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This High Holiday pastry connects me to the relatives I loved and the ones I lost
(JTA) – There was a small bedroom in my Zeyde’s house on State Road in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, that had no radiator. It was called “the cold room.” It was crammed with furniture: two twin beds and a couple of dressers. On Rosh Hashanah, you would find a large baking dish covered with a dish towel sitting on top of one of those dressers. Take a peek under the towel, and there it was: Fluden.
Fluden is a holiday dessert that resembles a sweet lasagna: layers of prune, orange and pineapple filling between four layers of rolled-out dough, with a crunchy, cinnamon and nutty topping. My aunts would prepare it each year, in a ritual that was just as much a part of the season as tossing stones into the Housatonic River for tashlich, or hearing my zeyde, Rabbi Jacob Axelrod, blow the shofar in his synagogue up the hill, or catching games of the World Series between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The fluden would sit on the dresser and never had to be served, because there was a knife in the dish and you could cut off a slice of the pareve delicacy whenever the spirit moved you. Over the course of the holiday it would gradually shrink, until someone would announce that it was all gone. Fertig.
Never did I see this dish in any bakery, or in anyone else’s home. And yet it was integral to our holiday experience, even more than the teyglach we would sometimes buy from Michelle’s bakery near our home in Plainview, Long Island: little hard balls of cookie dough piled into a pyramid the size of a hat, drenched with honey and nuts and maraschino cherries. This was fun and messy to pick apart. But for flavor and comfort, nothing could beat fluden.
Though my aunts were the bakers, it was my mother, Peggy — their sister-in-law — who preserved the recipe for posterity in written form. Mom later described how she watched and took notes as her mother-in-law, Beile, step by step mixed and rolled the dough, chopped and pulverized the filling and assembled the layers one by one. There were no accurate measures: as my mother recalled, Beile just took pinches of this or that, cups of this or that. The result would be this holiday delicacy that everyone craved.
However, there was a downside to fluden, and it was the reason why it would take a few days for it to disappear. There was a general understanding that you didn’t want to eat too much of it at once. All I need to say here is: prunes.
Just up the street from the house was my zeyde’s synagogue, Ahavath Sholom, where about 100 worshippers could gather. He had been hired as rabbi in 1927, two years after he emigrated from Poland. On the shul’s hard wooden pews were long cushions covered in faded red fabric. There was no mechitzah separating men from women — family legend has it that Beile had ripped it down, since no one had felt responsible to keep it clean and tidy.
I don’t have many memories of my baba, Beile, but certainly she was a great baker. I distinctly recall the oohs and ahhs as her huckleberry pies or little challah rolls were brought to the table, held seemingly way above me and handed around. Baba died before I turned five, of complications from diabetes.
I remember my zeyde only without her. On the holiday, he would lead the service from a small lectern, occasionally slamming his hand down to stop the chattering in the background. The windows in the small sanctuary were always kept shut, as zeyde would refuse to continue the service if he sensed a breeze.
The author poses with pieces of her latest batch of fluden and a photograph of her grandmother, Beile Lichtenstein Axelrod. (Courtesy of Toby Axelrod)
In order to get some air, you would have to “take a break” and walk down the hill past zeyde’s little kosher store. From there you might pass his garden, pass clothesline and the shed that doubled as a sukkah, enter the house via the kitchen, slip through the dining room and into the living room, then make a hard left between the couch and the bookshelf holding zeyde’s “Vilna Shas” Talmud, into the cold room for a bite of fluden.
In 1966, my aunt Edith shared the recipe in the “Mother’s Way Cookbook,” published by the Hebrew Ladies Aid Society of Ahavath Sholom Synagogue and the Hadassah Chapter of Great Barrington. It’s on page 36, between Helen Natelson’s “Speedy Sponge Cake” and Blanche Bradford’s “Spice Cake.” As with other aspects of transplanted European Jewish culture, like the Yiddish language itself, Americanisms crept into the list of ingredients. I am sure there were no cornflakes in my ancestors’ shtetl, Luboml, and no canned pineapple, either.
Many years later, my mother excitedly reported that she had found a recipe for fluden in “The World of Jewish Cooking,” by Gil Marks. Up to then, no Jewish cookbook had completely satisfied her, since she had never found fluden in the index.
But there it was, on page 339: Fluden, Ashkenazic layered pastry. According to Marks, the dish could have various fillings, and was sometimes even made with cheese. The first recorded reference dates back to around the year 1000 C.E., when Rabbi Gershom ben Yehudah of Mainz, Germany, describes an argument between two rabbis about whether one could “eat bread with meat even if it was baked in an oven with a cheese dish called fluden.”
The layers, Marks writes, “were symbolic of both the double portion of manna collected for the Sabbath and the lower and upper layers of dew that protected the manna.” Fruit and nut fillings were most common on Sabbath, he adds. Today, a similar, layered fruit pastry called apfelschalet is served by Jews from the Alsace region. In Hungary, there is a layered desert called flodni, and in parts of Eastern Europe there is a layered strudel called gebleterter kugel.
Fluden is much more than a holiday dessert for me. It is a symbol of generational continuity despite the Holocaust, which ripped a hole in our family history. It connects me to the women who were the carriers of tradition – the doers and the recorders. And, in its glistening, fragrant glory, it is also a key to the door of memory, which opens with a creak of rusty springs and reveals the scene unfolding.
The kitchen, the rolled-up sleeves, the aprons, the rolling pin, the gossip. Zeyde in his slippers and robe shuffling through. The two ovens, both working overtime. Children under foot. The light switch cord hanging down over the table, with its bobbin-like pull. Next to the sink, the window with its filmy curtains, looking out across the yard and vegetable garden, toward the shul.
For us, the dish was a once-a-year treat. I have prepared my baba’s recipe several times, and will try my hand at it again this year, with quite a bit less sugar than suggested. (I inherited the diabetes, too.) My kitchen is just a couple of miles away from where my zeyde and baba’s house once stood. On that spot, there is now a sporting goods shop that my sister likes to call “Zeyde’s Bike and Board.” The older generation is nearly all gone, buried in the Ahavath Sholom cemetery on Blue Hill Road. We have inherited many traditions, keeping some, eschewing others. But in my family, where there is fluden, there will always be followers, ready to cut a slice — a small slice! — for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
The author’s aunt’s fluden recipe, from “Mother’s Way Cookbook.” (Courtesy of Toby Axelrod)
Mrs. Axelrod’s Fluden
Edith Axelrod Reder
Pittsfield, Mass.
Beat together until light and fluffy:
3 eggs
1 c. sugar
Pinch of salt
Add:
¾ c. oil
3-4 c. flour sifted with
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
Pineapple jJuice (from filling)
Filling:
Grind together
2 lbs. sour prunes
1 orange
1 lemon, add:
# 2 can drained, crushed pineapple
Jam and sugar to taste
Cinnamon and sugar
Chopped nuts
Crushed cornflakes
Mix the dough and knead into 4 balls. Roll out each ball to fit a 8 x 12 x 2 inch pan. Start with a layer of dough, one of fruit filling, spread a little oil on the fruit. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, cornflake crumbs, chopped nuts. Repeat the layers until the balls of dough are used. Cut the dough into squares before baking. Oven set at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.
From “Mother’s Way Cookbook” (Hebrew Ladies Aid Society of Ahavath Sholom Synagogue and the Hadassah Chapter of Great Barrington)
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The post This High Holiday pastry connects me to the relatives I loved and the ones I lost appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A victim of the antisemitic Boulder, Colorado firebombing died on Monday, prompting local law enforcement to charge suspect Mohamed Soliman with murder in the first degree.
“Severe injuries” caused the death of Karen Diamond, 82, the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office (BCDA) said on Monday in a statement. She was one of 13 people injured when Soliman hurled Molotov cocktails into a crowd of Jewish people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. Her death adds five new charges to the over 200 federal and state criminal charges which could lock Soliman away for over 600 years.
“These additional charges, including the counts of First Degree Murder, are being filed after consultation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Boulder Police Department,” said the DA’s office, adding that it “continues to work closely with federal, state, and local partners in the strong response to this attack. We stand united against acts of antisemitism and hate.”
“This horrific attack has now claimed the life of an innocent person who was beloved by her family and friends,” said Michal Dougherty, district attorney of Boulder County. “Our hearts are with the Diamond family during this incredibly difficult time. Our office will fight for justice for the victims, their loved ones, and the community. Part of what makes Colorado special is that people come together in response to a tragedy; I know that the community will continue to unite in supporting the Diamond family and all the victims of this attack.”
Prosecutors said in May that Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack, and, according to court documents, told investigators that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”
That incident came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, also yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
In Garret Park, Maryland, a middle-aged man, Clift A. Seferlis, was recently arrested by federal authorities for sending a series of threatening messages to Jewish organizations in Philadelphia. Seferlis referenced the war in Gaza in his communications.
“The Victim Jewish Institution 1 received numerous additional messages since April 1, 2024, which contained a threat to physically destroy the institution,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a statement. “Prior to the receipt of the May 7, 2025, mailing, Victim Jewish Institution 1 and its employees had received very similar-looking letters, believed to have been sent by Seferlis, which referenced Victim Jewish Institution 1’s ‘many big open windows,’ ‘Kristallnacht,’ ‘anger and rage,’ and a future need to ‘rebuild’ the institution following its destruction.”
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where Juan Diaz-Rivas, Alejandro Flores-Lamas, and others law enforcement is working to identify, allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and Flores-Lamas, along with their associates, approached the victim while shouting “F—ck the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to the office of the San Francis district attorney.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to data released by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) latest Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in April, antisemitism in the US is surging to break “all previous annual records.”
In 2024 alone, the ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, an eruption of hatred not recorded in the nearly thirty years since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“In 2024, hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence, said when the report was released. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US State Department Revokes Visas of UK Punk Rap Act Bob Vylan Amid Outrage Over Duo’s Chants of ‘Death to the IDF’
Bob Vylan music duo performance at Glastonbury Festival (Source: FLIKR)
The US State Department has revoked the visas for the English punk rap duo Bob Vylan amid ongoing outrage over their weekend performance at the Glastonbury Festival, in which the pair chanted “Death to the IDF.”
The State Department’s decision to cancel their visas would preclude a planned fall concert tour of the US by the British rappers.
“The [US State Department] has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants. Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on X/Twitter on Monday.
During a June 28 set at Glastonbury Festival, Bob Vylan’s Pascal Robinson-Foster ignited a firestorm by leading the crowd in chants of “Death, death, to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces. He also complained about working for a “f—ing Zionist” during the set.
The video of the performance went viral, sparking outrage across the globe.
The BBC, which streamed the performance live, issued an on‑screen warning but continued its broadcast, prompting criticism by government officials for failing to cut the feed.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and festival organizers condemned the IDF chant as hate speech and incitement to violence. The Israeli Embassy in London denounced the language as “inflammatory and hateful.”
“Millions of people tuned in to enjoy Glastonbury this weekend across the BBC’s output but one performance within our livestreams included comments that were deeply offensive,” the BBC said in a statement following the event.
“These abhorrent chants, which included calls for the death of members of the Israeli Defense Forces … have no place in any civil society,” Leo Terrell, Chair of the US Department of Justice Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, declared Sunday in a statement posted on X.
Citing the act’s US tour plans, Terrell said his task force would be “reaching out to the U.S. Department of State on Monday to determine what measures are available to address the situation and to prevent the promotion of violent antisemitic rhetoric in the United States.”
British authorities, meanwhile, have launched a formal investigation into Bob Vylan’s controversial appearance at Glastonbury. Avon and Somerset Police confirmed they are reviewing footage and working with the Crown Prosecution Service to determine whether the performance constitutes a hate crime or incitement to violence.
United Talent Agency (UTA), one of the premier entertainment talent agencies, dropped the duo, claming “antisemitic sentiments expressed by the group were utterly unacceptable.”
The band defended their performance on social media as necessary protest, stating that “teaching our children to speak up for the change they want and need is the only way that we make this world a better place.”
The post US State Department Revokes Visas of UK Punk Rap Act Bob Vylan Amid Outrage Over Duo’s Chants of ‘Death to the IDF’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Dem House Leader Hakeem Jeffries Urges Mamdani to ‘Aggressively Address’ Antisemitism in NYC if Elected Mayor
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
US House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY) urged Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani to “aggressively address the rise in antisemitism” if he wins the general election in November.
“‘Globalizing the intifada’ by way of example is not an acceptable phrasing,” Jeffries said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “He’s going to have to clarify his position on that as he moves forward.”
“With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent, I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city of New York, which has been an unacceptable development,” he added.
Jeffries’s comments come as Mamdani has been receiving an onslaught of criticism for defending the controversial phrase “globalize the intifada.”
Mamdani first defended the phrase during an appearance on the popular Bulwark Podcast. The progressive firebrand stated that he feels “less comfortable with the banning of certain words.” He invoked the US Holocaust Museum in his defense, saying that the museum used the word intifada “when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means ‘struggle.’”
The Holocaust Museum repudiated Mamdani in a statement, calling his comments “offensive.”
Mamdani has continued to defend the slogan despite ongoing criticism, arguing that pro-Palestine advocates perceive it as a call for “universal human rights.”
Mamdani, the 33‑year‑old state assembly member and proud democratic socialist, defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other candidates in a lopsided first‑round win in the city’s Democratic primary for mayor, notching approximately 43.5 percent of first‑choice votes compared to Cuomo’s 36.4 percent.
The election results have alarmed members of the local Jewish community, who expressed deep concern over his past criticism of Israel and defense of antisemitic rhetoric.
“Mamdani’s election is the greatest existential threat to a metropolitan Jewish population since the election of the notorious antisemite Karl Lueger in Vienna,” Rabbi Marc Schneier, one of the most prominent Jewish leaders in New York City, said in a statement. “Jewish leaders must come together as a united force to prevent a mass Jewish Exodus from New York City.”
Some key Democratic leaders in New York, such as US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, have congratulated and complimented Mamdani, but have not yet issued an explicit endorsement. Each official has signaled interest in meeting with Mamdani prior to making a decision on a formal endorsement.
The post Dem House Leader Hakeem Jeffries Urges Mamdani to ‘Aggressively Address’ Antisemitism in NYC if Elected Mayor first appeared on Algemeiner.com.