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This Upper West Side appetizing shop stands apart by standing still
(New York Jewish Week) — Paul Klausner, a native Upper West Sider, has clear memories of shopping with his mother as a young boy at Murray’s Sturgeon Shop, a store on Broadway and 89th Street known for smoked fish. In Klausner’s family, when it came to buying lox and all the fixings, Murray’s was the place.
Now, some 60 years later, Klausner is still a devoted fan. Although he no longer lives in Manhattan, his beloved Murray’s remains very much the same as the Murray’s of his childhood — in fact, little has changed there since it first opened in 1946. As for Klausner, he and his wife, April Stewart Klausner, keep their freezer in Litchfield County, Connecticut, stocked with Murray’s sliced center-cut nova, which they pick up whenever they are in the city.
In the changing retail world now dominated by chain stores and online shopping, Murray’s is a unicorn. Even among other renowned, longstanding New York appetizing stores like Barney Greengrass, Zabar’s and Russ & Daughters, Murray’s stands apart by standing still. Except for one short move in the 1940s — half a block uptown to its present location — it has always occupied the same tiny piece of real estate. Throughout its 77 years of existence, Murray’s has never expanded its brick and mortar store, nor have its owners opened an adjacent restaurant or cafe. It is a small, narrow slip of a shop, more similar in size to a subway car than a food emporium.
“We are one of the oldest continually running stores on Broadway,” said 65-year-old Ira Goller, the third owner of the shop. “There is nothing else like this anywhere.”
Numerous aspects make Murray’s stand out — the lack of in-store seating, for one, as well as the care in which every customer’s order is hand-filled. Varieties of smoked fish are sliced with surgeon-like precision — so finely that each piece is practically transparent — and, perhaps most notably, said fish is wrapped, origami-like, in heavy white waxed paper, never plastic. Wax paper “absorbs any oils and grease,” said Goller. “If you put the appetizing in a little plastic bag, it is not fresh in a day or two.”
At Murray’s, the smoked fish is still sliced by hand and wrapped in wax paper. (Talia Siegel)
Stewart Klausner describes the shop as “stepping into a time machine where there’s a real connection between merchant and customer.” The countermen, who greet each customer warmly, have all been at Murray’s for at least 10 years. Ecuador-born, Yiddish-speaking Oscar Leon, whom Goller considers his right-hand man, is now in his 45th year. “It’s a family here,” Leon told the New York Jewish Week.
Even the decor is nearly the same as it always was: stainless-steel refrigerators and counters, mirrored side wall, tilework from the 1940s. Of course, over the years, there’s been some nods to modernity: A clock that hangs on the back wall was installed in the 1960s, and somewhere along the way, air conditioning was installed. These days, Murray’s has an online presence — and the store takes many phone orders, especially since the pandemic — but about half of its business is from people who walk in, Goller said.
One regular customer is 54-year old baker Jen Daniels. “Despite the fact that it is actually kind of old, it is immaculate,” Daniels told the New York Jewish Week. “You could eat off the floor there, it is so clean.”
Goller, who previously worked as a Wall Street commodities analyst, bought the store in 1990 from Artie Cutler, founder and owner of several popular Upper West Side eateries, including Artie’s Deli, Ollie’s Noodle Shop and Carmine’s Italian Restaurant. Cutler took over Murray’s in 1974 from the original owners and founders, brothers Sam and Murray Bernstein.
In passing the torch, Cutler stipulated that Goller would find a partner with experience in the food business. There was also an understanding that nothing would be changed in the first year.
After that 12-month learning period, Goller untethered himself from his partner and got to work making a few — just a few! — changes, with an eye on the bottom line. “I had notes to pay, mortgages to pay, mouths to feed,” Goller recalled. No longer would the store be closed on Mondays, as were so many of the stores on Broadway in the 1980s, when Monday was considered the slowest day of the week. Going forward, Murray’s would be open 363 days a year — the store closes only on the first day of Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur.
Although previous owners shut the store during the eight days of Passover, Goller decided to keep it open, and even to sell bagels over the holiday, during which the consumption of bread is forbidden. Goller said he knew he made the right decision when a longstanding customer came in during Passover, wagged his finger at him for selling bagels — and then purchased a dozen.
All of the fish is smoked according to Goller’s specifications in a local smokehouse; the soups and salads are made in house. The food emerges from the tiny kitchen at the rear of the long, narrow shop. It’s not much to speak of: There’s a walk-in refrigerator — for storing pickles; matjes, schmaltz and pickled herring, coleslaw and smoked fish — and a 36-inch electric Garland oven with four burners, used for making soups made from recipes passed on to Goller by his mother-in-law. The crumb cake, baked apples and dairy noodle pudding are baked in that single oven. You won’t even find a dishwasher — everything is hand washed.
While waiting for their orders, customers might overhear the sound of music — what’s perceived as a steady beat is actually the sound of onions being hand-chopped. What you won’t hear is the sound of a food processor: When making whitefish salad, the cooks use tweezers to pluck out the bones from the smoked fish, then crush it by (gloved) hands so that chunks of fish remain in the finished product.
All the salads at Murray’s are made in-house. (Talia Siegel)
Perhaps the biggest change Goller made was in 1995, when he decided to add sliced deli meats to Murray’s menu. “You would have thought I shot the pope,” he joked. “It was the first thing I did that caused an uproar.” The kerfuffle eventually died down, and now, alongside creamed herring, lox and Waldorf salad, items like sliced roast beef and turkey breast are available. All of the meat is kosher and sliced on a dedicated meat slicer so that, in deference to the laws of kosher food, there is no mixing of meat and dairy. (There is no ritual oversight in the store other than Goller, who takes the kashrut of the place seriously.)
But you don’t have to keep kosher — or even be Jewish — to love Murray’s. ”When I first came here, 95% of the customers were Jewish,” Goller told the New York Jewish Week. “Now it’s probably 70%.”
He credits Russ & Daughters, in part, for this expansion of Ashkenazi appetizing foods into the general, and younger, population. “Russ & Daughters has introduced people to bagels, lox and cream cheese,” he said. “Exposure of this type is good for everybody.”
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The post This Upper West Side appetizing shop stands apart by standing still appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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He sold a house to Justin Bieber. Now this LA investor has given Chabad $100M to build one of the world’s largest Jewish centers.
(JTA) — A Los Angeles real estate investor known for selling homes to celebrities has donated a $100 million office tower to Chabad, the global Orthodox Jewish outreach movement, to create what is slated to become one the world’s largest Jewish centers.
Alon Abady and his wife, Monique, transferred the 16-story, 300,000-square-foot complex at 9911 W. Pico Blvd. to Chabad of California, which plans to transform it into the Chabad Campus for Jewish Life.
The property sits in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, the heart of Jewish Los Angeles, down the street from the Museum of Tolerance and near the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Fox Studios and, since 2023, the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, a Conservative movement seminary.
Chabad officials say the building was appraised last fall at $103 million, making it one of the largest single gifts ever to a Jewish organization. The new campus is expected to serve as a regional hub for Jewish religious life, social services and education, as well as a global center for the Lubavitch movement’s worldwide network of emissaries.
The campus will include a synagogue, life-cycle venues, youth and senior programs, mental-health and social services, museums and support for Jewish students on college campuses, along with facilities for large communal and international gatherings.
“It will be an epicenter of Jewish life,” said Rabbi Chaim Nochum Cunin, one of the leaders of West Coast Chabad. “It will transform the landscape of Jewish life in Los Angeles and throughout the world.”
Abady, who works as a managing partner of Waterfall Bridge Capital, paid $35 million for the property in 2023 with plans to redevelop it. The current market value of $103 million reflects an appraisal by Partner Valuation Advisors conducted in September, according to Rabbi Motti Seligson, director of public relations for Chabad’s headquarters in Brooklyn.
Abady is best known for high-profile real estate deals in Los Angeles, including the $96 million purchase of the Sofitel Beverly Hills hotel in 2021. He has also been involved in a series of widely noted residential transactions, including buying and later selling Simon Cowell’s former Beverly Hills home and selling a property to Justin and Hailey Bieber.
The campus will rank among the largest Jewish institutions in the world. It will be smaller than Chabad’s 538,000-square-foot Menorah Center in Dnipro, Ukraine, but larger than most Jewish community centers in North America and comparable in scale to New York’s 92nd Street Y, which also includes residential and non-Jewish cultural facilities.
Abady said his gift reflects a long-standing relationship with Chabad that dates back to his family’s arrival in Los Angeles in the 1970s, when they were assisted by Rabbi Baruch Shlomo Cunin, Chabad’s West Coast director.
“This is a lifelong dream that also allows me to honor my parents and my children,” Abady said in a statement. “When my family immigrated to Los Angeles in the 1970s, Chabad was there for us. That was never forgotten.”
The announcement comes at a moment when many Jewish institutions are under financial strain. In Los Angeles, it follows the recent sale of the American Jewish University’s historic Bel Air campus. The 22-acre hilltop property was transferred in 2024 to Milken Community School, its neighboring Jewish middle and high school, and AJU’s rabbinical school, Ziegler, moved to Pico-Robertson.
While the final purchase price was not publicly disclosed, the sale was widely reported to be in the roughly $60 million range, allowing Milken to expand its campus as AJU consolidated its operations.
The post He sold a house to Justin Bieber. Now this LA investor has given Chabad $100M to build one of the world’s largest Jewish centers. appeared first on The Forward.
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Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair wears ‘stop the genocide’ eye black
(JTA) — In his postgame interview on Monday night, Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said the things you’d expect to hear, like crediting his teammates for a dominant playoff win and praising his coach.
But on the Pro Bowler’s eye black was a message that you don’t see every day on ESPN: “STOP THE GENOCIDE.”
Al-Shaair, who is Muslim, has long been a vocal pro-Palestinian advocate.
In December 2023, as a member of the Tennessee Titans, Al-Shaair chose to support the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund through the NFL’s “My Cause, My Cleats” program.
“Given the recent events in Israel and Gaza, this nonprofit provides medical aid and essential supplies to children injured and left homeless by the bombings in Gaza,” he said in his entry about the charity.
Al-Shaair supported the same charity in 2024 and 2025 as a member of the Texans, and has worn cleats that read “FREE” on one side, referring to the “Free Palestine” movement, and “Surely to Allah we belong and to him we will all return” on the other. The cleats also featured the text, “AT LEAST 41,788 Palestinians killed, 10,000+ estimated to be under the rubble, 96,974 wounded.”
Al-Shaair has also signaled criticism for Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, about which he’s become an outspoken advocate on and off the field.
“I feel like it’s something that’s trying to be silenced,” Al-Shaair told the Houston news site Chron in 2024. “On either side, people losing their life is not right. In no way, shape or form am I validating anything that happened, but to consistently say that because of [Oct. 7] innocent people [in Gaza] should now die, it’s crazy.”
Al-Shaair was one of two active NFL players who signed onto the “Athletes for Ceasefire” letter, which called on President Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire in February 2024.
The Texans named Al-Shaair as their club winner for the 2025 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which recognizes “players who excel on the field and show exceptional dedication to uplifting their communities with consistent, positive impact.”
A post on the Texans’ website details Al-Shaair’s charitable work including support for homeless youth and adults, hosting a movie night at NRG Stadium for HYPE Freedom School students, and providing free tickets and food for students from the Muslim Organization of Sports, Socials and Education. His pro-Palestinian advocacy is not mentioned in the post.
While the linebacker has been vocal about his pro-Palestine views, Monday night’s postgame interview with Scott van Pelt — during which he said nothing about Israel or Gaza, but had an eye black message big enough to read during his close-ups — may have been his loudest form of advocacy yet, as it came shortly after a nationally televised playoff game on ESPN. Video of the interview has circulated on social media and drawn praise from pro-Palestinian activists.
“This is how you use your platform. Proud of you brother,” wrote Omar Suleiman, an imam and activist with over 1 million followers.
According to the NFL rulebook, players are “prohibited from wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration, unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office.” The rule also states that the league “will not grant permission” to players displaying a message “to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns.”
The most notable case of political activism in the NFL in the last decade came when Colin Kaepernick, protesting police brutality, refused to stand for the national anthem. Kaepernick was not issued a fine or suspension by the NFL, though no teams signed him as a 29-year-old free agent, leading to debate over whether he was blackballed by the league for his stance.
Players have previously been fined for wearing eye black with personal messages, though they had not gotten league approval before their games. Al-Shaair has not been issued a fine.
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What the ‘synagogue of Satan’ slur tells us about Christian antisemitism
The man charged with arson in the burning of Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., called the institution a “synagogue of Satan” in an interview with authorities, according to an FBI affidavit.
The phrase, originating in the New Testament book of Revelation, has been used in recent years to attack Jews, making its way into graffiti on Jewish institutions, antisemitic conspiracy theories and in far-right commentator Candace Owens’ criticism of Jewish figures.
But its meaning is not necessarily consistent: “Synagogue of Satan” has been used to refer to a supposed Jewish conspiracy to control the U.S. government, as a broad indictment of Jewish people as Satanic and as a narrow critique against Jewish people perceived as behaving badly. It has been used by Christian nationalists and by Nation of Islam leaders.
It remains unclear how the term made its way into the vocabulary of Stephen Spencer Pittman, who was arrested the day of the attack. Pittman, 19, followed dozens of Instagram accounts that share motivational Bible quotes and created a website promoting “scripture-backed fitness.” But his public social media activity apparently only turned antisemitic on Jan. 10, when he shared an antisemitic cartoon and confessed to setting fire to Beth Israel.
Origin of a slur
The book of Revelations, the last book of the New Testament, uses the phrase twice in a message of comfort to Jesus’ followers facing persecution, castigating “the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not.” The implication is that the early Christians’ persecutors are perverting the meaning of Judaism to further their ends.
Christian scholars note that the author of Revelations was likely Jewish. Nevertheless, the phrase has come to serve as a catch-all to justify antisemitism by claiming that Jews are inherently Satanic, or out of favor with God’s plans for the world.
Its popularization as an antisemitic term may originate in the Christian Identity movement, a group of white evangelical extremists who believe that the true descendants of Adam are the white race, and the Jews are descendants of Cain — who in their view, is the offspring of Eve and Satan. The Christian Identity movement, which dates back to the early 20th century, peaked in the 1980s and 1990s, but it left a lasting impression on far-right theology.
The influential Evangelical leader Rev. Billy Graham — known as “America’s pastor” for his ubiquitous TV presence — infamously used the phrase in a 1973 conversation with then-President Richard Nixon, who at the time was complaining about Jews purportedly controlling the US media. (Graham apologized for his comments nearly 30 years later, after a recording of the conversation became public.)
Graham’s use of the term underscored a key connection between Christian Zionism and antisemitism. He told Nixon in that recorded conversation that while he supported Israel, Jewish people didn’t understand his real feelings about them, which is that there were two types of Jews: conservative ones who supported Graham and his ministry, and the “synagogue of Satan” — liberal-minded ones and especially Jews who worked in media.
Fuel on the fire
In recent years, the term has come to be applied more creatively. Controversial rapper Jay Electronica used it in a song in 2014. Nation of Islam leader Abdul Haleem Muhammad blamed the synagogue of Satan in 2016 for a supposed plot to de-masculinize American black men through marijuana. A group of neo-Nazi agitators that has flyered neighborhoods around the country with propaganda draped a banner over a Los Angeles freeway with the phrase in Oct. 2022.
If the term can be said to have a “power user” today, it would be Owens, the far-right commentator who has promoted a range of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including Frankism and the notion that Israel was behind Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Owens has accused Jewish conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, and “radical Zionists” of being members of the synagogue of Satan.
But Owens is merely one of a slew of right-wing agitators who have accelerated use of the term in recent months.
Andrew Torba, the chief executive officer of the far-right social media hotbed Gab, posted an entire essay last fall — titled “Naming the Synagogue of Satan” — saying Christendom was under threat because the US had been captured “with AIPAC donations” and “Hollywood propaganda.”
As recently as Dec. 2025, a far-right podcaster in Colorado called for the execution of Gov. Jared Polis and other Jewish state democrats, referring to them as “Synagogue of Satan Jews.”
Just a few weeks later, Beth Israel Congregation, the oldest synagogue in Mississippi, was slapped with the moniker the day it went up in flames.
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