My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we have freedom of speech,” he said.
#MISen Abdul El-Sayed on CNN Inside Politics: @mkraju: You said Israeli government is evil. Do you think they’re just as evil as Hamas?
El-Sayed: “Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not about how evil one is versus the other. Hamas —… pic.twitter.com/4GfJ5oCtqR
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) April 19, 2026
The Michigan Senate race is shaping up as one of the starkest tests of the Democratic coalition and how the party navigates policy towards Israel in Congress amid the wars in Gaza and Iran. The state is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
Last week, 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers, used by the Israeli military to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza; 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. It shattered a previous high of 27 Democrats who backed a similar pair of resolutions of disapproval to block some weapons transfers last year.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is Jewish, was among those who voted for the measures. In remarks as they announced their votes, Democrats highlighted their opposition to the Israeli government’s policies in the occupied West Bank, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the war with Iran.
The post U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas appeared first on The Forward.
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NYC Mayor Mamdani Unveils Major Tax Hike on Unoccupied Luxury Real Estate
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
i24 News – NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has officially introduced a controversial new tax targeting secondary residences valued at over $5 million.
The measure, designed to tap into the city’s vast concentration of unoccupied luxury wealth, is projected to generate roughly $500 million annually for the municipal budget.
“This tax is specifically aimed at the ultra-rich,” Mamdani stated, highlighting high-profile examples such as Ken Griffin’s $238 million Midtown penthouse and Alexander Varshavsky’s $20.5 million Columbus Circle residence.
While the city has yet to finalize specific evaluation criteria or the methods for distinguishing primary from secondary homes, the proposal has already become a flashpoint for economic debate.
The move has drawn sharp condemnation from billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who argued that the policy is fundamentally flawed.
Ackman contended that owners of luxury secondary residences contribute significant capital to the local economy without utilizing costly municipal services. He warned that the tax would likely trigger a corporate and high-net-worth exodus to low-tax jurisdictions like Miami, ultimately harming the city’s tax base.
President Donald Trump also entered the fray, denouncing the policy as “totally misguided” and claiming it is “destroying New York.” Trump, whose own extensive real estate holdings in the city could be impacted, argued that such taxation serves only to drive away the international investors who fuel New York’s development.
Implementation remains a significant question mark, as the tax could potentially affect nearly 13,000 property owners, including major figures like Jeff Bezos. Financial analysts point out that many of the city’s most expensive apartments are held through complex offshore structures and shell companies, making the identification and appraisal of these properties an immense administrative challenge for the city.
As the debate intensifies, the Mamdani administration faces a difficult path ahead in balancing its “tax the rich” mandate with the practical realities of New York’s competitive global real estate market.
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Iran Rebuffs Trump Announcement of New Peace Talks, State News Agency Reports
Iran rejected new peace talks with the United States, its state news agency reported on Sunday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he was sending envoys for talks in Pakistan and would launch new strikes on Iran unless it accepts his terms.
Trump posted on Truth Social that his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening for negotiations, a timetable that would leave only a day for talks to make progress before a two-week ceasefire ends.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Iran’s official IRNA news agency cited no specific source in its report that Iran had rejected the talks.
“Iran stated that its absence from the second round of talks stems from what it called Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade, which it considers a breach of the ceasefire,” IRNA wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s rejection of the talks.
Earlier, a White House official said the US delegation would be headed by Vice President JD Vance, who led the war’s first peace talks a week ago, and also include Trump’s envoy Steven Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump had initially told ABC News and MS Now that Vance would not go.