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This one-of-a-kind bagel shop is made entirely of felt
(New York Jewish Week) — Anyone walking into Feltz Bagels in Montauk, New York, could be forgiven for wanting to taste everything on the menu: There are 15 types of bagels; a variety of schmears, meats and toppings, as well as desserts like rugelach and babka by the slice.
But while everything in the shop is for sale, it won’t taste very good: Everything at Feltz Bagels, from the ticket machine to the challahs to the “We Are Happy to Serve You” cups of coffee, is made entirely out of felt.
Feltz Bagels, a complete recreation of a New York bagel bakery, is the invention of Lucy Sparrow, a 37-year-old, U.K.-based artist who specializes in felt. Since 2014, Sparrow has mounted a variety of installations around the globe that recreate everyday, interactive commercial spaces — markets, pharmacies, corner stores — out of the soft, fuzzy material.
Feltz Bagels — which is currently on view through Sept. 4 at TW Gallery in Montauk — came about as an outgrowth of her first show in the United States in 2017: “8 ‘Till Late,” a recreation of a classic New York bodega that drew crowds to the Standard, High Line hotel. In selecting items for her felt bodega,
“I chose designs that looked the best, to me: a simple label, classic design, not too much writing,” Sparrow told the New York Jewish Week, describing how she came to home in on Jewish foods.
It just so happened that many of these simple designs were used in the packaging for Ashkenazi Jewish staples: Streit’s matzah, gefilte fish, Manischewitz egg noodles.
“When I did that first show, I had loads of feedback from people, like, ‘Thanks so much for making these Jewish foods,’” said Sparrow, who is not Jewish and, at the time, had only been to New York once before. “The response was just amazing.”
Everything is made of felt at Feltz Bagels, created by Lucy Sparrow. (Michael DeTemple)
Recreating a bagel bakery, Sparrow said, seemed to be a no-brainer for her next New York show. “My favorite area of New York has always been the Lower East Side,” said Sparrow, who has since been to New York about 20 times. “The fact that bagels and the Lower East Side are really synonymous with each other; the idea gave birth to itself, in a way.”
“Everybody has this personal story, this personal preference of what [bagels] they eat, what it means to them, what memories it sums up,” she said. “That, depicted in art, seemed like a very strong idea.”
Sparrow drew upon classic New York delis and appetizing spots, including Russ & Daughters, Katz’s Delicatessen and Zabar’s — “these New York institutions that seem to be really imprinted upon New Yorkers,” she said. And while Feltz Bagels may be more colorful than a typical bagel store, Sparrow nailed the iconic “deli look.”
Bagels, Sparrow points out, are both highly universal and extremely personal. “Workers on a construction site go and get a bagel. Office workers also go and get a bagel — there seems to be no [single] demographic,” she said. “It’s a leveler. It’s universal, but it’s also very personal. There are not a lot of foods that have that. People have a lot of opinions about bagels.”
Sparrow, too, has her particulars: A vegetarian, her typical lunchtime bagel order is sun-dried tomato cream cheese, American cheese, mushrooms, peppers and lettuce on a salt bagel. “I absolutely love bagels — the last one I had was yesterday,” she said.
Everything is for sale at Feltz Bagels, whose punny name also pays tribute to British Jewish TV presenter Vanessa Feltz. An anthropomorphized rugelach is $10, while a whole bagel starts at $60 and a bagel with fixings is $250. (And like any proper, present-day Jewish eatery worth its, well, salt, there is Feltz Bagels merch, including stickers and sweatshirts.)
Nearly all the felt food items are adorned with eyes, adding another layer of whimsy to the experience.
“I think it’s lovely watching grown adults come in and they’re like, ‘Ohhh, it’s got a face!’” Sparrow said. “And then they make them, and they take them home. And these pieces of art that I’ve put so much love into live in people’s homes, and just go on living the rest of their lives in houses that I’ll never see the inside of.”
So far, the most popular order has been a classic combo: cream cheese, lox, onion, tomatoes and capers, Sparrow said. The type of bagel, however, tends to vary. A more unusual option is the salt beef, the British term for corned beef — rarely available at the standard bagel shop.
For those not able to make it out to Montauk before next weekend, don’t despair: Feltz Bagels will open in Manhattan in October, with a stop in Miami to follow. Sparrow has a team of three assistants in the United Kingdom working to get the New York show ready; at the moment, she said, they are creating more felt black-and-white cookies, another deli staple. Sparrow hopes to expand her offerings in New York, adding cinnamon babka (in addition to chocolate), dried fruit and maybe even a seder plate.
Sparrow, who lives in the “tiniest village” in England’s Suffolk County, added that the best part of her hard work is having customers “open their hearts” to her. Just the other day, she said, someone came in and shared a story about their grandmother’s bagel recipe.
“It’s the stories I love hearing,” she said. “I’m just overwhelmed that people want to share them with me.”
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The post This one-of-a-kind bagel shop is made entirely of felt appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.