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The New York Jewish Week’s 10 most-read stories of 2022
(New York Jewish Week) — Before we turn the page on 2022, the New York Jewish Week is looking back at the calendar year that was.
Throughout the year, Jewish New Yorkers displayed a relentless creativity, continually redefining what being Jewish can look like in this diverse city. From a for-hire “hot rabbi” to a brand new synagogue founded after a painful ouster, from a pop-up Hanukkah cocktail bar to new appreciations of the Jewish deli, there was something for everyone.
And 2022 was a crucial year for us, too: After joining the 70 Faces Media family in 2021, the New York Jewish Week took a huge step forward this year — most notably with the exciting new look we launched in February. We unveiled a new logo, fresh branding and a completely redesigned website to make our storytelling shine.
Thanks for coming along for the ride with us in 2022. Here are the stories you read the most this year.
10. A new exhibit on Jewish delis explores the roots and rise of a uniquely American phenomenon by Lisa Keys (Nov. 10)
A view of the new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society, “‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli.” (Lisa Keys)
Nothing says New York quite like an authentic Jewish deli. This November, the New-York Historical Society presented its new exhibit, “‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’: The Jewish Deli,” which traces the mouthwatering history of the Jewish deli, beginning with the first waves of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
9. Why this Holocaust survivor wears the same hand-knit sweater every Passover by Tanya Singer (March 29)
Holocaust survivor Helena Weinstock Weinrauch, 97, models the hand-knit sweater that she’s worn to the first Passover seder every year for the past 75 years. (Karen Goldfarb)
Helena Weinstock Weinrauch, a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor, has worn the same hand-knit sweater every Passover for the past 75 years. It was made by her friend Anne Rothman, who stayed alive during the Holocaust by knitting for Nazis while a prisoner in the Lodz Ghetto.
8. Junior’s, NYC’s iconic Jewish cheesecake emporium, buys back guns to protect the city it loves by Julia Gergely (May 27)
People stand in line outside Junior’s restaurant to pick up food to go on March 16, 2020 in the Brooklyn Borough of New York City. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
When Junior’s Restaurant owner Alan Rosen saw the headlines about gun violence in New York City, he “took it upon myself to do something.” Rosen worked with the New York City Police Foundation to run a gun buyback program at a local church. Rosen donated $20,000 toward the effort.
7. Rabbi ousted from Park East Synagogue announces new congregation on the Upper East Side by Julia Gergely (Feb. 16)
Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt and his wife, journalist Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, announced the name of their new congregation via social media on Feb. 16. (Screenshot from Instagram)
Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt announced his new congregation “Altneu” in February. Goldschmidt made headlines when he was abruptly fired from Park East Synagogue last year. “I feel like it is a tremendous opportunity to start a new synagogue in Manhattan; it’s not something that happens too often,” Goldschmidt told the New York Jewish Week.
6. This private, on-demand ‘hot rabbi’ may soon be the star of her own reality TV show by Julia Gergely (May 25)
Eisenstadt is a non-denominational rabbi who describes her observance as “hipsterdox.” (Alex Korolkovas)
Rabbi Rebecca Keren Eisenstadt — or “Rabbi Becky” as she’s known to most — is a private rabbi-for-hire for dozens of New York City families, mostly on the affluent Upper East Side. She goes by @myhotrabbi on social media, and Reese Witherspoon’s media company is making a documentary series about her life as a single rabbi looking for love.
5. Meet the bartender behind New York’s new Hanukkah-themed cocktail bar by Julia Gergely (Nov. 29)
Naomi Levy, 36, founded the Maccabee Bar in Boston in 2018. This year, Levy, who was named “Best Bartender” by Boston Magazine in 2019, brought the pop-up Hanukkah-themed cocktail bar to New York. (Ezra Pollard)
Bartender Naomi Levy was sick of feeling like a tourist during the holiday season, so in 2018, she launched the Maccabee Bar, a Hanukkah-themed pop-up in Boston. This year, Levy brought her cocktail bar to New York City, featuring drinks like the Latke Sour (apple brandy, potato, lemon, egg white, bitters) and an Everything Bagel Martini (“everything” spiced gin, tomato water, dill, vermouth), as well Jewish- and Hanukkah-adjacent small bites, such as latkes, sufganiyot and Bamba.
4. The New York Jewish Week’s 36 to Watch 2022 by NY Jewish Week staff (June 28)
These individuals constitute the New York Jewish Week’s 36 to Watch for 2022. (Photos courtesy of the winners and Getty Images/Design by Grace Yagel)
Our signature annual project, 36 to Watch honors remarkable Jewish New Yorkers for their contributions in the arts, religion, culture, business, politics and philanthropy. Our list of changemakers returned in 2022 — but without the age restrictions of years past. This year’s group includes athletes, storytellers, politicians, comedians and more.
3. Passengers say Lufthansa threw all visible Jews off NYC-Budapest flight because some weren’t wearing masks by Jacob Henry (May 9)
Jewish passengers were greeted by the police once they arrived in Frankfurt. (Courtesy)
A group of Orthodox Jews was kicked off a Budapest-bound Lufthansa flight at JFK airport in May after allegedly refusing to comply with the airline’s mask mandate. A Lufthansa supervisor was seen on video saying “It’s Jews coming from JFK. Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems.”
2. New York Yankees get Jewish pitcher at MLB trade deadline by Jacob Gurvis (Aug. 1)
Jewish pitcher Scott Effross wears a Star of David necklace on the mound. (Screenshot from YouTube)
The New York Yankees acquired Jewish relief pitcher Scott Effross at Major League Baseball’s trade deadline this past summer. Effross, a self-described “Seinfeld enthusiast,” wears a Star of David necklace when he pitches.
1. A Holocaust survivor spends her 110th birthday knitting — the craft that was key to her survival by Tanya Singer (Jan. 26)
Rose Girone celebrates her 110th birthday on Jan. 13, 2022. (Courtesy of Dina Mor)
Rose Girone celebrated her 110th birthday in January in the most fitting way possible: by knitting. Girone’s passion for knitting has made her well known in the New York-area knitting community in recent decades, but it also played a critical role in her family’s survival earlier in her life. “Rose cannot imagine her life without knitting,” Girone’s daughter, Reha Bennicasa, 83, told the New York Jewish Week.
And here are five more stories that made an impact this year:
An afternoon with Shayna Maydele, possibly the most Jewish dog in New York by Lisa Keys
A Jewish group’s tip led to arrest of suspects who wanted to ‘shoot up a synagogue’ by Jacob Henry
A moving memoir of Jewish Brooklyn, told tchotchke by tchotchke by Andrew Silow-Carroll
Some Jews ‘do not comply’ with New York gun laws to protect their synagogues by Jacob Henry
Marc Chagall’s Catskills house is for sale — for $240,000 by Andrew Silow-Carroll
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From all of us at the New York Jewish Week, thank you for reading, and we wish you a Happy New Year! We look forward to covering the next chapter of the unfolding New York Jewish story in 2022. As always, feel free to reach out with tips, questions, or feedback, and if you’re so inclined, support our journalism.
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The post The New York Jewish Week’s 10 most-read stories of 2022 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.